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September 2, 2004
At 42, Ibrahim Parlak
thought he'd been leading an immigrant's dream, a
"second life," he calls it, as a restaurateur in
Kalamazoo and in Berrien County.
"I've had an opportunity to see the real America,"
not the country portrayed by Hollywood, said Parlak,
who was granted political asylum as a minority Kurd
from Turkey to enter the United States in 1991. "I
am in love with it and have pride in it."
But Wednesday he sat in an orange jumpsuit in the
Calhoun County Jail, facing deportation to Turkey
over what he says are "totally falsified" Turkish
court documents about "the first period of my life"
as a youthful Kurdish activist there.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement say there's
another version of the story. ICE sent field agents
to the jail Wednesday to talk to reporters in an
effort to quell Parlak's supporters' claims he is
being held unfairly by an overly zealous bureaucracy
bent on proving he's a terrorist.
Contrary to earlier reports, Parlak is not being
held because of suspected terrorist ties but because
he was convicted in Turkey of two murders, said
Robin Baker, an ICE field agent. Those murder
convictions, stemming from a 1988 firefight between
Kurds and Turks in which two Turkish soldiers died,
was just issued in March by the Turkish government,
which notified ICE because Parlak had applied for
naturalized citizenship here.
When he applied for asylum, Parlak omitted the fact
that he'd been convicted in a Turkish court of an
aggravated felony in that 1988 incident, Baker said.
Parlak is here illegally because noncitizens who
have been convicted of serious crimes cannot become
permanent residents, Baker said.
Parlak maintains he never committed murder, but was
captured, tortured and served two years in a Turkish
jail for his Kurdish separatist activities.
"Those documents are totally falsified," Parlak said
of the Turkish court papers from March 2004
reviewing his case and convicting him of murder.
ICE sent repeated letters to Turkey "to create
something," and they were "falsely translated,"
Parlak told reporters. The original documents from
1988 made no mention of murder and only charged him
with separatist activities, he said.
Under pressure from ICE, Turkish authorities
"changed the language" to make it appear he had been
convicted of murder, he said.
Parlak's supporters say ICE's scrutiny of Parlak
stems from the fact that the Kurdish separatists he
was once aligned with are now a group the U.S.
considers a terrorist threat: the Kurdistan Workers
Party, or PKK.
"That is not true," field agent Baker said. ICE had
an independent translator read the Turkish court
documents, he said. Baker also denied the case is a
witch hunt for terrorists.
Any ties Parlak had to PKK or any other group are
"irrelevant," he said.
"The conviction documents show he committed two
murders in Turkey," which is the reason he is being
deported, Baker said.
ICE's pursuit of Parlak, who ran the Cafe Gulistan
in downtown Kalamazoo until 2002 and has run another
cafe by the same name in Harbert in Berrien County
for 10 years, has nothing to do with 9-11 and is
"not a product of the Patriot Act," Baker said.
Baker said Parlak's case came to light when he
recently applied to be a naturalized citizen.
The fairness of the conviction also is irrelevant to
the case, he said.
"The Immigration and Naturalization Act does not
give us the discretion to pass judgment on a court
in Turkey," Baker said. "There are no requirements
that courts (in other countries) comply with the
constitutional mandates of the United States."
It's an issue of "truthfulness," he said.
Parlak spoke to reporters in a small conference room
close to a block of cells where a few dozen other
ICE detainees are kept under contract with Calhoun
County. He's been detained since early August in a
case that is drawing attention from across the
country.
He had said in previous interviews it was "worse
than a Turkish prison," a description that Baker
said was a "slap in the face."
The Calhoun County Jail, new in 1994, is a spacious,
air-conditioned facility. While Parlak was being
interviewed, other ICE detainees were playing cards
in a stark, quiet room and could wander into the
sunlight in a narrow corridor outside.
Parlak said that when he was in a Turkish prison as
a young man, he understood why he was there.
Now, he said, he cannot understand why he is in
jail.
He became involved in politics because Kurds were
massacred by Turks and denied freedom. He
acknowledges mistakes from the past based on
youthful idealism: "You think you can change the
whole world in a night," he said.
He carried a gun into the mountains, but everybody
carried guns, and it was necessary, he said. But he
never fired the gun to kill the soldiers, he said.
He never threw a grenade.
After the firefight in which the two soldiers died
and he was captured, he was moved from jail to jail
and tortured, he said. "They harmed me in any way
they can," he said.
After his release two years later, he came to the
United States "to find refuge," he said.
ICE officials have asked Turkey to allow Parlak back
into the country, Baker said. But Turkey had banned
him from there two decades ago for his activity with
the Kurds, whose language and culture are virtually
banned in Turkey. Turkey withdrew his citizenship
two years ago, and family members fear he will be
tortured if he returns.
Baker said that when Parlak appears before an
immigration judge in October, "he may be eligible
for relief" if he can prove he needs protection from
further oppression as a minority Kurd in Turkey.
"We will certainly not be sending people back to be
tortured," he said.
But ICE has little choice because of the way the law
was written years before 9-11.
"We are not here to pass judgment on freedom
fighters," Baker said. "The law is specific,"
banning people convicted of aggravated felonies,
whether or not that conviction is considered fair
"in the court of public opinion," he said.
U.S. immigration law requires that Parlak be
detained until the process is complete. "He must be
held. Nobody has any discretion," Baker said.
But Parlak said that is not what he understands.
"They say I am a flight risk. Where am I going to
go? What am I going to do? I am not a Turkish
citizen. I don't have any documents."
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