Ibrahim Parlak is a Kurdish man who came to the United States in 1990 fleeing persecution in his native country, Turkey, where he’d been arrested and tortured for his affiliations with the political arm of the [Kurdistan] Workers’ Party, a Kurdish independence group, better known as the PKK. Once Parlak reached the United States, he was granted political asylum. A year later, he was granted permanent residence.
But all this changed in the years following 2001, when the FBI began to review old asylum files. In the years after Parlak arrived in the U.S., the U.S. government had designated the PKK a terrorist organization, and suddenly, this made Parlak a terrorist, too, although he said he was never a part of the PKK. In 2004, Parlak was arrested and threatened with deportation. But much to the surprise of the Department of Homeland Security, which had designated Parlak a terrorist, the community around him in Harbert, Michigan, rose to his defense. People built websites, organized letter-writing campaigns, held vigils, made so much noise that the agency released him.
But now his immigration case has suddenly come up again. The Department of Homeland Security has once again threatened Ibrahim Parlak with deportation, and has ordered him to apply for residency to some other country. He fears he’ll be returned to Turkey, where the increasing crackdown on Kurdish communities has killed hundreds and displaced 200,000 people from their homes.
Ibrahim Parlak talking:
Through the whole time, I’ve been trying to become a citizen, and I followed all the procedures and took the exam and passed the exam. Just when I was about to celebrate becoming a citizen, something came up, and they brought up that I had a connection in the past with Kurdish organizations. And I told them, at that time, “Nothing is new, and you should have known that, and all is in the file.” And so, since then, it’s just become sort of like this endless nightmare. And after September 11, it’s got more difficult. And it’s been continuing since then. And, you know, America became my second home. It’s my country. That’s where I live. That’s where my family is. That’s where my community is. That’s where my business is. So I’ve been fighting to stay.
Robert Carpenter talking:
when Ibrahim arrived to flee the torture that he was subjected to by the Turkish government, he was granted asylum. He presented all of the relevant facts as to his affiliation with the political arm of the PKK, which was not a terrorist organization at that time. And the government willingly approved his asylum and then his permanent residence. Some time later, when he applied for naturalization to become a U.S. citizen, the government revisited that application in light of the PKK having been designated a terrorist organization after the fact, and decided to try to, I believe, widen the breadth of the definition of terrorism and material support of a terrorist organization to encompass a retroactive application. And the courts upheld that reading of the law, as—frankly, as absurd of a principle as it is. And so, you know, after the removal case took place and after his appeals were exhausted, many people on both sides of the aisle politically came to his aid and pushed for him to receive what’s called deferred action, which would allow him to stay even if he had the deportation order. And that’s how he’s remained from 2009 until 2015. The other reason why he’s been able to remain with work authorization in the United States after that fact is because he’s stateless. Turkey revoked his citizenship. So there’s nowhere to send him to.
What’s changed now, as of two weeks ago, is that we received word that the government had, through back channels, acquired travel documents with the government of Turkey to, in fact, deport him to Turkey, even though he’s not a citizen there and has no real legal way of returning there. Now he does. And so, that was a game-changing piece of information. And so, we took a hard look at the file and are certain that he’ll be tortured if he’s returned to Turkey. And in light of current events, I think that it’s indisputable that he’ll be tortured if he’s returned to Turkey. So we filed a motion to reopen the case to have his claim under the Convention Against Torture, which is a U.N. convention the United States is a signatory to, re-examined by the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the underlying case reopened so that that claim for relief can be—so that the Board of Immigration Appeals can take a look at it again.
Ibrahim Parlak talking:
In the past, I’ve been many times taken under the police custody, and once held when the military curfew was issued, ’78, for almost three months held in the military custody. That’s when I was just about 16. And then, the latest was ’88. I was captured and put in jail, in it almost a month, for a month, mistreated, tortured. And it’s just—you know, it’s not a memory you want to revisit.
If I go back, what’s happened now, it’s sort of—I mean, to accepting even to go back there, for someone like me, have to be suicidal to do that, because it’s—the conditions over there, they are worse than even before. And, you know, you have over five cities now under curfew, hundreds of thousands of people pushed out of their homes. And, I mean, just this morning, when I was looking at the Turkish headlines, I mean, three Kurdish women in Silopi, they got assassinated. All they were doing, just humanitarian work for those people who are under curfew. And, you know, then you have someone like Tahir Elci, who was just trying to protect historical monument in the middle of the city, get assassinated. And you have journalists being taken away; even they won’t release information where they are. And then you have an immigrant, who had been deported back to Turkey from Russia, get beaten up at the airport in front of everybody, being as a traitor. And then you have the Turkish newspapers running headlines, since the Turkish government released information to them, that after 25 years, finally we got him. He’s on his way back.
it’s been a long journey. Through this long journey, the situation I’m in or I’m forced to be in, it’s hard to accept or hard to deal with on a daily basis. But one thing is for sure, that having the community and also having elected officials, someone like Senator Carl Levin, who introduced private bill every two years since 2005, and someone like Congressman Upton, who did the same thing, and still working hard to find a solution, and someone like Jan Schakowsky, and trying to do the right thing—
Robert Carpenter talking:
Ibrahim Parlak being returned to Turkey would be at odds with the Convention Against Torture, because it, under Article 3, prohibits the refoulment or return of an individual who is, more likely than not, going to be tortured upon his or her return. And I think that we’re well above that standard. We’re approaching a virtual certainty of him being persecuted upon his return.
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Ibrahim Parlak
a Kurd from Turkey who received asylum in the United States in 1992. He has lived in the U.S. for the last 25 years, but now faces deportation.
Robert Carpenter
Ibrahim Parlak’s attorney.
— source democracynow.org