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FBI Makes Morning Call: Police Call S. Phila. a "Hotbed" of Illegal Immigrants
by INDEPENDENT STAFF
August 2004
S. PHILA.—Early one morning this spring, musician Keith Peirce, 30, awoke to knocking on the door of his apartment. He opened the door to find FBI agents, he remembers, who entered his room with guns and search warrant drawn. They showed him photographs of men who appeared to be Middle-Eastern, and whom Peirce did not recognize. He told them so, and the agents left.
Later that day Peirce, who is from the Philadelphia area, recalled that he'd been receiving mail addressed to Arab-sounding names he recalled as “Osama whatever, Hamil, et cetera.” He called the Philadelphia FBI office from his job at Can Do Services, a printing business in Center City. FBI agents were there in minutes, he said. A manager from Can Do confirmed that the FBI had visited the store.
Peirce's building is owned by Amine Khalil, a Lebanese immigrant who owns properties throughout the city and Amine Cab Company. Claire Jones, Khalil's wife, said that their family had lived in the apartment before Peirce moved in. According to her, they moved out two years ago.
“It's a sensitive subject,” said Khalil, who goes by Alex. “I don't really know what's happening. Nobody [from the FBI] has contacted me personally—they just contacted some people who were living in the building.”
Although he declined to give any information on the person or persons he believes the FBI was seeking, Khalil speculated that the FBI was “investigating a tenant because they were [sic] of Middle-Eastern descent—they were looking for somebody who was no longer living there.”
According to Peirce, the agents who arrived at Can Do said they believed that there are seven active terrorist cells in Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia Joint Terrorism Task Force handles matters related to homeland security. It's a collaborative effort on the part of law-enforcement elements from Pennsylvania and neighboring states, FBI federal agents and police detectives from the Philadelphia Police Department Counter-Terrorism Bureau.
When asked to comment on the possibility of seven terrorist cells, Chief Inspector of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau Joseph O'Connor said, “It depends on what your definition of a terrorist cell is. Do we have cells that are about to go onto a mission? That would be a guess on anyone's part. What we have in Philadelphia is people that proselytize the radical Islamic view with regard to the secularization of government, and we have people that fundraise for these groups.
“It's somewhat of a hotbed down there,” he added, referring to South Philadelphia. “We're always looking at people of Middle-Eastern origin who are down there. There is a group of Algerians and they come in quite regularly through South Philadelphia, and they are of a radicalized Islamic bent and, quite frankly, many of them are illegal. While they've been picked up and deported, they re-enter again.”
Jerri Williams, spokesperson for the Philadelphia branch of the FBI, said she was not able to comment on anything related to the alleged incident at Peirce's apartment or his conversation with the agent.
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