Monday July 31, 2017
By Earl Rinehart
Osman Hassan, left, talks with Romin Iqbal, legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Ohio. The organization has filed a suit for Hassan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, against Secretary of State Rex Tillerson over a 19-month delay in getting a new passport. [Earl Rinehart/ Dispatch ]
Osman Hassan was happy beyond belief when he took the citizenship oath on March 17, 2013, in Minneapolis.
Months later, he obtained the blue passport booklet embossed in gold that signifies to everyone everywhere he travels that he is an American.
“I was so proud of traveling out of the country,” said Hassan, a Somali native and 2007 graduate of Ohio State University.
The passport enabled him to take a job as an English-language teacher in Saudi Arabia in July 2014 making $6,500 a month.
“Life was good,” said Hassan, 49, who had seen “ugly things” during the fighting in his homeland and life in a refugee camp in Kenya. Now he could pay the medical school tuition for a son and daughter, send money to his mother and provide himself a decent living.
His Saudi visa required that he step out of that country every 30 days, so he would spend weekends in neighboring Bahrain. He also visited his four children in Kenya and returned to the United States every six months.
He passed through so many borders that by the end of 2015, there was no room left in his passport for entry stamps. He applied for a new booklet in January 2016 so he could accept a teaching position in Qatar.
Nineteen months later, and now living in Columbus, he’s tired of waiting. He sued Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in federal court in Columbus last week.
The suit asks a judge to order Tillerson and the State Department to issue him a new passport. A spokesman said the department does not comment on pending litigation.
“I feel like a second-class citizen,” Hassan said, adding that he cannot leave the country or pursue job opportunities overseas.
It usually takes six to eight weeks to process a passport application, two to three if the application is expedited, according to the State Department website. Hassan said he paid extra for an expedited application.
Hassan regularly called the Minneapolis passport agency for an update on his passport application.
“They always told me it was pending,” Hassan said.
He doesn’t know why his application would be held up.
“I’m just a hard-working citizen. I’m not on welfare. I’m not a criminal,” Hassan said. After Ohio State, he obtained a master’s degree in public administration from DeVry University and worked in both Columbus Public Schools and South-Western City Schools as an English as a Second Language teacher.
“I’m old enough to understand the world,” he said, suggesting what he thinks might be behind the delay.
Somalia is one of the predominately Muslim countries President Donald Trump has wanted on a travel ban list. But the ban would be for refugees and immigrants, Hassan said. He is a card-carrying American.
Still, even with that passport he has been pulled aside for questioning at airports when returning to the U.S. He said he understood why.
“There was something that happened to your country,” he said, referring to Sept. 11. “I understand it is for my security and others.”
Hassan said he contacted U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office for help.
“Out of respect for the privacy of Ohioans, our office does not comment on casework,” said Jennifer Donohue, a Brown spokeswoman.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations-Ohio filed the suit for Hassan. CAIR’s legal director Romin Iqbal expects the matter to be quickly resolved.
“A judge is going to want to know why the passport was delayed,” Iqbal said.
He said the council has represented immigrants; Hassan is its first citizen client.
Until then, Hassan is working as an administrator for a home-health-care agency making half the salary he could teaching overseas. He said it’s difficult to pay for his children’s medical education and he’s had to move in with a friend because he can’t afford his rent.
He also can’t visit his 70-year-old mother in Kenya. She suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, he said.
Hassan said he might be better off with a Somali passport. At least then he could see his children and his mother and might still be able to enter the United States.
But he’s not giving up on getting that U.S. passport.
“I know my rights,” he said.