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For 9/11 Hero, Humiliation

By Ron Howell
New York Newsday
Posted on Tuesday November 19, 2002

Shahram Hashemi had been widely praised as a hero of Sept. 11, who steered a dozen people to safety after the World Trade Center’s south tower collapsed.

His alma mater, LaGuardia Community College, hailed him as a role model for young Muslims in New York.

But now the Adelphi University honors student says he feels humiliated: Last week, he received a letter from the university telling him to report to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to be photographed and fingerprinted.

“This is very degrading and humiliating,” said Hashemi, 28, who is from Iran and is here on a student visa. “I haven’t done anything wrong. ... The next thing you know they are going to round us up.”

The Justice Department announced on Nov. 6 it would require about 3,000 men from five specific countries to show up at local INS offices between Nov. 15 and Dec. 16 and register there. The five countries are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and the Sudan.

The directive was part of a broader effort begun two months ago to tighten up investigations of foreigners entering the United States.

Della Hudson-Tomlin, associate dean of student affairs and international student services at Adelphi, said the school was obliged to inform Hashemi of his duty to report to the INS. The dean said that Hashemi, who lives in Woodside, is a valued and popular student. He organized a chapter of Amnesty International on campus and has been the driving force behind a town-hall-type meeting planned for tomorrow on the possibility of war with Iraq.

No other Adelphi students fit the criteria outlined by Justice Department officials that required registration with the INS, Hudson-Tomlin said.

On the day of the attack, Hashemi was on his way to his job as an accounting intern at the Bank of New York in lower Manhattan. His supervisor at the bank has said Hashemi acted “without any regard to the dangers to his own life,” as he helped lead people to shelter that day.

Later last year, LaGuardia Community College administrator Mohammad Reza Fakhari called Hashemi an inspiration to hundreds of Muslim students at the school. The accolades continued: The president of Iran, Muhammad Khatami, invited him to a gathering at the United Nations in November. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright praised him at a symposium in December, Hashemi recalled.

Hashemi, who has been in the United States for four years, said he has had difficulty sleeping since he received the letter last week. He said he probably will comply, though he can’t help but feel that he is acquiescing to an injustice.

“I am not afraid of fingerprint, but I think this is wrong. I feel I have to make this as a public statement,” he said.

“The foreign students being educated here, like me, are the best potential allies for the United States when we go back to our native countries. We have seen this great democratic system. But this act just typecasts these students in a way that’s degrading.”

Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez said those who do not report to the INS as required are “subject to incarceration and/or fine and they may be deemed immediately deportable.”

The recent directive refers to a very specific category of immigrants: those from the five mentioned countries who are 16 or older, who came to the country before Sept. 11 of this year, and plan to stay beyond Dec. 16 of this year. It does not include those who have permanent residency or who have refugee status or were granted asylum.

Martinez noted that after the attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act requiring the Justice Department to investigate more closely foreigners entering the country. “Our mandate is to focus on individuals who might pose” a threat to the United States, he said.

An official at the Washington, D.C.-based Association of International Educators said the announcement is the latest in a series of actions making it difficult for Arabs and Muslims to come and study in the United States.

“First you had the roundups of a couple of thousand Muslim people after Sept. 11th . . . extreme delays in making decisions on the visa applications of people from Muslim countries,” said Victor Johnson, an associate director at the association. The association is a kind of resource center for college officials who work with international students.

“What concerns me,” said Johnson, “is that when you put it all together, it says to Muslims: We’re not sure we want you here.”