A ruling last week by a federal appeals court, upholding the government’s right to withhold names and other information relating to hundreds of immigrants detained after 9/11, had special meaning for binJameel Hyder.

For six weeks, Hyder and his 63-year-old mother Saleha Mahmood Razvi were detained in separate jails, with no knowledge of each other’s whereabouts.

Hyder had overstayed his visa, which expired in 1991. He and his Hyderabad–born mother hold Indian passports. Hyder came to the United States in 1988 from Saudi Arabia, where he held a job, and has lived in the Lower East Side of New York City ever since.

June 13th 2002, the police came to his house to investigate packages of bees that Hyder received by mail.

The bees, said Hyder, were for his friend’s sister who was undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C. As a favor, since his friend was usually not home during the day, his mother agreed to receive the packet sent from North Carolina.

“The bees,” Hyder said over sweet ginger tea and hot Indian fritters in the one-bedroom apartment where he lives with his mother, “were an excuse. When they put handcuffs on me and my mother and took us to the police station where there were federal agents waiting for us, I knew it was something big.”

For 35 days, Hyder and his mother did not see each other. Which, they say, would have been fine if they knew where the other was—they were denied information.

“I kept asking, ‘Where is my son? My son?’” said Razvi, who speaks a few words of English.

Hyder was allowed his first call on the 22nd day of his arrest. His mother was allowed to make hers on the 17th day. The first person she called was a neighbor, who had received more than three letters from Hyder inquiring about his mother.

Legal help for Hyder came from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. They told him that the only way out from the Midddlesex County Jail—and Hudson County where he was transferred—was to accept the deportation order.

“I told them no matter what, I will not leave this country,” said Hyder. “I don’t mind staying in jail for a few months, but my mother and I will die in this country.”

Hyder’s mother was in the Montgomery County Jail in Pennsylvania. She had come to the United States with her husband—who passed away two years ago—for treating breast cancer. She is undergoing chemotherapy, and said her time in jail aggravated her condition.

Monomi Maulik of Desis Rising Up and Moving, a community organization that has advocated the rights of detainees, said, “We have worked with hundreds of cases, but I had not heard of a woman being arrested, that too an elderly one with a serious medical condition.”

There was something else that was uncommon. Hyder was released July 30th, 2002 on $10,000 bail. The Philadelphia judge set his mother’s bond at $25,000.

Hyder said his mother was called an “Al Qaeda operative.” The evidence federal agents produced was the transmission of money from Saudi Arabia into her U.S. account. Mother and son say it is from a company they worked for before coming to the United States.

Hyder says among the 762-odd immigrants rounded up for the PENTTBOM investigation, as the FBI terrorism investigation was called, he is fortunate.

“I got full support from my community,” said Hyder. An Indian lawyer in Philadelphia, who does not wish to comment or be named, helped him get in touch with his mother. “I owe everything to my lawyer,” he said, adding that he received funds from DRUM to pay his attorney fees.

His mother agrees about the community’s help, but does not think they were lucky. “They put chains over here, here and here, “ she said pointing to her hands, chest and legs. “What horrible things had I done?”

Goodwill letters from a Congresswoman Hyder helped campaign for, a think-tank analyst he collaborated with, and his precinct chairman who wrote about his “important role in curing the unremitting problem of drug dealing in his building” helped his case.

After their release, Hyder contacted an immigration lawyer who is helping him apply for his green card.

His treatment by federal authorities has done little to dissuade him from living in America. “This country is safer than any other in the world,” he said. “I have full rights to stay here. I have paid my taxes and I have contributed to my community.”

His mother rises to go to the bathroom for the evening namaaz. Our lives have been changed forever,” she says, as she goes. “Anything can happen to us now.”