U.S. Presents First Evidence in Bid to Deport Palestinian

Twenty-seven months after the arrests of eight aliens for allegedly belonging to a terrorist group, the government for the first time Wednesday presented evidence in U.S. Immigration Court designed to deport at least one of them.

Separately, a government document recently filed in the controversial case provided a new glimpse into how it evolved.

Ernest E. Gustafson, director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Los Angeles district office, said in a federal court declaration that its roots went back to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

At that time, Gustafson said, a federal-local anti-terrorist task force identified the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine “as one of the designated terrorist groups” in Los Angeles that posed a danger to the Games.

Based on this information, he said, the INS and the FBI opened an investigation in March, 1985, on the eight aliens the government has alleged were PFLP members.

The aliens, seven Palestinians and a Kenyan, have denied belonging to the PFLP, which has a terrorist history. No criminal charges were filed against them.

One of the aliens’ attorneys, Peter A. Schey, called Gustafson’s history of the case “patently absurd.” He charged that the eight were actually arrested in January, 1987, in violation of their civil rights because of political activism on behalf of Palestinian causes.

“It’s obvious that the underlying motivation (for the deportation effort) clearly remains political in nature,” Schey said after Wednesday’s hearing before Immigration Judge Ingrid K. Hrycenko.

The first Palestinian to be called to the deportation proceeding Wednesday was Amjad Obeid, 25, of Long Beach, who was an engineering student at Cal State Long Beach when he was arrested.

Like the others, he had originally been accused under the McCarthy Era McCarran-Walter Act with advocating world communism. A federal judge in Los Angeles last December struck down the act’s political provisions under which the aliens were charged.

All eight were briefly jailed when immigration officials declared that they represented a national security risk.

Shortly after the charges drew fire from Arab and civil rights groups, the government changed the allegations.

Khader Hamide, 35, of Los Angeles and Michel Shehadeh, 33, of Long Beach were accused of being the local PFLP leaders and were recharged with advocating “the unlawful damage, injury or destruction of property.”

Charges against two other Palestinians were eventually dropped.

But Amjad Obeid; his brother, Ayman Obeid; Julie Mungai of Kenya, who is Hamide’s wife, and Basher Amer of Los Angeles still face lesser immigration charges that could lead to their deportation. Their cases are now being heard.

In Amjad Obeid’s case, immigration officials allege that three years ago, while a college student at Cal State Long Beach, he got a job without government approval--a deportable offense.

James W. Moser, a retired immigration investigator, testified that he began surveillance of Obeid in 1986 at the request of the FBI when he became a liaison to that agency’s anti-terrorist unit.

Moser said the FBI wanted to know if Obeid “could be deported” on technical or nonpolitical, grounds. Moser said he found that Obeid was working at a 7-Eleven store in Artesia without INS authorization.

After an examination of the 7-Eleven company’s payroll records, “I concluded he was probably deportable,” Moser told the court.

Two other payroll officials for the 7-Eleven store group also testified that Amjad Obeid worked for the Artesia outlet.

“Did you ever see (Obeid) work” at the store, Hrycenko asked.

“No, I did not,” Moser responded.

Moreover, he said, “I never could keep them straight,” referring to Amjad and his older brother, Ayman, who apparently also worked at the store.

In response to allegations by attorneys for the defendants that the government altered charges against six of the aliens because it could not prove subversion, Hrycenko said there was “nothing irregular about that.”

A decision on whether Amjad Obeid will be deported was put over until today .