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 In Court They Don't Call This Plagiarism But you could call it unjust. In the eyes of journalists, authors, and academics plagiarism is a sin. It's no big deal in a courtroom, where judges swipe language all the time. On December 29, when immigration judge Elizabeth Hacker of Detroit ordered Ibrahim Parlak deported, originality wasn't her concern. Huge unattributed chunks of her 59-page opinion -- one of them 15 pages long -- were lifted almost verbatim from the Department of Homeland Security's pretrial brief. The DHS lawyers had no reason to complain. Hacker had not only bought their argument but appropriated it. Parlak's lawyers, however, felt a little ganged up on. Not that every word was the same. Here's an example of the changes Hacker made: DHS brief: "Finally, a plethora of de-classified material from the Central Intelligence Agency establishes that the PKK engaged in terrorist activities during Parlak's affiliation with that group (1985-1991)." Hacker's opinion: "Finally, an abundance of de-classified material from the Central Intelligence Agency establishes that the PKK engaged in terrorist activities during Respondent's affiliation with the group (1985-1991)." The Parlak case has been on the periphery of the news ever since July 29, when he was locked in a cell in Calhoun County, Michigan. Parlak is a Kurd, and the goal of the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, is an independent Kurdish state. In 1988 he was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey. In 1991 he was granted asylum in the United States. In 1997 the State Department designated the PKK a terrorist organization. DHS doesn't accuse Parlak of being a security risk. It doesn't challenge his reputation as an exemplary friend, neighbor, and businessman in Harbert, Michigan, a small town in Harbor Country a couple hours east of Chicago. But his current life is irrelevant to the fix he's in. "Respondent's actions as a restaurateur, father, and resident of Harbert are not the subject of this hearing," Hacker wrote. "Respondent is accountable for the actions he took prior to entry into the United States and the actions in obtaining his status under the immigration laws before this Court." Parlak claims that as a 16-year-old he was tortured by the Turkish government for pamphleteering. When he was 18 he traveled to Germany and promoted the Kurdish cause there. At 25 he received military training at a PKK camp in Lebanon. When the camp ended in May 1988, Parlak joined a small group of Kurds who tried to slip back into Turkey by way of Syria. There was a gunfight at the border, and two Turkish soldiers were killed. Parlak was arrested several weeks later in Turkey in connection with the deaths of the soldiers and handed over to the Turkish State Security Court, a court Turkey recently eliminated as a precondition for entry into the European Union. Today Parlak says he was tortured into signing his confession that he'd opened fire during the border skirmish. He was convicted in March 1990 of "committing actions directed towards separation of Turkey," but because he'd cooperated with the court, he was sentenced to only 50 months in prison -- a sentence the prosecutor appealed as too light. Parlak was soon released. He came to America in 1991 and asked for asylum, applying for American citizenship in 1998. After 9/11 things started going badly for Parlak. In November 2001 the government denied his naturalization application, and the following April it began proceedings to deport him. It accused him of concealing, when he applied for permanent residency, his arrest and conviction for what DHS now calls "terrorist activity." Last July DHS got word that the Turkish prosecutor's appeal has finally been resolved: Turkey has resentenced Parlak to six years in prison. As he was required to serve only a fifth of that sentence -- and he'd been locked up longer than that after his arrest in 1988 -- Turkey didn't want Parlak back. But the news strengthened DHS's hand. Parlak had claimed at one point that he was let out of prison because charges were dropped for lack of evidence. Obviously they hadn't been. DHS picked Parlak up a few days later, and he's been held without bond ever since. I heard of Parlak's arrest right after it happened from a mutual friend, who said people were already organizing. Sure enough, an elaborate Web site, cafegulistan.com (named after his restaurant), was quickly created. Prominent acquaintances such as Andrew Greeley and Roger Ebert, who have houses in the area, posted statements of support. Attorneys signed on pro bono. The local state senator, a Republican schoolteacher I know well, told me he supposed DHS had to show it was serious about terrorism but he couldn't imagine that in the end Parlak would actually be deported. Parlak can imagine it, and he told Judge Hacker he fears being tortured not only by the Turkish government -- if he speaks out again on Kurdish issues -- but also the PKK, which could view him as a traitor because of his cooperation with the court in 1990. At another time, whatever Parlak did in the old country might have been allowed to stay in the old country. Today he's up against DHS's need to show it means business. It's the Casablanca effect: his personal issues with his home, his restaurant, and the seven-year-old daughter he'd like to raise "don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." And it's just too bad that the brand of American justice settling his fate is of such dubious quality. One of Parlak's attorneys, John Marhoefer of Chicago, carefully put into words what he thought of Judge Hacker's wholesale appropriation of DHS's language. "If you look at her opinion and look at the government's briefs," he told me, "a reasonable person could easily come to the conclusion that this was a foreordained result, and someone in the Justice Department said, 'Whatever you have to do to make this guy deportable, do it.'" Why would Hacker take orders from the Justice Department? She's part of it. America's immigration courts report to Attorney General John Ashcroft. Like the DHS lawyers whose brief Hacker paid the compliment of copying, the judge works for the prosecution. Parlak can now appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, but it's run by Ashcroft too. That's why Parlak's attorneys may try to take his case directly to the federal appellate courts. Meanwhile he sits in prison. |
