Should Sam Kambo be deported?

Government says he was part of brutal coup; friend, co-workers rally around LCRA employee and father of four who left African home in 1994.

By John Kelso and Andrea Ball
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, March 11, 2007

When Sam Kambo applied for a visa before entering the United States in 1994, the U.S. government knew that he was a leader of a group that had overthrown the government in his native Sierra Leone in a 1992 coup.

Kambo received his diplomatic visa, settled in Austin and earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Texas. He started a family here and landed a job at the Lower Colorado River Authority.

Now, 13 years after he left Africa, Kambo is in jail in San Antonio, and the U.S. government is trying to send him back to Sierra Leone, accusing him of overstaying his work visa.

The government has refused to release him on bail since he was jailed in October, citing allegations of atrocities committed by the National Provisional Ruling Council government, which he helped lead in Sierra Leone, such as executing prisoners and publicly displaying the heads of slain rebels. In court documents, the government says Kambo's "presence in the United States is an affront to civilized society."

But there is no claim that Kambo had a direct, personal role in the abuses. Nor is there any explanation for why the U.S. stance on his past has changed so drastically since it let him into the country.

People in Austin who know Kambo say the guy Homeland Security is describing is not the Sam Kambo they have grown to love and respect, and they have rallied around Kambo and his family.

"If you knew the guy, you'd be a huge supporter," LCRA spokesman Robert Cullick said. "We've turned back flips over here to help him and his family. His fellow employees here have had taco sales and bake sales and created a fund at the credit union and such."

In their eyes, Kambo is the kind of immigrant you'd think this country would want: a college honors graduate, a loving father, a homeowner, a hard worker lauded by his bosses.

In a letter from jail, Kambo said he became disillusioned with the NPRC and resigned from it when he came to the United States in 1994. Media reports from Sierra Leone have suggested that Kambo left amid allegations that he had siphoned money that was supposed to be used to buy arms, charges that Kambo said Friday were "a lot of wild speculation."

Kambo, 38, went to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Antonio on Oct. 27 for what he thought would be a hearing to decide whether he could become a permanent U.S. resident.

Instead, he was arrested, and he's been locked up in the GEO Group private detention facility in San Antonio since.

His deportation hearing is scheduled for April 12.

Kambo's San Antonio lawyer, Simon Azar-Farr, says Kambo's situation is the kind of thing that has happened to immigrants regularly since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and he questions why the government is suddenly trying to deport his client.

"Mr. Kambo has never covered up or denied his participation in the coup, nor his membership in the NPRC," his lawyer said in court documents. "Rather, knowing full well his position in the NPRC, the United States granted Mr. Kambo a diplomatic visa in 1993, a student visa in 1996, a workers visa in 1998 and an extension of that visa in 2002."

The government won't say much about the case, except that Kambo is in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody "pending the outcome of his immigration case," according to an e-mail from agency spokeswoman Nina Pruneda.

In coup's inner circle

A document from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says Kambo "was one of eight soldiers in the inner circle of the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), the military junta that seized power from President Joseph Momoh in an April 1992 coup."

The document also contends that the NPRC "took severe actions against rebels; public humiliation, summary execution of prisoners, and displays of rebel heads (and other body parts) were not uncommon."

None of the documents accuse Kambo specifically of committing atrocities.

But in its letter denying Kambo's application for citizenship, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official wrote: "You were a high-ranking officer in this organization which is well known for its acts of torture and extra-judicial killings, and in light of your leadership role in this organization, you are fully responsible for such actions."

Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in West Africa, wrote in an e-mail that the NPRC did "overthrow the largely corrupt government of APC President Joseph Momoh. However, they were also accused of serious abuses themselves. . . . The soldiers were undisciplined, ineffective and colluded with the rebels to loot, rob and extort from the population."

Dufka added that in December 1992, a few months after the coup, the NPRC executed several soldiers who were suspected of planning their own coup.

Guilt by association?

From jail last week, Kambo said that there were executions but that he had no part in them.

Kambo says they were ordered by the head of the NPRC, Valentine Strasser, "because we had an ongoing war, and the government that we overthrew was plotting to come back."

He said his group overthrew the government because it wasn't giving the army adequate weapons to fight rebels from neighboring Liberia.

"The government was supplying us with weapons that would not fire," he said. "This is what led to the coup."

And of the undisciplined soldiers who allegedly looted and robbed?

That was done by rebels, not NPRC members, Kambo said. "Rebels were able to capture soldiers' uniforms. This is even happening in Iraq."

Kambo calls the charges against him guilt by association. He says the reports of him siphoning money appeared in publications influenced by politicians trying to discredit the military regime he helped lead: If he had all that money, why was he working here?

Carl Schieren, an expert on Africa and manager of a U.N. program that provided U.S. college scholarships to NPRC military leaders, including Kambo, thinks Homeland Security is unfairly targeting Kambo.

He said the NPRC fought a long war with a rebel chief named Foday Sankoh, whose troops drugged children to turn them into soldiers and cut off hands and ears as a common tactic. Because of its lengthy war with rebel bands, the country became the poster child for mutilation and brutality.

In retaliation, "I think the NPRC did some things that were not very nice," Schieren said.

But Kambo?

"I personally handled the (U.N. scholarship) program of Mr. Kambo," Schieren wrote in a letter. "He was one of the most impressive students I dealt with over 30 years working with students from Africa and the Middle East. . . . He was a modest, soft-spoken young man, with a generous sense of humor."

From studies to work

Kambo began studying at UT under a diplomatic form of visa, then later applied for and received a student visa. After finishing his studies, he got a work visa for skilled professions and landed a job at a small computer chip company in Austin.

About 2 1/2 years ago, Kambo got a job with the LCRA, working in the wholesale power services division, trading in natural gas futures and options and doing analytical work. The LCRA helped find an immigration attorney to defend him.

"He's been nothing but a model employee," said his boss, Daniel Kuehn. "Very dedicated. Great family guy. Not afraid of hard work. Great initiative, all those things. Can't say enough good things about my experience with him."

Kambo and his wife, Hanaan, have four children who were born in the United States.

In 2001, Kambo applied for permanent U.S. residency.

His attorney, Azar-Farr, says the procedure usually takes three to five months. But in Kambo's case, it stretched out for five years. Finally, in October, Kambo was called in for an interview for a green card.

He had no idea what was coming.

"Total shock: When I was arrested, I was in shock," Kambo recalled. "Never in my wildest dream would I be arrested."

His wife, who went with him that day, was equally stunned.

"They invited both of us," Hanaan said. "We told the children, 'If they tell us no, we'll have to pack up and go back to Africa.' That was the worst-case scenario."

Hanaan was waiting in the hall when the Austin attorney who had gone with them to the hearing came out and asked her whether she could drive.

"I said, 'Why?' and he said, 'Your husband has been arrested.' " Hanaan said.

The legal wrangling has continued since.

In November, an immigration judge ruled that Kambo should be released on $12,500 bail. But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security filed an emergency stay on the judge's order.

On Jan. 26, after the Board of Immigration Appeals also decided that Kambo should be released on bail, Homeland Security got another stay to block his release.

"A case like this strikes me as an ugly exhibition of raw power," Azar-Farr said. "He has already had an immigration judge and a board order his release, and the government has repeatedly failed to comply with those orders."

Bail-less breadwinner

Kambo's jailing has caused emotional and financial hardships for him, his wife and children, who are scraping by with the help of friends at the LCRA and at the school that two of the children attend.

"It's been very tough, very tough," Kambo said. "But the support I'm hearing helps out a lot."

"We've never known him as anything but a positive and understanding dad," said Shelly Hohmann, principal of Caraway Elementary in the Round Rock district, where Kambo's 9-year-old girls, Shaina and Hannah, attend school.

Hohmann says the teachers there have chipped in to help the Kambos pay their bills.

"They have basically sustained our life, because we didn't have any savings," said Hanaan, a stay-at-home mom and Sierra Leone native. "My husband has this huge school loan. Thank God for all these people."

Every other week on a Saturday or a Sunday, Hanaan and the children travel from Austin to San Antonio to visit Kambo.

Hanaan says it's always emotionally wrenching: "There is no contact. There is this glass barrier. My son (Seth, 4) keeps asking, why can't he touch his dad?"

Hanaan can't understand why the government is holding her husband without bail.

"That is what's killing us; they say he's a flight risk," Hanaan said. "But where is he going to go? He has a home here; his children are here. He isn't going to leave us."

Hanaan says her husband is growing depressed in prison.

"It's prayer that's keeping him strong," she said.

If her husband is deported, she and the family will go back to Sierra Leone with him, she says. She worries that if they are forced to return, members of the former government that her husband helped overthrow will retaliate against them.

Meanwhile, some of Kambo's friends and colleagues have grown distrustful of the U.S. government.

"It's a little bit frustrating that in America, everybody gets due process, but since 9/11, I guess that's not the case," said Kuehn, Kambo's boss. "And you don't realize this until you know somebody who is in this pickle."

jkelso@statesman.com; 445-3606

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