Thursday, January 28, 2010
Friday, July 17, 2009
Piecing Together an Immigrant’s Life the U.S. Refused to See Shanise Farrar
Shanise Farrar
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: July 5, 2009
When the 43-year-old man died in a New Jersey immigration jail in 2005, the very fact seemed to fall into a black hole. Although a fellow inmate scrawled a note telling immigrant advocates that the detainee’s symptoms of a heart attack had long gone unheeded, government officials would not even confirm that the dead man had existed.
In March, more than three years after the death, federal immigration authorities acknowledged that they had overlooked it, and added a name, “Ahmad, Tanveer,” to their list of fatalities in custody.
Even as the man’s death was retrieved from official oblivion, however, his life remained a mystery, The New York Times reported in an April article on the case that pointed up the secrecy and lack of accountability in the nation’s ballooning immigration detention system. Just who the man was and why he had been detained were unknown.
Yet at the end of a long trail of government documents and interviews with friends and relatives in New York, Texas and his native Pakistan, there was his name, “Ahmad, T.,” still listed last week on the tenants’ buzzer board at the Eldorado, an apartment building in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where he had lived for years. And the tenant list itself — Jones, Nadler, Mahmud, Fong, Quinones — testified to the long history of American immigration that he had tried so hard to join.
Tanveer Ahmad, it turns out, was a longtime New York City cabdriver who had paid thousands of dollars in taxes and immigration application fees. Whether out of love, loneliness or the quest for a green card, he had twice married American women after entering the country on a visitor’s visa in 1993. His only trouble with the law was a $200 fine for disorderly conduct in 1997: While working at a Houston gas station, he had displayed the business’s unlicensed gun to stop a robbery.
It would come back to haunt him. For if Mr. Ahmad’s overlooked death showed how immigrants could vanish in detention, his overlooked American life shows how 9/11 changed the stakes for those caught in the nation’s tangle of immigration laws.
In the end, his body went back in a box to his native village, to be buried by his Pakistani widow and their two children, conceived on his only two trips home in a dozen years. He had always hoped to bring them all to the United States, his widow, Rafia Perveen, said in a tearful telephone interview through a translator.
“He said America is very good,” she recalled. “When it comes to the treatment of Muslims in the U.S., he had faith in the rule of law. He said, ‘In America, they don’t bother anyone just for no reason.’ ”
When immigration agents burst into Mr. Ahmad’s two-room Flatbush apartment on Aug. 2, 2005, they were looking for someone else, his friends say — a roommate suspected of violating his student visa by working. But they ordered Mr. Ahmad to report to immigration headquarters in Manhattan on Aug. 11.
He went, and was delivered in shackles to the Monmouth County Correctional Institute in Freehold, N.J. His Texas misdemeanor had popped up in the computer as an offense involving a deadly weapon — reason enough, after 9/11, for authorities to detain him pending deportation proceedings.
Like several million other residents of the United States, Mr. Ahmad occupied the complicated gray zone between illegal and legal immigration. Though he had overstayed his first visa, he had repeatedly been authorized to work while his applications for “adjustment of status” were pending. Twice before 9/11 he had been allowed back into the country after visits to Pakistan.
But the green card application sponsored by his Bronx-born wife, Shanise Farrar, had been officially denied in March 2005, leaving him without a valid visa. Although the couple could have reapplied, by the time he was arrested they had not spoken in more than a year, and Ms. Farrar, who had received a letter threatening a marriage fraud investigation, was unaware of his detention.
As she tells it, theirs was an intimate relationship ruined by 9/11. With regret, she recalled her reaction: “I was just cursing him. I was like, ‘You people come here and kill us and mess up our city.’ He was trying to convince me and prove to me that he’s a good man, not those people.”
“I loved him,” she added. “It was just, once the World Trade Center came down, I changed my mind.”
He was a natural immigrant, friends said, the fifth child in a poor but striving family, the captain of his village school’s victorious cricket team who grew into a funny and generous adult. After his family arranged his engagement to his cousin Rafia, he left to work in a brother’s store in Saudi Arabia. But once he visited New York, he had eyes only for the United States.
“His brother called him to come back,” recalled Mohammad S. Tariq, 58, a cabby whose Brooklyn apartment was Mr. Ahmad’s first home in the city. “But Tanveer did not want to go back.”
Instead he followed a job to Texas. He worked the night shift at a gas station that was robbed at gunpoint 7 times in 35 days, said the manager, Kathy Jean Lewis — who married him while she was battling thyroid cancer.
After her recovery, Mr. Ahmad made a three-month trip back to Pakistan, where he wed his cousin in 1998. His marriage to Ms. Lewis, now 53, was annulled by a Texas court in 1999.
She harbors no hard feelings. “He was emotionally supportive when I was sick,” she said, recalling how Mr. Ahmad took her to midnight dinners at her favorite restaurant when she was undergoing radiation treatment. “He just had a very big heart.”
His second American wife, Ms. Farrar, tells a similar story.
They wed at the city clerk’s office in Manhattan in July 2000, when Ms. Farrar was a single mother struggling to support her young son as a car service dispatcher, and they applied for a green card. She says she did not know he had a wife in Pakistan, and she denies that hers was “a paper marriage,” as Mr. Ahmad’s Pakistani widow put it. Ms. Farrar, 36, still speaks wistfully of family outings to Six Flags Great Adventure and the Bronx Zoo.
Then came 9/11. “Friends and family, ringing my phone — ‘You better watch it, you maybe married a terrorist,’ ” Ms. Farrar recalled, evoking a period when hundreds of Muslim immigrants in New York were swept up on the strength of vague suspicions. “I would bring it to him. He was scared anybody was going to hurt him.”
They patched things up before a November 2002 immigration interview, Ms. Farrar said. But they flunked it — the interviewing agent apparently doubted their marriage was genuine — and never appeared for the second-chance interview in 2003, Ms. Farrar said, because they had split up.
By the time Mr. Ahmad was taken in handcuffs to immigration court on Aug. 17, 2005, all he wanted was to return to Pakistan. He insisted on giving up his right to contest deportation, even though he faced a 10-year bar on returning, said Kenneth M. Schonfeld, an immigration lawyer hurriedly hired by Mr. Ahmad’s friends, all cabdrivers from Pakistan.
“He couldn’t stand the thought of having to stay in custody,” the lawyer said, and he seemed “really terrified” of the Monmouth jail. “It’s a place that would frighten or depress anyone.”
Three weeks later, Mr. Ahmad was dead. Since he had no known health problems, his friends were shocked and disbelieving. They were told that Mr. Ahmad had suffered a heart attack in the jail, and despite all efforts to revive him, had been pronounced dead in a hospital emergency room at 5:51 p.m. on Sept. 9. An autopsy cited “occlusive coronary atherosclerosis.”
His friends did not know that the jail had a history of detainee complaints of medical neglect and physical abuse, and did not allow guards to send detainees to the medical unit without prior approval. Similar complaints have been made about many detention centers, spurring the Obama administration to order a review of the system.
According to the jail’s internal investigation, Mr. Ahmad walked into the medical unit shortly after 3:50 p.m. on Sept. 9 and “was seen immediately.” But the letter scrawled by a fellow inmate contended that before he showed up there, Mr. Ahmad’s pleas for treatment had been rebuffed by a guard for an hour.
Complaints about his death were filed with the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, documents show; the matter was passed for internal inquiry to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the notation that it need not report back its findings.
By 2007, when the immigration agency compiled its first list of deaths in immigration detention, under pressure from Congress and the news media, Mr. Ahmad’s death was not on it.
Yet if his death was not counted, his arrest was — it had been added to the agency’s anti-terrorism statistics, according to government documents showing he was termed a “collateral” apprehension in Operation Secure Commute, raids seeking visa violators after the London transit bombings.
How his children will remember him is another matter. Without the money Mr. Ahmad used to send, they had to move in with relatives far from his grave in Pakistan. But his 10-year-old son clings to a souvenir, the widow said: “He keeps his father’s photograph in his pocket.”
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
shameless self promotion
Featured Indie Artist Interview with Camille of Camille Handcrafted
Posted by admin in artfire, indie, interview, tags: artfire, artists, handmade, indie, interview, jewelryI’m going to be out of town the rest of the week (without internet access…gasp), but didn’t want to miss my favorite part of the week….meeting our featured artist.
Let’s meet today’s featured indie artist, Camille of Camille Handcrafted.
SI: Please tell us a little about yourself.
Camille: My studio is in Tucson, Arizona, in a magnificent patch of desert. The light here is incredible, and the quiet is priceless. I first came here to be with my husband, Thomas. Thomas has since left the world but not before planting in me a deep respect for and absolute love for his precious desert. The only thing more beautiful than the Sonoran sunrise is the Sonoran sunset! This is where I first started making jewelry, having taken a few classes at a local bead shop. I didn’t really stick with that, though, and I was away from it for a long time. When I started up again I tried wrapping with wire and found that I truly enjoyed the freedoms that those techniques opened up.
SI: What is the name of your business? and what do you create?
Camille: My business is called Camille Handcrafted. This was suggested by my son in law who felt that “Camille” was a perfect name that could not be improved upon. Do you think perhaps he was sucking up to his mother in law? Very possible, in my estimation, but it was done with so much earnestness that I acceded. I’ve been experimenting with my art, crafting everything from sparkling strings of beads to hang from potted plants and wind chimes with beautiful musical bells to sterling wrapped gemstone necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.
 | SI: What inspires you? Camille: Tough question, that. My first instinct is to answer: “everything.” I’ve been spending more time walking in the desert here in Tucson and paying close attention to that natural landscape. I have several pieces now in process that are definitely directly influenced by those observations. I recently donated a piece for auction to the Seattle Midwifery School, a bracelet called “A Little Bit of Tucson” and it was exactly that. SI: What is the best thing about what you do? and the worst? |
| SI: When not creating, what do you like to do? Camille: I don’t know that there is a time when I am not creating. The process doesn’t have a discernible beginning or ending, so it’s all part of my life. I’m a musician as well as a jewelry artist. There are times that I feel that the jewelry I design is nothing more than an extension of my music; a song in three dimensions. SI: Any future plans you care to share with us? |  |
Many thanks to Camille for sharing so graciously of herself and her art. Please take a few minutes to visit Camille Handcrafted.
Friday, June 5, 2009
saving human lives = littering?
Tucson Region
Conviction has crossers' water supplier defiant
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
CHENEY SETTING IT UP?
Dick Cheney's Cynical Bet
Posted May 12, 2009 | 02:44 PM (EST)by Taylor Marsh
What motivates Dick Cheney?
It's not what people think, though Mr. Cheney should be worried about his role in U.S. torture policy, even if he'll likely never be held to account. So, it's not that. Though we may get the "holy grail" evidence Cheney keeps talking about soon. What Cheney, Dick or Liz, won't talk about is the detainee who gave false information (under Egyptian torture) that sent us to war in Iraq, and disgraced Colin Powell. Because Al-Libi just committed suicide in a Libyan prison.
If we get hit again it's going to be blamed on torture, Rush said on his show yesterday.
So why is Dick Cheney on this media tour?
Mr. Cheney wants to draw a line in the sand where Pres. Obama began dismantling the torture policies of Bush-Cheney, which Cheney postulates is making us "less safe."
"That means, in the future, we will not have the same safeguards..." - Vice President Dick Cheney
Cheney knows that we will be hit at some moment in the future, something experts have said is inevitable, whether it's before Obama is out of office or not isn't the issue. Cheney's bet is that when this happens the legacy of Bush-Cheney must be solidified as the Administration who after 9/11 "kept us safe." He wants Americans to remember the moment those policies were dismantled. It happened on the Democrats' watch.
Mr. Cheney along with his fan club, headed by Rush Limbaugh, is betting that the American people need to be reminded of who kept us safe and when those safety policies were destroyed, believing that Americans won't care about torture anymore when the next attack lands.
Nothing Dick Cheney does is by accident. This is a calculated plan to weave a narrative before it happens into the political blood stream, with the attempt of casting blame in advance. Call it preemptive marketing.
It's the same tactic with a new twist, with Cheney finding a new line of attack on the old standard that Democrats are weak on national security. Considering what Bush-Cheney has cost us internationally this takes incredible gall. But when you think of how low Dick Cheney is thought of in this country, what has he got to lose? Since the Obama administration doesn't have the stomach to do anything about what has gone before, the answer is nothing. Considering the Cheneys are the strongest advocates on TV today for a policy that should have us all hanging our heads in shame, it makes you wonder who's really in power.
So, even as Cheney draws a line that he believes will eventually lead the Republicans back to power, Cheney's cynical bet that Obama and the Democrats will be blamed is one he's more than willing to let ride.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Doctors protest exclusion of single-payer at Senate Finance Committee
Doctors protest exclusion of single-payer at Senate Finance Committee
For Immediate Release
May 5, 2009
WASHINGTON - Doctors and other advocates of a national single-payer health system - also known as an improved Medicare for All - directly confronted senators at a Senate Finance Committee “roundtable” on health reform today.
One-by-one, eight single-payer advocates in the audience stood up during the opening comments of the hearing and asked why single-payer experts were being excluded from the proceedings. They each spoke out in turn until they were removed from the committee hearing room and arrested, one-by-one, by U.S. Capitol police.
The doctors and others said that a publicly funded, privately delivered single-payer system is the only solution to the crisis plaguing our nation’s non-system of health care, noting that single-payer national health insurance would guarantee coverage for everyone and contains costs.
Despite polling that shows a clear majority of public and physician support for a single-payer system, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has stated on multiple occasions that single payer is “off the table” of health reform.
Today’s round table, the second of three, consisted of 15 witnesses with no single-payer advocates among them. By contrast, several witnesses have direct ties to the for-profit, private health insurance industry.
The doctors and activists were dressed in black, which they said was in memory of the 22,000 people who die every year due to lack of health insurance. They represented a coalition of single-payer advocacy organizations including Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Healthcare-NOW, Single Payer Action, Private Health Insurance Must Go, the Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics, Prosperity Agenda, and Health Care for the Homeless.
“Health insurance administrators are practicing medicine without a medical license,” said Dr. Margaret Flowers, co-chair of Maryland chapter of PNHP. “The result is the suffering and death of thousands of patients for the sake of private profit. The private health insurance industry has a solid grip on patients, providers and legislators. It is time to stand up and declare that health care is a human right.”
Much to the frustration of Baucus, the multiple disruptions demanding single-payer be on the table set the tone for the second of three roundtables on Health Reform by the Senate Finance Committee.
Katie Robbins, assistant national coordinator of Healthcare-NOW, said: “The current discussion on health reform is political theater at its best. Our elected officials are hosting these events to go through the motions of what developing effective national health policy should look like. There is a big difference between getting health policy experts in the room and the witnesses here today who would profit the most from reform. That difference means our hard-earned dollars will go to further insurance industry profits, not to guarantee health care to the American people.”
“It’s a pretty spectacular display of raw political power,” said Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action. “The health insurance industry demands that not one of the 15 people who testified today shall be a single-payer advocate. And the industry gets what it wants. It’s time for the American people to storm the gates and demand - put single payer on the table.”
Single payer is successfully implemented in the United States’ own Medicare system providing comprehensive care to the elderly, as well as in many of the best health care systems in the world. A single-payer system, as embodied in legislation H.R. 676 and S. 703, would provide guaranteed, quality care to all Americans with no increase in U.S. health spending.
The single-payer advocates said they will continue to use direct actions and nonviolent civil disobedience to urge the inclusion of a publicly funded, privately delivered system.
Other methods of communication with elected officials have failed in delivering the demand for single-payer national health care as evidenced by the exclusion of single-payer advocates from official hearings on health reform.
###
Healthcare-NOW! is a national grassroots advocacy organization in support of single-payer national health care with a network of activists in 42 states. More information can be found at www.healthcare-now.org
Single Payer Action is a nonprofit activist fueled organization. Find out more at www.singlepayeraction.org
Maryland Chapter Physicians for a National Health Program is a chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org), a nonprofit research and education organization of 16,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance. More information can be found at www.md.pnhp.org
Prosperity Agenda includes single payer national health care as one of the policy changes needed to create an economy that benefits all Americans, not just the wealthiest. www.prosperityagenda.us. Prosperity Agenda is an economic justice project associated with The Campaign for Fresh Air & Clean Politics (www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net).
Contact:
Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action, (202) 468-8868, russellmokhiber@gmail.com
Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW! (330) 618-6379, healthcarenow08@gmail.com
Margaret Flowers, M.D., Physicians for a National Health Program - Maryland chapter, (410) 591-0892, nose1@aol.com
Kevin Zeese, ProsperityAgenda.us, (301) 996-6582, kzeese@earthlink.net
Mark Almberg, PNHP, (312) 782-6006, (312) 622-0996, mark@pnhp.org
VIDEO footage:
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) reacts to protesters,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKP05AyfRsI
Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action, speaks at hearing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5vhTtxad30
Margaret Flowers, MD & Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zOShsL4UJo
Carol Paris, MD, PNHP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIUcrVxGwA
Mark Dudzic, Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Healthcare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1nl32aAh7M
Adam Schneider, Health Care for the Homeless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I26EkvnjZuQ
Pat Salomon, MD & Kevin Zeese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDHJH7W-ZEo
Friday, May 1, 2009
MoveOn ONLINE BRIEFING 05/04/09
Urgent update on health care: Next week, Congress will begin making the actual decisions about what'll be in a health care reform bill.
Meanwhile, conservative groups have launched a new assault on the president's proposal, including a million-dollar ad campaign claiming that health care will be rationed and "bureaucrats" will "decide the treatments you receive."1
If real people like us don't get involved in this health care fight now, it could all fall apart. So we're holding an emergency online briefing on Monday night at 9 p.m. ET with Dr. Howard Dean to make sure we're all ready for the fight ahead, called "What we all need to know to win on health care this year."
If fixing our health care system is important to you, this is an event you shouldn't miss. All you need to join in is a computer with an internet connection. Can you join us?
Here are the details:
What: Emergency Online Briefing with Dr. Howard Dean (Organized by MoveOn and Democracy for America)
When: Monday, May 4, 9 p.m. ET/ 8 CT/ 7 MT/ 6 PT
Where: MoveOn.org's web site
http://democracyforamerica.com/
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