INS special program, designed to root out terrorists, singles out men from 20 countries
LOS ANGELES : Shoaib Muhammad, a 29-year-old computer engineer from Karachi, Pakistan, who has worked here for two years, says he is as far from being a terrorist as one could imagine.
In New York City, several blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood, some of the immigrants who lined up Friday [Jan. 10] to register at the INS office in Federal Plaza acknowledged having expired visas and said they feared being arrested or even deported.
But he is still afraid of being arrested when he shows up Monday [Jan. 13] at the federal building downtown to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service under a program designed to root out terrorists. The program singles out men from 20 countries, including Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and Libya. Since it began last month, more than 500 men have been detained, most for visa violations. On Friday [Jan. 10] alone, about 125 were arrested nationwide, an immigration official said Monday.
“I’ve never been involved in a crime, but I’m still worried,” said Muhammad, who holds a visa to work in the United States. “If they want me to go back, I will, but it’s the way they’re doing it, with handcuffs and detentions, that bothers me.”
A statement released Friday by the immigration service said that its officers “have made every effort to minimize any delay or inconvenience to those individuals required to register.”
The roundup is aimed solely at men over the age of 16 who entered the United States as students, as tourists or on business before Oct. 1, 2002. But the program ran into trouble from the outset, primarily here in Los Angeles, when scores of immigrants, many of them from Iran and with relatives who are long-term residents of California, were arrested as they registered in December. Many had pending applications for visa extensions or were in the process of applying for legal residency. Officials have since acknowledged that they were overwhelmed by the number of people they had to process through fingerprinting and criminal background checks, and that some of the detentions may have been unwarranted. Most of the men have been released, with visa violators being required to appear before immigration judges soon. In a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft on Friday, William F. Schulz of Amnesty International U.S.A. wrote that singling out individuals on the basis of national origin “is tantamount to racial discrimination.”
Officials from the Department of Justice and the immigration service, which it oversees, did not return calls seeking comment. “The INS is trying to make it look like we’re doing something about terrorism by targeting an entire community because they happen to be from a Muslim country,” said Sarah Eltantani, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
In a waiting room at the federal building here Friday, a group of Armenian men from Lebanon said they wondered whether they would be going home for dinner or spending the night in jail. One, who would give only his first name, Joseph, said he had spent 18 years in the United States and had been turned down three times for a green card. “I’m a good citizen --- I work hard and I pay my taxes,” said Joseph, 41, who said he was a restaurant manager in nearby Glendale. “America has a right to protect herself, but the way she’s doing it is all wrong. She has to go after the bad guys; she knows who they are.”
Another Lebanese man, who said his name was Panos, emerged from his interview with an immigration official after posting a $1,500 bond and scheduling a court date for overstaying his visa. “It’s the law, and they’re doing it right,” he said. “I’m going to tell the judge I love this country and I need to stay here.”
An immigration lawyer, John W. Craig III, said one of his clients, a 25-year-old Tunisian, had been arrested for overstaying his visa and “questioned intensely for four hours” before being released Thursday [Jan. 9] after 36 hours in jail. In New York City, several blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood, some of the immigrants who lined up Friday [Jan. 10] to register at the INS office in Federal Plaza acknowledged having expired visas and said they feared being arrested or even deported.
Elyes ben Taleb, 28, said he had arrived from Tunisia five years ago “for the American dream.”
“I love this country, but on a day like today, I don’t feel like a part of America anymore,” said ben Taleb, who lives in the Bronx and works as a marketing consultant. “Do they really think terrorists are going to stand on line for hours in the cold and turn themselves in?”
(By Permission, The New York Times)
