Patriot Act Faulted in Denial of Visa for Muslim Scholar

From the New York Times

October 26, 2007

By JOHN ELIGON

A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge yesterday to declare unconstitutional a part of the Patriot Act that he says allowed a prominent Muslim scholar to be denied a visa.

The lawyer, Jameel Jaffer, told Judge Paul A. Crotty of Federal District Court in Manhattan that the provision, allowing the federal government to deny visas to people who “endorse or espouse terrorist activity,” was a primary reason that the scholar, Tariq Ramadan, was denied a work visa to enter the United States in 2004.

“What concerns us about this provision is it could be used to exclude people who have done nothing more than disagree with U.S. foreign policy,” Mr. Jaffer said outside court.

Mr. Ramadan was trying to enter the United States from his home in Switzerland after being hired to teach Islamic ethics at the University of Notre Dame.

The government has said that Mr. Ramadan was not denied a visa because of the provision in the Patriot Act, but because of contributions he had made to charities considered by the United States to have connections to terrorism.

The A.C.L.U. and Mr. Jaffer are acting on behalf of Mr. Ramadan and the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center. The groups say their First Amendment rights have been violated because they cannot meet with Mr. Ramadan.

According to Mr. Jaffer, the State Department said during a news conference in August 2004 that the refusal to allow Mr. Ramadan to enter the country was on the basis of the “endorse or espouse” provision.

Mr. Ramadan had visited the United States 24 times before he was denied the visa. He lectured at Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton â€" and the State Department.

In an article published in The New York Times in September 2004, a spokeswoman for the State Department said Mr. Ramadan’s visa had been revoked under a provision banning espionage agents, saboteurs and anyone the United States “knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity.”

But in recent court papers, the government has said that Mr. Ramadan’s visa was not denied because of that provision. In a court affidavit, the government said that statements by the Department of Homeland Security attributing Mr. Ramadan’s exclusion to the “endorse and espouse” provision were wrong.

The government has said that Mr. Ramadan, who is currently teaching at Oxford University, was denied a visa because of donations he made to charities from 1998 to 2002. In 2003, the Treasury Department designated the organizations entities that supported terrorism.

Mr. Jaffer argued that Mr. Ramadan did not know of the charities’ connection to terrorism and that their later designation should not be retroactively applied to his contributions.

But David S. Jones, an assistant United States attorney, told Judge Crotty otherwise.

“Aliens abroad do not enter as a right, but as a matter of grace,” he said.

Mr. Jones said that Mr. Ramadan, a grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-militant group, could receive a visa if he reapplied for one with “clear and convincing” evidence that his donations were not used to support terrorism.

Judge Crotty would not set a date for his decision.