Allies fight man's deportation

Pakistani immigrant has been detained in Batavia for 18 months.

By Steve Orr
Staff Writer

(August 4, 2003) — A small group of activists is trying to generate last-minute support for a young Pakistani man, now facing deportation, who has been detained at a Batavia facility for 18 months.

Ansar Mahmood, 25, was a legal immigrant working as a pizza deliveryman in the Hudson Valley when he came to the attention of the FBI in the nervous days just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

He had been observed taking a tourist photograph of a bucolic mountain setting; unbeknownst to him, the local water-treatment plant was in the background of the scene and he was reported to the FBI as a possible terrorist suspect.

Mahmood was cleared of any terrorist connections, but later was found to have committed an immigration-related offense and ordered deported.

Since January 2002, he has been behind bars at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia awaiting disposition of his case. The facility, about 30 miles west of Rochester, is run by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration matters.

Mahmood, whose plight has received national and international attention, became an unlikely symbol of what critics say is the unduly harsh treatment of Muslim immigrants since the terrorist attacks.

In interviews with the Democrat and Chronicle last year, Mahmood, a slim man with a nervous smile, said he had never done anything wrong and wanted to remain in this country so he could earn money to send home to help support his family in Islamabad.

His attorney says that after 18 months in Batavia, Mahmood is losing hope. “ Ansar is kind of discouraged by now. He’s pretty disappointed with how things have been turning out for him,” said Rolando Rex Velasquez, a Buffalo immigration lawyer whose firm has worked for months on Mahmood’s behalf. “ He’s actually giving some serious thought to packing it in and going home (to Pakistan) to avoid any more custody.”

The case is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City. Velasquez said arguments would not be heard any earlier than October.

Mahmood’s advocates are also trying to have him released from the lock-up in Genesee County while his appeal is being considered.

“ It’s just to give him some more time, and to get him out of the detention center. It’s difficult for him to be there. He’s not somebody who poses a risk as a criminal or somebody who would flee,” said Susan Davies of the Chatham Peace Initiative, one of two Columbia County groups rallying for Mahmood.

The groups have asked Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to write a letter urging Homeland Security to consider releasing Mahmood from detention in Batavia until his deportation case is resolved. Blake Zeff, a spokesman for Schumer, said last week that the senator would consider the request after his office receives some additional information about the case.

The Columbia County activists are planning a similar appeal to New York’s other Democratic senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and say they will contact several Hudson Valley members of Congress as well.

Mahmood, who came to the United States in April 2000 with a valid work visa, lived in Maryland and then in Hudson, a small Columbia County city. He worked long hours, learned to drive and got a license and a car, and lived a seemingly uneventful life until he drove to a highway outside town to take another in a series of photographs that he had planned to send to his family.

When authorities researched his background, they discovered that he had helped a family friend from Pakistan find an apartment in Hudson. That friend’s visa was not valid and Mahmood wound up charged with felony alien smuggling. He pleaded guilty to the charge, though it is not clear whether Mahmood realized that doing so would make him subject to mandatory deportation.

An immigration judge ordered his deportation in January, and an immigration appeals panel later upheld that order. Mahmood’s attorneys have petitioned the appellate court in New York to block the order, Velasquez said.

Velasquez said that Mahmood’s case also may be due for a periodic review by immigration officials, and that he could be released while his appeal is heard, under the terms of a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. That ruling, in a case brought by other immigrants, said that aliens awaiting deportation cannot be held without cause for more than six months.

Davies said her group, based in the rural Columbia County town of Chatham, plus members of the Green Party from Hudson, are hoping that New York politicians can help persuade Homeland Security to let Mahmood out on bail.

But a spokeswoman for the department’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees deportations, said the Supreme Court ruling does not apply in cases such as Mahmood’s, where the alien has a court appeal pending. In the bureau’s view, he should remain under detention until the appeals court decides his case, said spokeswoman Amy Otten.

Velasquez said he disagrees with that interpretation, and that he believes Mahmood should be eligible for a case review and possible release. He said he planned to contact the bureau about the matter.

In Columbia County, Mahmood’s case has aroused considerable sympathy, and the local paper, the Hudson Register-Star, has editorialized several times in favor of his release.

Some of Mahmood’s supporters knew him when he lived in Hudson, and others took up his cause out of concern about the nation’s reaction to the terrorist attacks. About 35 people turned out for a recent informational meeting on his case, Davies said.

Several Rochester activist groups staged a demonstration at the Batavia facility in September, in part to protest Mahmood’s detention. Brian Erway, who helped organize the protest, said the groups have lost track of Mahmood’s case but hope to pick up the cause again this fall.

Davies said she has never met Mahmood, though she talks with him on the telephone. “ He is discouraged. But on the other hand, he amazes me because he seems to gather his spirits,” she said. “ He kind of pulls himself out of it, and is always really appreciative of whatever good things are coming his way at all.”

sorr@DemocratandChronicle.com