US immigration officials in Shannon, Co Clare, unfairly blocked a Muslim leader from returning to the United States where he had lived for 15 years, a lawsuit lodged in Chicago has claimed.
Mr Sabri Ibrahim Samirah was put in prison in Ireland last September after the US government stopped him from taking a flight from Shannon to Chicago.
The Irish Government also denied him a visa to stay in the country while he dealt with US immigration officials.
The US Homeland Security Department says it suspects that Mr Samirah is a threat to national security, a charge he strongly rejects.
His lawyer, Mr Mark Flessner, claims in the lawsuit that Mr Samirah was "tricked" into leaving the United States and was then blocked from re-entering at Shannon.
He also claims that Mr Samirah was denied a fair hearing at Shannon and had been unjustly blocked from returning to his family in Chicago.
Mr Samirah, the president of the United Muslim Americans Association, has begun a legal claim in a district court in Chicago.
He alleges that INS officials in Shannon were "in violation of INS regulations and the Constitution of the United States" by not providing Mr Samirah with a hearing before an immigration judge.
The papers, lodged by Mr Flessner, also claim that Mr Samirah was "not notified of or given an opportunity to respond to any information that the INS relied upon to summarily revoke his parole and deny him entry into the United States".
The lawsuit also says that Mr Samirah was "stuck" in Ireland without an Irish visa and was forced to wait in jail until the next flight back to Jordan, where he had visited his mother, who was suffering a serious illness.
Mr Samirah had applied for a permanent resident visa and granted an "Advance Parole" to visit his mother in Jordan last September.
The lawsuit said that when Mr Samirah passed through an INS checkpoint in Shannon, he was presented with a letter from Mr Brian Perryman, district director of the Chicago INS, informing him that his Advance Parole had been revoked.
"INS officials informed Mr. Samirah that he would not be allowed to enter the United States to be with his family or retrieve his belongings," he lawsuit adds.
Mr Flessner said yesterday that he had every confidence that a court would see that Mr Samirah had been treated unfairly.
"This is a family man, a man of peace who loves the entire community. He is not a threat to anyone," he said.
A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department said it did not comment on individual cases.