Sami Al-Arian

His parents, Amin and Laila Al-Arian, were Palestinian refugees who left after the creation of Israel in 1948.

After the 1948 Palestine war, Amin had to leave behind the family soap factory in Jaffa and flee towards the Gaza Strip's refugee camps.

Amin's family migrated to Kuwait in 1957 where Sami Al-Arian was born.

Under Kuwaiti law, his parents had legal resident status but he was not eligible for citizenship.

Sami Amin Al-Arian (سامي أمين العريان; born January 14, 1958) is a Kuwaiti-born political activist of Palestinian origin who was a computer engineering professor at University of South Florida.

During the Clinton administration and Bush administration, he was invited to the White House.

Al-Arian was born on January 14, 1958, in Kuwait.

In 1966, his family left Kuwait and went back to Egypt.

He received his primary and secondary education at Cairo, Egypt.

He left Egypt in 1975, and returned in 1979 for a visit when he married Nahla Al-Najjar.

Sponsored by his father, Sami went to America for education.

In 1975, Al-Arian came to the United States to study engineering at Southern Illinois University.

In 1978, he graduated with a major in Electrical Sciences and Systems Engineering.

At North Carolina State University, he earned his master's degree in 1980 and doctorate in 1985.

He worked with Professor Dharma P. Agrawal on physical failures and fault models of CMOS circuits.

Al-Arian criticized the peace process led by Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and advocated support for the Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation during the 1980s and early 1990s.

He moved to Temple Terrace after he was hired as an assistant professor to teach computer engineering at University of South Florida (USF) on January 22, 1986.

On October 20, 1988, Al-Arian established the Islamic Concern Project, which included a committee devoted to raising charity for Palestine.

He was granted permanent resident status for United States in March 1989.

He was promoted from an assistant professor to an associate professor with tenure.

In 1990–91, his continued involvement in promoting dialogue between the West and Middle East led to the creation of World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), which served as a think tank that promoted public policy initiatives.

In 1992, he hosted a local cable-access show — Peace be upon you.

WISE and University of South Florida formally agreed to cooperate on March 11, 1992.

WISE published journals, supported graduate student education, and held seminars between American and Middle Eastern scholars.

He received many accolades relating to teaching including the Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award in 1993 and a salary raise based on merit grades via the Teaching Incentive Program in 1994.

He was very involved in the local community.

He served as an imam for a local mosque and as a charter officer for the local religious school.

Steve Emerson published a film in November 1994 that accused WISE as a terrorist front organization which Al-Arian vehemently denied.

In May 1995, Michael Fechter of the Tampa Tribune expanded on Emerson's film.

Sami Al-Arian's daughter, Laila Al-Arian, lambasted Emerson and the Tribune for publishing photographs of their home, school, and family car.

In November 1995, federal agents investigating "violations of perjury and immigration laws" searched Sami Al-Arian's home for six hours to seize bank statements dating as far back as 1986, airline passes, telephone bills, AAA travel maps, family videotapes, audiotapes, and computer disks.

He actively campaigned for the Bush presidential campaign in the United States presidential election in 2000.

After a contentious interview with Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Factor following the September 11 attacks, Al-Arian's tenure at University of South Florida came under public scrutiny.

He was indicted in February 2003 on 17 counts under the Patriot Act.

A jury acquitted him on 8 counts and deadlocked on the remaining 9 counts.

Al-Arian's activities and connections became a factor in multiple political campaigns, including the 2004 United States Senate election in Florida and the 2010 United States Senate election in California.

He later struck a plea bargain and admitted to one of the remaining charges in exchange for being released and deported by April 2007.

However, as his release date approached, a federal prosecutor in Virginia demanded he testify before a grand jury in a separate case, which he refused to do, claiming it would violate his plea deal.

He was held under house arrest in Northern Virginia from 2008 until 2014 when federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss charges against him.

He was deported to Turkey on February 4, 2015.