Thread: Surgeon contesting his deportation order

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp ... an/3232386

Surgeon contesting his deportation order
Immigration says he has been here illegally since visa expired in '88
By EDWARD HEGSTROM
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
After completing his surgery residency at Baylor College of Medicine and assisting a noted surgeon in hundreds of complicated heart procedures, Dr. Yahia Ghoul expected a promising future in the Texas Medical Center.

Instead, he is being held in a north Houston detention facility, awaiting deportation to his native Algeria. He was ordered out after missing an important hearing before an immigration judge, an error he blames on his attorney.

''I'm in here with convicts, sex offenders, whatever," Ghoul, 54, said in a recent interview from a holding cell at the Correction Corporation of America facility near Bush Intercontinental Airport. ''This is not what I needed."

Local Middle Eastern and North African leaders are trying to help him, and his new attorney is working to reopen his case. Some advocates say his problems have been exacerbated by the government's emphasis on rounding up Muslim illegal immigrants after Sept. 11, 2001.

''We should not put this guy in jail," said Dr. Abdel Fustok, a well-known local surgeon and Arab activist. "We should give him an award."

He described Ghoul as a hard-working surgeon who helped save many lives and ''was being paid pennies for what he was doing."


Invited to Houston

But the government portrays Ghoul as a person unworthy of sympathy, noting that his legal problems began long before the May 2001 court date he and his attorney missed.

''He has been working unlawfully in the United States since 1988," said Luisa Deason, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Houston.

Ghoul's deportation has been delayed only because he claims to have lost his passport, and the Algerian Embassy in Washington has not yet produced a copy, Deason said.

A native of Oran, on the Mediterranean coast of the North African nation, Ghoul trained in Algeria to become a cardiovascular surgeon and studied English.

He was asked to translate for Dr. Michael DeBakey when the Houston surgeon gave a lecture in Algiers. Ghoul said DeBakey invited him to come to Houston, and he accepted, arriving in 1981 for a residency at Baylor, where he then worked under Dr. J.F. Howell.

''During that time he was under my supervision as both a resident and a fellow, Dr. Ghoul was technically an excellent cardiovascular surgeon, and he greatly contributed to my practice, as well as the medical community as a whole," Howell wrote in a recent letter of support. ''He also was a vital part of my research program."

Ghoul came here on a J-1 visa, normally used to continue professional training. The visa did not allow him to obtain a license to practice medicine, according to his current attorney, Edward Gillett.

He applied for an extension of his visa in 1988, but it was denied, according to Deason. He stayed on anyway.

There is some discrepancy as to dates. Howell's letter said Ghoul was working for him until 1986. But Howell's own résumé cites Ghoul as assisting on research that was presented in 1995.

Ghoul said he worked for Howell at both Baylor and Methodist Hospital until 1998. If the government is correct and his visa expired in 1988, that would mean he worked for a decade as a surgery assistant and researcher while he was an illegal immigrant.

Howell declined a request to be interviewed for this story, and a spokeswoman for Baylor would only repeat what Howell said in his letter â€â€

A surgeon name Ghoul? That can't look good in the Yellow Pages.

He should have become a lawyer.