Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00report and deported me, so it wasn't
00:00:02their plan to deport
00:00:06me this way, if we
00:00:08of didn't go to the federal judge and ask
00:00:12him to release either release me or deport me, they
00:00:15wouldn't do that, we didn't even know cuz it was we were used to him
00:00:19calling and then he
00:00:20of didn't call for two days so we didn't know what was going on
00:00:24of and um my mom called his lawyer and he didn't like have an
00:00:28idea of what's going on and we have to try get in touch with
00:00:30people and like she was kind of freaking out cuz it was
00:00:34just you couldn't get in touch with them, no one knew what was
00:00:38happening to
00:00:39of him, it's the humiliation
00:00:41of you know being
00:00:45of deported and traveling
00:00:48in a t-shirt and sweatpants and prison shoes
00:00:50and having these agents with
00:00:53you, it's
00:00:56especially for somebody who has...
00:01:01"my good name and my reputation are the only assets I have in this world, I
00:01:05mean,
00:01:05you know, I don't have any money
00:01:07in any bank accounts, I don't have any land, I don't have any, this is the
00:01:11only thing I have, and the US government
00:01:15made sure to to attack me on these on
00:01:19these two, they have ruined my reputation, they have ruined my good
00:01:22name, and they have accused me injustly of things
00:01:26that are complete
00:01:29of fabrications." um, they they could
00:01:32in not
00:01:32of prove anything because there was nothing
00:01:34me there, but with
00:01:38the USA Patriot Act, they didn't have to prove
00:01:41anything, it was enough for the government to
00:01:44of say, we suspect, they think that accusing people, destroying
00:01:48their lives is something they can do, this is what worries
00:01:51me, it is the the
00:01:55arrogance
00:01:56of the powerful, sometimes I think back and I don't even know. like
00:02:00it still seems like a dream away, i don't really know how we got
00:02:04through all of it, seems like it was something that even happened to someone
00:02:07else, america
00:02:11before, i won't say before September 11th, america before
00:02:15the USA patriot act was
00:02:17of one thing, and after the USA Patriot Act was a completely different
00:02:21country, it I will not be
00:02:24exaggerating if I said America today
00:02:27in is a
00:02:27of police state just like any other third. world police
00:02:30states, it
00:02:32in is actually the dark ages, it is the mentality
00:02:35of the dark ages where governments could do
00:02:38anything they want to do, in criminal court, the burden of
00:02:42proof is with the prosecution, they would have to make the case,
00:02:46they
00:02:46of would have to prove, in immigration all they have to do is just cast doubt
00:02:50upon, they do whatever they want to do, and they
00:02:54have the laws, they have everything they
00:02:57of want to lie, even lie. all these things that you hear
00:03:01about freedom and you know equality and all
00:03:05th other things it just seemed like more and more of a fsad and it was
00:03:08just
00:03:13i don't know like the hypocrisy was just
00:03:16overwhelming and i'm just having
00:03:20to deal with that uncertainty a
00:03:24daily basis was just very nerve-breacking and
00:03:27very exhausting.
00:03:34We join Yusuf's family as they go to visit
00:03:36a Yousuf in prison, a three-hour drive from
00:03:38of their house in Tampa into the southern swamps of Florida. It has been almost
00:03:42five months since Yousuf has been imprisoned awaiting his deportation
00:03:46hearing. It is now just two days away. Samir
00:03:50Magahid, Yousuf's father, tries
00:03:52a to remain hopeful. We are so patient and we can
00:03:55wait, but this
00:03:58of life of my son. They want to destroy
00:04:01him by putting him
00:04:04in a jail waiting for his
00:04:07winning after one week, one
00:04:10month, one year, nobody
00:04:14knows, nobody,
00:04:18I'm going to advise him to be patient, to be in good
00:04:22condition in front of the
00:04:25in in judge to let the judge knows the truth
00:04:29about.
00:04:35of Yusuf's trial is held in the chrome jail in the swamps outside
00:04:39Miami. Ice is flowing
00:04:41in a team of four lawyers to try the case. Yusuf's lawyer,
00:04:45Charles Cook, has agreed to take the case for free. No
00:04:48cameras are allowed inside. We are currently in the second day
00:04:52of the trial. We just finished the testimony
00:04:54of the government's first witness, both his cross examination and his direct
00:04:58examination. What's at stake is... what young muslim men in
00:05:01America can do and act like in America today.
00:05:05The reality here is, if you're a Muslim in America, you can't think like
00:05:09everybody else, you can't think like your colleague. I have
00:05:13another client we went to lunch with few weeks ago who was about the same age as Yusuf and
00:05:17I was telling about YouTuf's case and it was very interesting what he said. He had very little sympathy for
00:05:21you so what is he thinking in America is a Muslim man you can't go surfing on
00:05:25the internet and look at sites you can't hang around with other people that are Muslims and talk about
00:05:28Islam and I frankly find that
00:05:31sad. David Cole is a law professor at Georgetown
00:05:35University Law Center and an expert in constitutional and first amendment
00:05:39rights. He says that the targeting of immigrants in America. is
00:05:42nothing new. historically, whenever the United States
00:05:46has faced a security threat, uh, it has
00:05:50responded by targeting immigrants with its most
00:05:54restrictive measures. uh, and I think that's partly because it's
00:05:58easy to do so. you
00:05:59know, it's it's it's one thing to say to American people, we
00:06:03face a greater security threat, you've got
00:06:06sacrifice some of your liberties and rights in order to protect the
00:06:10country. um... um, but it's another thing to say to American
00:06:14people, we face a a greater security
00:06:17threat, um, but we're going to give you more security
00:06:21by sacrificing somebody else's rights, uh,
00:06:24namely uh, foreign nationals, immigrants, people who have
00:06:28no voice in the political process. we did it in
00:06:311919, after series of terrorist bombs, we went
00:06:34out and rounded up thousands of foreign nationals on
00:06:38pretextual charges, charges of guilt by association, not one
00:06:42them. was ever found to have been involved any the
00:06:45bombings. During World War II, we rounded up,
00:06:49thousands and thousands of Japanese immigrants. This kind of
00:06:52anti-immigrant targeting has been a constant feature
00:06:56in the United States at every point that we've had security crisis. When you
00:07:00want to take action before somebody has actually done anything
00:07:04wrong, well the criminal law doesn't really allow you to do that
00:07:07generally. Criminal law requires you to have some proof that an individual is
00:07:11either committed. a terrorist act or has conspired to commit a terrorist act
00:07:15or has attempted to commit a terrorist act, it
00:07:19requires that you put the evidence on the table, that you give a person
00:07:23fair trial, but if you use immigration law, you can find
00:07:27all sorts of pretextual charges to use against
00:07:30people, the government employs secret evidence often
00:07:34in uh immigration procedures, the same sort of fair
00:07:37trial rights don't uh necessarily apply, the Supreme
00:07:41Court has said
00:07:42that it's... permissible to selectively single out people
00:07:45for uh immigration enforcement based on their affiliation with
00:07:49political groups, so the same sets of
00:07:53protections and rights don't exist, makes it easier to
00:07:57use the immigration process. Dan vara was the highest ranking ice attorney in
00:08:01the state of Florida from 2003 to 2006. He says that after the
00:08:05September 11th attacks he began working closely with the FBI.
00:08:09His prosecutions became a model for using immigration courts. as an arm of
00:08:13counter terrorism across the country. two the days after
00:08:169/11, people like myself and we were allowed to move
00:08:20forward and identify people uh for
00:08:23charges uh to be taken into detention and to be
00:08:26prosecuted again, not criminally, but for the purpose of removing
00:08:30them from the United States. in Florida, once we began our
00:08:34our work with the joint terrorism task force and even its precursor, just
00:08:38the FBI and other loosely associated
00:08:41groups, Our involvement was day-to-day, we
00:08:45shared, again at the height of my prosecution
00:08:48experience, FBI would feed me information every day.
00:08:52Var is proud of his work with the FBI and defends the tactic of seeking the
00:08:56deportation of residents against whom no criminal charges can be proven.
00:08:59Many people get
00:09:02prosecuted and get acquitted and they're guilty. When you
00:09:06sit at the table with other prosecutors from other
00:09:10branches the US government and... agents from all these agencies
00:09:14and you're reviewing evidence, the
00:09:16goal is to find
00:09:18the way to deal with the threat, and
00:09:22if if the only thing you have is tax
00:09:26fraud, if the only thing you have is an immigration
00:09:29violation, then frankly that's what you
00:09:32use, an immigration charge is administrative nature, for
00:09:36the proof is less than they are a a criminal trial, so even though you
00:09:40got to quitted in the criminal trial. "the reality is that the government can
00:09:43still meet its burden,
00:09:45it clear and convincing evidence. there are so many people that put their fingers
00:09:49in every single terrorism case that I would tell you
00:09:53unequivocally that mistakes were not made. in terms of identifying actual
00:09:57terrorists um the government has been very
00:10:00ineffective. so for example
00:10:03uh in the first um two years after
00:10:079/11 the government uh locked up mostly using
00:10:10immigration powers over.
00:10:125,000 foreign nation anti-terrorism preventive
00:10:16detention measures, anti-terrorism preventive detention measures,
00:10:19of those 5,000, not one stands
00:10:23convicted today. of any kind of terrorist offense,
00:10:27so the government's record there is zero for 5,00. they don't
00:10:31have the evidence in these cases, and that's what they see is the beauty of
00:10:35immigration court is heck, you don't need evidence, you just need a
00:10:39judge who's willing to look at all the garbage evidence and
00:10:43make a conclusory statement that I think you've met the burden of proof, thank you very much, have
00:10:47nice life. arguably anything is the proper use the immigration laws, congress has designed
00:10:50it to be in many ways like tax laws the cut al capone.
00:10:55"if
00:10:55we can't get him on the criminal charges where we have to meet this incredibly high burden of proof will
00:10:59just support somebody on incredibly vague immigration statute. these immigration
00:11:03courts are part the department of justice, they are an executive. this
00:11:06is not a judicial branch, this is not an independent
00:11:09judiciary. this judge was appointed by a previous
00:11:13attorney general, he works for the attorney general. these
00:11:16FBI agents work for oddly enough, the same attorney
00:11:20general. the folks that are prosecuting this case at homeland
00:11:24security. are also an executive branch. reality is you have the
00:11:28executive branch being both the prosecutor,
00:11:32judge, and jury in this case. we should all be concerned about
00:11:36that. we should be concerned that there is a complete lack of judicial independence
00:11:40here. why would an immigration judge whose boss is the
00:11:43one presumably that wants to prosecute and deport this man
00:11:47say, "i'm sorry boss, you're wrong. boy, it would take a judge with a
00:11:51great deal of courage to do that. many people focus on..."
00:11:55uh the Bush administration and particularly on uh
00:11:599/11 and the reaction to 9/11 and on for example the Patriot
00:12:02Act um, but what what you miss when you focus
00:12:06in that way is that this is a broader problem. now we're in the middle the Obama
00:12:10administration, attorney general holder has approved this, trust me, if he hadn't
00:12:14approved it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, so clearly the Obama administration is
00:12:17continuing the same enforcement mentality that first
00:12:21Clinton and then the Bush administration followed in immigration.
00:12:25"it's being there's involvement at the highest levels, the secretary of homeland
00:12:28security, I would be very surprised if that person was not uh,
00:12:32Janet Napolitano was not involved in this case, I would be very
00:12:36surprised that that if that was the case, not only
00:12:40because it's a terrorist case, because the publicity that it's getting. A
00:12:44local Islamic group is speaking out about immigration officials decision to
00:12:47detain Yusuf Megahel
00:12:49having a fair trial and and the jury finding not guilty,
00:12:53it seems like slap in the face plan." was to punish them in
00:12:56immigration. Yusuf was arrested for one reason and one reason only, and that's
00:13:00because he looked muslim. with Yusuf's trial
00:13:04already underway, protest by community, religious and civil rights groups
00:13:08continue to grow. an unusual move, four the juris from his
00:13:12criminal trial, including fourman Gary Marringer, begin speaking
00:13:16out on Yusuf's behalf. this just
00:13:20doesn't doesn't seem right. there are things under the law that
00:13:24were put into effect. after 9/11 that allows the
00:13:27government to simply say, we think you're a
00:13:31terroris, and therefore you will be detained until you have
00:13:35your day in court, and there's no judicial review of that determination, it's it's just a
00:13:38unilateral determination made
00:13:41by immigration officials. we
00:13:45didn't know whether usef should be deported or
00:13:49given full citizenship and allowed to finish engineering school. what we did
00:13:53know lot about was the case we saw. in federal court, and based on that
00:13:57case, he was not guilty of anything,
00:14:00whether it's beyond reasonable doubt or by a preponderance the evidence as
00:14:04might be required in immigration court or by any
00:14:08measure that we saw, this this kid would has there
00:14:12was no evidence that he had done anything wrong, it's like telling the government,
00:14:16if that's all you got, um, let him
00:14:19go. i've been doing criminal defense work for 15 years and i've never
00:14:23seen, never heard of
00:14:26of juris going to the media and saying how outraged they are about what the
00:14:30government is something even
00:14:33more about the disconnect between our
00:14:37government policies and what the people who live in this country
00:14:41want. if do talk to somebody about this
00:14:44case, what positive can come about it for
00:14:48me, not forget about you for a minute, is
00:14:51there anything good that can happen? and the answer is no.
00:14:55but um, this is what I need to be doing.
00:14:58I would really like to think at the end the day I did everything
00:15:01possible, I could to get him a fair shake. I
00:15:05was a history major, um,
00:15:09and during the pre-american
00:15:13revolution, um, what jurors were
00:15:17doing, and the verdicts that they were turning down and and offenses
00:15:21that were being prosecuted by then the British government, um,
00:15:25was the same sort of thing, it was, we're not going to enforce these laws, these laws are wrong,
00:15:29what you're doing is wrong, um, and that's what these jurers are saying, what
00:15:33you're doing is wrong, you know, the law may allow you to do this, but
00:15:37it's wrong. what do you think is going to happen at this
00:15:40time? well, based on the
00:15:43evidence that I know of, it ought to be
00:15:47um very short uh finding
00:15:50of not guilty, but based on what
00:15:54I've heard about the immigration courts, the immigration judges, the influence the
00:15:58government, the fact they can put on evidence and not even have to show it to the
00:16:02defense, what I think is going to happen is he's going to be
00:16:05found guilty is some sort of... uh terrorist
00:16:09aider and better whatever and sent back, yeah it's funny sent
00:16:13back, but sent to Egypt where he hasn't lived since he was like
00:16:1711 years
00:16:17old,
00:16:26at first i was shocked because i knew the family very well and i knew the
00:16:29mujah family, i knew their son, i knew how good he was
00:16:33and i have a son, so i was scared, the told him
00:16:36you I'm not, I don't feel you're not comfortable for you, what if they
00:16:40did the same thing to you, so it made me feel unsafe, it
00:16:44made me feel scar for my kids, but I felt like I
00:16:48can't let the fear take over me, and I start
00:16:52thinking right, he we have rights, we're american citizens that we
00:16:56should fight this, it shouldn't take this route because this is
00:16:59wrong, and if we don't fight now everybody else are scared,
00:17:03afraid and they going to hide away from it, so we thought we could fight it
00:17:07together. and i felt
00:17:08you know we can do it, if we as a community work together we can do it. give
00:17:12a kind of
00:17:13you know strength to stand up and fight, and the more you learn about your
00:17:16rights, you have to stand up for your rights. we had a privilege to fight for
00:17:20our rights and speak our minds and and have the freedom to practice
00:17:24religion, not because i'm wearing head scarf, that mean i'm
00:17:27suspect, not because i'm a muslim, i'm a
00:17:29suspect, and maybe you know with all of
00:17:33us, you know are united as a community, muslim.
00:17:37and muslims, everybody else uh work together to
00:17:41solve this problem, no profiling
00:17:43whatsoever, we will be all safe, buse that will
00:17:47be justice, family, his mother and his
00:17:51father and his oldest brother naturalized, but they have mixed feelings
00:17:55because their son is still being held by immigration authorities, please make
00:17:59dua for the family um and uh keep tab on the
00:18:03case and uh support any way you can when
00:18:06anyone our community or even a minority
00:18:10community sees this case, especially because this family is
00:18:14immigrants, they see themselves and they see what could happen to
00:18:17them, and they,
00:18:20I think they're concerned now more than ever, especially
00:18:24everything that's been happening our community with this case or
00:18:27nationwide, um, but the main point here
00:18:31is that we have to be aware as Americans, all Americans. One week
00:18:35into the trial, just as the defense is about to present it. case the judge makes
00:18:38an unexpected announcement: uh, the immigration judge terminated removal
00:18:42proceedings, uh, he did the right thing, uh,
00:18:45when the judge walked into the court room today, and he
00:18:49said the first thing he said was, we're going to go over the exhibits in the case, I
00:18:53knew at that point we had won, because otherwise he never would have talked about the exhibits before
00:18:57I had presented a case. As soon as I realized that, I turned turned
00:19:01over to Yusuf and
00:19:03I said, I put my hand on his leg
00:19:04and I said, you won, I don't think he understood. me,
00:19:08he looked at me and he didn't understand, and Dustin, my co-counsel leaned
00:19:12in and said, you won the case, and then as big old grin, you
00:19:16should smile now, and a big old grin came on his face, he now understands
00:19:20what a great victory this is for really for justice in America, uh, the government
00:19:24presented a case today, and the last four days, it was
00:19:27junk, it was all about junk, and as result the judge finally realized what it was
00:19:31and dismissed it, this is the second time in my 20-year career that a judge has dismissed charges
00:19:35against somebody and terminated for. meetings based upon the government's lack of
00:19:39evidence, so this is very unique happening for me and really for any
00:19:42immigration. outside the chrome jail, supporters
00:19:46and press wait until sundown
00:19:48for you, i'm very happy
00:19:50for this, i'm very happy for this and i'm
00:19:54looking forward to go back to
00:19:57university,
00:20:07i am... feeling so happy for return my
00:20:10son to spend the ramadan with us. it is the
00:20:14first night of ramadan. we feel so
00:20:17happy by having my
00:20:21son to our house again. and i want to send
00:20:25message for the government that this
00:20:28family, family of magahed cames to this
00:20:32country to live in peace and work and
00:20:36take their degree.
00:20:52think it's all over
00:20:53now,
00:20:58Yusuf is one the very few who beat their charges in both criminal and
00:21:01immigration court. despite no charges ever being filed against
00:21:05him, rabia hadad was deported to Lebanon in
00:21:072003. after being found innocent of all
00:21:11charges, Sammy Hamudi was held by ice and then finally deported to
00:21:14Palestine. He now teaches political science at Berzeit
00:21:18University. The both say that the America that they left is
00:21:22nothing like the country they were once proud to call home. when people would ask
00:21:26me about living in the US, this is before September
00:21:2811th,
00:21:32as compared to Lebanon or other parts the world,
00:21:36I would always make the comment
00:21:38that everything else
00:21:42aside, it's still a country of
00:21:45law where everybody is equal under the
00:21:48law.
00:21:50I felt happy in the United States because
00:21:54I felt for the first time that I am free to think the way I
00:21:58want to think, to ride the way I want to write, to go
00:22:01wherever I want to go,
00:22:04it's uh the opposite 100%. I did
00:22:08not expect what happened after September 11. To this
00:22:12day the government can walk into anybody's home, into
00:22:16any company, any firm in the US.
00:22:21freeze their accounts, confiscate all their documents on the
00:22:25basis of doubt. all they have to do is to
00:22:28say, we suspect you of terrorist
00:22:31activity. in the United States, there is no justice, this is what I
00:22:35believe in, and this
00:22:36is what I teach my students. I don't believe that now inside the United
00:22:39States anyone can say anything he wants,
00:22:43no, the American Muslims and Arabs are not exercising their full
00:22:47rights as other Americans, they cannot.
00:22:50because they will be punished and the government
00:22:54has many ways to punish people if they
00:22:58want to, and one time Ash said, if
00:23:02someone is spit in the street, we can try
00:23:05him, we can make laws to try him and put him in jail
00:23:09if we want, civil liberties, human
00:23:13rights, the bill of rights are all
00:23:16things the past, this whole of
00:23:20democracy and liberty and and the rule of law
00:23:24and it's just a myth now, it's
00:23:27just a myth. any muslim or any arab living in
00:23:31the us and hearing me say this, will not
00:23:35think twice about it, they they know it, they feel it, they're living
00:23:39it, but hope that other
00:23:43us citizens don't end up on the
00:23:47wrong side the fence to find out how bad this. this usa
00:23:50patriot act really is the mentality that will
00:23:54harass the muslims and arabs, the institutions that will harass
00:23:57muslims will harass others. measures
00:24:01first introduced against immigrants inevitably get
00:24:04extended and applied to us citizens, so
00:24:08over time it's all of our rights that are at stake, so the
00:24:12first measures that um that that criminalized
00:24:15speech or that that penalized political essentially guilt by.
00:24:20Association were introduced in the immigration law uh in
00:24:23the uh early 1900s, but were extended uh
00:24:27to American citizens during the McCarthy era, and thousands and
00:24:31thousands of Americans were affected by that guilt by
00:24:34association. The first um sort of
00:24:37ethnic-based targeting uh enforcement
00:24:41was against uh foreign nationals from countries
00:24:45whose ethnicity we didn't like, but uh
00:24:49during... World War II
00:24:51that was extended and we ended up locking up uh not just
00:24:55Japanese immigrants but American citizens of Japanese
00:24:58descent, so whether it be you know racial
00:25:01discrimination or or um or
00:25:05penalizing speech or guilt by
00:25:07association uh uh the the measures are
00:25:10introduced against immigrants initially but eventually get extended
00:25:14to uh US citizens. It created fear
00:25:18amongst the Muslim. community and lot of
00:25:21people have become so uh
00:25:24concerned about stepping up to the plate
00:25:28and being an america americans, mean being
00:25:32american means that you have to stand up for your rights,
00:25:35that you speak your mind, you have freedom
00:25:39of worship, freedom of speech,
00:25:43well none of this has really flourished in
00:25:47our community after 9/11, most people are scared. to come up and
00:25:50speak their mind, simply because they've seen what happens to those
00:25:54who spoke. controlling the community is controlling their
00:25:57minds, controlling
00:26:01their feelings. they will all the time be
00:26:05watchful not to say things they like to
00:26:09say, they will say things that the government would like to
00:26:13hear, not to do anything
00:26:17that they show that they are full citizen who exercise
00:26:20their full rights. think a lot of people were just very
00:26:23scared, like they wouldn't really talk about
00:26:27things or they would try to like distance
00:26:30themselves, so... I think it's more of just just trying to get
00:26:34by, trying to live their lives, go to school, get a job, like
00:26:38just live normal life and not really so much
00:26:41involvement outside of
00:26:43that,
00:26:54back in Tampa, the Magahed family sit down to celebrate the beginning of
00:26:57Ramadan, their first meal together since Yusuf's second
00:27:00arrest.
00:27:33'I was kind of expecting it that I be released
00:27:37but not a specific date because the
00:27:38government did not have case like
00:27:42they just holding me up for the
00:27:46heck of it, the government is profiling people, the are targeting
00:27:50people uh
00:27:54just based on on their background not of any crimes they
00:27:57have done, in my case they of my
00:28:01muslim background they'. trying to say I'm a terrorist
00:28:05or that and I have to be deported on terrorism
00:28:09grounds, they just want you to sign the requesting
00:28:12deportation and leave instead of staying and fighting your
00:28:16case. We asked Yousuf what he will do Nallity
00:28:20as one, who does he want to be held accountable for its years in prison?
00:28:24Will he continue to speak out on behalf of others who are facing similar
00:28:27charges? His father Samir interrupts before
00:28:31Yusuf can answer. don't ask him many question because the
00:28:35government still now can make an appeal against him
00:28:38do you think they will appeal or do you think didn't know they
00:28:42have the right to do
00:28:44anything.
00:29:46The headlines Iran says a meeting with the Persian golf literal states on the
00:29:49Hormo Strate innoman has been postponed through a joint decision by
00:29:53Tehran and Muscat. Yemen's
00:29:57army conducts new missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia hitting sensitive targets and