Ibrahim Parlak has been a model immigrant vigorously asserting his right to remain in the United States.  He is not a threat to anyone nor a risk of flight. - U.S. District Senior Judge Avern Cohn (Eastern District of Michigan)

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Huseyin Deported    On Monday, May 14, 2007, Huseyin Parlak went to a scheduled meeting with Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Detroit and was taken into custody.  This meeting was scheduled on his previous visit to ICE with his attorney, Robert Carpenter, on April 10, 2007, when he was told it looked like he was going to be allowed to remain here until his appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court was heard.  He was even given a permit to work during the April meeting, an unexpected turn of events. What Huseyin and his attorney were told in the April meeting was apparently deliberately misleading and patently false.   When arrested on May 14th Huseyin was told that this deportation had been in the works "for some time". Typically, when a deportation is ordered, the deportee is given 72 hours to pack a bag, put his/her affairs in order, gather resources, and say farewell to family.  Even criminals are afforded this cushion of time.  No such courtesy was extended to Huseyin.  Within hours he was on board a plane, accompanied by two Immigration officers, bound for Istanbul, with nothing but the clothes on his back. Huseyin managed to call Ibrahim from the plane, inform him of the situation, tell him what airline he was on, before the conversation was terminated. Friends of Ibrahim quickly became aware of the unfolding events and met at Cafe Gulistan to do what they could to stop the deportation and to hold a candlelight vigil once word came that Huseyin was already en route to Turkey.  All were relieved when Ibrahim informed us that Huseyin had called Tuesday morning and said he was with family members and no longer in custody. Once again the Parlak family has been treated in a manner that is worse than that afforded criminals by a government acting in the name of our country, a country which once embraced the kind of immigrants Huseyin and Ibrahim are. For press coverage of Huseyin's situation click here.