USA IMMIGRATION THROUGH EMBASSY IN YEMEN CONFISCATED MORE THAN 100 USA PASSPORTS GRANTED OFFICIALLY TO YEMEN CITIZENS WHO ARE NOW AMERICAN CLAIMING TO HAVE BEEN OBTAINED UNDER FALSE IDENTITY BUT ADVOCATES QUESTIONED GOVT MOVE WHY THEN CONFISCATING ON REACHING IN YEMEN NOT WHEN THEY WERE RESIDING WITH FAMILIES IN USA RAISED BIG QUESTION ABOUT GOVT MOTIVE 21ST JANUARY 2014 Dozens of US citizens have had travel documents confiscated in a process questioned even within the State Department Rayman Hussein was 10 years old in 1993 when his family moved to the United States from Yemen. His father hoped to provide him with a future free of the political violence and poverty that plagued their homeland. The family began a new life in Oakland, Calif., a city long recognized as an immigrant sanctuary. Within two years, Hussein was a naturalized U.S. citizen. But today he languishes in Yemen, his U.S. passport confiscated on the grounds that it was obtained under a false identity. He signed a statement to that effect, after what he described as a lengthy interrogation by a State Department investigator at the embassy in Sana’a, who, Hussein alleges, threatened to confiscate his passport if he refused to sign. The moment he signed, his passport was immediately seized — illegally, according to his lawyer and civil rights groups — and he has been granted neither a hearing nor the travel documents that allow an American whose passport has been revoked to return to the U.S. Hussein is believed to be one of at least 100 Yemeni-Americans in similar circumstances — a situation that has prompted advocates for those stripped of their passports to suggest that U.S. officials may have intimidated U.S. citizens into confessing identity fraud, then kept them in Yemen without due process. “The number is probably higher. We don’t have an accurate number because people are afraid to speak out,” said Ibraham Qatabi, an expert on Yemen at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Stories that the U.S. embassy in Yemen was revoking passports began emerging two years ago, he said. A representative for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs told Al Jazeera that the department has the “authority to revoke a U.S. passport under certain specific conditions, including when issued under a false identity.” The State Department, which oversees U.S. embassies, consulates and the Foreign Service officers who staff them, declined to respond more directly to questions posed concerning Hussein’s case.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 05:28:17 +0000
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