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Visitors from 18 Nations Face Scrutiny

By Thomas Ginsberg
Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted on Friday December 13, 2002

With little publicity, the Bush administration is about to declare a number of Arab and Muslim foreigners deportable if they fail to report for fingerprinting, photographing and questioning by Monday.

Male visitors 16 and older from five Middle Eastern and North African countries must register at the nearest Immigration and Naturalization Service office by Dec. 16. Men from 13 other countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia must register by Jan. 10.

Prompted by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the registration was ordered last month by Attorney General John Ashcroft for citizens visiting from those 18 countries because they “meet a combination of intelligence-based criteria [and] are identified as presenting elevated national security concerns.”

About 10,000 men nationwide will be affected. It is the first phase of a four-year program ordered by Congress to track roughly 35 million temporary foreign visitors entering the United States each year.

But as the deadline looms, critics are questioning the effectiveness and fairness of the first phase. While rushing to alert people about the requirement, they said many men as of this week still did not know about it or were unsure whether it applied to them.

“Virtually no public outreach has been done… and as a result many people may end up unknowingly in violation,” said James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.

Making matters worse in Philadelphia, fears were stoked after a Moroccan immigrant who showed up to register on Dec. 2 was held briefly for an alleged visa violation and now could be deported.

The local INS director insisted on Wednesday that the Moroccan case was the sole deportation notice issued to about 100 registrants so far. He said investigators found a number of other registrants with minor visa problems but let them go without pressing charges, exercising their discretion under the law.

Nonetheless, critics said rampant rumors about the Moroccan man were scaring others from registering and perhaps might reduce turnout further for a program the government called essential to national security.

“The news is spreading like wildfire,” said Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, director of PRIME-Ecumenical Commitment to Refugees, a regional immigrant assistance group. “The result is that we’re not going to have everybody registered.”

Jane Goldblum, a Jenkintown immigration attorney and regional leader of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said she was urging her clients to register even though the program might be a bigger headache for them than for would-be terrorists.

“I’m supportive of finding the potential terrorists, but… this will just clog the system for law-abiding people,” said Goldblum, who represents the Moroccan man. “I cannot say that they will or won’t be taken into custody… . And the truly illegal people just aren’t going to show up.”

The INS does not know the exact number of men obliged to register. INS officials have said the group facing the Monday deadline may number about 3,000 and the second group facing a Jan. 10 deadline may number about 7,200. The local number was not known.

“The registration isn’t negotiable; they must come in to register,” Kenneth Ellwood, the INS district director, said. “The consequences are that they can be immediately arrested if encountered and can be put into deportation proceedings, or they could endanger their application for [immigration] benefits in the future.”

Ellwood said he could not let illegal residents off the hook as a reward just for showing up. His investigators may overlook minor violations, such as a recently expired visa, and may be lenient with people who prove they did not know about the rule. But officials will detain registrants with serious violations even if it scares others away.

“I understand that folks are gun-shy, but the fact is that they must comply with this order,” Ellwood said. “Their failure to comply with [other visa laws] is something they brought on themselves.”

Ellwood, the immigration advocates, and the Arab American activist all agreed that an unknown number of men who fail to register, for any reason, will suddenly become deportable next week.

“The deadline should be extended,” Zogby said. “We do not oppose the requirement… . But the INS has to help us and help themselves get this job done right.”

INS officials, who insist they did put out sufficient notice, said they depended largely on community activists, private attorneys, and nonprofit advocacy groups to get out the word. It’s unclear whether any ads were placed in local newspapers, TV or radio.

The Monday deadline applies to any male citizen 16 or older who arrived in the United States before Sept. 10 from five countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria or Sudan.

The Jan. 10 deadline applies to the same group of men who arrived before Sept. 30 from 13 countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The September cut-off dates were chosen because they were when INS border inspectors began photographing and fingerprinting men from those 18 countries upon their arrival.

In addition to submitting to photographing and fingerprinting, each man must present his foreign passport and valid I-94 entry stamp, plus other official ID cards and work or study authorization documents. Each man also may be asked how long he intends to stay in the country and how he is supporting himself, among other things.

“If they’re evasive we ask more questions, but we don’t start by asking, ‘Are you going to blow up a building?’ ” Ellwood said. “The vast majority have nothing to do with national security issues, so most questions are routine.”

Excluded from the registration are legal permanent residents who have so-called “green cards” and people who have applied for or received refugee or asylum status by Nov. 6. Diplomats and their dependents are also excluded. Women are not included because they generally do not fit the Justice Department’s terrorist profile.

Hussein Ibish, spokesman for the Washington-based Arab Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, said he had not heard reports of any other detentions nationwide during registration. Still, he called the registration an anti-Muslim and anti-Arab measure.

“We really have started to create an immigration system where we divide people into two pools: Arabs and Muslims, and everybody else,” Ibish said.