In the Press
At Senate oversight hearings held on April 1, 2008, Sen. Leahy raised questions of DHS Secretary Chertoff about Maggio & Kattar client Saman Ahmad, the Iraqi translator whose green card was initially denied by USCIS.
An excerpt is reproduced below:
SEC. CHERTOFF: . . . First, with respect to Mr. Ahmad, the translator, I waived the objection to his getting a green card yesterday, so that -- we're out of Alice in Wonderland and he's now on track to getting a green card.
SEN. LEAHY: Well, thank you. And thank you for what you said about Mr. Ahmad. But, you know, it's interesting; this happened today before the hearing after a major review in The Washington Post. And he's a man who lost his entire family in the chemical gas attacks unleashed by Saddam Hussein in Kurdistan in 1988, 20 years ago, and instructing U.S. Marines in Arabic language and culture at Quantico. General Petraeus, as I said, commended him. Why did it take so long? I mean, it's -- is each one of these cases going to require a major story in The Washington Post or other major newspaper and a congressional hearing before they get resolved?
SEC. CHERTOFF: Mr. Chairman, as you know, until last year, when I think, as part of the omnibus bill, we were given flexibility with respect to -- broader flexibility with respect to these organizations to waive the material support provision, until then we were bound by law with respect to these cases.
After the new legislation was enacted, instruction and guidance went out, and we are now freezing action on all the people who might be eligible to a waiver who are similarly situated so that we can review and make the individualized determination. .ETX SEN-JUDICIARY-CHERTOFF PAGE 13
04/02/2002 .STX
SEN. LEAHY: Is it a coincidence that his was granted yesterday, the day before this hearing? Is that just coincidence?
SEC. CHERTOFF: I think what -- no, it's --
SEN. LEAHY: Under oath.
SEC. CHERTOFF: It's not the hearing that did it. When I saw the piece in the paper, I raised a question about why this wasn't included in the hold order that had gone out. And apparently the old order went out after the rejection of this particular individual had occurred. So I asked that we go back retroactively and make sure we weren't losing people because of an artifact of time.
SEN. LEAHY: Well, then -- okay, so we had the newspaper article, went back and did it. I would think that would ring some bells in your department that maybe if reporters can find out where something hasn't been done right and find out that easily, why can't we?
SEC. CHERTOFF: And they've done that. They've gone back now and we've frozen the people who were eligible and we'll make the appropriate individualized determination.
MORE .ETX Apr 02, 2008 11:38 ET .EOF
Maggio & Kattar Client on Front Page of Washington Post
Senior Attorney Thomas Ragland's client, Saman Kareem Ahmad, was featured on the front page of the Washington Post on March 23, 2008. Mr. Ahmad, an Iraqi national who worked closely with the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq, recently had his application for permanent residence denied by the USCIS for his involvement in a Kurdish political party, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), which sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. Despite strong support from the U.S. Marine Corps and Major General David Petraeus, the Commanding General, Multi-National Force, Iraq, the USCIS rejected Mr. Ahmad's application for permanent residence after labeling him a "terrorist" for his work with the KDP. On March 26th and as reported again in the Post, USCIS announced that it would temporarily stop denying green cards to refugees and other legal immigrants in a similar situation and would reexamine the cases of hundreds of others who have been denied green cards since December. Mr. Ahmad's case is currently "under review".
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