CHRI urges supporters of immigrant rights to take immediate action on this
case. Please note that Ansar is being deported allegedly because he helped some friends who had overstayed their visas. Many millions of people in the U.S. are out-of-status--our relatives, our friends, our neighbors, ourselves. If helping out a friend is a crime, will they arrest us all?

Please note that the date and phone number on this urgent action have been
corrected over earlier versions. The urgent action is followed by articles from
yesterday's Washington Post and New York Times.

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 09:57:37 -0400
From: Susan Davies

A terrible decision, but it's NOT over!

Department of Homeland Security Decides to Deport Ansar Mahmood
CALL IN! To Urge the Government to RECONSIDER
Friday, July 2, 2004, from 2pm to 4pm.

In the same week that the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the rights of detainees, the Department of Homeland Security has denied indefinite detainee Ansar Mahmood his own freedom. Thousands of people in the United States and abroad have expressed support for this young Pakistani, who lived and worked in the U.S. legally until he was taken by the government in the post 9/11 sweeps. But the District Director of Immigration & Customs Enforcement has turned a deaf ear to Ansar's community. We need the government - our government - to reconsider.

Please help us by making one phone call THIS FRIDAY, JULY 2nd FROM 2-4 PM to Victor Cerda, Detention & Removal Office, 202-514-8663 [corrected #] or
202-305-2734 or FAX Mr. Cerda at any time during the day at 202-306-9659.

Please be polite in your comments. Below is a statement you can use:

*** I urge the Department of Homeland Security to reconsider its decision in
the case of Ansar Mahmood, a young Pakistani man caught in the post 9/11
dragnet. Before being detained he was living and delivering pizza in Hudson,
NY. His community and his supporters around the world have been fighting for
his freedom for 2 years. Ansar has hundreds of letters of support from
individuals and NGOs, as well as the support of eight U.S. senators and 20
members of Congress! District Director William Cleary just issued a decision
denying Ansar's request for deferred action. Please reverse this decision and
return Ansar to his American community. ***

For more information on how to support this campaign, contact:
* Ansar Mahmood Defense Committee: Susan Davies @ 518.392.9477 or Bob Elmendorf @ 518.766.2992. Also see www.chathampeace.org
* Families for Freedom: Aarti Shahani @ 212.898.4121

And, please, pass this on to others who might be sympathetic to Ansar Mahmood's cause. Thanks!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16136-2004Jun29.html

Detainee to Be Deported On Immigration Charges Supporters Allege Racial Profiling in Case

By Michelle Garcia
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page A06

NEW YORK, June 29 -- A Pakistani immigrant detained almost three years
ago after taking autumn photographs near an Upstate New York reservoir
lost a final appeal on Tuesday and faces deportation.

In the end, dozens of members of Congress, an international circle of supporters and a flurry of petitions could not stop the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from issuing a deportation order for Ansar Mahmood, 27. A pizza deliveryman, Mahmood is one of the longest-held detainees from a roundup of Arab and Muslim men in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Federal officials took Mahmood into custody in October 2001, not long after he asked a stranger to shoot his photo as the sun dipped behind the Catskills Mountains. Federal officials feared that he might be a terrorist scouting the reservoir, which was in the background of the photo, for a possible attack. They later cleared Mahmood of any such suspicions.

But when federal agents searched Mahmood's house, they found evidence that he had co-signed for an apartment and registered a car as a favor to two illegal immigrants. That was a deportable crime, federal immigration officials said.

William Cleary, an immigration field director in Buffalo, wrote to Mahmood: "You received extraordinary benefit under this country's generous immigration system and immediately set out to violate and undermine that very system."

Mahmood's lawyer said the government is being vindictive. This ruling "just shows a lack of compassion by the current administration," Rolando Velasquez said. "Ansar's case highlights just how draconian those [immigration law] changes really are."

Advocates have rallied around the soft-spoken Pakistani, believing that he had become a victim of a roundup that targeted Arab and Muslim immigrants, and was charged with a crime that before the terrorist attacks would have gone unnoticed. Susan Davies, a Chatham, N.Y., resident who helped lead the movement to free Mahmood, said: "His case was so clearly a case of racial profiling, it seemed only right that they shouldn't deport him."

Mahmood, a legal permanent resident, entered the United States in 2000 after winning an immigration lottery. He sent money to Pakistan to support his family there, and his supporters called him a model of what the United States hopes for from its immigrants.

An immigration judge first ordered his deportation in July 2002, a decision upheld this week. Immigration officials said Tuesday that racial profiling was not a factor.

"It has no bearing on the case," said Michael Gilhooly, spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "The facts of the case cannot be disputed."

Supporters have vowed to push for a last-minute reprieve. But nothing short of a congressionally approved bill can stop his deportation.

Mary Lavelle, a secretary in Velasquez's office, said she has heard her share of creative client stories, but still took the uncharacteristic move of joining the movement to free Mahmood. Lavelle said she was "brokenhearted" by the ruling.

"If America had Ansars for citizens, this would be such a wonderful place to live," she said. "He is everything we should want for a citizen."

Mahmood called his lawyer's office, Lavelle said, to ask how his supporters had taken the news and then added: " 'Don't worry about me. I'm strong.' "

(c) 2004 The Washington Post Company

***

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/nyregion/30hudson.html

Mahmood called his lawyer's office, Lavelle said, to ask how his supporters had
taken the news and then added: " 'Don't worry about me. I'm strong.' "

June 30, 2004, New York Times
Cleared of Terror, Pakistani Faces Deportation on Felony
By LISA W. FODERARO

A former pizza deliveryman who raised suspicions after the Sept. 11 terror
attack by photographing a scenic vista in Hudson, N.Y., near a local
water-treatment plant, was told yesterday that he must leave the country.

The decision by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement means
that arrangements to deport the deliveryman, Ansar Mahmood, 27, a legal
immigrant from Pakistan, will begin immediately.

Mr. Mahmood was cleared of any ties to terrorism, including tampering with the
water supply. But investigators charged him with harboring illegal aliens, a
felony, after uncovering evidence that he had helped some Pakistanis with
expired visas obtain housing and a car, according to immigration officials.

Mr. Mahmood pleaded guilty to the charge in early 2002 and faced deportation as a result. He has been held in a federal detention center outside Buffalo, where he has continued to challenge his deportation, aided by a group of peace
advocates in Columbia County, where he lived and worked.

After withdrawing his final appeal, Mr. Mahmood sought to have his deportation
deferred, a rarely used discretionary action by Immigration and Customs
Enforcement that places a lower priority on an alien's removal from the
country. The practical result is that the individual is allowed to stay.

But in turning down his request, the agency contended that Mr. Mahmood "chose to break the immigration laws which allowed him to immigrate to this country" in the first place, said Michael W. Gilhooly, an agency spokesman. (Mr. Mahmood had won a green card through a lottery in Pakistan.)

Mr. Gilhooly said the decision showed that the agency was "committed to
returning the integrity to this country's immigration system."

Mr. Mahmood's supporters criticized the action. Senator Charles E. Schumer, who had written on Mr. Mahmood's behalf along with six other United States
senators, said in a phone interview that the decision demonstrated the "brutal
unfairness" of the agency's "zero tolerance policy."

The peace advocates who rallied to Mr. Mahmood's support faulted the federal
government for prosecuting Mr. Mahmood while ignoring the many American
citizens who harbor illegal aliens by employing nannies and other household
help.

Mr. Mahmood, one of nine children, had told a number of journalists who covered his case that he wanted to stay in the United States so he could continue to support his impoverished family in Pakistan.