 |
| Majed Shehadeh: He lives in Germany but spend summers in Massachusetts, where his wife, Joanne Mulligan (right), grew up. He was detained
in December 2006 when he came to visit his daughter. Joerg Voelkerling |
Visit gone awry: Detention roils a US-German family
On a trip to visit his daughter in California, Majed Shehadeh, the husband of a US citizen, was detained, strip-searched, denied his prescription medication, and held in a crowded cell.
By Christa Case | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorand Mariah Blake | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the July 11, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 4
Newburyport, Mass.; and Alzenau, Germany - Ever since Jimmy Carter was president, summer has meant one thing for Majed Shehadeh and his wife, Joanne Mulligan: time to pack. From their modest house in Bavaria, they migrate annually to their summer home in Massachusetts, where Ms. Mulligan was born and raised, with the accent to prove it.
But after making regular trips for decades, Mr. Shehadeh's last visit went deeply awry, indefinitely suspending his plans for returning.
A Syrian-born German citizen, he was detained when he flew into Las Vegas in December to celebrate his daughter's passing of the California bar exam. He was then strip-searched, denied his prescription medication, and kept in a crowded jail cell with no mattresses and a single toilet out in the open. Three days later, he was sent back to Germany.
"Since that ordeal, I'm afraid to go [to the US], and my husband can't go at all. For us, it's a catastrophe," says Mulligan.
Five years after 9/11, intensified security measures resulted in more than 500 people per day being denied entry to the US in 2006. For those traveling by air, that often means spending at least one night in detention.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has numerous mechanisms to ensure that travelers' civil rights are upheld during such detentions.
But a handful of high-profile cases like Shehadeh's, as well as critical reviews of detention facilities by DHS and civil-rights groups, indicate the enormous challenges in ensuring that the urgent effort to make the US more secure doesn't come at the expense of personal dignity and constitutional protections.
"Striking the right balance between security and civil liberties is very difficult – one of the more difficult aspects of the struggle against terrorism," says Lee Hamilton, who served as vice chair of the 9/11 Commission and is currently a member of the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council. "If you work at DHS ... the overriding concern is not to let the next Mohammad Atta into the country."
***
Soft-spoken with pale gray eyes, Mohamed Majed Shehadeh Refai is a consultant for companies that build water and sewage systems in the developing world.
He's nearing retirement age, yet still maintains a vigorous schedule, traveling often to the Middle East. His summers in Newburyport, Mass., offer precious respite. Since buying their rambling colonial estate here 30 years ago, he and his wife have set down roots in the community: their children attended the local schools for a short time, and they've paid a quarter-million dollars in property taxes over the past 10 years alone. Shehadeh has missed just one summer: 2004, when a heart attack and subsequent surgery left him hospitalized.
This year, he was eager to see how far the grapevines had crept up the trellis he built last September. He and Mulligan, both practicing Muslims and devoted parents, were also excited to visit their eldest daughter, Majida, who will deliver their first grandchild in late summer.
It was Majida he was going to visit when – having spent a month in Damascus, Syria, where his son is studying Arabic – he arrived at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas just after 2 p.m. on Dec. 28.
At immigration control, he handed over his German passport as usual. But this time, he says, the Syrian stamps aroused suspicion, and he was fingerprinted, searched, and questioned. Many questions related to his work, family, and name, which is also spelled Chehadeh. Others were more pointed: He recalls them asking, "Do you support Hizbullah or Hamas? Do you know any terrorists?"
RSS feed
