AUSTIN — Members of Austin’s religious community are rallying around a Muslim cleric who is being detained in West Texas and may be deported to Pakistan.
Imam Safdar Razi, who led a Northwest Austin mosque for six years before taking a job in Dearborn, Mich., in 2006, was arrested on immigration charges at his home in Plano on Wednesday, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
Agency officials offered no further explanation for his detention.
Razi has been held at a detention facility in Haskell, about 60 miles north of Abilene, according to Razi’s lawyer, Karen Pennington.
Razi returned to Texas this year to address problems with his religious worker visa. He had applied for a change of status that would allow him to remain in the U.S. That application was recently denied.
Pennington then filed an application for political asylum to keep the immigration officials from sending Razi back to Pakistan, where, she said, Razi could be a target of anti-Shi’a extremist groups.
Mohsin Lari, founder of the Austin nonprofit community group Muslim Community Support Services, said he is working on keeping Razi in the United States, but he disagreed with Pennington’s characterization of the dangers that Razi would face if deported to Pakistan.
Razi is Pakistani by birth but has lived much of his life in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
In Austin, he worked to promote interfaith respect and education. He spoke at schools and churches across Central Texas and invited people of other faiths to visit his mosque, the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association in Northwest Austin.
News of Razi’s troubles prompted interfaith leaders to begin calling elected officials Sunday.
Muslims, Jews, Christians and others have petitioned U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, and others to intervene.
Others are tapping connections they have in the U.S. Homeland Security Department.
In a statement to the media Monday, Doggett said, “I share the concerns of those in the religious community and others who have contacted me about Imam Razi and have initiated an inquiry concerning him. … At this point, it is too early in the process to determine all of the facts involved and how our office can be most effective in addressing this situation.”
Several Austin Jewish leaders expressed “grave concern” for Razi.
In a statement released Monday, they said, “Razi has consistently reached out into the greater Austin community to promote dialogue, education and mutual understanding with an open mind and a generosity of spirit. His is a voice that provides tolerance and reason.”
The statement was signed by Neil Blumofe, spiritual leader of Congregation Agudas Achim and Rabbis Steve Folberg of Congregation Beth Israel, Alan Freedman of Temple Beth Shalom and Kerry Baker of Congregation Kol Halev.
Baker and Razi have been friends for years. The two held educational programs for their congregations on Judaism and Islam and openly discussed their differences on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the commonalities between their religions.
“I would think we would grease the skids for a guy like Safdar Razi,” he said.
This story was written by Eileen E. Flynn for the American-Statesman
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