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Iraqi Kurd denied green card despite
aiding U.S.
23.3.2008
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March 23, 2008
WASHINGTON — During his nearly four years as
a translator for U.S. forces in Iraq, Saman Kareem
Ahmad, an Iraqi Kurd, was known for his bravery and
hard work. "Sam put his life on the line with, and
for, Coalition Forces on a daily basis," wrote
Marine Capt. Trent A. Gibson.
Gibson's letter was part of a thick file of support
-- including commendations from the secretary of the
Navy and from then-Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus --
that helped Ahmad migrate to the United States in
2006, among an initial group of 50 Iraqi and Afghan
translators admitted under a special visa program.
Last month, however, the U.S. government turned down
Ahmad's application for permanent residence, known
as a green card. His offense: Ahmad had once been
part of the Kurdish Democratic Party,www.ekurd.net
which U.S. immigration
officials deemed an "undesignated terrorist
organization" for having sought to overthrow former
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Ahmad, a Kurd, once served in the KDP's military
force, which is part of the new Iraqi army. A U.S.
ally, the KDP is now part of the elected government
of the Kurdish region and holds seats in the Iraqi
parliament. After consulting public Web sites,
however, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services determined that KDP forces "conducted
full-scale armed attacks and helped incite
rebellions against Hussein's regime, most notably
during the Iran-Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm and
Operation Iraqi Freedom." |
Saman Kareem Ahmad, (L), served with then-Capt.
Trent A. Gibson. Gibson backs Ahmad's application
for permanent U.S. residence |
Ahmad's association with a group that had attempted
to overthrow a government -- even as an ally in
U.S.-led wars against Hussein -- rendered him
"inadmissible," the agency concluded in a three-page
letter dated Feb. 26.
In an interview Friday at Quantico Marine Corps
Base, where he teaches Arabic language and culture
to Marines deploying to Iraq, Ahmad's voice
quavered, and his usually precise English failed
him. "I am shamed," he said. He has put off his
plans to marry a seamstress who tailors Marine
uniforms. "I don't want my family live in America;
they feel ashamed I'm with a terrorist group. I want
them to be proud for what I did for the United
States Marine Corps," said Ahmad, 38.
"After I receive this letter, it's been three weeks,
since then my whole life turns upside down. You
might hear from the lawyer, they're not going to
revoke your [visa], but how can you guarantee this?
. . . I'm expecting, they stop the process of green
card, tomorrow they're going to tell you to get
out."
A nearly identical denial was sent the same day to
another Iraqi Kurdish translator living in this
country, according to Thomas Ragland, a lawyer with
Maggio and Kattar, the Washington law firm
representing both men in court challenges to the
denials. The second translator, who worked with U.S.
intelligence and Special Forces in Iraq starting
several years before the U.S. invasion, declined to
discuss his case out of fear for his family in Iraq.
Petraeus, now the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said
in an e-mail that he did not recall Ahmad personally
but that KDP forces had performed valuable security
services for the 101st Airborne Division he led in
the northern city of Mosul in 2003. He said he had
never heard of any U.S. agency labeling the KDP as
terrorists.
Many of the thousands of Iraqis who have served as
linguists for U.S. forces have been threatened in
Iraq. Ahmad left the country after he was branded a
"collaborator" from mosque pulpits in Anbar province
and posters calling for his death began appearing
there.
Under congressional pressure to allow such
translators into the United States, the Bush
administration in 2006 authorized 50 visas for them
annually. That number was increased to 500 in fiscal
2008, and the quota will revert to 50 a year in
fiscal 2009. In announcing the program, U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
emphasized that it allows translators "to gain
admission to the United States, apply for permanent
residency and eventually acquire U.S. citizenship."
According to Petraeus's command, 648 of the 5,300
Iraqi translators now working for U.S. forces in
Iraq had special-visa applications pending as of
December. Petraeus has assigned legal officers to
facilitate their petitions,www.ekurd.net
helping gather the
documents, signatures and military affidavits
required, and said he has signed many letters urging
individual approvals. The program's Special
Immigrant Visa allows only entry into the United
States, however, and immigrants are advised to
petition for permanent residence upon arrival.
Retired Marine Capt. Jason P. Schauble, who returned
from Iraq in 2004 after being wounded, is Ahmad's
official sponsor. In a letter he appended last week
to Ahmad's immigration file, Schauble condemned
whatever "faceless bureaucracy" rejected the
application. "I don't know what a foreigner has to
do that is greater than what Saman Ahmad has done in
service to his American allies," Schauble wrote.
USCIS spokesman Peter Vietti said regulations
prevent him from commenting on any specific case,
adding that denials can be appealed only in court.
After inquires about Ahmad from The Washington Post,
he said, "I can tell you the matter is being looked
into."
The second youngest of five children, Ahmad was away
at college when Saddam Hussein, striking at
rebellious Kurds, launched a chemical gas attack
against Ahmad's home town, Halabja, in 1988. The
infamous assault, in which more than 5,000 died, was
often cited by the Bush administration as part of
its justification for invading Iraq. It left Ahmad
without a single living relative, as he has
recounted to Americans many times over the past six
years.
After graduation from Salahadeen University in
Erbil, Ahmad was conscripted into Hussein's army,
served his time and then held various jobs. He
turned to smuggling and spent a period in jail, then
fled to Turkey. He worked as a hotel dishwasher in
Istanbul. When he decided to return home in December
2001, he turned himself in to Turkish police as an
illegal immigrant and was deported.
At the time, KDP forces were fighting both Hussein
and a rival Kurdish party. Ahmad joined the KDP
militia. "I don't have any resources, I don't own a
penny. I want to eat," he recalled. In his area of
Kurdistan at the time, "even you cannot clean up
street if you do not become part of that group."
By early 2003, U.S. Special Forces in the region
were working to unify the Kurds as allies in the
invasion of Iraq. Ahmad, the only English-speaker in
his KDP unit, became a translator and liaison. After
Petraeus's arrival in Mosul, Ahmad's offer to work
full time for the Americans was turned down on
grounds it would anger his KDP commander, he said.
He deserted the KDP military and decided to try his
luck at U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, taking with
him the commendation for his "outstanding service
and dedication to the 101st" signed by Petraeus on
Sept. 11, 2003.
In Baghdad, Ahmad became a Marine translator and was
sent to Anbar. In an affidavit, Gibson -- now a
major -- said Ahmad was the first translator in Iraq
to wear a Marine uniform, body armor and helmet, and
"the first one to be entrusted with a weapon." Ahmad
accompanied Gibson's Kilo Company on more than 200
patrols over seven months in violent areas of
western Iraq. "I simply could not have accomplished
my mission without Sam's tireless and unconditional
efforts," Gibson wrote.
But threats against Ahmad's life by anti-coalition
forces led the Marines to decide to get him out of
Iraq. Schauble shepherded his visa application and
met him at John F. Kennedy International Airport on
arrival.
A USCIS "Fact Sheet" on special translator visas
notes that applicants must be "otherwise admissible
to the United States for permanent residence," so
Ahmad and Schauble foresaw little problem in his
obtaining a green card. To buttress his case, Ahmad
successfully applied for political asylum once he
reached the United States.
In 2006, he began applying for permanent residence
-- submitting the same documents that had won him a
visa and asylum -- and finished the process last
August.
In the meantime, he continued working for the
Marines at the Quantico-based Center for Advanced
Operational Culture Learning, established in 2005
when the corps realized that its lack of knowledge
and understanding of Iraq was undermining its
mission.
Ahmad spends much of his time being flown by Marines
to training bases around the country to provide
rudimentary Arabic and cultural pointers. The
maximum language training is 40 hours, which he said
is too little. "But at least you can teach him to
say a tactical word, how to survive," how not to
shoot "a guy who didn't stop" at a checkpoint. Those
on their second or third tours have more complicated
queries, he said. "They say: okay, we're going to go
there and it's Ramadan time, what is 'no'? What is
'do this -- don't do this'? What do I tell my
Marines?"
According to Human Rights First, a nonprofit that
handles similar immigration cases, groups such as
the KDP do not appear on U.S. government lists of
designated terrorists. Instead, determinations of
"undesignated terrorist organizations" are made,
case by case, by the USCIS, part of the Department
of Homeland Security.
Using definitions in the Immigration and Nationality
Act, the USA Patriot Act and other legislation
adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it is up
to USCIS officials to research an applicant's
background and make a decision. According to Ahmad's
denial letter, the information in his case was
obtained from the Web site of the Memorial Institute
for the Prevention of Terrorism, a DHS-funded
nonprofit group.
The legislation contains waiver provisions -- by the
secretary of state for foreign petitioners, and the
secretary of homeland security for those who, like
Ahmad, are already in this country. But there is no
path for a denied individual to apply for a waiver.
In a velvet box in his desk drawer at Quantico,
Ahmad keeps two medals he received for his service
in Iraq -- the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal
and the War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal. Above
his computer, he has a snapshot of President Bush.
He was a guest at the White House last year when
Bush presented a posthumous Medal of Honor to a
Marine for actions in an Anbar mission in which
Ahmad participated.
Ahmad remains in this country under his special visa
and asylum status, but neither one has the
permanence of a green card. Under U.S. law, those
granted asylum can be sent back to their country if
the secretary of state determines that it is at
peace and that the danger to the person has
subsided.
Ahmad said he would like to return to Iraq, but only
"as a Marine." He has no family there, he said, but
"I have the greatest, biggest family in America. I
have the USMC."
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