U.S. CITIZEN?: No (Sri Lankan)
CHARGE: Providing money to Tamil Tigers
TWIST: Money in question was his own ransom.
OUTCOME: Awaits ruling on deportation, like 500 others in his shoes
Kumar holds the curious distinction of being considered a terrorist and a terrorist victim—for the same act. A Sri Lankan fisherman with a soft, friendly face, Kumar told me his story while sitting in a Department of Homeland Security jail in New Jersey. (He asked that his full name not be used.)
After being kidnapped by Tamil Tigers in late 2004, Kumar paid the guerrilla group a partial ransom. Then the tsunami hit; Kumar lost his boat and couldn't pay the Tigers the rest. So he fled, eventually landing at Newark Airport, where he told customs officials his story and asked for asylum. Their response: throwing him in detention for giving material support (ransom) to a designated terrorist group (the Tigers).
Kumar isn't the only immigrant hit with such charges. Provisions slipped into the Patriot Act expanded the immigration material-support laws to absurdist extremes, defining a terrorist group as any two or more people who rebel against their own country. (When an immigration official pushed a DHS lawyer about whether the Iraqis who helped Jessica Lynch would be banned under the law, he sputtered, "Indeed. I mean, the position of the Department is, is extremely broad.") There are about 500 cases like Kumar's, people who have claimed asylum but had their case flagged because of providing material support that in all likelihood was forced. Just 29 have been given exemptions.
After 30 months in detention, Kumar was recently paroled and awaits a ruling. That's the good news. The bad news is that, officially, he's still a terrorist.