On Feb. 19, the Foghorn was informed of the wrongful detainment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers of USF alum Assim Alkhawaja. The arrest took place on Feb. 16 as Alkhawaja was conducting a rideshare drop-off at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corp Base in San Diego County, according to NBC 7 San Diego. After the arrest, Alkhawaja was held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center for eight days, and was released on Feb. 24 after a judicial hearing and posting $10,000 in bail.
Upon entering the base, Alkhawaja was stopped and asked to present identification, which he did in the form of a driver’s license and his current U.S. work permit. Soon after, two ICE agents appeared and told Alkhawaja he was under arrest, despite not presenting a valid judicial warrant or giving any reason as to why. Alkhawaja was then handcuffed at the wrists and ankles, put in the back of a van, and taken to the San Diego Police Station.
“[The ICE agent] looked at my file, nothing wrong with it. Without any questioning, they offered me like, ‘Hey do you leave voluntarily?’, and I was like, leave voluntarily to where?”, Alkhawaja said.
Originally from Palestine, Alkhawaja legally emigrated to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia in 2006. He graduated from USF in 2015 with a doctorate in education and human rights, and currently owns and operates a coffee shop in Oceanside, Calif. Alkhawaja filed for asylum just last year, and his case was pending at the time of his arrest. “I’m filing and I have a legitimate case, I have a lawyer… and if I wanted to leave voluntarily I would not go through all of this,” said Alkhawaja, “[The ICE agent] said, ‘Okay, all right, then you exceeded your visa.’ No, I did not exceed my visa. You are trying to find an excuse, you cannot do that… then I found myself handcuffed again.”
At the detention center, Alkhawaja said he found “too many people” in the same situation as him. His personal belongings were taken, and at the time of publication, not all of them have been returned, including his driver’s license and work permit. “They took everything… they gave me the uniform… and yeah they put me in this facility full of people. One room has eight people in it. And they told me, ‘You know, this is a way better situation… people were sleeping on the floor.’,” said Alkhawaja.
The Otay Mesa Detention Center is owned by a non-federal, for-profit private corporation called CoreCivic, which is “one of the largest prison operators” in the U.S., according to their website. CoreCivic did not give any comment when asked about the whereabouts of Alkhawaja’s personal items.
“To be honest… the [CoreCivic] officers were really good. They respected us. However the food is below… it’s not even [edible] at all, the food,” Alkhawaja said. “The water, sometimes we put sweetener in the water to be able to drink it. It’s just bad. It smells bad. It’s tap water, but it seems like it doesn’t run through filters or something.”
“I saw people, they have green cards, and they [were] in the detention center. There [are some people] who have been there for more than one year… This is the situation… It’s terrible… At least in prison, at least you are sentenced for a crime, sentenced for a certain time,” he said Alkhawaja.
Alkhawaja said that inside the detention center, there is a “fear of transportation” among detainees. “All of a sudden, they call people, and they transfer them to another state… and they do this because if a detention center is not full, they do not make money.,” said Alkhawaja. According to a report from the Center for American Progress, the contracts between these private companies and ICE detention centers are designed so that ICE is paid a per-diem rate for every person detained that exceeds the minimum quota, which incentivizes the detainment of people.
Prior to his court hearing on Monday, Feb. 23, former advisors and friends of Alkhawaja submitted letters to the judge pleading for his release. The letter read:
“This letter is in support of Assim Alkhawaja and a request for immediate release from detention. Assim is an honest man and member of the community of Oceanside. He is a businessman, opening his business in Oceanside and holds a doctorate in Education and Human Rights from the University of San Francisco. Assim is an extremely intelligent and professional individual and his rights have been violated via unlawful detention. He has a legal work visa that is valid for the next couple of years and the community demands his immediate release.”
While he was still detained, members of the Oceanside community set up a GoFund Me for Assim, to help recuperate the money spent on bail and for an attorney. Since his release, Alkhawaja is required to wear a GPS tracking device on his ankle at all times, and ICE agents conduct home inspections at random. He is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge again on April 1.
