Attorneys for members of a Palestinian family held for three months at immigrant detention centers in Haskell and Taylor on Thursday petitioned federal district courts to order their immediate release, saying that there is no legal basis for the government to hold them and that continued detention is unconstitutional.
The lawyers filed petitions for writs of habeas corpus in Dallas on behalf of Salaheddin Ibrahim, and in Austin for his wife, Hanan, who is five months' pregnant, and four of their children, Hamzeh, 15, Rodaina, 14; Maryam, 8, and Faten, 5.
Salaheddin, 37, is confined in Haskell. Hanan, 34, and the children are in the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor.
Another child, 3-year-old daughter Zahra, a U.S. citizen, is being cared for her by uncle in Dallas.
The petitions request that the courts order the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement to explain why relief should not be granted.
Attorneys contend that the health of Hanan and her unborn child are imperiled, as are the "psychological, emotional, and mental health of all petitioners."
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Antonio said the agency would not comment on pending legal matters.
According to attorneys Joshua Bardavid and Theodore Cox of New York, the Ibrahims entered the United States legally on or about Sept. 30, 2001, with visas and temporary Jordanian-issued passports.
Shortly afterward, they filed applications for asylum, alleging long histories of deaths, beatings and violence in their Palestinian villages by Israeli forces. On Jan. 15, 2003, an immigration judge denied the requests and ordered the Ibrahims deported.
But Bardavid said the government never issued a letter ordering the family to report for removal.
Federal immigration agents apprehended them at their Richardson home in a midnight raid Nov. 3.
Bardavid said federal statutes prohibit the government from detaining someone six months after the date they were ordered removed unless it can be proved that the person is exceptionally dangerous — "and that is certainly not the case here" — or that removal is imminent.
The attorney said the Ibrahims can't be deported, "despite their willingness," because neither they nor the government is able to secure their right to cross into their Palestinian homeland, where they fear almost certain persecution.
"What they have told us is do whatever it takes, just get us out of here so we can be reunited," Bardavid said.
The petition yields new insight into conditions at the Taylor facility, which has been the subject of growing controversy in recent weeks for holding children and families. It is one of two facilities in the country that do so.
It charges that Hanan has not been provided medical treatment appropriate for a woman five months' pregnant and that she has been forced to remain standing on several occasions despite her complaints of fatigue or pain. According to her attorneys, she must be driven two hours to be examined by a qualified doctor, and she is placed in arm and leg shackles for the duration of her obstetrician/gynecologist visits.
The Seattle-based Arab American Community Coalition is helping pay for the legal challenge. Ritz Zawaideh, the coalition's chairwoman, said it is acting in behalf of the Ibrahims and all children because it believes imprisoning children is morally wrong.
Williamson County's 512-bed Hutto detention center began holding immigrant families in May under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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