Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2005, pages 44-45, 66

Special Report

Iranian Brothers’ American Dream Turned Into a Nightmare

By Pat McDonnell Twair

	The Mirmehdi brothers (l-r Mohammad, Mostafa, Mohsen and Mojtaba) sort through 29 boxes of letters and documents collected during 41 months of detention (Staff photo S. Twair).

MOSTAFA MIRMEHDI is haunted by the words if only.

If only he hadn’t sought the services of an immigration attorney who, unbeknownst to him, was under investigation by the FBI.

If only he hadn’t attended a 1997 demonstration in Denver calling for democracy in Iran.

All the if onlys in the world, however, can’t alter the series of events that led Mostafa and his three brothers to the dubious distinction of being the longest-incarcerated detainees since 9/11: 41 months.

In 1978, Mostafa came to the U.S. to study mechanical nuclear engineering at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. He continued his studies even after the revolution in his country diminished his father’s ability to send money for his schooling. When the financial struggle to support himself and maintain good grades became too much, Mostafa decided to move to Southern California, where so many Iranians migrated during the final years of the shah.

The real estate market was booming and the bright young expatriate quickly passed the exam for a California realtor’s license and built a clientele among Iranian immigrants.

If only, Mostafa regrets today, he had taken steps to apply for a green card when he dropped out of the university. At the time, he feared that, without a student visa, he might be forced to return to the turmoil engulfing Iran. Life was not good there, and his younger brothers were trying to escape military service as Iran and Iraq waged a bloody war. Social restrictions imposed by the mullahs’ theocracy were stifling a new generation forced to obey medieval laws controlling what people read, and how they dressed and behaved socially.

By 1992, two of Mostafa’s brothers, Mojtaba and Mohsen, had immigrated to the U.S. The following year another brother, Mohammad, joined them. All obtained work permits and realtors’ licenses and bought properties in greater Los Angeles.

In 1997, a deadline was announced for Iranian expatriates seeking political asylum to remain in the U.S.

Among the many immigration attorneys who advertised in Iranian-American newspapers, the most noticeable ads were those of Bahram Tabatabai. The brothers went to his firm, where they were given blank asylum forms and instructed to sign them at the bottom.

A paralegal (who actually was an FBI informant with a criminal record) advised them to lie and cite more recent dates for entering the U.S. to immigration officers  in order to meet asylum deadline qualifications.

If only, Mostafa laments, he and his brother Mohammad hadn’t traveled in June 1997 to Denver, where they attended a rally outside a summit meeting of the G-8 industrial nations. They were among thousands of Iranians who listened to Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and leaders of the Iranian opposition call for an end to the mullahs’ regime. The demonstration was sponsored by the National Council of Resistance, an umbrella for many organizations, including the Mojahedeene Khalq.

If only the Clinton administration, seeking rapprochement with newly elected Iranian President Mohammed Khatemi, had not designated the MEK a terrorist organization in October 1997.

Matters came to a head on March 16, 1999, when federal agents arrested Tabatabai, charging that his firm was part of a ring fabricating fraudulent visa and asylum documents to immigrants not entitled to legal status, particularly those associated with the MEK.   

The Mirmehdi brothers’ asylum documents were confiscated. The FBI informant labeled them as bona fide MEK members, and the brothers were arrested. “We’re going to send you to Iran as a gift to President Khatemi,” they recall one agent telling them.

When the brothers called their parents in Tehran and broke the news that they had been apprehended by federal agents, their father suffered a heart attack and their mother was hospitalized for hypertension. They made a solemn vow never again to relate bad news that might harm their parents’ fragile health.

In August of 1999, Mostafa, Mojtaba and Mohsen were each released on $50,000 bail. Because he challenged accusations that he belonged to the MEK, however, Mohammad remained in jail for nearly another year.

“The U.S. approved of the MEK until October 1997,” Mostafa explained. “We never sent it money, we never attended its meetings, all we did was participate in a rally opposing the Iranian theocracy.”

Interjected Mohsen: “In the year 2000, 31 senators—including Missouri’s John Ashcroft—and 225 congressmen supported the MEK and NCR, even though both organizations were designated by the State Department as terrorist groups.”

In February 2001, the government raided an alleged MEK safe house and confiscated papers purportedly bearing the names of MEK members. The Mirmehdi brothers were among the thousands of people listed.

“These papers weren’t a roster of MEK members, as the FBI claimed,“ Mohammad stated. “These simply were names of people who were at demonstrations. Judging by this, they should have arrested Congressman Ackerman, who gave a speech at the Denver rally. Furthermore, if this was a so-called MEK cell, how come so many names are on it? Cells are supposed to be small secretive units, not enclaves with a cast of hundreds.”

Then came the tragic events of Sept. 11, 200l. A provision in the PATRIOT Act, passed days later, gave the government authority to detain people based solely upon membership in an organization designated as a terrorist group.

All four brothers were arrested again on Oct. 2, 2001, and their 1999 and 2000 bonds revoked. They were denied bail because of new evidence—the alleged safe house roster—and declared national security risks as supporters of the MEK.

Mohammad recalls an FBI agent’s offer to provide them with a special visa leading to citizenship if they would give him names of MEK activists.

“We couldn’t accept,” he told the Washington Report. “We weren’t going to bear false witness and finger innocent people as MEK members.”

In June 2002, a three-judge panel on the Immigration Appeal Board ruled the Mirmehdis were national security threats subject to mandatory detention.

Forty-one months in prison has taken a toll on the brothers—physically and mentally. Mojtaba, 41, suffered two heart attacks, was beaten by gang members while in the Lancaster facility and has developed a serious speech impediment.

Mostafa, 46, now has a pronounced stutter that becomes more severe whenever he talks about his incarceration.

Mohammad, 38, lost two teeth—“the prison said it didn’t have money for root canals but it could pull molars”—and was beaten and choked by a prison guard.

Mohsen, 34, was beaten by gang members.

On their second stint in a federal lockup, the brothers went to every possible length to keep their imprisonment from their parents.

“Whenever we phoned home, we begged the prisoners to be quiet,” Mohsen recalls. “My mother asked why we didn’t send photos, why none of us had married or invited them to come visit. As time passed, she asked me why Mostafa was stuttering. Was he eating the right food?”

Advice From Home

Their excuses for not sending their parents photos were that the camera was broken, needed new batteries or was out of film. Finally, their exasperated mother told them to buy a Chinese camera. “They are cheap and function well,” she advised.

The brothers emptied savings accounts to make house payments and pay more than $200,000 in attorney fees to six different lawyers. When funds were depleted, they started using their credit cards.

“Our attorneys kept telling us it would only be a couple of months before we would be released,” Mostafa said. “It was always the promise of just two months more.”

He spent much of his days writing to politicians, asking them to look into their case. The correspondence and legal documents fill more than 29 boxes.

“Look what has happened to us, my hair turned gray overnight,” Mostafa sighed with a shrug of his shoulders. “We are victims of 9/11. It was so depressing, to sit there for three-and-a-half years and imagine what life was like outside.”

Finally, in August 2004, the same three-judge Immigration Appeal Board panel overturned its earlier ruling that the brothers were national security threats. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials argued they still should be deported for visa infractions, but the judges ruled they could not be deported to Iran, where the brothers certainly would be tortured or executed because of the U.S. government’s earlier charges they were members of MEK.

The judges then set a six-month deadline for ICE either to deport the brothers or release them, since they were not national security threats.

By now, their case as the longest detained aliens had been picked up by the media. “Nightline” producers contacted the brothers in the federal prison on Terminal Island where they were being held. They were scheduled to be interviewed live on Feb. 3, 2005.

On Feb. 2, however, the brothers were told to gather their belongings and change into civilian clothing. Their lead attorney, Marc Van Der Hout, called from San Francisco and warned them there might be conditions on their release.

“We looked at the 13 written conditions,” Mohsen stated, “and refused them. One stipulated we couldn’t drive 30 miles from our home, yet another said we were to report to ICE in downtown Los Angeles twice a week. Just going to ICE would have exceeded the 30-mile limit.

“Another restriction was that we weren’t to associate with known MEK members. How would we know if someone was a MEK agent?”

All four were incensed over the stipulation barring them from attending political rallies. This, they argue, is against their constitutional right to free assembly.

“So we just took off our civilian clothes and stepped back into prison jumpsuits,” Mohsen said. “The officials couldn’t believe that we turned down the release. Then ICE notified ‘Nightline’ further interviews would not be permitted.”

On March 5, the Mirmehdi brothers were with about 40 other prisoners in a room called the pod. An ailing Muslim detainee, Abdul-jabbar Hamdan, asked an ICE guard by the last name of Lopez if he could use the restroom. Allegedly, Lopez refused Hamdan’s request and told him, “If you lose control here you will clean up your mess.”

At this point, Mostafa asked the guard for his name and Lopez became abusive. Mohammad recalls walking up to the shouting guard and stating: “Why are you yelling at my brother?”

“Lopez slugged me in the jaw with his fist, started choking me and dragged me into another room and locked the door,” Mohammad continued.

The inmates watched through a window in the shut door as Lopez beat Mohammed. Later, Mohammad was put into solitary confinement, where he was not attended by a physician.  On March 8, he was transferred to a high-security installation in Santa Ana, where an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union examined Mohammad’s bruises but was not allowed to photograph them.

As word leaked out of the beating, the Office of the Inspector General notified the Terminal Island prison that an investigator was coming from Washington, DC on March 17 to look into the alleged misconduct of Lopez.

The brothers do not consider it a coincidence that, on March 16, prison officials abruptly told them they were being released; most of the restrictions earlier imposed on them had been dropped.

“It was surreal,” recalled Mostafa. “After all that time, we were being told to leave peacefully and if we didn’t, we would be forcibly kicked out.

“As they loaded up our 29 boxes of documents,” he added, “we were warned not to notify the media.”

In subsequent weeks, the Mirmehdis have been trying to renew lapsed realtors’ licenses. They’ve cleaned their house, which remained vacant all those months, to an immaculate state and phoned their parents, promising to send photos (as soon as Mostafa colors his hair back to dark brown).

Stated Amnesty International attorney Susan Benesch, “The Mirmehdi case illustrates how the government is misusing the law to keep people locked up for years even when it doesn’t have enough evidence. If this is the war on terror, I don’t feel very safe.”

“This shouldn’t happen in the U.S.,” Mostafa concluded. “If it took place in Iran, I would expect it, but I came here for freedom.”