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HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HOLDS HEARINGS ON BILL TO ELIMINATE USE OF SECRET EVIDENCE IN DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS
Last Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on H.R. 2121, the Secret Evidence Repeal Act.  Sponsored primarily by two Democrats, Rep. David Bonior (D-MI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and two Republicans, Tom Campbell (R-CA) and Bob Barr (R-GA), the bill would make significant changes in the ways in which classified evidence can be used in immigration proceedings.  
Among those who testified was Hany Kiareldeen, who spent 19 months in prison based on secret evidence.  He was finally released last fall.  Kiareldeen was briefly married to a woman who made repeated, unfounded charges of abuse against him.  He believes that she was the source of the information that was kept secret from him.  
Also testifying was Nahla Al-Arian, the sister of a man who is beginning his fourth year in prison based on secret evidence.  Her testimony provided a glimpse of what those close to people jailed on secret evidence face, particularly her touching account to the pain suffered by her brother’s three US citizen children. 
The INS and FBI maintained that secret evidence is used only rarely, and that evidence is kept secret only when necessary to protect national security.  They note that such evidence is being used in only 11 of more than 300,000 cases pending at INS, and has been used less than 100 times since 1996, when its use was first allowed.