Lawyers Concerned About Legal Needs of Hundreds Held on Immigration Charges
By Darlene Superville Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 3, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) - Arrested at a gas station near his California home, Tarek Mohamed Fayad was held in one detention center, then another, then was sent cross-country to New York City. It took a lawyer more than a month to find him.
Bringing client and attorney together is proving difficult for some of those swept up in the terrorist manhunt, lawyers say, despite government assurances that they will have access to counsel.
It's more of a problem for obscure detainees than for those with high profiles. Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person charged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was represented in court this week by two public defenders and a private court-appointed attorney. John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban fighter held abroad by the U.S. military, is represented from afar by one of San Francisco's most prominent attorneys.
At last count, more than 500 people, mostly of Middle Eastern descent, were in federal custody. Most of them are accused of immigration violations.
Lawyers talk of some detainees being moved from place to place and others limited to one telephone call a week.
"People are being held secretly. Friends and relatives don't know where they are," said Robert Precht, director of the Office of Public Service at the University of Michigan Law School.
Fayad, 34, an Egyptian dentist who came to the United States in 1998, was arrested near his Colton, Calif., home two days after the attacks, accused of violating his student visa.
Bond, originally set at $2,500, was revoked. Friends hired Los Angeles immigration lawyer Valerie Curtis-Diop, who said she tracked him down after a month of telephone calls to federal officials.
"I've never had this kind of difficulty locating or communicating with a client, never," she said.
Nearly four months after his arrest, Fayad remains in a New York detention center and faces deportation, Curtis-Diop said. The FBI has cleared him of terrorist involvement, she said.
Detainees held on immigration charges, like Fayad, aren't entitled to federal public defenders and must hire attorneys or find volunteer lawyers. Many have few acquaintances in their adopted communities who can help.
Some immigration court hearings are being closed to the public, including the defendants' families, cutting off a potential source of information about the detainees.
They won't be freed until the FBI finishes investigating the tips that brought them to the attention of authorities in the first place, immigration officials say.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has promised to make sure detainees in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service know of their right to an attorney. Lists of lawyers who work for free are distributed to them, and lawyers are also brought through the detention centers regularly to meet potential clients, Ashcroft has said.
"I do not intend to hold individuals without access to counsel and we will take steps to make sure that we don't," he has said.
But the process is not always smooth. Some lawyers on the pro-bono lists turned out not to be handling immigration cases, and one list included a wrong telephone number for the Legal Aid Society of New York, said Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The group knows of about 70 attorneys who are representing detainees. But with hundreds in custody, "it's a good hunch that many of these folks are unrepresented," Butterfield said.
"The reality is, very sadly, we don't know if these people's legal needs are being met," said Irwin Schwartz, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups recently sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act to get basic information about the people it is holding.
Some information about people facing criminal charges - 116 people at last count - is public, as with Moussaoui, who appeared in court Wednesday on federal conspiracy charges.
Details about others, such as those who face immigration charges or are thought to have information crucial to the terrorist investigation, are being kept confidential.
Ashcroft says some of these people could belong to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, and identifying them could aid the enemy.
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