Supporters speak out to help local man from being deported to Iraq

Wearing a Seahawks #37 Shaun Alexander jersey, 10-year-old Arvin Malkandi could be one of hundreds of football-loving kids from Kirkland, but he’s the only one who’s father is held at a maximum-security prison as an alleged terrorist.

At a gathering on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Seattle on Oct. 9, Arvin and his mother Mali addressed a small crowd of media and supporters on their fight to have their erstwhile father and husband, Sam, released from a federal detention center in SeaTac.

He faces eventual deportation to Iraq and has been confined for over three years.

“He didn’t do anything except love America,” Mali said. “My son cries in bed — he knows what the situation in Iraq is.”

Arvin, sitting next to her, said he he knew his father didn’t do anything wrong and wanted him to come home.

“I miss him,” he said, trying to hold back his tears.

On the steps of the parish house, a news-clipping of more than a dozen Christians killed and hundreds more fleeing for their safety this week reminded visitors of the dangers Sam faces as a converted Christian if deported to Iraq.

Attorney Bernice Funk, speaking as a friend of the family and someone familiar with the case, said the family still had number of legal options left to explore but declined to provide any details. The Malkandis presently have 60 days from the Sept 19 ruling to formally request the federal appeals court to reconsider their decision to back the deportation order. The family is represented by attorney Shaakiraah Sanders of the Seattle law firm K&L Gates on a pro-bono basis.

“With slip-shod evidence and no evidence rules in immigration proceedings … the government can put a photo of Osama bin Laden right next to Sam’s photo and make their case by innuendo,” Funk said.

Granted permanent asylum in 2006, Mali and her children have been trying to naturalize as U.S. citizens for years. Mali met Sam, 49, at a refugee camp in Pakistan in the 1990s. Originally known as Sarbaz Abulgani Mohammad, Sam Malkandi entered the United States as a refugee with his wife, Arvin and daughter Nicole in 1998. They eventually moved into a home in the Juanita area of unincorporated King County with a Kirkland mailing address. He changed his name to Sam Malkandi in 2001 and the family adopted Christian faiths — Sam joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and his wife and children became Catholics at St. Patrick’s in Seattle’s Roanoke neighborhood.

Organized by several faith-based organizations, including St. Patrick’s Church Rev. Patrick Clark, St. John United Lutheran Church Rev. Carol A. Jensen and Arab-American Community Coalition representative Amin Odeh spoke out against government action against Sam, calling the deportation “serious overkill.”

“Over the last five years, our leaders could have shown much more understanding and forgiveness,” Rev. Clark said. “I think (the Malkandi family) have suffered enough.”

Rev. Jensen, speaking on behalf of the St. John United Lutheran Church of Seattle, said her congregation knew the family for nearly a decade after they had lived in a Lutheran-supported low-income housing development in Bothell.

“We believe that family unification is a high priority,” she said. “Sam has strong roots in this community and will be a contributing member of society when he is released.”

At issue is a government claim of Sam Malkandi’s connections to an alleged terrorist, captured in 2003 and currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. Last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld an immigration judge’s finding that Sam was a danger to national security because of his alleged links to Al-Qaida. The U.S. Government claims Malkandi tried to help a Yemeni man — believed responsible for directing attacks on two American embassies in Africa in 1998 and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 — get a visa to enter the United States. Sam claims he was trying to help a friend help a friend get specialized medical treatment in the United States, but his credibility was cast into doubt once he admitted he had falsified his asylum application. The family and their supporters claim it was to boost their chances of escaping a Pakistani refugee camp. The government claim his fabrication gave the government the right to reject his asylum status and the Al-Qaida connection gives them grounds to deport him.

Odeh said his community organization to support Arab-Americans was started in the weeks following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 out of concern for residents placing blame and stereotyping citizens based on their etyhnic background. But he said he had no idea when he started the organization that he’d be working to protect members of his community from the U.S. Government.

“If we deport Sam, Al-Qaida will win again,” he said. “We don’t want to let that happen.”