On September 30, 2001, shortly before Pakistani- French citizen, Asif-Ur-Rehman Saffi's U.S. tourist visa expired, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detained him for working in the United States without authorization. Saffi had come to United States to visit family and friends and while in the country earned a modest sum fixing computers and doing data processing for small businesses. Despite INS authority to return Saffi to France within days of his arrest, and Saffi's acceptance of a voluntary departure order, he was held in custody for nearly five months. During that time he was repeatedly interrogated and beaten, denied medical care, shackled and denied the ability to observe mandatory religious practices. He was never charged with a crime and was found to have no links to terrorism.
Saffi was held in the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn in the Special Housing Unit, commonly known as the "Hole" where prisoners who present special disciplinary problems are kept. He was confined in his cell for up to 23 hours day, and suffered severe beatings at the hands of prison guards, one time to the point of unconsciousness.
He has no criminal record in this or any other country. He is currently with his wife and two daughters in France. Saffi is one of more than 80 men, who while not linked to terrorism, have been detained by the INS and blocked from going home.
On April 17, 2002 CCR filed a class action suit seeking punitive damages on behalf of Saffi and others who were detained by the INS post 9/11. The suit charges, among other things, that plaintiffs were detained despite having received and accepted deportation orders, subjected to severe conditions during their detainment, including beatings, verbal abuse, solitary confinement and denial of the right to religious practice. The suit seeks punitive damages and a declaratory judgment that the detention of these individuals is unconstitutional and violates customary international law.
Commenting on the case, CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman said, "The Attorney General has cited the failure of civil rights groups to sue him for the actions of the Justice Department, the FBI and the INS as evidence that they have done nothing wrong. This lawsuit sets the record straight that, from the beginning, these persons and agencies have engaged in a full scale assault on the Bill of Rights, and that when the Attorney General says that he is going to jail every "terrorist" he can find, for minor infractions of the law, he means every Muslim man who is not a citizen. What the Defendants do is use the immigration laws as a pretext for circumventing constitutional rights and, in so doing, they have violated those rights on a massive scale."
Added, CCR Assistant Legal Director Barbara Olshansky, "These plaintiffs can be counted among the victims of the September 11th tragedy. We have treated visitors to the United States worse than we treat those accused of serious crimes. They have been held without charges, without a hearing before a judge and without ever being accused of a crime. At the MDC detainees were forced to sleep with a light on in their cells for 24 hours and their sleep was constantly interrupted. They were cavity strip searched every time they had to leave their cell in manacles. They were beaten and insulted because of their religion. In these instances, federal officers and agents were merely following the guidance of their leader the Attorney General of the United States, who has publicly ridiculed the Muslim religion and its followers and who has accused those concerned about damage to the Bill of Rights as being supporters of terrorism."
The defendants in the case include United States Attorney General, John Ashcroft who has ultimate responsibility for the implementation and enforcement of the immigration laws and who, the lawsuit claims condones and/or ratifies "unreasonable and excessively harsh condition under which plaintiffs and other class action members have been detained."
Other defendants named in the suit include Robert Mueller, Federal Bureau of Investigations Director, Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) Warden, Dennis Hasty and unnamed MDC correctional officers.
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