Gulet Mohamed, 19, sued the government Tuesday in US District Court in Alexandria, and within hours a judge had scheduled an emergency hearing on Mohamed’s request for an order forcing the government to permit his return.
US District Judge Anthony Trenga said Mohamed’s inability to return to the US appears to be a “clear violation” of his rights, but he said Mohamed’s lawyers with the Council on American-Islamic Relations needed to submit sworn statements to bolster their case. He scheduled another hearing on Thursday to follow up on the government’s assertion that Mohamed will soon be on his way home and to allow Mohamed’s lawyers another chance to prove their case, if necessary.
“It is clear on the face of the complaint ... that this individual, absent some extraordinary circumstance, would have an absolute right to re-enter the United States,” Trenga said during Tuesday’s hearing.
Mohamed was born in Somalia but is a naturalized US citizen who immigrated at age 3 and most recently lived in the Alexandria area. In March of 2009, Mohamed traveled to Yemen and Somalia, where he still has family, to learn Arabic. He stayed in those countries for just a few months and settled in Kuwait in August 2009, where he lived with an uncle.
In December, when he applied for a routine visa extension, he was arrested by plainclothes agents and claims he was beaten and tortured. Interrogators whipped his feet and threatened to run electrical current through his genitals, Mohamed says.
The interrogators wanted to know about his time in Yemen and asked numerous questions about radical cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American who is hiding in Yemen and is believed to be a top Al-Qaeda recruiter. Mohamed denies that he had any contact with terrorists.
Mohamed says he was twice questioned by FBI agents, who told him that he would remain in Kuwaiti detention indefinitely if he continued to insist on having his lawyer present for questioning.
Mohamed alleges that his detention in Kuwait is entirely at the behest of the US government. In fact, he claims the Kuwaiti government tried to deport him but US officials would not let him on the plane because he is on the no-fly list.
Mohamed’s lawyer, Gadeir Abbas, called Tuesday’s hearing “a positive step” but was skeptical of the government’s assurance that Mohamed would be home soon. He said a government consular officer offered a similar assurance to Mohamed almost a month ago. Moreover, he said the government has a pattern of trying to avoid an adverse ruling in court on its administration of the no-fly list by acquiescing when called into court. Several lawsuits around the country are challenging the government’s use of the no-fly list.
Diane Kelleher, a Justice Department lawyer, refused to confirm to Trenga that Mohamed is indeed on the no-fly list. But she said Mohamed had failed to avail himself of administrative remedies for people who find their travel restricted.
She also said that while Mohamed may have a right to return to the United States, “he does not have a right to travel by airplane.” Abbas said that as a practical matter, a flight to the US is the only way he’ll be able to leave Kuwait because Kuwait will only deport people by airplane directly to their home country.
In its lawsuit, CAIR alleges that the no-fly list has expanded dramatically in the last year and that 400,000 individuals have now been placed on the list.
CAIR has represented others who found themselves in similar legal limbo. The group alleges that FBI uses such status as an excuse to try to interrogate Americans on foreign soil where they are isolated from friends and family and less likely to assert their legal rights.
In July, CAIR successfully advocated for Yahya Wehelie, 26, who was stuck in Egypt and faced aggressive interrogations while he was on the no-fly list. After weeks of delay, Wehelie was eventually allowed to return to the US Mohamed’s mother and other family members attended Tuesday’s hearing but declined comment. Abbas said it is wrong for the government or anyone else to assume Mohamed was engaged in something nefarious because he traveled to Yemen and Somalia, two terrorist hotspots. For years, he said, Yemen has been a natural place to visit for people of Somali descent who want to learn Arabic.
“Somalis go to Yemen like Americans go to Canada,” Abbas said.
