Sulaiman's Story
A student gets detained and deported 
ZNet Top 
Race Home 



Recent Race 

Identity and Islam
Piercing the Veil
Israel's Crossroads
Africa and Venezuela
Schwarzenegger's Economic Plan


Recent Pandya 

Chavez's Economics
ChevronTexaco in Ecuador


Other Sections 
Activism 
Afghanistan Watch 
Africa 
Alternative Media 
Anarchy 
Animal Rights 
Anti War 
Argentina 
Asia 
Biotechnology 
Bolivia Watch 
Book Watch 
Brazil Watch 
Central American And Caribbean Watch 
Chiapas 
Colombia 
Disability_ Rights 
East Timor Watch 
Economy 
Foreign Policy 
Gender 
Global 
Global Economics 
Instructionals 
Interviews 
Iraq 
Ireland 
Japan 
Kosovo 
Labor 
Latin America 
Mainstream Media 
Mideast 
Miscellaneous 
Mumia 
Native 
Pacifica 
Parecon 
Peltier Site 
Puerto Rico 
Queer 
Repression 
Russia 
South Asia 
Syria Watch 
Terror War 
Third Party 
Venezuela 
VisionStrategy 
Web 
Youth 
ZNet InterActive 




by C.P. Pandya 
February 10, 2004 
Print-Friendly Version 
Email This Article To A Friend 


  
RACE 

 "They moved me on Friday the 11th, they moved everybody else to Middlesex, I 
am the only last person they moved to Hudson County (Jail). It is very dirty, 
4 people in a small room. Also, I am mixed with criminals and I can’t access 
the INS phone system. 
Believe me, my situation is very terrible now, that I can’t explain, but you 
could imagine it to be the worst place you can imagine somebody to be, 
especially when you don’t know why you are here.
All what I could say is that the conditions is very very detrimental to (my) 
health and I am going through…tremendous mental torture."
These are the words of 28-year-old Oladokun Sulaiman, writing from Hudson 
County Correctional Center in New Jersey in December 2003.
A little over 10 months ago, Sulaiman was a Nigerian student studying 
engineering at the State University of New York at Maritime, in the Bronx under the 
auspices of an F1 1-20 visa. A little over 10 months ago, Sulaiman was 
attending pre-graduation ceremonies, playing soccer with schoolmates, worrying about 
his tuition, and planning his life after graduation.
Little else is clear in this case. For 10 painful months, SUNY Maritime, the 
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the Department of Homeland 
Security and its Joint Terror Task Force wreaked havoc Sulaiman’s life as he 
watched from inside his jail cell.
This is his story. It is a sad and frightening example of the scores of 
unlawful and unaccountable detentions and deportations that have been allowed to 
take place with increasing speed and efficiency following Sept. 11, 2001. In the 
name of national security, Muslim citizens of foreign nations, as well as 
immigrants of Arab and South Asian descent, have been placed under heightened and 
unwarranted scrutiny. Many have faced physical and mental trauma, and still 
others have been locked up without due process or trial and deported.
What began as a dispute over tuition between a student and the university he 
attended turned into the deliberate and discriminatory targeting of a Muslim, 
the official grounds for which changed on whim, immigrant groups who defended 
Sulaiman’s case say. 
Sulaiman, his tuition and the administration
After having lived in New York for about one year, Sulaiman approached 
university officials in the fall of 2000 about paying in-state tuition (roughly 
$1,700) at SUNY Maritime instead of out of state tuition (roughly $4,150). It was 
what most students would try to do. Sulaiman put in an application, and it was 
approved. 
Then suddenly, in the fall of 2002, Sulaiman was notified that there had been 
"an administrative error about the approval." After years of paying in-state 
tuition and years of planning, spending and saving accordingly, Sulaiman was 
told by his college’s vice president, Kimberly Cline, that his tuition would be 
rolled back. All of a sudden, the 28-year-old found himself in debt for over 
$2,000. Because he was in debt, Cline wouldn’t allow him to register for or 
attend classes. Because of a seeming "error" on the part of the college’s 
bureaucracy, Sulaiman’s future was about to change very dramatically. 
"My career was seriously threatened. With this, I told them that if they 
continued to intimidate me, I would take legal action," he said in an official 
statement in November 2003 to Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), who mobilized a 
campaign against the university. 
The "threat" worked. A compromise was reached, and Sulaiman continued 
attending classes in the fall of 2002. He was even told that he could appeal the 
college’s ruling that he pay out of state tuition. The unextraordinary nature of 
this all makes the events that follow all the more extraordinary. 
As the tuition dispute carried on into early 2003, Sulaiman says his 
interactions with Cline became more hostile.
"Dr. Cline on several occasions mentioned the threat that she could call INS. 
I replied that INS has nothing to do with this…she also said once that she 
would revoke my visa…I replied that ‘you have no right to revoke my visa.’ And 
she took that statement back cause there were other people there, they heard 
her saying it," he said in his statement to DRUM regarding a February meeting 
with Cline.
Sulaiman continued on with his appeal. 
One day in March 2003 two men dressed in dark suits questioned him about his 
background; why he was in the U.S., for how long and where he was from. They 
didn’t identify themselves.
And still, not making any connection between his tuition dispute, Cline’s 
recanted threat and the men who accosted and questioned him, Sulaiman continued 
with his appeal for a tuition decrease.
"It never directly occurred to me that she was giving me warning to choose 
between my career and the (tuition) reform," he said.
Sulaiman’s arrest
On March 27, 2003, agents from the Joint Terror Task Force arrested Oladokun 
Sulaiman in the library on SUNY Maritime’s campus. He had been on his way to 
another meeting with Cline regarding the tuition matter.
Soon after his arrest, the Joint Terror Task Force, in its investigation, 
found no wrongdoing and no grounds for action and turned the case over to 
immigration services.
Why was the Joint Terror Task Force called in regarding a tuition matter in 
the first place? To answer this question, there must first be some mutual 
agreement about who called the task force. 
According to the immigration report drawn up by the agents after Sulaiman’s 
arrest, provided by DRUM, "the school contacted the Joint Terrorism Task Force 
because of what they believed to be suspicious behavior of the subject." 
(Emphasis added).
But the college insists otherwise, according to a statement sent to DRUM:
"Such allegations are absolutely false. We at Maritime College have not 
demanded or arranged for the detention of any of our students, nor can we now 
demand or cause the release of any student."
Two weeks after his arrest, while held in jail, Sulaiman was notified that he 
was disenrolled from school, two months ahead of graduation. Immigrant 
advocacy groups, Sulaiman’s family and the few media organizations that followed 
this striking case say the college refused to give a reason for the expulsion, 
citing federal privacy laws.
Under SUNY rules, a student facing disenrollment must be afforded a Fair 
Hearing trail where they can argue their case. A date for the hearing was set, but 
of course, Sulaiman was in jail at the time and missed his date. So, in a 
stroke of bureaucratic genius, he was stripped of his student status for failing 
to attend the hearing and was automatically made deportable for violating his 
visa.
And still, the school insisted that they had had no part or knowledge in 
Sulaiman’s arrest. 
"Also, we do not have details concerning any arrests or investigations 
pertaining to any person who may be in federal custody," a spokesman for the college’
s president, Vice Admiral John R. Ryan said in a statement.
Incidentally, Sulaiman insists the college faxed over his disenrollment 
letter to immigration authorities. 
The series of events surrounding the Fair Hearing trial prompted activist 
groups and lawyers to file a lawsuit against SUNY Maritime alleging Sulaiman was 
denied his due process rights. The cloak of silence and confusion surrounding 
the immigration proceedings that Sulaiman was subject to following the 
transfer of authority from the Joint Terror Task Force to the immigration authorities 
is a whole other story. 
A series of immigration policies passed after Sept. 11, 2001, along with the 
encapsulation of the INS under the umbrella of the new Department of Homeland 
Security have been a dangerous mix for people like Sulaiman. Policies such as 
the Special Registration Program, which requires Muslims from 25 countries to s
pecially register with the U.S. government when entering the country, and the 
Student Exchange Visitor Information System, which tracks and controls the 
movements of every foreign student in the country, have made deportations and 
detentions easier. Targeting, discrimination and deportation have become all too 
familiar practices by immigration officials looking to "cleanse" the U.S. of 
immigrants. 
Thousands of legal and undocumented immigrant communities have felt the dire 
effects of this dangerous marriage between immigration and homeland security; 
from Operation Tarmac, in which the government carried out raids on airport 
workers across the U.S., to the thousands of home and workplace raids in Muslim 
and South Asian neighborhoods throughout New York City.
From terror suspect to visa violator
Thanks to these new policies and joining of immigration and homeland 
security, in a bureaucratic instant, Sulaiman’s case went from a terrorism-related 
matter to an immigration matter. 
Under the immigration case against him, Sulaiman was told he was being held 
under charges that he falsified his Nigerian college records. His advocates 
point out that the reason for his arrest changed after his arrest – from 
suspicious behavior to falsified college records. 
Sulaiman denied this charge from the outset, and DRUM points out that his 
U.S. F1 student visa was issued based on his Nigerian record. The records checked 
out then and the university never mentioned any problems until Sulaiman began 
to publicly agitate for lower tuition.
Sulaiman was also quick to point out in his November statement that: "The 
college did not serve me any notice or opportunity to be heard for any wrongdoing 
in accordance with the state of New York’s law before they contacted 
immigration, made false statements about me." 
In his letters to DRUM, all Sulaiman consistently asked for was that SUNY 
reenroll him and let him finish the remaining two months of his degree. He said 
he wanted to return to Nigeria soon after.
"If they (SUNY) did not call immigration, why is it hard for them to help me 
or reenroll me to finish school…I just ask everybody to give me a chance to 
finish my school."
But Maritime officials instead used the lawsuit filed on behalf of Sulaiman 
and the denial of his due process rights, against him in his immigration case. 
The college used the suit as a rationalization to be even more tight-lipped 
and uncooperative, DRUM says, constantly refusing to talk because ‘litigation is 
involved.’
DRUM, the Asian American Legal Defense Fund and other New York City-based 
activist groups worked, following Sulaiman’s arrest, to have him reenrolled to 
finish the remaining two months of his degree. They say they faced the same 
evasive, cryptic answers and explanations from the university. 
During a November 21, 2003 rally in support of Sulaiman, activists and 
supporters tried to peacefully protest on Maritime’s (a state-funded university) 
campus. They were denied entry. That same day, the group tried to send out to the 
campus a delegation of advocates and supporters to get the school’s 
administration to promise to meet with Sulaiman’s family, but were met with similar 
secrecy. 
"That day they sent out an administration spokesman who said there were no 
administrators on campus. SUNY promised to reply on December 1 and they didn’t. 
Legal counsel sent a letter much later saying SUNY couldn’t talk to anyone 
including (Sulaiman’s) family," said Monami Maulik, a member of DRUM in a phone 
interview.
On January 29, 2004, Oladokun Sulaiman was deported to his native Nigeria. 
After sitting in one jail cell and another following his arrest on March 27, 
2003 and waiting for appeals to go through, bail to be granted, suits to be filed 
and heard – Sulaiman lost. 
In addition to the engineering degree he was so close to finishing, Sulaiman 
also become well versed in U.S. immigration law as he sat jail over the course 
of ten months. He learned that charges can change without notice. He learned 
that the authorities overseeing a matter can change without explanation. He 
saw first hand what it takes to try for an appeal while still in jail. He saw 
how much money needs to be raised to get bailed out of jail. He saw that all 
this could happen even if the accused person involved didn’t know why this was 
happening or when it would end.
Sulaiman fought for his right to finish school until his deportation. He knew 
that even if he was deported, the importance of shedding public light to the 
hidden workings of the INS, the courts system and his public university were 
imperative to the countless foreign students awaiting a fate similar to his. 
Sulaiman understood the power of mobilization, of bringing attention to his 
case. In each of his letters to DRUM, he wrote some variation of the following:
"I suggest we should take more action, stage another protest inside the 
campus. I do know that the up and down is frustrating, but please, do not relent…"
********
C.P. Pandya is a freelance journalist based in the U.S. and can be reached at 
[log in to unmask]



"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are 
evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
 - Albert Einstein 
"
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change 
the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead 

"When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people fear 
the government, you have tyranny." 
- Thomas Jefferson

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" 
- Edmund Burke

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~