The New York Times Company  
The New York Times
November 22, 2003, Saturday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Page 3; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk

LENGTH: 797 words

HEADLINE: Muslim SUNY Student's Expulsion Is Protested

BYLINE:  By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BODY:
Groups of legal advocates and students protested the arrest and expulsion of a State University of New York Maritime College student yesterday, claiming the college singled out the student, a Muslim from Nigeria, after he argued with a college official to lower his tuition. The Bronx-based college denied it had called the authorities, citing privacy laws that prohibit academic institutions from disclosing information about their students.

The case has become a rallying point for immigrant advocacy groups, who say it is an example of the heightened scrutiny immigrants have received since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Under federal rules, in particular a regulation requiring immigrants from 25 countries to register in a special process with federal authorities, thousands of immigrants could face deportation.

"This case exemplifies conditions within schools where administrators are able to abuse their authority by threatening foreign students," said Monami Maulik, an immigrant advocate who has taken up the case and led a rally yesterday outside 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Mahattan.

The student, Sulaiman Oladokun, 28, has been in a New Jersey jail since March, when agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested him in the college library. About two weeks after his arrest, the college expelled him. It was two months before he was scheduled to graduate. He is being held by immigration authorities on charges that he falsified his Nigerian college records, a charge he denies. Mr. Oladokun's United States student visa was issued based on his Nigerian academic record, Ms. Maulik said.

Mr. Oladokun said that a college vice president, Kimberly Cline, had threatened to call immigration authorities on him in February, after he had argued with her over tuition. A copy of his immigration report, drawn up by the authorities after his arrest and provided by Ms. Maulik, states that "the school contacted the Joint Terrorism Task Force because of what they believed to be suspicious behavior of the subject."

The college, in a statement, said "such allegations are absolutely false." It added, "We at Maritime College have not demanded or arranged for the detention of any of our students, nor can we now demand or cause the release of any student."

Mr. Oladokun, in a telephone interview from the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey, said that Ms. Cline "said she'd call the I.N.S. on me." He continued: "I said, 'That's not logical.' This has nothing to do with the I.N.S. I didn't know it was a kind of warning."

Laura Mullen, a college spokeswoman, declined to comment on why Mr. Oladokun was expelled. Federal privacy laws, the college said, prohibit the release of certain information about students. Ms. Cline was not at work on Friday, another college spokesperson said, and was unavailable for comment.

Whatever the reason for Mr. Oladokun's problems, his case as an immigrant in danger of facing deportation has become more common sinceSept. 11, 2001. Advocacy and civil liberties groups report a rise in arrests and detentions since the federal government toughened rules that monitor the movements of immigrants, particularly Muslims. "Special registration, the questioning of people, secret arrests and detentions have had a devastating impact," said Lee Gelernt, senior staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union's National Immigrants' Rights Project. "A lot of hardships were caused by pinning the terrorist tag on people too quickly."

Under one such rule, immigrants from 25 countries were required to register with the federal government. Since the rule was imposed last November, 290,526 immigrants across the country have registered, said Mark Thorn, a spokesman for New York Immigration and Customs Enforcement, within the Department of Homeland Security. Of those, about 13,000 face deportation in court dates to appear before judges.

For foreign students, a new national rule, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, required academic institutions to begin entering information on foreign students into a federal database in August of this year. In New York that has been compounded by local agencies, like the New York Police Department and the Taxi and Limousine Commission, that have been working more closely with immigration authorities, said Sinyen Ling, a staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which has been handling litigation for Muslim men in the New York area.

"What we've been hearing is an increase of local city agencies that have been involved in enforcing immigration laws," Ms. Ling said.

"The SUNY student stands out because there's a belief that it was the school that actually reported him," she added.
 

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GRAPHIC: Photo: Immigrants' rights advocates held a news conference yesterday to protest the treatment of Sulaiman Oladokun, a Nigerian Muslim expelled from SUNY Maritime College two months before his graduation. (Photo by Lucian Read/World Picture News for The New York Times)

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