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Special Registration, Detentions Cast Shadow of Fear Over Immigrant Communities
Their brothers, partners, children, and friends had been taken away because of their country of origin and their pending immigration status. Frightened and concerned, over 3,000 family members, friends, and community members crowded the sidewalks around the Westwood Federal Building on December 18 in a somber protest, their placards expressing the dark fears that the federal immigration action raised:
“What next? Concentration camps?” asked one woman’s sign.
In the INS’s first Special Registration with a deadline on December 16, hundreds of men and boys from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria were incarcerated, held in detention facilities around the country for days, and subjected to inhumane conditions. The special “call-in” registration is a component of the Attorney General’s National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). Both were designed to track foreign visitors to the U.S. holding student, work, or tourist visas as part of the Administration’s counter-terrorism efforts.
Many of the men and boys were engaged in a process of legalization that left them in limbo – and made them the targets of indiscriminate arrests. They had paid $1,000 to enter the INS’ “Safe Harbor” program allowing them to stay in the country while the agency sorted through their applications for adjustment in their status, but the “Safe Harbor” turned out to be anything but.
The ACLU/SC immediately called on the President, Congress and the Attorney General to either terminate the special registration program or fundamentally change it before thousands more are victimized by it, and ACLU activists sent more than 5,000 letters calling for change. Congresswoman Jane Harman joined the call, and, since that time, Senator Kennedy and Congressman Conyers have appealed for suspension of the program as well. Most of the men and boys have been released on bonds. The ACLU/SC joined the Muslim Public Affairs Council and other groups as human rights monitors for the second registration deadline on January 10 (see p. 4). A third Special Registration deadline targeting people from other countries is scheduled for February.
“This was more than an echo of the past,” said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. “When a group of people is targeted for registration, interrogation, and mass detentions, every person in this country needs to take a hard look at what our country is becoming, who we are as a people, and what our values are going to be – because the people in power would like to change those values without anyone even taking notice.”
Failure to register is a crime punishable by imprisonment and deportation regardless of one’s actual immigration status, but despite these grave consequences, the INS failed to notify affected individuals properly, said community leaders.
Those who registered encountered a confused and disorganized agency.
“I went to the INS office to register four times,” said Siamak, an Iranian businessman and homeowner who is awaiting his final green card interview with the INS. “The first time I went, they said I didn’t need to register.” Uncertain, he returned the next day to get an official release. Two visits later, he was arrested and spent 8 days being flown around the country from one jail to another and subjected to inhumane treatment before being released on $1,500 bond in San Diego.
Southern California INS agents arrested and detained many people who, like Siamak, have applications for permanent residency or political asylum pending with INS as part of the “Safe Harbor” law (245i).
The detention of those with “pending” status came as a surprise both to those arrested and to immigration lawyers and advocates.
Siamak says he is still trying to understand why he was arrested on December 16. “I am a law-abiding person. I mean, I don’t even have a traffic ticket. I actually heard the processing agent telling her supervisor I was one hundred percent clear. Finally, she asked him why she had to arrest me; he just told her she had to.”
“The INS seems to be punishing people for trying to work within the system,” said Malek Moazzam-Doulat of the ACLU/SC. “In most cases, those with a ‘pending’ status have spent years legally making their way through the glacial INS bureaucracy towards citizenship or residency. Now they are being arrested and jailed because the INS itself has taken so long to process their paperwork.” The ACLU/SC is calling for amnesty for those arrested with applications pending with the INS.
Once arrested, many faced prolonged detentions and harsh conditions. There have been a number of reports of people being held overnight in small cells with 20-25 people, leaving no room to move, sit or lie down. Mehdi, an Iranian businessman from the Los Angeles area remembers being crammed into the small holding cell. “I did not sleep for two days; we couldn’t move. We just stood up, everyone around the open toilet,” said Mehdi, who spent nine days in detention. Eventually, he was moved to a San Diego area detention facility, “They kept me with violent criminals, in the freezing cold and wouldn’t give me my prescription medication [for prostate problems] for 5 days.”
Siamak was one of a number of men who were transported around the country by bus and plane from one detention facility to another. “I went three days without sleep or food,” remembers Siamak. “We were always being processed, moving from jail to jail. We spent a lot of time in shackles, sitting for hours in the stifling heat on buses waiting on the tarmac or sitting on the jail floors freezing. And they kept interrogating me, asking me the same questions. After the second day, I was so confused and so tired I told them that I couldn’t answer questions because I really just didn’t know what I was saying. At the same time, I was afraid to eat because I didn’t know when we would be able to use the bathroom. The one time I asked to use the restroom, the guard waited an hour then sent everyone on the bus ahead of me. I still can’t believe any of this happened here in the U.S. ”
Community advocates and civil libertarians are concerned about the effect news of the detentions and implementation of the program may be having on those required to register. “Our fear is that people are going to be too scared to register, and that the effect of the government’s actions will be the criminalization of otherwise law-abiding people, leading to mass internments and deportations,” said Ripston.
OCTOBER 2003
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Special Registration, Detentions Cast Shadow of Fear Over Immigrant Communities
