3 Yemeni Siblings Get Caught Up in Immigration Sweep

The knock on the door of the Silver Lake apartment came shortly after 3 a.m., Sidqi Sobhi recalls.

It was the FBI and the agents wanted answers, he said. Why did his name and address appear on an insurance form for a man somehow linked to one of the Sept. 11 hijackers?

By sunrise, he and his brother and sister--all Yemeni nationals who have shared the apartment for years--had been handcuffed, arrested and hauled off to the basement of the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles.

Following more than two weeks in custody, Sidqi Sobhi, 26, and his sister, Lamia, 23, were freed on bond late Friday after a government lawyer said in court that they were not national security risks. They still face deportation for violating student visas.

Their 32-year-old brother, Sobhi Mustafa Sobhi, remains in custody on more serious immigration violations. Authorities have given no indication he faces any federal charges other than ignoring an April deportation order.

All three could be expelled to a nation where, they say, they have little future and could suffer retribution for their Western ways.

Friends say the Sobhis are among the collateral casualties of the terrorist acts, swept up by extraordinary circumstances and bad luck.

“They have been pulled out of their home,” said Connie Vassilev, a Los Angeles real estate agent. “And we have a whole community saying, ‘Wait a minute. They belong here with us.’ ”

Were it not for the nationwide search for those with information about the terrorist attacks, it is highly unlikely the Immigration and Naturalization Service would have ever found the three, regardless of their status problems. As of Friday, 156 people questioned in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks had wound up in INS custody, the agency said. Many were turned over to the INS once FBI agents were satisfied they had nothing to do with the attacks.

In the case of the Sobhis, the INS charges that both Sidqi and his sister, Lamia, violated the terms of their student visas by dropping out of college. Both are seeking to have their student visas reinstated, said their attorney, David M. Illions, after a court hearing Wednesday.

The eldest sibling, Sobhi, faces a much more difficult path. He violated a deportation order issued after years of unsuccessful appeals on his failed application for political asylum. Sobhi, who moved to the U.S. almost 12 years ago, is subject to immediate expulsion and is not eligible for bond.

“I cannot go back there,” Sobhi said in a telephone interview from the Mira Loma Detention Center near the Mojave Desert. “If I go back there, the least that will happen is that I get thrown into a . . . dungeon.

“I’ll go to the moon before I go there.”

The prospect of Sobhi’s forced removal has stunned the wide circle of friends and co-workers of the affable amateur rugby player, fashion consultant, event promoter and self-described “social butterfly.”

His friends call him a thoroughly Americanized bon vivant dedicated to his younger brother and sister.

“Sobhi’s probably one of the most American people you’ll ever know,” said Brooke Phillips, who worked with Sobhi at a Los Angeles Zoo cafe this year. “Sobhi is like everybody’s brother. He’s someone you can always rely on.”

Friends say Sobhi’s dyed hair, multiple earrings and tattoos highlight his alienation from Yemen, the Arab nation that was the site of the suicide attack a year ago on the Cole, a Navy destroyer.

Vassilev is orchestrating a letter-writing and fund-raising campaign on behalf of the family. She met Sobhi nine years ago when the two worked at the Ketchum YMCA in downtown Los Angeles.

“There are people you meet in your life whom you’ll never forget,” Vassilev said. “Sobhi is one of those kinds of people.”

Already, she said, friends have contributed more than $16,000 for the family’s legal defense.

But community support and character are not the issue, say lawmakers and activists pushing to deport millions of visa violators in the wake of the attacks.

“No matter how sympathetic these people may be, if they violated immigration laws they need to face the consequences,” said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

The Sobhis say they come from a middle-class Yemeni family. Their father, Mustafa Sobhi, is a former merchant ship captain who now serves as a harbor master in the Red Sea town of Hodeidah.

Sobhi Sobhi arrived on a student visa in 1990 and attended Rio Hondo College in Whittier.

Like his siblings, Sobhi said, he came here to fulfill his parents’ desire that their children receive proper educations.

“Two hours before she died,” Sobhi recalled of his mother, “she said, ‘If anything happens to me, will you take care of your brother and sisters?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ I had no idea what that promise would mean.”

Back home, he said, political militants unsuccessfully attempted to recruit him as a teenager. But he resisted, determined to come to the U.S. One of his dreams had been to become a Navy pilot.

Sobhi said he has not completed his college studies because he had to work to support himself. His obligations grew after his brother, and then his sister, arrived on student visas about five years ago.

From driving cabs to delivering pizzas to promoting products at beach tournaments, Sobhi was frequently employed, even if that put him at odds with INS regulations. INS rules generally bar student visa holders from working without agency permission.

For years, he unsuccessfully pursued political asylum. He said he feared persecution from political extremists if forced to return home.

When the final deportation order came last spring, Sobhi said, he lay low. He couldn’t afford to move, he said, but federal agents did not come looking for him. Authorities say there are more than 300,000 people nationwide who have been ordered deported and they do not have the resources to locate all of them.

“Basically, I lived my life on the run, looking over my shoulder,” Sobhi said.

His siblings also took classes at Rio Hondo. “The college has a very good reputation at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen,” Sidqi said.

It was at Rio Hondo, Sidqi said, that he met another native of Yemen who would later become a material witness in the terrorist case. The witness, now in federal custody in New York, once lived in the same San Diego apartment complex as two of the hijackers.

Years ago, Sidqi said, he and the man were among a group of Yemeni students who would hang out together on campus and sometimes socialize.

The last time he saw his old schoolmate, Sidqi said, was a year and a half ago, when the friend was accepted at San Diego State University to study computer information systems.

How his name showed up on the man’s insurance papers remains a mystery, Sidqi said. He said he was told by the FBI that his friend listed him as a second driver on a car. Sidqi believes the man may have intended to list him as a reference.

The FBI has refused any comment on the Sobhi detentions.

Sidqi said he had not thought much about his friend lately until the agents knocked at the door Sept. 19. The three Sobhi siblings say they were awakened and questioned extensively about terrorists and the attacks on the East Coast.

“It was beyond humiliation,” said Lamia, who recalled how longtime neighbors looked into the open front door as officers came and went. “I could not even cry. I felt like a piece of ice.”

Later, at the federal detention center, she was initially denied the right to wear her veil. “I lost my dignity right there,” she said.

Lamia and her brothers express revulsion at the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I can’t even say I can understand the pain of people who lost their loved ones and I hope they catch these guys,” Sidqi said. “Because it is making everything unsafe. And life will never be the same.”