Out in the Open
May 21, 2007

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So now we're going after families.  Ha, we got your brother.   Be on notice.  This is just the beginning.

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ZAHN: What were this guy and his brother doing before they came here?  Were they freedom-fighters or terrorists?  Their story "Out in the Open" next.

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ZAHN: "Out in the Open" now, what is it about a Michigan restaurant owner that is so threatening to the security of the United States that the federal government wants to kick him out of the country?   Well, depending on who you believe, the answer is either nothing at all or terrorism.   Keith Oppenheim reports tonight from Michigan.

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KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In southwest Michigan, if you go into a restaurant called Cafe Gulistan, you'll notice what looks like a shrine with a message that reads RETURN HUSEYIN.  Huseyin is the brother of the restaurant's owner, Ibrahim Parlak.   Parlak firmly believes the government deported his brother last week as a way to send a message.

IBRAHIM PARLAK, RESTAURANT OWNER: They're hoping that they can get me so that I can say, OK, that's it.  I give up.  So that they can declare victory.

OPPENHEIM: For six years, the federal government has been trying to get the older brother, Ibrahim, deported, charging he was a member of the PKK, a Kurdish nationalist group that for years has fought against Turkey.  Parlak says that in the late 1980s, he campaigned for Kurdish rights, but never took part in violence.

PARLAK: In a peaceful manner.  And I didn't do anything wrong.

OPPENHEIM: The Turkish authorities say he was involved in violence.  Parlak was detained and he says tortured, but eventually released.  In 1991, Parlak came to America and applied for asylum.  He got it.  And then in 1999 he applied for citizenship.

(on camera): But U.S. authorities have obtained new information about Parlak's past from Turkey.   Not only that, but the official status of the PKK had changed.  Now listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization.  For Ibrahim Parlak, the government that had once welcomed him as a freedom fighter was now getting ready to prosecute him as a terrorist.

RUSS KNOCKE, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: He clearly has connections to terrorism.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): When Parlak was charged in a Turkish court, he was convicted of separatism against the Turkish state.  The U.S. government charges that on his application for asylum, Parlak had not disclose that he'd been convicted of anything.

KNOCKE: We first viewed him as someone who violated our immigration laws and in a post 9/11 world, violation of immigration laws cannot be tolerated in any way.

OPPENHEIM: As the government sought to deport Parlak, he was sent to county jail for 10 months, then released.  Meantime, his supporters were waging a P.R. campaign.  They got help from two Michigan congressmen, Republican Fred Upton and Democrat Carl Levin who introduced a bill to give him permanent residency, a move which for the moment has stalled his deportation, which brings us back to Ibrahim's brother.

(on camera): Huseyin Parlak came to the U.S. on a student visa and worked here at his brother's restaurant.  He supporters tell us in 2003 Hussein was worried that because of his brother's well publicized case and because he's a Kurd, that things could get dicey for him if he went back to Turkey.  So he applied for asylum.  Ultimately his application was denied and he lost on appeal.

ROBERT CARPENTER, HUSEYIN PARLAK'S ATTORNEY: We were led to believe and with very good reason that he would remain here during the pendency of that appeal.

OPPENHEIM: That didn't happen.  Last week, immediately after a scheduled appointment with immigration officials in Detroit, Huseyin Parlak was taken into custody and put on a plane to Turkey with no chance to see his attorney or family.  In a statement, immigration officials wrote, "Huseyin Parlak violated his student visa and received due process under the law."

Ibrahim Parlak and his friends believe the deportation is a government threat.

MATZIN DZURIS, FRIEND OF IBRAHIM PARLAK: So now we're going after your family.  And, ha, we got your brother.  And be on notice, this is just the beginning.

PARLAK: They didn't have to make my brother pay for this.  If they want to do it, they're going to come do it to me.  I'm here.  I'm not running away.

OPPENHEIM: As a result of being deported, Huseyin Parlak was separated from his girlfriend.   Ibrahim Parlak worries the same could happen between him and his daughter, but he says he's determined to stay in America.  Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Harbert, Michigan.

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ZAHN: And Huseyin Parlak's case is still on appeal and if he were to win, he could be brought back to the United States.  But his brother is worried about Huseyin's safety in Turkey.