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."

------ End of Forwarded Message