[Peace] CF: Letter to UIUC Chancellor: INS Special Registration Process Cause for Concern

[Irfan Ahmad]

Dear Colleagues and friends:

Let us know if you wish to have your name added to the list below.

 

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Prof. Nancy Cantor

Chancellor

Swanlund Building

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

601 E. John

Champaign, IL 61820                                         December 30, 2002
  Subject:  Put an End to the Flawed INS Special Registration Process
 

Dear Chancellor Cantor:

 

We approach you for your support in seeking a repeal of the recent INS immigration laws and mandatory call-in registration affecting directly the UI academic community.   

We believe that the program is fundamentally flawed and undermines the American ideals of justice and liberty for all.  It is, by design, discriminatory. Using national origin and religion as a proxy for a person's guilt rather than focusing on an individual's acts is wrong and against the letter and spirit of the US constitution and the human values that the founding fathers had struggled to build this country on.

The program is unfair and abusive. Not only the INS has failed to fully publicize the Special Registration announcements. The INS has detained hundreds of men and boys for periods of up to a week in inhumane conditions for minor visa violations.  It has also detained people who had properly filed for adjustment of immigration status. The latter cases are pending with the INS under the "Safe Harbor" program, which is designed to keep families and loved ones together.  Students have been arrested for lacking a single credit hour from the full course load.  

At the very least, the program must be changed. The Special Registration announcements must be publicized fully to protect otherwise innocent faculty and students from criminal prosecution and deportation.  Amnesty should be granted to those who have been arrested while their status is pending with the INS.  These people should not be caught up in the Special Registration program and detentions.  INS and other federal agencies handling F1, J1, and H1B visa applications have already indicated on their respective websites potential delays in processing attributing to involved security checks and system upgrades.  

 

The UIUC community hosts more than 4000 international students and dozens of faculty and academic professionals originating more than 114 countries.  According to preliminary figures there has been a drop in foreign student enrollment from the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan at the UIUC.  A number of UIUC faculty and students had to cancel their pre-scheduled home country visits and overseas professional commitments.  A number of graduate students who are at the threshold of completing their masters and doctoral theses find themselves in very precarious situations.  Most of the international faculty and graduate students are accompanied by their families, thereby, causing additional trauma for their spouses and school-age children.

We ask the University to consider:

   Acquiring services of immigration attorneys to assist the university.

 

   Exercising its influence in facilitating early processing of specific on-campus cases, so as to protect these people from running out of status.

 

   Creating a special committee to continuously monitor the situation and make personal representations to the congressional leadership.

 

   Arranging campus and community-wide forums to discuss the potential negative effects of such changes in the immigration law on the university body and the state.

 

   Working with the Association of International Educators (NAFSA) for repealing of recent Immigration Laws; and seek assistance of the Association of American Universities, Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in repealing the recent laws and requiring that universities should be consulted in formulating these and similar laws.

 

Please, consider acting before January 10, 2003 at which date people from 13 more countries will be faced with the same nightmare that brought more than 4,000 protesters to the Federal Building in Los Angeles to denounce INS mistreatment of their partners, children, siblings, and parents.

 

 

Sincerely,




Concerned Academics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Partial List of Signatories

Faculty, Staff, and Students

     Prof.  Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Sociology
     Prof. Alfred Kagan
   Prof. Badredine Arfi; Political Science
   Prof. Chaieb Sahraoui, TAM
     Prof. David Roediger, History
   Dr. Irfan Ahmad, Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
     Prof. Emeriti Mobin Shorish, College of Education
    Prof. Faranak Miraftab, Urban and Regional Planning
   Prof. Ken Cuno, History; Director, Program for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
    Prof. Norman Denzin, Institute for Communications Research
     Prof. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Director, Center for African Studies
    Prof. Paula Treichler, Critical and International Theory
   Prof. Rizwanuddin, Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering
   Prof. Salim Rashid, Economics
   Prof. Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua; History; Director, Afro-American Studies & Research Program
   Prof. Susan Davis, LIS
   Mus’ab Harby, Doctoral Student, NPRE
   Zakia Salim, Doctoral Student, Afro-American Studies
   Aisha Sobh, Doctoral Student, History

 

 

 

 

 


INS Contact Info.

Director
Policy Directives and Instructions Branch
Immigration and Naturalization Service
421 Eye Street, NW
Washington, DC 20536

 www.ins.gov



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