Start the New Year off Right, Please Help Save a Family
The Ibrahims came to the United States legally and applied for asylum. They have been honest and forthright with immigration from the beginning. They were denied asylum and have filed to reopen their asylum case. In the meantime, the family is to be deported and is being held in jail! As an American citizen, the 2-year-old daughter was ripped from her mother’s arms and is in a foster home.
The plot thickens:
To make matters worse, as Palestinian refugees from the Occupied Palestinian Territories they have no travel documents. The US government has attempted to obtain Jordanian passports for the family but the applications were denied. The family will have to languish another month in jail while ICE contacts the Israeli embassy. Even though Israel has no jurisdiction to issue travel documents to Palestinians to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, ICE insists on contacting Israel. In the past, Israel has issued illegal documents with ICE flying deportees into Tel Aviv and the deportees marched across the border to the West Bank in Palestine. It is extremely dangerous for Palestinians to enter Palestine with Israeli travel documents. The family would be marked with suspicion.
A family in jail:
The pregnant mother, Hanan Ahmad, is in one cell with her 5-year-old daughter, Faten. The 7- and 12-year-old sisters – Maryam and Rodaina – share another cell. The 15-year-old boy, Hamzeh, is in yet another cell at T. Don Hutto jail. The father and husband, Salaheddin Ibrahim, is being held in another jail in Haskell , Texas. Born in the US, the youngest daughter, only 2-years-old, is living with strangers in a foster home. The little 5-year-old girl, Faten, is constantly getting in trouble with the guards yelling at her to stand still during population counts, which are taken four times daily. Maryam, the 7-year-old cries for her mother at night. Maryam, Rodaina and Hamzeh have missed nearly two months of school. The children miss their father, their baby sister, other family members and friends. The pregnant mother feels sick, tired and overwhelmed. The family is separated and scared not knowing what the future holds.
Not only is this a waste of our tax dollars ($95 per person per day), it is inhumane and unjust!
What can you do to help this family?
Please contact ICE Field Office Director, Marc Jeffery Moore, @ 210-967-7175 and ask him to release the family on house arrest. You can also contact U.S. Department of Homeland Security @ Operator Number: 202-282-8000 or Comment Line: 202-282-8495
If you live in Texas, please contact your Senators and State Representative and ask him or her to intercede in this tragic story. Click on the link below to find out who represents you in the Congress. http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm
You can either right your own letter or use sample letters attached to this email.
Please donate money
Legal fees to save the Ibrahim family will be costly.
Please send checks payable to:
“Arab American Community Coalition” Legal Defense – Ibrahim Family to:
P.O. Box 31642, Seattle, WA 98103
All donations are tax-deductible with 100% of your donation going to the Ibrahim Family.
Please don’t forget to check if your organization has a matching program.
For more information please contact
info@theaacc.org.
For an article on the Ibrahim family, please go to:
http://www.counterpunch.org/moses12282006.html
For a video showing the family on local news:
http://www.nbc5i.com/video/10471070/index.html
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Note: Attachment received via email from Rita Zawaideh, theaacc.org and circulated, with photos of the Ibrahim girls, by Jay J. Johnson-Casto with the following note:
Hey Greg…
Doesn’t’ this look like the most intimidating family you’ve ever seen…and a threat to our national security? No wonder Chertoff & Company raided their home a couple of months back.
Notice the propaganda on the kids’ shirts. And…Plaaeeze! A piece sign? What those parents must be doing to corrupt their children’s’ minds…and force them to fake that they believe in some symbol of freedom and peace! I trust that ICE will make sure that there is no peace for these embedded terrorists!
Aren’t we more secure not that we have these little terrorists locked up at the Hutto prison camp over there in Taylor , Texas ? Better yet…how heads-up on the part of ICE to have them divided into two cells…for 22 hours a day. And at what cost to we, the American tax payers? Absolutely no more than $20,000 a month to protect America from these potential terrorists.
Now that it’s been determined that after 10 years of having this family living in the US…and now that it has been decided by ICE that they’re going to be deported without a hearing…I wonder what it’s going to cost us to send them back to the Middle East. Cool move that ICE is shipping them to the Israelis…and not to some Muslim country!
Once we get these little terrorists out of the country…who then will get that nicely furnished home of theirs? Does ICE have to ship them their jewelry and furnishings too? If not…who gets it? Will we get a notice if their valuables are going to be sold at an auction? I love a good deal.
Oh! And who gets to keep the youngest one? You know! The 2-year-old that was taken from the family and sent to a foster home? Will she be up for adoption? If so…for how much will she go on the auction block? And who will get that money?
BYW Greg…also attached is a document from Rita. She explains what can be done…if someone were to actually thinks that this family is getting a raw deal by ICE…and wished to help this family…
Jay
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Border Ambassador
Connecting the dots…Making a difference
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Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.
Texas Civil Rights Review 