[Dryerase] AGR-INS bait and switch

[Shawn G]

Asheville Global Report
www.agrnews.org

Rerinting ermitted for non-profit use, and to the members of the Dryerase 
news wire.

Hundreds detained in INS bait and switch

By Shawn Gaynor

Asheville, North Carolina, Dec. 23 (AGR)— Roughly 700 immigrants from five 
Middle Eastern countries were detained last week as part of a new Justice 
Department program to track foreign visitors. The program, administered by 
the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) required males over 16 
years old from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and the Sudan to report for 
fingerprinting and special INS interviews by Dec. 10. In Los Angeles nearly 
a quarter of those reporting to voluntarily comply with the new policies 
were immediately detained by the INS, in what the American Civil Liberties 
Union (ACLU) is calling a “round-up.”
Those detained have been held as far away as Arizona, with no access to 
legal counsel or family. As of Sunday, the INS has released some of the 
detainees, but as the agency refuses to release any numbers on exactly how 
many were detained and how many have been released. It is impossible to know 
exactly how many men remain detained.
“Given the evidence, there is no alarmism in saying this is a round-up,” 
said Lucas Guttentag, Director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
“Attorney General Ashcroft is using the immigrant registration program to 
lock up people who already have provided extensive information as part of 
their green card applications,” he said. “Therefore the purpose is clearly 
not to get information but rather to selectively arrest, detain and deport 
Middle Eastern and Muslim men in the United States.”
According to a Justice Department document explaining the program “the 
Attorney General has determined that certain non-immigrant aliens require 
closer monitoring when national security…interests are raised.”
But People Against Racist Terror (PART), an LA-based human rights group, 
said: “These new regulations adopted for so-called national security have 
nothing to do with combating terrorism. Instead, they serve to demonize 
immigrants and particularly those from predominantly Muslim countries. They 
are part of a concerted campaign by the government to promote an atmosphere 
of fear, division and repression.”
Thousands of people outraged by the detentions gathered in protest last 
Wednesday in front of the Westwood Federal building to demand freedom for 
those detained. The crowd, which was predominantly Iranian, carried signs 
that read “What Next, Concentration Camps?” and “What happened to liberty 
and justice?”.
“The Iranian American Community is outraged at the maltreatment that its 
members have been receiving at the hands of the Immigration & Naturalization 
Service,” said Babak Sotoodeh, president of the Alliance of Iranian 
Americans (AIA). “We have been receiving and documenting the horror stories 
of defenseless Iranian immigrants, who in their efforts to be law abiding 
citizens and to comply with the call of President Bush to combat terrorism 
by complying with the Special Registration law, have come to INS offices 
under your jurisdiction and instead have faced wholesale arrests, without 
any proper justifications.”
Sotoodeh, accompanied by New York Times Western Bureau Chief, John M. 
Broder, went to the LA INS facility to speak to INS officials, but the two 
were separated and Sotoodeh was denied a meeting after being promised one in 
Broder’s presence. The AIA says that it is planning a class action lawsuit 
against the INS policy.
A second deadline, for immigrants and visitors from Afghanistan, Algeria, 
Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, 
Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen will occur on Jan. 10. A third 
deadline for immigrants and visitors from Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan will 
pass on Feb. 21. Citizens from traditional US allies like Egypt and Jordan 
have been left off the list.
Though the policy exempts immigrants with permanent resident status, “green 
card holders,” and people who have been granted asylum, no exception is made 
for persons whose spouses or families have US citizenship. Immigrants 
holding dual citizenship also must comply with the program.
The program requires citizens and “nationals” of those countries listed to 
be photographed and fingerprinted by the INS. Those reporting as part of the 
program have to report every year for review at the INS offices.
Immigrants from these countries also are required to submit to an INS exit 
interview upon leaving the country, and will only be permitted to leave from 
specially designated ports.
Dalia Hashad, the ACLU’s Arab, Muslim, and South Asian advocate, questioned 
the effectiveness and aim of the program.
“It seems unlikely that a hardened terrorist is going to voluntarily 
register with the government,” she said. “What is more likely is that 
law-abiding people who were planning to register will now be afraid to come 
in because of the arrests, and the INS will use that as an excuse to deport 
them.”
Though the Justice Department has insisted that “registration is based 
solely on nationality and citizenship, not ethnicity or religion,” the only 
non-Muslim country to be included is North Korea.
In response to the increasing racism associated with the US “war on terror” 
the UN’s High Commissioner on Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, said on 
Tuesday that the US-led “war on terror’’ was hurting human rights and 
exacerbating prejudices around the world.
“Arabs and Muslims at large are experiencing increasing incidents of racial 
discrimination ... Singling out, finger pointing and ... even in some 
instances [violence],’’ he said.
PART, along with several other chapters of Anti-Racist Action, is calling 
for mass demonstrations at INS facilities on the date of the second 
deadline. A statement calling for actions against the INS on Jan. 10 reads: 
“We cannot allow the government to divide us or intimidate us at this 
moment, nor can we rely on conventional political methods such as 
petitioning our elected representatives to act. They have acted, and 
legalized all these measures of military aggression and political 
repression, just as Germany legalized all its repression of Jews with a 
series of Nuremberg laws. The time is now for concerted direct action that 
builds solidarity and courage.”







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