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US: Kurdish immigrants unfairly targeted
by Patriot Act provision
15.5.2006
By Diana Woodall
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With all the recent
media attention on immigrants, many of us may not
realize that some immigrants actually came to this
country with the assistance of the U.S. government.
This is true of over 6,500 Kurdish refugees who came
to this country in the late 1990s to escape
persecution in Kurdistan (northern Iraq), under
Operation Pacific Haven.
Approximately 80 Kurdish families have settled in
Harrisonburg (60 miles west of Culpeper). They found
jobs, and, as many immigrants do, sent money back to
family and friends at home.
But, because that country was Iraq, four Kurdish men
soon found themselves subject to an FBI
investigation. It seems they have unknowingly
violated a provision of the Patriot Act that makes
it a felony to operate an unlicensed money
transmitting business.
It is questionable whether their activity really
constituted a business. The money came from legal
sources and was sent directly to family members or
for humanitarian aid. Yet one man has already been
convicted and awaits sentencing; three others are
uncertain of their fate.
If this looks to you, as it does to me, like an
unbelievable misapplication of the Patriot Act or of
anti-immigrant paranoia run amok, please write to
your congress person and to U.S. Attorney John
Brownlee, 310 1st St. SW, Room 906, Roanoke, VA
24011.
Starexponent com
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