NEARLY LIFELONG MADISON RESIDENT IS FACING DEPORTATION TO AFGHANISTAN

Mirwais Ali considers himself as American as apple pie, but the U.S.
government is trying to deport the 1998 East High graduate to Afghanistan
because of a felony drug conviction.

Ali was born in Afghanistan in 1979. When he was 1, his parents fled the
violence of the Russian occupation for Madison. He has grown up here,
living all that time in his parents' East Side apartment. He only speaks
English. He doesn't know anyone in Afghanistan. Due to a parental
misunderstanding, he never became a U.S. citizen.

"I wouldn't even know how to ask for some food and water over there," Ali,
22, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from the DuPage County jail in
Illinois, where he is being held during the deportation proceedings. "I'd
need an interpreter."

On Thursday, an immigration judge in Chicago is expected to decide whether
Ali was selling drugs when police stopped him on State Street on Oct. 30,
1998, or whether the six, individually wrapped packets of marijuana he had
were for his own use. He was convicted in Dane County of possession of
marijuana with intent to sell.

If Judge James Fujimoto decides Ali was guilty only of possessing
marijuana, Ali's lawyer, Taher Kameli, will ask Fujimoto to cancel the
deportation proceedings. If Fujimoto decides Ali was selling, the outlook
is grim, Kameli said.

"The only thing that may make the judge look favorably on him is the
current unrest in Afghanistan," Kameli said. "Mirwais is a very nice guy.
He doesn't have any anger toward the U.S. government. In fact, he said he'd
be willing to fight for the U.S. government against Afghanistan and that
worries me. They might think he's a spy over there."

Calls to the Chicago office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service
were not returned.

Ali's mother, Saleha Ali, 58, became an American citizen in 1991. Ali's
father, Najaf Ali, 60, has "green card" status as a resident alien.

But nothing was done about citizenship for Ali. The couple, who speak
little English, mistakenly thought that Saleha Ali's U.S. citizenship
conferred citizenship on their son. It did not.

They had expected him to be a comfort and a support to them in their old
age. Both worked as cooks in their early years here.

Najaf Ali, however, developed heart trouble and a subsequent stroke
confines him to a wheelchair. Saleha is disabled by asthma, stomach
problems and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Now, their only income is Supplemental Security Income. They live in public
housing, where their third-floor apartment is at the top of a dirty,
trash-strewn staircase and the scent of marijuana wafts from a nearby flat.

"Thank you for coming," Saleha Ali told a visitor, offering fruit and
homemade bread. "I am sick about my son. Please, somebody help me." She
gestured toward her husband, saying, "He's sick. I'm sick. My only son is
in jail. What can I do?"

During the visit, Ali called his mother from jail. "My mother told me to
get citizenship, but I thought I had to be 18 and once I turned 18, I
started getting in trouble with the law," Ali said by phone. "(But) I've
had lots of time in an 8-by-10 cell to think about what I've done and the
people I've hurt.

"I used to take for granted things like being able to sit next to my mother
or hold my girlfriend's hand, but I don't now."

Ali's mother has taken the Greyhound bus three times to Chicago for
deportation hearings.

"I hate to have her see me in handcuffs," Ali said. "She thinks they're
going to let me go one day, but I don't think so. I'm almost ready to sign
my papers and go (to Afghanistan). At least I'll be free over there."

Then again, he said, "I'd fear for my life, because I've been Americanized.
They'll probably frown on me."

As a youngster, Ali spent long hours at the East Madison Community Center.

"The work he did here, volunteering and helping with the younger kids, was
very good," said John Harmelink, youth program manager. "Then when he got
into his junior and senior years, we didn't see as much of him. I guess
like many kids, he had peer pressure and got into the wrong crowd. Tell his
mother we're praying for him that he doesn't get sent over there."