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15 J. L. & Religion 267 (2000-2001)
Secrecy, Guilt by Assocation, and the Terrorist Profile

handle is hein.journals/jlrel15 and id is 285 raw text is: SECRECY, GUILT BY ASSOCIATION, AND THE TERRORIST PROFILE David Cole t In March 1998, Hany Kiareldeen, a 30-year old Palestinian immigrant living in New Jersey, was arrested by United States immigration authorities and imprisoned. Government officials told him that his presence in the United States threatened national security. When Kiareldeen asked why, he was told that the evidence that supported the charge was secret, and could not be revealed to him because its disclosure would imperil national security. Kiareldeen spent 19 months in prison without seeing the evidence that placed him there, until a federal judge ruled in October 1999 that his detention was unconstitutional and ordered his release.' The government's principal source appears to have been Kiareldeen's ex-wife, with whom he was in a custody dispute over their child. He offered unrebutted testimony that she had made numerous false allegations against him in the course of the dispute, all of which had been dismissed by local officials. But one allegation, that he was associated with terrorists, was passed on to the FBI, and that allegation landed him in jail on secret evidence for over 19 months.2 Today Hany Kiareldeen is a free man. But U.S. immigration authorities continue to assert the authority to use secret evidence to lock up immigrants in deportation proceedings, to exclude aliens at the border, and to oppose applications for relief from deportation, including asylum.3 In most such cases, the charges against the alien are t Professor, Georgetown University Law Center; Volunteer Staff Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights. 1. Kiareldeen v. Reno, 71 F.Supp.2d 402 (D.N.J. 1999). The account of Kiareldeen's case in the text is supported by the district court decision, as well as by the decisions of the Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals See Matter of Kiareldeen, No. A77- 025-332 (U.S. Immgr. Ct. Apr. 2, 1999) (Dec. of Immgr. J.); Matter of Kiareldeen, No. A77-025- 332 (BIA June 29, 1999) (Moscato, J., dissenting to Dec. Denying Request to Lift Stay of Release Order); Matter of Kiareldeen, No. A77-025-332 (BIA Oct. 15, 1999) (Dec. on Deportation App.). 2. Matter of Kiareldeen, No. A77-025-332, slip op. at 9 (U.S. Immgr. Ct. Apr. 2, 1999) (Dec. of Immgr. J.). 3. See, e.g. Testimony of Larry Parkinson, Deputy General Counsel, FBI, before H.R. Subcomm. on Imnigr. of the Jud. Comm., The Secret Evidence Repeal Act, Hearings on HR. 2121, 106' Cong. 18, 22 (Feb. 10, 2000); Testimony of Bo Cooper, General Counsel, INS before H.R. Subcomm. on Immgr. Of the Jud. Comm., The Secret Evidence Repeal Act, Hearings on