https://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2003/06/17/La-Roche-student-s-lawyers-seek-bond-hearing/stories/200306170030
La Roche student's lawyers seek bond hearing
Lawyers are seeking bond for a Jordanian student from La Roche College being held in York County Prison for failing to register with immigration authorities.
Abdelqader K. Abu-Snaineh, a 21-year-old junior, was arrested last week on campus. He has been held without after being categorized as a Level 1 detainee, the highest risk classification.
Abu-Snaineh failed to meet an April 25 deadline that was part of a massive, post-9/11 federal effort to register thousands of men from 25 mostly Muslim countries.
Some 144,000 people registered under that program, and more than 13,000 of them face deportation because of visa violations, but Abu-Snaineh is one of the first to be picked up solely for failing to register.
He had no prior immigration violations, his visa was valid and he is a student in good standing at the college.
A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not know how many people have been detained for failing to register.
"My impression is that there are not many people missed" during the Special Registration period, said Sarah Mouw.
His lawyers say that Abu-Snaineh is being classified as a high-risk detainee without justification.
"It will be very interesting to see what happens at this bond hearing," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pittsburgh ACLU, which is representing Abu-Snaineh. "We'll see if they maintain that this guy is a security or flight risk."
Abu-Snaineh's lawyers believe his case will be the first test of the Bush administration's response to a blistering internal critique of its handling of post-Sept. 11 detainees.
The report by the inspector general of the U.S. Justice Department blasted federal authorities for classifying detainees as high-risk with little evidence to support it, holding people without bond for long periods of time, denying detainees access to lawyers, and mistreating prisoners in detention facilities.
"The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement position on not letting [Abu-Snaineh] out on bail is coming a week after the inspector general crucified the administration for designating detainees as terrorists" without justifying the classification, said Walczak.
Walczak said it will be the first indication of whether the federal government intends to follow through on its announcement last week that it plans to incorporate changes recommended in the inspector general's report.
Mouw, the bureau spokeswoman, said that failure to register did not automatically trigger Level 1, nor did it mean the detainee should automatically be held without bond.
"That would be on a case-by-case basis," said Mouw. "It would depend on so many other factors."
Abu-Snaineh was transported from the Allegheny County Jail to York County Prison Friday, and is now waiting to see whether he will be granted a bond hearing in Immigration Court there. He faces deportation proceedings.
Robert Whitehill, an immigration attorney who is representing Abu-Snaineh on behalf of the ACLU, last week sought to have the bond hearing via telephone so that Abu-Snaineh could remain here. Yesterday he got notice that immigration authorities in York refused to accept his bond appeal because Abu-Snaineh was now in York. Whitehill refiled the appeal yesterday and hopes to hear today.
He will argue that his client should not be categorized as a high-risk detainee.
Jordan is among the countries targeted by the Special Registration program, which required males 16 and older to report to immigration authorities to be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed in an effort to identify nonresident aliens with connections to terrorism.
Though the program was aimed at terrorism, it has found many more immigration violators than terrorists. Of the 13,434 people detained, 136 people were arrested on criminal charges. No information on whether any of those criminal charges involved terrorism is available, said Mouw.
The Islamic Council of Greater Pittsburgh and Jamaat for Justice, local organizations that alerted the American Civil Liberties Union and immigration lawyers of the arrest, have been in touch with Abu-Snaineh from the beginning, said Saleh Waziruddin, who has been working to help Abu-Snaineh. The local Muslim community has secured more than $1,500 in pledges to help pay Abu-Snaineh's bond, should his request for bail be granted in York, Waziruddin said.
La Roche notified the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that Abu-Snaineh hadn't registered by the deadline.
The college later issued a statement from Ken Service, vice president for institutional relations, which said that the school's "original determination on this issue was based on what we believed was a correct interpretation of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement regulations," and that the interpretation is now being reviewed. Service said yesterday that review was still going on.
The school is in touch with Abu-Snaineh's attorneys and supports bail for him. He said that both he and college President Monsignor William Kerr "stand ready to do whatever appears to be helpful in this case."
First Published June 17, 2003, 12:00am
