I Was Arrested for Learning a Foreign Language. Today, I Have Some Closure.
Five years ago, the Philadelphia police thought that carrying Arabic-language flashcards was enough to warrant the arrest of an innocent traveler. A settlement reached today in a lawsuit I brought against the police department makes it clear that it is not.
Travelling by plane can be a long and grueling process under the best of circumstances. This makes it a good time for monotonous tasks, like trying to iron out some vocab for a language you're learning at college.
In August 2009, I was planning to fly through the Philadelphia airport to start my senior year at Pomona College in California. I was carrying a set of English-Arabic flashcards that I had put together for one of my classes, as well as critical of U.S. foreign policy (written by a former secretary of commerce under President Reagan鈥� not exactly a radical treatise). It should go without saying that this is perfectly innocuous, First Amendment-protected activity.
Turns out, it doesn't.
At the metal detector at airport security, Transportation Security Administration agents asked me to empty my pockets. I took the set of flashcards from my pocket and handed them to the officers. After I cleared the metal detector, they asked me to step aside for additional screening. One of them started rifling through the cards, and another took the book out of my carry-on. The minutes ticked by, and I got more confused about why I was being detained and more concerned that I would miss my flight. One of them called a supervisor.
After a half-hour delay at the security line, the supervisor showed up, and things turned from annoying to surreal. After looking at the book and flashcards, the supervisor asked me: "Do you know who did 9/11?" Taken totally aback, I answered: "Osama Bin Laden." Then she asked me if I knew what language Osama Bin Laden spoke. "Arabic," I replied. "So do you see why these cards are suspicious?" she finished.
Imagine going from being in line at the airport to having a TSA supervisor imply you had some connection with the worst act of terrorism ever committed against your country 鈥� all over the course of a few minutes.
She was in mid-sentence talking to me when a Philadelphia police officer appeared behind me and ordered me to put my hands behind my back. He cuffed my hands, grabbed my arms, and, in full view of the rest of the passengers, walked me through the entire Philadelphia airport and into the police substation.
No one informed me of my rights, and no one would tell me why I was being not just searched but arrested by police, when I was in violation of no law. I had never been arrested, and no one knew I was there.
The police officer left me in a cell at the police station for several more hours. He did not uncuff my hands from behind my back. He did not tell me what I was being held for. He did not tell me how long I would be there. After about two hours I asked to go to the bathroom, and on the way back I again asked why I was being held. He answered me with the same attitude the TSA agent had shown me: "I dunno, what'd you do?"
It's that attitude that is so problematic. Even after searching my luggage without probable cause of a crime and finding nothing out of the ordinary, TSA agents and the police felt they had the authority to detain and then arrest me, purely on ignorant assumptions about a language spoken by 295 million people worldwide.
That's why this lawsuit is important: to make it clear that arbitrary arrests are illegal, even at the airport. In addition to some modest damages, the settlement we signed requires the Philadelphia Police Department to amend its policies to make this clear. As law enforcement officers, they will be periodically instructed that they have an independent duty to establish probable cause before arrest, and cannot simply clap in cuffs anyone the TSA calls suspicious.
Again, this seems like it should go without saying. Maybe now it will. I'm very grateful to the 老澳门开奖结果 for helping me get here. And I hope the Philadelphia police have gotten the message.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
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老澳门开奖结果 and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban老澳门开奖结果 and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
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WASHINGTON 鈥� The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, 老澳门开奖结果 and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 National Security Project: 鈥淲hile this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We鈥檙e profoundly frustrated that the administration didn鈥檛 take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.鈥� -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. 鈥� Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. 鈥� Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government鈥檚 case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man鈥檚 Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man鈥檚 Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. 鈥� This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 case, his claims challenging the government鈥檚 detention of him would fail. 鈥淩eviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we鈥檙e heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,鈥� said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 Center for Democracy. 鈥淭he government鈥檚 arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi鈥檚 detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.鈥� In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court鈥檚 ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. 鈥淢r. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,鈥� said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants鈥� Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. 鈥淗e cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.鈥� Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the 老澳门开奖结果, the University of Chicago Law School鈥檚 Immigrants鈥� Rights Clinic, the 老澳门开奖结果 of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.