Syrian immigrant Khattar Aizooky said he felt a chill while being fingerprinted and questioned by the U.S. government last month, a decade after leaving his authoritarian homeland.
It reminded him of Syria.
“This is one of the most open and accepting societies,” said the 33-year-old Pittsburgh physician. “We hate to see it changing for the worse.”
Friday is the next deadline for thousands more men from selected Middle Eastern, African and Asian countries–almost all of them Muslim–to undergo “special registration” by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The fingerprinting, photographing and questioning, which started in September at border crossings nationwide, is provoking outrage as it expands to people already admitted into the country.
Immigration advocates are urging men to comply but also are fanning out to monitor the process at INS offices. Eventually, millions of foreign visitors–Muslim or not–are to be registered under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, ordered by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, intending to track most of the 35 million foreign nationals who annually enter and stay temporarily in the United States.
The registration began in mid-December for about 3,000 male temporary visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. By Friday, 7,400 men from 13 other countries must register. About 14,000 men from two more countries must register by Feb. 21.
More countries are expected to be added. Anybody who fails to register–legal immigrant or not–could be subject to deportation.
POINT
While accepting the need for better record-keeping on foreigners, critics complain that some men run the risk of being detained and face deportation after voluntarily walking in to register.
“The intentions are good, in the sense that they want to use every tool to seek out terrorists,” said Valentine Brown, a New Jersey immigration attorney and regional president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “But in reality, it’s an extremely ineffective and discriminatory practice.”
Critics also assert that not enough advance publicity was given, leaving some men unwittingly in violation of the order. And they point out that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, home to most of the Sept. 11 hijackers, were only recently added to the list. Egypt, home to some Al Qaeda leaders, is still not listed.
“The list is politically and diplomatically motivated, not security motivated,” said Aizooky, the Syrian doctor.
COUNTERPOINT
The Justice Department has defended its system, saying it started with males from certain countries known to harbor terrorists.
Jorge Martinez, a Justice Department spokesman, rejected complaints about lack of publicity and said INS officials cannot reward compliance with the law by overlooking an individual’s immigration violations.
“There has been some discretion as to what to do, but anyone [violating his visa status] is given notice to appear before a judge,” Martinez said. “Ultimately it’s up to that judge, not the INS, what that individual’s fate is.”
The dispute erupted after about 400 men registering on the first deadline were detained for several days in Los Angeles. They accused INS officials of improper detention and incompetence; Martinez said the Los Angeles office was swamped on deadline by a lot of Iranian immigrants who had “procrastinated.”
No other district reported so many detentions from that deadline. Few problems were reported in other areas with many Muslim Arabs, including Detroit, New York City and Washington. Immigration advocates in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania INS districts said they knew of only a few people detained during registration.
