Ibrahim Parlak's Fate in the Hands of U.S. Court of Appeals

On Monday, it was announced that U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit will determine whether Turkish immigrant Ibrahim Parlak can remain in the United States at a hearing scheduled to be held October 22, 2007 at 1:30 pm in Cincinnati, Ohio.

At the center of the issue surrounding popular Harbert, Michigan restaurateur, who is supported by the Friends of Ibrahim, a grassroots alliance of Southwest Michigan residents, are three fundamental, precedent-setting issues of national importance: should immigration courts rely on evidence from torture-induced confessions; should the Department of Homeland Security be allowed unlimited discretion to designate any group of "two or more" individuals as a terrorist organization; and should a person be prosecuted for membership in a group that is opposed to the government.

During the 1980s, Parlak was involved with an organization that championed the rights of the Kurds in Turkey. After having been arrested, imprisoned, and tortured by the allegedly human rights-violating Turkish government for his connections to the group, Parlak was granted asylum in 1992.

After the terrorist strikes of September 11th, 2001, the U.S. government engaged in deportation proceedings against Parlak, on the grounds that he supposedly had terrorist ties. The U.S. government cited evidence attained by way of a torture-induced confession he endured while in Turkey. Parlak was detained in a Michigan jail in 2004 for ten months, but has been free since then, pending this hearing.

In June of 2006, Judge Avern Cohn of the U.S. District Court in Detroit granted Parlak, who has a 10-year-old American daughter, a writ of Habeas Corpus, releasing him from jail. In his written opinion, Cohn sited Parlak as a "model citizen" and "not a threat to anyone or a risk of flight." Michigan's Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Fred Upton have publicly supported Parlak's case and have introduced bills in both houses of Congress that would grant him permanent U.S. residency.