The April 11 gathering of more than 200 Somalis and their allies was organized to initiate the Omar Jamal Support Coalition. Jamal had been arrested the previous week and faces charges for mistakes he made on his application for asylum in 1998.

Peter Erlinder, a professor at the William Mitchell College of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, gave the crowd an account of how the arrest took place. At 6:30 a.m. on April 7, Jamal received a phone call from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE)--the reorganized Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). A BICE agent asked him to come to his office to look at some photographs.

Thinking this was unusual, Jamal went to Erlinder’s house to solicit his help. They decided to go together to the BICE office and got into Erlinder’s car. They had driven only a couple of blocks when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by federal officers who had a warrant for Omar’s arrest.

Jamal was taken immediately to a federal court where he found out for the first time that a Tennessee grand jury had indicted him on six counts of making false statements when he applied for asylum five years ago. Jamal spent three days in jail and was released after hundreds of phone calls came in to BICE demanding his release.

The government claims it started an investigation after unnamed individuals in the Somali community called to complain that Jamal was in the country illegally. Government files attained through court proceedings, however, show that the Joint Terrorism Task Force began the investigation shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, following a public protest that Jamal had organized against the killing of a Somali immigrant, Abu Kassin Jeilani, by Minneapolis police. The INS took over the case soon thereafter.

Jamal’s public activity against police brutality, against deportations of Somalis convicted of criminal or immigration violations, and in support of Somali money transfer agencies that were shut down by the U.S. Treasury Department are the real reasons he faces government persecution, Erlinder said.

The support coalition made available to the press a solidarity letter to Jamal from Róger Calero. "Even though I will not be able to be there with you and the Somali community today, I would like to add my support to your fight in defense of your right to live and work in this country," Calero said. "As someone who is also facing the threat of deportation, I join with others in the demand that all charges against you be dropped immediately, and to put a stop to the efforts to deport you."

Minneapolis city council member Dean Zimmerman, and Phil Steger of Friends for A Non-Violent World, were among the other speakers at the April 11 meeting.  
 
 
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