Suleman Faqih was jolted awake just before dawn in January when federal agents burst into his bedroom, stuck a flashlight in his face and a gun to his head.
“Get up!” they ordered the 23-year-old owner of a cell phone business as he lay in bed. “Let’s go!”
Bleary eyed, Faqih complied, pulling on jeans and a sweater. As the agents handcuffed him and led him away from his home in Queens, N.Y., Faqih hoped it was all a terrible case of mistaken identity.
He never returned home.
In the summer, after 185 days in jail, immigration officers shuffled him onto a plane full of other deportees. Faqih was one of 75 men that the Tribune tracked to Pakistan in July to measure the impact of the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 crackdown on illegal immigrants from predominantly Muslim nations in the name of national security.
Now he’s adrift and bewildered in Karachi, staying with relatives who barely let him leave the house, fearing for his safety.
The young man who loved Aerosmith and hip-hop, played youth football and used to belt out the national anthem for his family now does his best to follow the advice of the older siblings he left behind: Keep your mouth shut.
His Queens accent, his clothes, his confident demeanor, all say America–not a good thing in Karachi, home to some of the most militantly anti-American Islamic organizations in Pakistan.
“I love the American way of life, but some don’t,” Faqih said. “And if you try to defend America, that can create a problem.”
Suleman Faqih is collateral damage in America’s war on terror.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft initially pitched the most sweeping immigration measure as one aimed especially at men from the countries on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Ultimately, though, his department labeled as “high national security concerns” tens of thousands of men from 19 other countries based solely on their nationalities and not because of any evidence tying them to terrorism.
And the entire exercise by the U.S. Justice Department–carried out by executive fiat and largely outside the realm of public debate–has not led to a single public charge of terrorism, although officials insist they have identified people with suspected ties to terrorism who were not charged criminally. One program sent teams of federal agents to hunt down immigration scofflaws selected by nationality while thousands of others from non-Muslim countries, including convicted criminals, wandered free.
A policy meant to make America safer has sowed resentment in the communities here and abroad that are needed to thwart potential terrorists, deepening suspicions of Muslims in America and around the globe that the U.S. government is anti-Islam.
The crackdown has sent men such as Faqih to uncertain futures and left other families without their sole breadwinner.
When he was an adolescent, Faqih’s parents had filed a fraudulent application for political asylum, a mistake Faqih was unaware of until he found himself in a New Jersey jail. For millions of illegal immigrants, such rule-bending is a fact of life and to this day poses little threat to them continuing to live in the U.S. But now it’s a ticket to deportation for men from Muslim countries.
The Bush administration defends the targeting of men from Muslim nations such as Faqih by saying it was a necessary attempt to ensure the nation’s security. Even some Pakistani Americans approve. “They should have been sent back,” said Fakhra Khan, the owner of a Chicago travel agency who grew up in Islamabad. “But it should be done to all the others as well–the Ukrainians, the Polish, Bosnians, Mexicans. Pakistanis are the ones bearing the brunt of this policy.”
In July, Suleman was loaded onto a plane from Niagara Falls, N.Y., to Islamabad, prisoner No. 54 on the fifth such flight to be filled with Pakistani men accused of immigration violations.
He lives with an older cousin in a modest but comfortable Karachi home.
Back in America, his relatives feel as though their family has been unfairly singled out. “Being Muslim is like a sin in this country now,” said his brother, Shan.
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FINDINGS
83,310
Foreign visitors from 24 predominantly Muslim nations* who registered with the U.S. government after Sept. 11, 2001, after the attorney general required them to do so.
13,740
Number of those ordered into deportation proceedings.
0
Number publicly charged with terror crimes, although officials say a few have terrorism connections.
*North Koreans are also required to register.
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Coming Sunday
To gauge the impact of new immigration policies aimed at men primarily from Muslim countries, Tribune reporters Cam Simpson, Flynn McRoberts and Liz Sly tracked a July 24 flight of deportees from the U.S. to Pakistan. Some of their stories will be told in a three-part series, beginning Sunday in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
