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Ibrahim Parlak's brother ordered deported-
Ibrahim Parlak
26.7.2005
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GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (AP) - A U.S. Immigration
Court has ordered the deportation of a brother of
Ibrahim Parlak, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey whom
the federal government accuses of being a terrorist
and is trying to deport.
Greg Palmore, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security in Detroit, said Monday the
government wants to remove Huseyin Parlak from the
country within 90 days of the issuance of his
deportation order. The Detroit court issued the
order Friday.
He declined to explain why Homeland Security's
Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants Parlak
deported but said it is unrelated to the
government's highly publicized attempt to deport his
brother.
"They're two entirely separate cases," Palmore said.
Martin Dzuris, a spokesman for the Parlak family,
said Judge Robert Newberry rejected Huseyin Parlak's
application for political asylum and ordered him
returned to his native Turkey.
Dzuris said Parlak entered the United States in 1998
on a student visa. Parlak applied for asylum because
he is afraid of being persecuted in Turkey due to
its political climate and the intense interest there
in his brother's case.
"They're not even allowing him to leave the U.S. and
go wherever he doesn't feel threatened," Dzuris
said.
An appeal must be made within 30 days and "of course
we're going to appeal this," he said.
Dzuris also disagreed with Palmore's contention that
the two cases are unrelated. He said the government
targeted the brother in a failed effort to make
Ibrahim Parlak more inclined to leave the country.
The government's case against Huseyin Parlak, 38,
actually got started before its case against his
brother, which began in March 2004, Palmore said.
Ibrahim Parlak, 43, spent 10 months in jail but was
released June 3 while he appeals his deportation
order.
Huseyin Parlak has not yet been taken into custody,
Palmore said. The court held a hearing on his
immigration case within the past couple of months,
he said.
Huseyin works at Ibrahim's restaurant, Cafe Gulistan,
which is in the Berrien County community of Harbert,
and ran the Middle Eastern-themed eatery while his
brother was jailed.
A telephone call to the Immigration Court seeking
more information about Huseyin Parlak's case was
referred to the Executive Office for Immigration
Review, a division of the Justice Department near
Washington, D.C. A phone message was left for Elaine
Komis, a spokeswoman for the agency.
The government wants to deport Ibrahim Parlak, who
was granted asylum in 1992, because of his past ties
to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in Turkey.
The U.S. State Department classified the PKK as a
terrorist group in 1997.
Homeland Security says Parlak did not disclose
important details about his separatist activities in
his original asylum application and also omitted his
conviction in Turkey from subsequent immigration
forms.
Parlak's supporters say he was never involved in
violence. His lawyers point out that the Turkish
security court system that convicted him has since
been abolished because of international pressure.
Human rights groups say the courts relied on
confessions extracted by torture.
In December, following a two-day hearing at the
Detroit Immigration Court, Judge Elizabeth Hacker
ruled that the government had sufficiently proved
its case and ordered Parlak deported. His case now
is pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals.
If Parlak loses his case before the board, he can
take it to the federal court system by appealing to
the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn ruled May 20 that
Parlak, who had been jailed since his arrest last
July 29, should be freed on $50,000 bond. Cohn
called him "a model immigrant" who is not a flight
risk.
Dzuris said the ruling affected the outcome of
Huseyin Parlak's asylum hearing before Newberry on
June 15 -- 12 days after his brother's release.
"What they are trying to do is, they lost in the
federal court on the detention and now they're
trying to hurt the family and Ibrahim and ruin his
life here, so he would give up," Dzuris said.
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