[Nyprisonact] NYTimes.com Article: Men From Muslim Nations Swamp Immigration Office

[kate kj rhee]

Forwarded to you from
the Stop the Disappearances Campaign
(Desis Rising Up and Moving, Prison Moratorium Project, Coalition on Human 
Rights of Immigrants)

More to follow on action alert. . .

>here we go, the american drumbeat in full swing. . .America running out of 
>handcuffs and all.

>please read and spread the word on this national dragnet program that 
>requires all citizens from the countries below to appear and register with 
>the INS.  .  . All male noncitizens over the age of 16 who come from the 
>following countries are required to be interviewd, photographed and 
>fingerprinted by federal authorities.

IRAN
IRAQ
SYRIA
LIBYA
SUDAN
AFGHANISTAN
ALGERIA
BAHRAIN
ENTREA
LEBANON
MOROCCO
NORTH KOREA
OMAN
QATAR
SOMALIA
TUNISIA
THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
YEMEN
ARMENIA
PAKISTAN
SAUDI ARABIA


>Men From Muslim Nations Swamp Immigration Office
>
>December 17, 2002
>By JOHN M. BRODER with SUSAN SACHS
>
>
>LOS ANGELES, Dec. 16 - Lines began forming before dawn today outside the 
>downtown federal building here as
>hundreds of men from five Muslim countries showed up to register with 
>immigration authorities under a sweeping
>national dragnet designed to identify potential terrorists.
>
>
>Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an order last month requiring 
>virtually all male noncitizens over the age of 16
>who come from 18 countries, mostly Arab and Muslim, to be
>interviewed, photographed and fingerprinted by federal
>authorities. The program affects tens of thousands of
>immigrants from those countries, most of whom hold valid
>work and study visas.
>
>Those who fail to comply face criminal charges and
>immediate expulsion from the country.
>
>The deadline for men from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and
>Sudan was today. Early this morning, the Los Angeles
>headquarters of the I.N.S. was ringed with hundreds of
>immigrants from those countries accompanied by anxious
>relatives and immigration lawyers. The hallway outside the
>interview room was jammed with scores of men from the five
>countries awaiting investigation. Similar scenes played out
>at immigration offices around the country.
>
>Over the past week, agency officials enforcing the program
>have handcuffed and detained hundreds of men who showed up
>to be fingerprinted. In some cases the men had expired
>student or work visas; in other cases the men could not
>provide adequate documentation of their immigration status.
>At one point on Friday, officials in the Los Angeles office
>ran out of plastic handcuffs as they herded men into the
>basement lockup of the federal building, said Ali Bolour,
>an immigration lawyer who shepherded several clients
>through the process.
>
>Advocates for immigrant rights said that the program had
>sent waves of fear through immigrant communities and that
>it was unlikely to make the country safer.
>
>"This is part of a steady drumbeat of Department of Justice
>actions that have really put immigrants in the cross
>hairs," said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National
>Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration group in Washington. "
>
>
>All this is doing is making a bigger haystack, not finding
>more needles," Ms. Kelley said.
>
>Immigration officials in Los Angeles declined to discuss
>the program, referring all calls to Washington. The
>Department of Justice official authorized to speak about it
>did not respond to repeated phone calls.
>
>Jason Erb, government affairs director for the Council on
>American-Islamic Relations, said the program had been
>poorly publicized and asked for an extension so people who
>were unaware of the requirement could voluntarily appear.
>
>"The government has done little to spread the word in the
>Muslim and Arab-American communities about the requirement
>to register," Mr. Erb said. "This seems to be another in a
>series of dragnet policies that target law-abiding
>visitors. These policies are an ineffective and inefficient
>use of law enforcement."
>
>The so-called special registration program is an expansion
>of an anti-terrorism directive issued this summer that
>subjects citizens of countries considered a high risk for
>terrorist activity to fingerprinting and additional
>scrutiny when they enter and leave the United States. The
>program requires those already in the United States to
>appear before immigration officers to provide detailed
>information about their locations, jobs, studies and visa
>statuses.
>
>The Justice Department began calling in citizens of the
>first five countries last month. The list of countries was
>expanded on Nov. 6 to include Afghanistan, Algeria,
>Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman,
>Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and
>Yemen. Their deadline is Jan. 10.
>
>Today, the Justice Department added Armenia, Pakistan and
>Saudi Arabia to the program, with a reporting deadline of
>Feb. 21.
>
>The program does not apply to permanent residents, those
>who were granted or applied for asylum before Nov. 6, or
>diplomats and their dependents.
>
>John Reed, an immigration lawyer and former State
>Department official, filed suit late last week seeking to
>halt detentions under the program. He compared the program
>with the roundups of Germans during World War I and the
>internment of the Japanese during World War II.
>
>"It's outrageous," Mr. Reed said. "This is another example
>of the government overreacting to a threat."
>
>Under the program, a foreign-born man from one of the
>selected countries appears before an I.N.S. clerk and is
>asked for his parents' names and addresses, the names and
>addresses of American contacts, his e-mail address and a
>form of identification other than his passport and
>immigration document.
>
>He is also digitally photographed and fingerprinted, with
>both the picture and the prints run immediately against
>various criminal and immigration service databases. He is
>also asked how he arrived in the United States and when, as
>well as whether he has any connection to terrorist
>organizations.
>
>Lawyers who have sat in on the proceedings said they found
>them chilling. "When you're in this room and everybody
>around you is a Middle Eastern man, it really sinks in,"
>said Jacqueline Baronian, an immigration lawyer in New
>York. "It looks like people are being rounded up, and it's
>very, very disturbing."
>
>Ms. Baronian and other lawyers said that if a man was found
>to be violating the terms of his visa, he was turned over
>to an investigation officer and detained. If the violation
>is minor, bond is set at $1,500 to $7,500, according to
>those who have been through the process.
>
>One such man, who would not give his name because he said
>he was a member of a prominent Iranian Jewish family in Los
>Angeles, said he came to register last Tuesday and was
>immediately detained because his pending application for
>permanent residency had been held up in I.N.S. proceedings
>for five years.
>
>The man, whose family fled Iran after the 1979 revolution,
>is an Israeli citizen but came to the United States in 1997
>to be reunited with his family.
>
>He spent all of Tuesday in the federal building lockup in
>Los Angeles, where he said he saw dozens of men in similar
>circumstances. He then was taken by bus to a jail in
>Pasadena, where he spent the night. He was later taken to
>an detention center in Lancaster, about 40 miles north of
>Los Angeles, where his father-in-law put up $1,500 bail to
>get him out on Thursday afternoon.
>
>"This was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to
>me," the man said. "I am very respected in the business
>community here and I was just trying to do the right thing,
>to help solve the problem this country has with terrorism."
>
>
>He added: "We were treated like animals in Iran and all I
>want is for my kids to grow up and say they're proud to be
>Americans. But until the day I die, I'm going to be a
>foreigner in this country, because of the way I look and my
>accent."
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/17/politics/17IMMI.html?ex=1041145331&ei=1&en=16374c18c1565f94
>
>
>
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Kate Rhee
Prison Moratorium Project
388 Atlantic Avenue 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY  11217
[T] (718) 260-8805
[F] (718) 260-0070
krhee at nomoreprisons.org
www.nomoreprisons.org
www.nomoreyouthjails.org
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