ANSAR
MAHMOOD FACT SHEET
Background
on Ansar Mahmood
Ansar Mahmood is from Moinud-Din-Pur, Pakistan. He was
born on August 4, 1977. He has five
brothers and three sisters. The family is a low-income family—they have a small
two to three room house. His father was in the military, a non-commissioned
officer and also did some agricultural work. His father is now in fragile
health having suffered a stroke. Because his family highly values education,
Mr. Mahmood attended college and one of his central goals in helping his family
financially is to make it possible for his sisters to get a decent education.
Mr. Mahmood came to the US on April 22, 2000, when he won
a green card in a diversity “lottery.” He settled first in Salisbury, MD and
then moved to Hudson, NY. In Hudson, he got a job working for a pizza parlor.
He worked overtime in order to send $400 to $500 monthly to support his parents
and younger sisters in Pakistan. He loved Hudson because of its beauty and
because he felt he was treated as an equal whatever his economic background.
On October 9, 2001, Mr. Mahmood stopped in his pizza
delivery rounds at the water treatment facility center in Hudson, NY. He asked a
worker there to take his picture in front of the facility because there was a
beautiful view of the Catskill Mountains behind him. He wanted to send home a
picture to his family in Pakistan. But the guards - suspecting that this young
Pakistani man might be planning to poison the water system - called the police.
At one of his next deliveries, he was called back to the pizza parlor where a
policeman questioned him and he was put in the Hudson jail overnight.
On October 10, 2001 10-12 law enforcement officials from
the FBI, the New York State Police and other agencies interrogated him without
benefit of an attorney.
From Oct 10 to 16 he was locked up in the county jail.
For his last forty hours in jail he received no food. His apartment was
searched and papers were found showing he had helped two fellow immigrants from
his hometown get a job and a car, and co-signed on a lease for them. They had
come into the US legally but had overstayed the terms of their visas. They were
picked up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) on October 10
2001 and deported.
On October 16 Mr. Mahmood was cleared of any terrorism
charges.
On October 18 Mr. Mahmood was released on $10,000 bond
and required to appear in court once a week.
On January 25, 2002 Mr. Mahmood’s court appointed public
defender advised him to plead guilty to “Illegal Harboring of Aliens.” By doing
this he gave up his right to appeal. He was sentenced to time served and 5
years probation.
Immediately after his conviction Mr. Mahmood was kept in
the Albany County jail for twelve days, and then shipped to Buffalo Federal
Detention Center (Batavia, NY). INS charged Mr. Mahmood as being removable from
the United States in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
On July 17, 2002 the INS ordered him deported. His
immigration lawyer Rolando Velasquez appealed the decision. The Board of
Immigration Appeals denied his appeal. In April 2003 Judge David Hurd of the
Northern District of New York dismissed Mr. Mahmood’s move to vacate the underlying
conviction. Mr. Mahmood had a habeas pending in the 2nd Circuit,
which he has withdrawn in hope of discretionary action.
Since the summer of 2002 the Hudson Peace Vigil has been
advocating for the release of Ansar Mahmood. In late April 2003 citizens from
across Columbia County began to form a committee to work to stop the
deportation of Ansar Mahmood. By the
end of June 2003 a committee of 30 people had formed to support Mr. Mahmood.
Their work has included a petition drive, community meetings, talking to
politicians, talking to the media and networking with other organizations and
individuals across the country.
Mr. Mahmood’s case has received extensive national and
local press attention including:
The second Washington Post editorial on Mr.
Mahmood, published on January 17, 2003, states: “If the INS looks hard enough,
it can find a technical violation by many if not most immigrants, particularly
through the ever-shifting prism of the immigration bureaucracy. When these
rules are enforced with exceptional zeal for a selected group, the message
becomes: Terrorist or not, even legal or not, we’re better off without you. And
that’s not true of people such as Mr. Mahmood.”
As of December 2003 Mr. Mahmood
is still in the Buffalo Federal Detention Center and is now the longest held
Pakistani detainee in the facility. Over the past two years Mr. Mahmood's parents
and sisters have suffered because he has not been able to provide for them. Mr.
Mahmood has exhausted all legal remedies within the courts. His supporters have
petitioned Acting Field Director Bill Cleary, Buffalo Department of Homeland
Security, to: (1) release Mr. Mahmood under an order of supervision pursuant to
INA § 241(a)(3); and (2) grant him deferred action. Congressional support would
greatly strengthen this effort to persuade DHS to exercise its discretion
favorably.
You
can help by contacting:
Mr. William C. Cleary,
Acting Field Director, BICE Detention and Removal Operations
130 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo,
NY 14202 Phone: 716-551-4741 ext 2530
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
476 Russell Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-4451 (Leecia Eve)
Senator Charles Schumer
757 3rd Avenue, Suite 1702, New York, NY 10017
Phone: 212-486-4430 (Anita Cavallino)
U.S. Representative John Sweeney
416 Cannon House Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20515 Phone
202-225-5614 (Chris Fish)
The Ansar Mahmood Defense
Committee
c/o
Chatham Peace Initiative, P.O. Box 34, Chatham, NY 12165
www.chathampeace.org info@chathampeace.org