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U.S.
orders removal of terror suspect's brother;
immigration officials deny cases are linked.
GRAND RAPIDS - 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 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 last week.
He declined to explain why Homeland Security's
Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants Huseyin
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 Huseyin Parlak entered the United States
in 1998 on a student visa. He applied for asylum
because he is afraid of being persecuted in Turkey
because of 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 Parlak works at Ibrahim Parlak'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.
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 didn't disclose
important details about his separatist activities in
his original asylum application and 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.
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.
AP
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