Great Falls Tribune - Online: Immigration attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath shows a racially charged essay sent to his Helena office via email. The email was forwarded to him on Sept. 28 by Bruce Norum, the supervisory detention and deportation officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement. TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS
HELENA ? Shahid Haque-Hausrath sat down at his computer on the morning of Sept. 28 and, as he does at the start of most work days, began reading his email.
In his inbox that morning was an email from the state's top U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, Bruce Norum.
Haque-Hausrath is an immigration attorney who often deals with ICE on immigration and deportation cases, so he wasn't necessarily surprised to see an email from Norum, the supervisory detention and deportation officer for Montana.
Haque-Hausrath said he was somewhat perplexed by the email's subject line: "FW: This AA Pilot tells it like it is ..."
In the body of the email Norum simply wrote "Good read" ahead of a forwarded message.
When Haque-Hausrath read the contents that followed Norum's apparent recommendation, his curiosity turned to stunned amazement.
The forwarded message contained a lengthy, racially charged essay that appeared to be a rebuttal to the idea that Arabs and Muslims deserve the same protection under the law against racial profiling and discrimination as other citizens.
Norum declined to comment on the email and referred all questions to a public information officer in the agency's Salt Lake City office.
Haque-Hausrath and a man named David Cloud, who, like Norum, has a dhs.gov email address, were the only apparent recipients of the essay titled "YOU WORRY ME!"
The content of the essay seems to advocate a "loyalty test" for Muslims and Arabs before they should be granted the same rights and freedoms afforded to other citizens of the United States.
"I want to know, I DEMAND to know and I have a right to know, whether or not you love America ..." the essay reads, in part. "Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation; that He will protect it and let it prosper? Or do you pray that Allah with (sic) destroy it in one of your Jihads?"
The essay is purported to have been written by an American Airlines pilot named John Maniscalco. Federal Aviation Administration records show that a John Maniscalco was at one point an American Airlines pilot, but attempts to contact Maniscalco were unsuccessful. American Airlines did not respond to an inquiry from the Tribune.
According to Snopes.com, the essay has been circulating on the Internet since as far back as June 2002.
Haque-Hausrath ? a natural-born American citizen who was raised as a Muslim by his parents who emigrated to the United States from Pakistan 40 years ago ? was not only offended by the email's contents but was shocked that Montana's most senior ICE official would send such a vitriolic message with an apparent endorsement.
"I saw that he said it was a 'good read,' and then I started reading what it said, and it just started getting worse and worse," Haque-Hausrath said.
Haque-Hausrath said as he read the email, he got the sense that he wasn't supposed to have received it, that maybe it was sent to him by mistake.
"But once I read that this was about Muslim Americans ? and obviously he knows from my personal meetings with him that I am a Muslim ? I started to wonder if he deliberately sent it to me," Haque-Hausrath said. "If it was sent to me on purpose I take serious offense to that. The idea that he would send this message to the one Muslim attorney that he deals with, which says my loyalty to the United States should be questioned, is offensive. I'm an U.S. citizen. I was born and raised here. My loyalty to my country is unquestionable. I'm an attorney. I work within the legal framework our U.S. Constitution every day."
Last week Haque-Hausrath obtained an attorney of his own and filed civil rights complaints with the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility and with Norum's supervisor in the Salt Lake City ICE office.
ICE officials declined to comment on the details of the complaints or any pending investigation into the matter.
"ICE is aware of the allegation and is reviewing it for appropriate action," ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer said in a statement. "ICE takes all complaints related to civil rights and civil liberties violations very seriously. As such, the agency will ensure that a review is conducted thoroughly and expeditiously."
Brian Miller, the attorney for Haque-Hausrath, said he was contacted by an official from ICE on Thursday to inform him the agency had received the complaint.
"It is apparent that ICE is taking the complaint very seriously, and we greatly appreciate their prompt attention to this matter," Miller said.
Robert Deasy is the director of liaison and information for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He said it's not unreasonable for Haque-Hausrath to treat the email as an act of intimidation and to file complaints with the appropriate offices within DHS.
"AILA abhors all forms of bigotry, bias and discrimination. The message by the American Airlines pilot is reprehensible, and if an ICE officer indeed forwarded it approvingly, the officer's action is equally reprehensible," Deasy said in an email.
Deasy said DHS has a responsibility to investigate and determine whether bias of any sort influenced Norum in the discharge of his official duties.
Debbie Smith, an immigration attorney in Helena for more than 20 years, said she was surprised to hear about the email, which she said seemed out of character for someone in the Montana ICE field office.
"My experience in dealing with the employees of the Helena ICE office has generally been a positive one," Smith said. "We don't always see eye to eye, because I'm often representing people they're trying to deport, but my experience is this particular office, and especially the staff that Mr. Norum supervises, are aware that they are dealing with human beings. They are courteous and they are professional."
Smith said some of the abuses that have occurred in deportation offices in other states haven't happened in Montana.
"My hope is that this is some kind of mistake. Maybe his email got spammed," Smith said. "If not, it sounds like it was poor judgment at a minimum and calls into question his impartiality."
Nikki Zupanic, public policy director for the Montana ACLU, saw the email last week shortly after Haque-Hausrath received it. Zupanic said the email is especially troubling coming from a high-ranking ICE official with broad authority over detained immigrants.
According to a recent DHS job posting for a the same position in the Detroit ICE field office, the supervisory detention and deportation officer manages the day-to-day operations and procedures of detention and removal activity throughout the field office's area of responsibility.
The person in that position also provides assistance in adjudicating applications for stays of deportation, oversees the determination of bond amounts and reviews appeals for reduction and exercises final authority in granting or denying formal petitions related to deportation or removal, among other functions.
"In immigration matters, regardless of your immigration status or nationality, everyone is entitled to their due-process rights. That means getting a fair hearing from the government," Zupanic said. "This guy is in a position of authority, and part of his job is to make sure that people do get a fair hearing and a fair process from the government. If he has a racial, ethnic or religious bias against the people he's making those decisions about, that seriously calls into question his ability to do his job."
Those sentiments were echoed by Kim Abbot of the Montana Human Rights Network, of which Haque-Hausrath is president of the board of directors.
"When we saw who was sending it out, with what appears to be an endorsement of the views in the essay, our first question was, 'Does a high-ranking ICE official really believe that Arab and Muslim citizens need to take a loyalty test?'" Abbott said. "It seems to call into question a deeply held American value that people shouldn't be judge based on the color of their skin or ethnicity or religion. Coming from a very high-ranking ICE official in Montana, it was really abhorrent."
Haque-Hausrath, who has represented approximately 100 clients in removal proceedings since moving to Montana in 2007, said if an investigation finds that Norum did intentionally send the email to him, or anyone else, then he doesn't believe Norum should be allowed to keep his job.
"It's just plain not acceptable to have somebody in his position sharing views that run directly contrary to the laws that he has to enforce and the Constitution that he's sworn to uphold," Haque-Hausrath said. "That's exactly what this email represents. By passing this around and saying that it's a 'good read,' I think he should be called to account to explain whether or not he shares these views."
Reach Tribune Capital Bureau Chief John S. Adams at 442-9493, or jadams@greatfallstribune.com.
HELENA ? Shahid Haque-Hausrath sat down at his computer on the morning of Sept. 28 and, as he does at the start of most work days, began reading his email.
In his inbox that morning was an email from the state's top U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, Bruce Norum.
Haque-Hausrath is an immigration attorney who often deals with ICE on immigration and deportation cases, so he wasn't necessarily surprised to see an email from Norum, the supervisory detention and deportation officer for Montana.
Haque-Hausrath said he was somewhat perplexed by the email's subject line: "FW: This AA Pilot tells it like it is ..."
In the body of the email Norum simply wrote "Good read" ahead of a forwarded message.
When Haque-Hausrath read the contents that followed Norum's apparent recommendation, his curiosity turned to stunned amazement.
The forwarded message contained a lengthy, racially charged essay that appeared to be a rebuttal to the idea that Arabs and Muslims deserve the same protection under the law against racial profiling and discrimination as other citizens.
Norum declined to comment on the email and referred all questions to a public information officer in the agency's Salt Lake City office.
Haque-Hausrath and a man named David Cloud, who, like Norum, has a dhs.gov email address, were the only apparent recipients of the essay titled "YOU WORRY ME!"
The content of the essay seems to advocate a "loyalty test" for Muslims and Arabs before they should be granted the same rights and freedoms afforded to other citizens of the United States.
"I want to know, I DEMAND to know and I have a right to know, whether or not you love America ..." the essay reads, in part. "Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation; that He will protect it and let it prosper? Or do you pray that Allah with (sic) destroy it in one of your Jihads?"
The essay is purported to have been written by an American Airlines pilot named John Maniscalco. Federal Aviation Administration records show that a John Maniscalco was at one point an American Airlines pilot, but attempts to contact Maniscalco were unsuccessful. American Airlines did not respond to an inquiry from the Tribune.
According to Snopes.com, the essay has been circulating on the Internet since as far back as June 2002.
Haque-Hausrath ? a natural-born American citizen who was raised as a Muslim by his parents who emigrated to the United States from Pakistan 40 years ago ? was not only offended by the email's contents but was shocked that Montana's most senior ICE official would send such a vitriolic message with an apparent endorsement.
"I saw that he said it was a 'good read,' and then I started reading what it said, and it just started getting worse and worse," Haque-Hausrath said.
Haque-Hausrath said as he read the email, he got the sense that he wasn't supposed to have received it, that maybe it was sent to him by mistake.
"But once I read that this was about Muslim Americans ? and obviously he knows from my personal meetings with him that I am a Muslim ? I started to wonder if he deliberately sent it to me," Haque-Hausrath said. "If it was sent to me on purpose I take serious offense to that. The idea that he would send this message to the one Muslim attorney that he deals with, which says my loyalty to the United States should be questioned, is offensive. I'm an U.S. citizen. I was born and raised here. My loyalty to my country is unquestionable. I'm an attorney. I work within the legal framework our U.S. Constitution every day."
Last week Haque-Hausrath obtained an attorney of his own and filed civil rights complaints with the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility and with Norum's supervisor in the Salt Lake City ICE office.
ICE officials declined to comment on the details of the complaints or any pending investigation into the matter.
"ICE is aware of the allegation and is reviewing it for appropriate action," ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer said in a statement. "ICE takes all complaints related to civil rights and civil liberties violations very seriously. As such, the agency will ensure that a review is conducted thoroughly and expeditiously."
Brian Miller, the attorney for Haque-Hausrath, said he was contacted by an official from ICE on Thursday to inform him the agency had received the complaint.
"It is apparent that ICE is taking the complaint very seriously, and we greatly appreciate their prompt attention to this matter," Miller said.
Robert Deasy is the director of liaison and information for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He said it's not unreasonable for Haque-Hausrath to treat the email as an act of intimidation and to file complaints with the appropriate offices within DHS.
"AILA abhors all forms of bigotry, bias and discrimination. The message by the American Airlines pilot is reprehensible, and if an ICE officer indeed forwarded it approvingly, the officer's action is equally reprehensible," Deasy said in an email.
Deasy said DHS has a responsibility to investigate and determine whether bias of any sort influenced Norum in the discharge of his official duties.
Debbie Smith, an immigration attorney in Helena for more than 20 years, said she was surprised to hear about the email, which she said seemed out of character for someone in the Montana ICE field office.
"My experience in dealing with the employees of the Helena ICE office has generally been a positive one," Smith said. "We don't always see eye to eye, because I'm often representing people they're trying to deport, but my experience is this particular office, and especially the staff that Mr. Norum supervises, are aware that they are dealing with human beings. They are courteous and they are professional."
Smith said some of the abuses that have occurred in deportation offices in other states haven't happened in Montana.
"My hope is that this is some kind of mistake. Maybe his email got spammed," Smith said. "If not, it sounds like it was poor judgment at a minimum and calls into question his impartiality."
Nikki Zupanic, public policy director for the Montana ACLU, saw the email last week shortly after Haque-Hausrath received it. Zupanic said the email is especially troubling coming from a high-ranking ICE official with broad authority over detained immigrants.
According to a recent DHS job posting for a the same position in the Detroit ICE field office, the supervisory detention and deportation officer manages the day-to-day operations and procedures of detention and removal activity throughout the field office's area of responsibility.
The person in that position also provides assistance in adjudicating applications for stays of deportation, oversees the determination of bond amounts and reviews appeals for reduction and exercises final authority in granting or denying formal petitions related to deportation or removal, among other functions.
"In immigration matters, regardless of your immigration status or nationality, everyone is entitled to their due-process rights. That means getting a fair hearing from the government," Zupanic said. "This guy is in a position of authority, and part of his job is to make sure that people do get a fair hearing and a fair process from the government. If he has a racial, ethnic or religious bias against the people he's making those decisions about, that seriously calls into question his ability to do his job."
Those sentiments were echoed by Kim Abbot of the Montana Human Rights Network, of which Haque-Hausrath is president of the board of directors.
"When we saw who was sending it out, with what appears to be an endorsement of the views in the essay, our first question was, 'Does a high-ranking ICE official really believe that Arab and Muslim citizens need to take a loyalty test?'" Abbott said. "It seems to call into question a deeply held American value that people shouldn't be judge based on the color of their skin or ethnicity or religion. Coming from a very high-ranking ICE official in Montana, it was really abhorrent."
Haque-Hausrath, who has represented approximately 100 clients in removal proceedings since moving to Montana in 2007, said if an investigation finds that Norum did intentionally send the email to him, or anyone else, then he doesn't believe Norum should be allowed to keep his job.
"It's just plain not acceptable to have somebody in his position sharing views that run directly contrary to the laws that he has to enforce and the Constitution that he's sworn to uphold," Haque-Hausrath said. "That's exactly what this email represents. By passing this around and saying that it's a 'good read,' I think he should be called to account to explain whether or not he shares these views."
Reach Tribune Capital Bureau Chief John S. Adams at 442-9493, or jadams@greatfallstribune.com.
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