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A federal judge has ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to free Adham A. Hassoun, a Palestinian man who was jailed for 15 years for sending support to militants in the 1990s. The government sought to invoke an administrative provision of the Patriot Act to declare Hassoun a “danger to national security” and hold on to him indefinitely in an immigration detention center on the completion of his sentence. Hassoun was convicted of providing material support for terrorism in 2007, but the government had nowhere to send him. He was born in Lebanon as a stateless Palestinian and lived in the U.S. for three decades, and is now held at the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia. The New York Times
In other New York immigration news…
The NYPD’s Long History of Targeting Black Immigrants
When George Floyd’s life was brutally ended under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, he repeatedly pleaded for his life, uttering the phrase “I can’t breathe.” It’s a painful déjà vu that brings many New Yorkers back to the death of Eric Garner via police chokehold in Staten Island just under six years ago. Eric Garner’s killing elevated the brutal truth of what New Yorkers had long contended within their neighborhoods: that Black and POC communities in New York City were at the mercy of an unchecked police state, from the punitive shadow of immigration enforcement to the coded criminalization of Black neighborhoods in the form of broken windows policing. Read more at Documented
OPT Visa Holders at Risk Over Coronavirus Layoffs
When Yassine Berrehouma lost his job as a software engineer at ADP in April, he knew he would have a harder time than most finding new employment. It wasn’t that he was unqualified, but that his work permit came through a program called Optional Practical Training. Immigration who’ve used OPT to get a work permit have to find a job in their field in 90 or 120 days or lose their legal status. Hundreds of thousands of foreign-born students have found jobs through OPT, but with the coronavirus spurring an economic downturn, many of their futures are at risk. Read more at Documented.