[Pnews] US confiscating a quarter of “Holy Land Five” wife’s wages

[Prisoner News]

  US confiscating a quarter of “Holy Land Five” wife’s wages

Aviva Stahl <http://electronicintifada.net/people/aviva-stahl>
*http://electronicintifada.net/content/us-confiscating-quarter-holy-land-five-wifes-wages/13231* 

11 March 2014

Majida Salem is no stranger to the heavy hand of the US criminal justice 
system. Her husband, former Holy Land Foundation 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/holy-land-foundation> chairman 
Ghassan Elashi <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ghassan-elashi>, is 
currently serving 65 years after what supporters believe was a 
politically motivated prosecution.

In their 2008 retrial, Elashi and four other men 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/holy-land-5> were found guilty of 
providing “material support to a terrorist organization” — despite the 
fact that the Palestinian /zakat/ (charity) committees through which the 
charity distributed its aid never appeared on the US list of prohibited 
groups.

Furthermore, US governmental agencies also provided funding to the same 
organizations 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/let-us-not-be-brought-down-last-legal-recourse-holy-land-five/11805> 
in Palestine without investigation.

Practically a single mom with three kids at home, Salem has felt the 
reach of the government’s heavy hand from the start of her husband’s 
incarceration.

But when an administrator interrupted the Islamic studies class she 
taught one day this past November and told her she was needed 
downstairs, even she was surprised by what was waiting for her in the 
lobby: a police officer sent to hand deliver a document known as a writ 
of garnishment.

The note from the US Attorney’s office specified that 25 percent of her 
wages were to be withheld in order to pay her husband’s smandatory 
“special assessment” fees (amounting to just over $2,900).

In an exclusive interview with The Electronic Intifada, Salem described 
how she felt the moment she found out about the court order.

“I was very upset, very outraged,” she said. “A great government, a 
great country like the United States, in my mind — a superpower — is 
supposed to be responsible for the wellbeing of its citizens,” she 
explained.

According to the family’s legal team (who have lodged an appeal to quash 
the writ) by garnishing Salem’s wages, federal prosecutors are 
functionally punishing her and children for the alleged criminal actions 
of their father.

If confirmed, the court order may heighten the climate of fear already 
faced by Muslims and Palestine activists across the country.


    Shocking

Since 1984, special assessment fees have been levied against every 
individual convicted of federal offenses. The amounts have changed over 
time but remain relatively nominal; today defendants are mandated to pay 
$100 for each felony conviction and $25 or less for each misdemeanor 
infraction.

But these sums can add up; after Elashi’s 2008 conviction on 35 federal 
counts, he immediately incurred a $3,500 fine.

The obligation to pay a special assessment fee ceases five years after 
the date of conviction, which helps explain why Salem’s wages are being 
garnished now.

In documents submitted to the court, federal prosecutors noted that 
while about $580 had been removed from Elashi’s prison account since his 
conviction, he would never be able to pay the full sum on time.

So, in November, the US Attorney’s office notified Salem’s school that 
they were required to withhold a quarter of her salary. A week later a 
police officer arrived at Salem’s school and handed her the court order.

Attorney John Cline, who represented Ghassan Elashi during his second 
trial, agreed to challenge the garnishment order. In a recent interview 
with The Electronic Intifada, he described his reaction when he learned 
of the government’s efforts to seize some of Salem’s wages.

“I was shocked that our government would use its power to force an 
innocent wife to pay her husband’s criminal penalty — especially a wife, 
like Mrs. Salem, who barely makes enough to support herself and her 
children, one of whom has special needs,” Cline said.

Salem had high hopes for her life in the United States when she first 
immigrated here with her husband. She said, “On the plane to America, my 
husband told me, ‘We’re going to the land of the free.’”


    Cruel and inhumane

Things have not been easy since her husband’s conviction. Mrs. Salem 
currently teaches Islamic and Quranic studies at Brighter Horizons 
Academy, an Islamic school in Garland, near Dallas, Texas.

Her December and January paychecks were garnished, and she expects the 
sums to continue being withheld through February and March. (The school 
is currently holding the funds that have been withheld, until the courts 
determine whether they should be released to Salem or to the government).

“When I am paid my full wage, I don’t even know how I make it,” Mrs. 
Salem said. “I liken it to a car that has a little gas or none, and 
you’re trying to push it to the max. So taking away part of my wage 
makes things very difficult for me.”

Salem’s three boys — an 18-year-old, a 17-year-old and a 13-year-old 
with Down’s Syndrome — are still at home. Of her three daughters, two 
are currently completing their graduate degrees and occasionally phone 
home to ask for a little financial support.

Salem’s difficulty in supporting her family is significantly heightened 
by the expense of visiting her husband, who is currently incarcerated 
inside a Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Marion, Illinois, about 
650 miles away from Dallas.

A CMU is a separate bloc within some prisons that the Center for 
Constitutional Rights has called an “experiment in social isolation” 
<http://ccrjustice.org/cmu-factsheet> as prisoners are denied physical 
contact with family members and phone calls are severely limited.

CMUs have also been dubbed “little Guantanamos” due to the overwhelming 
majority of Muslim prisoners of Arab and Middle Eastern descent.

Salem estimates that each trip costs the family a bare minimum of $1,500 
to $2,000. They try to go twice a year. Furthermore, the amount 
currently being garnished from her salary is almost equal to what she 
pays in rent.

Salem told The Electronic Intifada: “It hurts me when my kids say 
sometimes, ‘If /baba/ [dad] was out, we wouldn’t have to go through 
this.’ And I say, ‘Well, /baba/ is not out. I’m the only one who’s out.’ 
It upsets me, because it puts me under more pressure. I hear these 
things and they stress me out, and then the government comes and does 
this to me? It’s cruel and inhumane, completely inhumane.”


    “I’m not sure how I am going to make it”

Salem said that while she had approached family and community members 
for personal loans, she refuses to accept donations raised for families 
affected by terrorism prosecutions.

“I want my children to see that mom worked so hard, and that Mom never 
accepted a penny from anybody,” she said. “I want them to have that 
dignity, and I want them to be among those who give, not take, because 
my faith teaches me that the upper hand, that gives, is better than the 
lower hand, that takes.”

When asked how she felt about the prospect of facing several more months 
living on 75 percent of her wages, Salem sighed deeply and said, “I’m 
not sure how I am going to make it.”

What is particularly striking is the apparent lack of precedent for 
garnishing wages in this context.

The Electronic Intifada was able to review the motion to quash the writ 
of garnishment, the government response, and the reply memorandum from 
Salem’s legal team.

Prosecutors name several cases that they allege justify the garnishment, 
but do not specify a single instance in which family members of 
convicted individuals have been held liable for special assessment fees.

The sheer number of individuals convicted of federal offenses since 1984 
(about 85,000 in 2012 alone) underlines the apparent anomaly of the 
state’s efforts with regards to Salem and Elashi.

The Electronic Intifada contacted the US Attorney’s office handling 
Salem’s case to inquire about whether they knew of any past cases, in 
any year, in which partners of convicted individuals have had their 
wages garnished in order to pay special assessment fees.

Kathy Colvin, a public information officer in the Northern District of 
Texas, said in an email: “We routinely garnish spousal property to 
enforce criminal debts of whatever nature. We don’t usually garnish to 
enforce Mandatory Special Assessments (MSA) because most MSAs are 
substantially lower and, if not paid at sentencing, are routinely paid 
in full through the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program while the 
defendant is incarcerated.”

She added, “Mr. Elashi was required to pay the debt at sentencing but 
didn’t.”


    Innocent individuals liable

According to Cline, however, the relevant federal statute indicates that 
co-owned property can be garnished only to the extent permitted by state 
law.

“Because Texas law does not permit the garnishment,” Cline explained, 
“the government cannot garnish Ms. Salem’s salary under the federal 
garnishment statute.”

The costs at stake in this case may be much greater than the $2,900 the 
government aims to withhold from Salem. Cline worries that if the courts 
confirm the garnishment order, other innocent individuals may also be 
held liable for their loved ones’ alleged actions.

“If the writ of garnishment is not quashed, the federal government will 
have been handed one more tool by which it can force innocent husbands 
and wives and their innocent children to bear the burden of their 
spouses’ alleged crimes,” said Cline.

“This form of punishment — visiting the alleged sins of the husband on 
the innocent wife and children — is abhorrent to any civilized system of 
justice.”

There are also questions about why the government is pursuing the 
garnishment with such fervor, an intensity previously mirrored in the 
investigation into and subsequent prosecution of the Holy Land Five.

Before it was shuttered in 2001, the Holy Land Foundation provided 
assistance to needy people in countries around the world, including 
Bosnia, Chechnya, Turkey, Palestine and the United States.

According to Salem, problems began in the 1990s, when Israel lobby 
groups launched a defamation campaign that attempted to tie the Holy 
Land Foundation to Hamas <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hamas>.

Almost immediately, the charity’s directors approached the State 
Department and the Department of Justice for advice and assistance on 
how to legally distribute their aid.

The government then directed them towards the list of designated 
terrorist groups — and the /zakat/ committees through which the Holy 
Land Foundation distributed its aid never appeared on that list.

Several other large aid organizations, including the Red Cross and USAID 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/usaid>, also allocated assistance 
through many of the same /zakat/ committees but never faced charges.

Elashi’s first trial ended with a hung jury, but the government decided 
to try him again.


    The chilling effect

During Elashi’s second trial, the prosecution incorporated the testimony 
of an anonymous Israeli intelligence officer, who claimed that he could 
“smell” a connection between the Holy Land Foundation and Hamas.

It was the first time in US history that the courts had allowed an 
expert witness to testify under a pseudonym.

The American Civil Liberties Union 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/aclu> has strongly condemned the 
prosecution of Salem’s husband and his colleagues, stating in a 2009 
report <https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/humanrights/blockingfaith.pdf> 
that the prosecution’s actions against the Holy Land Foundation 
“violated the fundamental rights of American Muslims’ charitable giving 
in accordance with their faith, seriously undermining American values of 
due process and commitment to First Amendment freedoms.”

For supporters of the Holy Land Five and of Salem herself, the 
garnishment is just the latest example of how far the government is 
willing to go to silence and scare those involved in Palestinian activism.

The next step in the case is a hearing on the motion to quash the writ 
of garnishment, scheduled to occur on 20 March in Dallas.

“My wages are being garnished to punish me, to punish my husband, to 
punish the community or whoever hears about it,” Salem said.

“It’s like they’re saying, ‘If you become active, if you speak up, if 
you partake in any kind of charity with the Middle East, then you may 
face the same outcome.’”

/Aviva Stahl is a Brooklyn-based independent journalist. She primarily 
writes about the intersection between the War on Terror and the prison 
industrial complex./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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