RESTAURANTEUR OR TERRORIST? One Immigrant's Tale

December 29, 2004

Tonight's story is not about someone famous. Or powerful. Or important, except to his family and friends, and as you will see tonight, there are plenty of those.

His friends would tell you that tonight's story is about a very average man. He came to the United States like so many have: as an immigrant, fleeing a country where he, his family and his culture were being mistreated. He was granted legal political asylum here. He started a business. He started a family. He stayed out of trouble.

That's the story that his friends and family will tell you. The lawyers from the Department of Homeland Security will tell you a very different story tonight. They will tell you about a terrorist.

The government says that this man was a convicted felon in his native country and had involvement with a terrorist organization, albeit more than 10 years ago. The government says he lied about that involvement. He has been held in prison for months and if the court agrees with the government, he will be deported.

In our post-9/11, Patriot Act world, being labeled a terrorist by the Department of Homeland Security is no easy thing for anyone, especially an immigrant seeking U.S. citizenship, to challenge.

And it all begs the question: what is a terrorist? For Ibrahim Parlak, the Michigan restaurant owner you will meet tonight, that question is central to his future. One Parlak supporter asks: "Under the government's interpretation of the law, when Nelson Mandela comes to the U.S. they should arrest him, hold him in mandatory detention and then ask for his removal from the U.S....because he was indirectly involved in a leadership of an organization that had violent activities and the fact that they occurred 16 or 20 years ago is not important."

The Department of Homeland Security sees it differently. There are laws to be followed and in this day and age, those laws must be strictly adhered to. "It is our job with the Department of Homeland Security to restore integrity to America's immigration system." ABC's Judy Muller will tell you this story of Ibrahim Parlak, restaurateur or terrorist. And through his story, you will see the crux of a dilemma within our country's newly strict immigration policies. Who can stay? Who must go? And most importantly for our own security: who is a terrorist?

We hope you'll join us.

Sara Just & The Nightline Staff

Senior Producer

Washington Bureau

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