Holiday Greetings From the INS: Hit the Road

Shahla and Mo Jamal (Photo By John Anderson)

On Dec. 16, 2002, six separate letters arrived for the six members of the Jamal family -- and they did not contain good news. The letters, from the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Board of Immigration Appeals, informed the six Jamals that they have until Jan. 13 to leave the United States voluntarily, or else face forced deportation. "We came to America because we were looking for a place to spread our message to all people," says Mo Jamal, a violinist, artist, and, with his wife Shahla, host of KOOP's Sunday radio program The Persian Hour. "We want to spread love and peace and the fact that we suffer from a lack of [both]."

Mo and Shahla Jamal left Iran with their four children 17 years ago, seeking political asylum. Their first stop was Germany, where they lived relatively peacefully for nine years before again fleeing for safer ground. Again the family sought political asylum, this time in the U.S. They have lived in Austin for the past eight years. "At that time there was a rise in terrorism in Europe," said Mo Jamal. "And it became a bad situation in Germany with the rise of a new racism. The skinheads were becoming very aggressive on the streets. If you had black hair -- and it didn't matter if you were a German or not -- it was dangerous." America, the family thought, was a sort of "center of the world," where they assumed they would be safe and able to live in peace as artists.

Shortly after arriving in the U.S., the family applied for political asylum with the INS. Three years later, the INS sent notice of its initial decision: They would not be allowed to stay. The INS position is that since the family had left Iran and landed in Germany -- considered a "safe third country" -- they had no need for political asylum here. The family promptly appealed, but on Dec. 16, eight years after their original application, they received the INS's final denial. The family is facing forced deportation, with an unknown destination. Their papers allowing them to live in Germany have long since expired, and the INS's appeal board also ruled that based on their original asylum claim, they cannot be returned to Iran. "So we have nowhere to go," Shahla says. If they wanted to go to Canada or Mexico, they could do so illegally, says Mo. But that, he insists, would be contrary to their entire fight to stay here. "We don't want to do that," he said. "We are not bad people. We aren't terrorists or fanatics; we are artists." Their four sons, now ranging in age from 17 to 23, have come of age in the U.S. and consider themselves Americans.

According to Ben Johnson, a spokesman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C., the Jamals' story is all too common. "The substantive claim that the INS is making to deny their claim -- that they were already in a safe third country -- has been a part of the asylum law for a while," he said. "This often comes up as an issue." People are often rejected because the INS takes this view on third countries whatever the circumstances. Yet people seeking political asylum will often need to make a quick move; even if they are planning, ultimately, to emigrate to America, they may be unable to get the proper papers to make the trip. "So if they are not well-versed in obtaining fake passports or visas it is very difficult to get here," he says. So if they go somewhere else first, eventually make it to the U.S., and then subsequently have their asylum claims denied, their lives are completely disrupted. "The [long time it takes] to adjudicate these legitimate claims allows those [waiting] to develop roots and ties to their communities," Johnson concludes. "And then, very unceremoniously [the INS] says, 'Sorry, you're gone,' with no regard to those ties or for the work they've put into their communities. That particular reality happens all the time."

The Jamals are living the consequences. "Our lives, our routines, have changed," says Shahla. "Everything is chaos. We don't know what's going to happen to us." Word of their predicament traveled quickly, says KOOP spokesman Rodney Garza, and the station's programmers began a vigorous letter and e-mail campaign to elected officials. The only substantive response has come from U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, whose office is working double time to find some way to delay the deportation date. "We're at least trying to help buy them some time," says Doggett's District Director Kristi Willis. "They could appeal the decision to the 5th Circuit [Court of Appeals], but that would likely take a long time, and they would probably have to leave while waiting for a decision." (And it's hard to envision a better result for the Jamals at the extremely conservative 5th Circuit.) Willis says Doggett is also working with the German government to get legal permission for the Jamals to return there. The alternative, a forced deportation, would mean the Jamals would be banned from entry to the U.S. for 15 years. "We are trying to avoid deportation; that is such a harsh measure," Willis said.

Shahla and Mo say they have also contacted a deportation attorney in San Antonio and are trying concurrently to secure an extension to the INS order. "This is the most frustrating work," says Shahla. "Everything else in our lives has just stopped. We are concerned, and nothing is certain; nothing is quiet in my heart."