JEDDAH, 27 November 2002 — In 1999, I lost my Saudi passport while in California. As a result, I came to see that the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” has somehow been removed from the US Constitution, and replaced with “hope for the best, but expect the worst.”
I was supposed to return to the Kingdom and sit through the mandatory two-year stay in order to get my passport reissued. Due to my studies and other circumstances in my life, that was not feasible. I approached the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service in order to renew my student visa but was told that I needed a valid passport.
I approached the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and was told I had to return to the Kingdom. It was a catch-22 situation: Either I had to return to the Kingdom for two years and put my studies on hold, or remain in the US out of status. I opted to stay in the US, a decision I would later come to regret.
A few weeks after Sept. 11 attacks, I was going about my daily routine when I was approached by a plainclothes INS agent, who asked me about my immigration status. I had a feeling that he already knew the answer. I was immediately arrested for being a Saudi Arabian citizen in the US on an expired student visa.
The months that followed were a legal and emotional roller coaster ride. I was about to be subjected to things I thought never existed in the United States of America.
After being handcuffed, I knew I was headed to jail. In my mind, I assumed that the INS jail would be nothing like the jails you see on television. After all, I hadn’t killed anyone. As soon as I was allowed a phone call, I called the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles. I told them who I was and explained the situation. They said they would do everything possible to help me. The employee at the consulate asked me if I was a pilot. When I said “no”, I heard him breathe a sigh of what I took to be relief.
Within a short space of time, I found myself in solitary confinement, allowed out of my cell for only one hour every two days to shower and exercise and use the telephone. Anytime I was removed from my cell and returned, I was stripped completely naked and forced to endure the humiliation of a visual body cavity search, sometimes as often as four times a day. Anytime I was transported within the jail I was waist-chained and shackled.
Although not charged with any violent crime, I was held in the maximum-security unit of the jail commonly used for housing murderers, physically combative and problematic inmates, serial killers and violent offenders. For several weeks I protested my harsh conditions of confinement, and was not given an explanation for them. The Saudi Arabian Embassy hired an attorney at its own expense in an attempt to take me out of solitary confinement and quicken my deportation, but was unsuccessful. The willingness to help on the part of the representatives of the Kingdom and their continuous contact with my family here in Jeddah were reassuring and I felt that my country was standing behind me. That gave me strength.
Most of the guards were professional, but Officers Aguilar, J. Hernandez, Barron and Huynh with the Department of Correction made it obvious that they did not like Arabs.
One night, after being strip-searched and then shackled, I was taken out of my cell by them and placed in a small holding cell about one square meter in size for about two hours. When I complained to the guards that I needed to use a restroom, I was slapped in the face by Aguilar and had my face slammed into the wall twice.
I was unable to defend myself as I was shackled and waist-chained. I suffered bruising to my right eye, wrists and ankles as a result of being beaten and dragged. I tried to file an official complaint against the guards, but was prevented from doing so.
My cell was four meters long and two and a half meters wide, with only a bed, desk and stainless steel toilet in it. There was a small window with bars on it that looked out onto the street below.
I spent a lot of my time reading books that friends sent me and writing letters and praying. None of the guards would tell me why I was being held in solitary confinement and the Immigration and Naturalization Service did not reply to my letters. The attorneys hired by the embassy met with the same results. There was a complete lack of information.
I was not allowed contact with anyone except the guards. There was an Arab-American guard during the first two weeks I was in solitary confinement. He explained to me that the reason I was being held in solitary confinement was that I was an Arab.
He expressed regret that there was really nothing he could do to get me out of solitary confinement and that he had to follow orders or risk losing his job. He did his best to make conditions easier by bringing me a newspaper to read, visiting me from time to time and providing me with extra food. He never strip-searched me and sometimes allowed me a little extra time out of my cell. When his supervisor decided that he was giving me special treatment, he was transferred to another part of the jail, and I never saw him again.
On the final day of this ordeal, I was awakened at 7 a.m. and told that I was being transferred to another jail. I was then taken handcuffed from the jail to the main immigration office holding cell where I was held until 11 that night. There were other Arabs from Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine awaiting deportation. They were shocked that the United States was now deporting Saudis.
At 11 p.m. I was driven to the airport with a fellow deportee from Tonga. While I waited for my flight to take off at 1:50 a.m., I had a chance to sit and speak at length with a female Immigration and Naturalization Lieutenant Agent.
She was almost apologetic about the fact that I was being deported, especially after having lived in the US for 15 years. She said she was very sad about the events of Sept. 11 and the resulting bad press the Arabs had received throughout the world. She did not think that the events of Sept. 11 were representative of all Arabs and Muslims and hoped that the American people could see this.
I thanked her for her kindness, and was then escorted to the plane and flown to Riyadh.
