RW ONLINE: Profiled and Persecuted\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nProfiled and Persecuted\r\nHow the U.S. government is terrorizing immigrants from 20 Arab and Muslim \r\ncountries\r\n<\/p>
Revolutionary Worker #1182, January 12, 2002<\/i>, posted at rwor.org<\/p>\r\n<\/i>
\"One day he's an (information technology) professional with a briefcase, the \r\nnext he's in shackles at the INS office.\"<\/p>\r\n
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Judy Shum, wife of Faramarz Farahani, an Iranian immigrant who \r\nworks at Silicon Valley Company ( San Francisco Chronicle <\/i>)<\/p>\r\n
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\"These people came to the INS centers voluntarily. They are not flight risks. \r\nThey were led to believe it was routine registration, and now this is the \r\nbiggest trap I have ever seen.\"<\/p>\r\n
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Sohelia Jonoubi, attorney representing some of those detained by \r\nthe INS<\/p>\r\n
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\"My cousin is 45. He's been there for 48 hours. He went in on Monday to sign \r\nup. He's here legally. He took all his papers. He was in line from 5:00 in the \r\nmorning. Finally about 6:00 it was his turn to do the interview. The interview \r\ntook about 45 minutes. They took him upstairs and detained him. His wife, my \r\ncousin, came home and we heard from him about 11:00 at night. He said, `There's \r\nabout 500 of us in the room, but we don't know what's going to happen.'<\/p>\r\n
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\"The next day he called, `We're still here. We haven't had anything to eat. \r\nWe had one boiled egg and a piece of bread. No sleeping. The air conditioners \r\nare on. Everybody is tired. Nobody can sit down or lay down.' Finally last night \r\nhe called and they had set a bail of $1,500 for him. My cousin has been in the \r\nline since 4:00 this morning to post the bail. She stood in two lines, and \r\nthey're still not home.\"<\/p>\r\n
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An Iranian woman telling the RW
about her cousin in southern \r\nCalifornia<\/p>\r\n
In November 2002, hundreds of immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries were \r\narrested and detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Sevice (INS) after \r\nthey voluntarily reported to INS facilities around the country to comply with a \r\n\"special registration\" program ordered by Attorney General John Ashcroft. The \r\nprogram required male non-citizens over 16 who were born in Iran, Iraq, Syria, \r\nSudan and Libya and who do not have permanent resident (Green Card) status to be \r\nfingerprinted, photographed and questioned by December 16.<\/p>\r\n
In southern California, which has the largest Iranian-American population in \r\nthe U.S., arrests were particularly heavy. Iranian-American lawyers estimate as \r\nmany as 700 arrests in Los Angeles and 200 in Santa Ana. In the SF-Bay Area, New \r\nYork and in other parts of the country, immigrants were also detained on a \r\nsmaller scale.<\/p>\r\n
In Los Angeles, the INS ran out of plastic handcuffs, filled their lock-ups \r\nand then shipped prisoners to outlying detention centers--to Lancaster in the \r\nMojave Desert, to federal lockups in Arizona, to INS camps at the U.S.-Mexico \r\nborder. This made it impossible for lawyers or family members to contact them, \r\nor even know where they were. And the INS refused to release the names and any \r\ninformation on the number of detentions or the circumstances under which \r\nimmigrants were detained.<\/p>\r\n
Immigrants from 13 additional countries--Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, \r\nEritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, United \r\nArab Emirates, and Yemen--have been ordered to register by January 10, 2003. \r\nImmigrants from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been told to report by February \r\n21.<\/p><\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/b>
Stories of the Detained<\/p>\r\n
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`'We were treated like animals in Iran and all I want is for my kids to grow \r\nup and say they're proud to be Americans. But until the day I die, I'm going to \r\nbe a foreigner in this country, because of the way I look and my accent.''<\/p>\r\n
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An Iranian Jewish man who was detained in Los Angeles
after \r\nreporting for registration<\/p>\r\n
The detentions were brutal and humiliating. Attorney Soheila Jonoubi said he \r\nsaw a 16- year-old pulled from the arms of his crying mother. \"His mother is six \r\nand a half months pregnant. They told the mother he is never going to come \r\nhome-- she is losing her mind.\" Jonoubi said the mother has permanent residence \r\nstatus and that her husband, the boy's stepfather, is a U.S. citizen. The \r\nteenager came to the country in July on a student visa and was on track to gain \r\npermanent residence.<\/p>\r\n
Bijan Pirazdeh, born in Iran, went to INS headquarters in downtown L.A. at 5 \r\na.m. on December 16, expecting to fill out some routine paperwork and go to work \r\na few blocks away. Pirazdeh, 43, is a Caltrans engineer who had worked for the \r\nstate for more than two years. A resident of California since 1995, he had fled \r\nIran in the mid-1980s after being jailed for three years on political offenses \r\nand was granted political asylum in Norway before coming to the U.S. He had an \r\ninterview scheduled for February 7 to obtain permanent resident status. On \r\nDecember 16 he was sent to jail for five days and is now threatened with \r\ndeportation.<\/p>\r\n
Mohammad Fallahi, a Fresno car salesman, came to the U.S. on a student visa \r\nin 1974 when he was 17 years old, stayed in the U.S. on a series of temporary \r\nwork permits and had applied for permanent residency. His brother Allen says \r\nMohammad reported to the INS offices in Fresno \"believing that everything was \r\nall right and that there was no problem.\" But Mohammad was arrested and shipped \r\nto the Bakersfield jail and kept in solitary confinement in his cell for all but \r\none hour a day.<\/p>\r\n
Ramsin Ziazadeh, a 30-year-old electrical engineer for National Semiconductor \r\nin Silicon Valley, found out about the special registration program on the \r\nInternet--two days after the deadline. When he tried to register he was arrested \r\nput in shackles and flown to an immigration detention center in San Diego, where \r\nseveral hundred men were already packed into jail cells.<\/p>\r\n
Farhan Memon, who works for a San Francisco law firm representing some of the \r\ndetainees, told the San Francisco Chronicle <\/i>about the inhumane conditions \r\nin the San Diego holding center. Memon visited the men who were jammed into a \r\nsmall cell without beds or chairs, rationed two squares of toilet paper, and \r\ngiven little food. Memon said. \"It was so cold, like 50 degrees in there, and \r\nthey could get a long-sleeved shirt, but they had to buy it.\"<\/p>\r\n
Iranian-American lawyer Sohelia Jonoubi told Reuters, \"The situation in the \r\ndetention centers is absolutely horrifying. In one center, they were ordered to \r\nstrip down and given a strip search. They were only given a prison jumpsuit, \r\nwithout any underwear, T-shirts, socks or shoes. They were not given blankets. \r\nThey are freezing.\"<\/p>\r\n
Shawn Sedaghat, a Sherman Oaks attorney, and his partner, Michelle \r\nTaheripour, represent more than 40 people who voluntarily went to register and \r\nwere detained. Sedaghat reported that the detainees were hosed down with cold \r\nwater and then left to sleep on concrete floors.<\/p>\r\n
Some detained immigrants were transported around the country for no apparent \r\nreason other than to make it difficult for them to speak with their family and \r\nattorneys. One attorney said his client was transported in shackles from \r\nCalifornia to Arizona to Chicago, then back to Arizona, then to Bakersfield, \r\nthen to San Diego. The INS then claimed they could not locate the man and that \r\nhe was \"lost in the system.\"<\/p>\r\n
After days of such brutal treatment most of those detained were released. \r\nAccording to the INS only 20 immigrants remain in custody. Many of those \r\ndetained had to pay bail of up to $5,000 to secure their release. In Iranian and \r\nArab communities, people raised money for those who couldn't post bail \r\nthemselves. Those detained now face immigration hearings and possible \r\ndeportation.<\/p>\r\n
The INS claims that all of those detained had expired visas or were otherwise \r\nin violation of U.S. immigration law. But this is a lie.<\/p>\r\n
The majority of those detained had filed for a Green Card under an \r\nimmigration law adopted in the 1990s and reauthorized in 2000. Under this \r\nprocess (known as 245i) immigrants who have overstayed their visas can have \r\ntheir status regularized by paying a fine and going through a hearing so long as \r\nthey have family ties in the United States, a job or job offer and a clean \r\nrecord. Immigrants with this status are allowed to stay in the U.S. pending \r\ntheir hearing--which can take years because of an INS \r\nbacklog.<\/p><\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/b>
New Mass Registration Law<\/p>\r\n
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\"In light of the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and \r\nsubsequent events, and based on information available to the Attorney General, \r\nthe Attorney General has determined that certain nonimmigrant aliens require \r\ncloser monitoring...\"<\/p>\r\n
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From the official registration notice<\/p>\r\n
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\"We are Americans who have chosen to live here. Suddenly, we are foreigners \r\nin this country. We have done nothing wrong, and now we have to register with \r\nthe government.\"<\/p>\r\n
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Shaukat Sindhu, president of the Chicago-based
Pakistani \r\nAmerican Association of North America<\/p>\r\n
This mass registration of immigrants is part of the second phase of the \r\nso-called \"National Security Entry-Exit Registration System\" (NSEERS). The first \r\nphase of Special Registration, initiated on the one-year anniversary of the \r\nSeptember 11 attacks, required people entering the U.S. from certain countries \r\nto be fingerprinted, photographed, and interviewed under oath when entering the \r\nU.S.<\/p>\r\n
The mass registration allows the INS to compile a database of immigrants that \r\ncan track people's whereabouts and immigration status and be integrated with the \r\nFBI criminal database. Those who fail to register face criminal prosecution and \r\ndeportation.<\/p>\r\n
In addition to registration these targeted immigrants are required to report \r\nback yearly to the INS, report any change of address, change in employment or \r\nschool, and if leaving the U.S. \"must appear in person before an INS inspecting \r\nofficer at one of the designated ports and leave the United States from that \r\nport on the same day.\"<\/p>\r\n
In the \"interviews\" immigrants are asked to give their parents' names and \r\naddresses, the names and addresses of their American contacts, their e-mail \r\naddress, and a form of identification other than their passport and immigration \r\ndocuments. They are also asked how they arrived in the United States and when, \r\nas well as whether they have any connection to \"terrorist organizations.\" They \r\nare also asked about their religious affiliations, what mosque they attend and \r\nquestions about any political affiliations they might have. The interview \r\nprocess can take over one hour. People are also digitally photographed and \r\nfingerprinted--and the photo and prints are then immediately run against various \r\ncriminal and immigration service databases.<\/p>\r\n
Lawyers who have sat in on the proceedings said they found them chilling. \r\n\"When you're in this room and everybody around you is a Middle Eastern man, it \r\nreally sinks in,'' said Jacqueline Baronian, an immigration lawyer in New York. \r\n\"It looks like people are being rounded up, and it's very, very \r\ndisturbing.''<\/p>\r\n
Lucas Guttentag, Director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project fears the \r\nwave of arrests is \"a prelude to much more widespread arrests and \r\ndeportations.\"<\/p>\r\n
Such fears are well justified. Anyone familiar with the round-up of Jews by \r\nthe Nazis or the internment of Japanese Americans by the U.S. knows that \r\nregistration and the compiling of lists was a crucial part of paving the way for \r\nmass internment. (See sidebar, \"Frightening \r\nSimilarities.\")<\/p><\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/b>
\"We Are Outraged\"<\/p>\r\n
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\"We have rights, and we will not go away simply because we are not citizens. \r\nWe are outraged at what is going on.\"<\/p>\r\n
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Tareef Nashashibi, president of the
Arab- American Republican \r\nClub of Orange County<\/p><\/i>\r\n<\/i>
\"This new McCarthyism against Muslims must end. Are you going to deport us \r\nall?\"<\/p>\r\n
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Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the
Council on \r\nAmerica-Islamic Relations of Southern California<\/p>\r\n
As news spread of the detentions in Los Angeles, Farsi-language radio station \r\nKIRN-AM (670) canceled its regular programming to focus on the registration. The \r\nstation took calls from immigrants who were incarcerated by the INS and their \r\nfamilies and became a forum for people to voice outrage at the detentions. \r\nPacifica radio, KPFK, devoted time on several broadcasts a day to let people \r\nknow what was going on.<\/p>\r\n
People told details of the government interrogations, how they were asked \r\noutrageous questions like, \"Have you ever done anything immoral in your \r\nlife?\"<\/p>\r\n
Ban Al-Wardi, an Iraqi-American immigration attorney, said, \"I've had clients \r\nthat were asked to provide documents such as their bank statements, their ATM \r\ncards, their Blockbuster video cards. With all the talk now of surveillance of \r\nvideo check-outs, stuff from libraries, it could be a way to trace these \r\npeople's activities. Even if this information is not used to trace these \r\nactivities, it could be used to scare these people into thinking they're being \r\nwatched, as to what movies they're checking out from Blockbuster or what \r\nwithdrawals they're making from their bank accounts.\"<\/p>\r\n
KIRN played a major roll in organizing a demonstration by 3,000 Iranians \r\noutside the Los Angeles Federal Building on December 18. Some carried signs \r\nreading, \"What's Next, Concentration Camps?\" The demonstration broke through the \r\nmedia silence about the registration and made national and international \r\nnews.<\/p>\r\n
In response to the demonstration, the Department of Justice dispatched a \r\nfederal mediator to meet with representatives of the Iranian community. \r\nAccording to the Los Angeles Weekly <\/i>the mediator praised the Iranian \r\ncommunity for complying with the registration but warned community \r\nrepresentatives against any further demonstrations.<\/p>\r\n
Stephen Thom, the representative from the Department of Justice, threatened, \r\n\"I think we need to look at what is the impact of open, glaring challenges to \r\nour system.\"<\/p>\r\n
On December 24 a class action lawsuit was filed in Federal Court, challenging \r\nthe registration. The suit was filed by attorneys for the American-Arab \r\nAnti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Alliance of Iranian Americans (AIA), \r\nthe Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the National Council of \r\nPakistani Americans (NCPA). Attorneys from the Center for Human Rights and \r\nConstitutional Law and the Asian Law Caucus also assisted in the preparation of \r\nthe legal brief. Six individuals detained as a result of the new INS policy of \r\nspecial registrations are co-plaintiffs, and represent a broader group of \r\nvictims. The groups are seeking to stop the next registration deadline on \r\nJanuary 10.<\/p>\r\n
In response to the lawsuit, Justice Department lawyers argued that the \r\nlawsuit should be thrown out because the court lacks jurisdiction to review INS \r\ndecisions regarding detentions. That power is reserved for the U.S. Supreme \r\nCourt according to the government attorneys. This in itself is an outrage. The \r\ngovernment wants to have the right to detain people who have committed no crime \r\nin humiliating and brutal conditions and then says that those detained have \r\nlittle or no right to challenge their detention in court.<\/p>\r\n
On December 23, demonstrators gathered in front of the San Francisco INS \r\noffice to protest the registration and detentions. Tanya Mayo, an organizer with \r\nNot In Our Name (NION), said, \"We will not be caught off guard when the next \r\nregistration deadline expires on January 10. We will be in the streets showing \r\nsolidarity with our Muslim and Arab brothers and sisters.\"<\/p>\r\n
Many groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of \r\nImmigration Attorneys, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the \r\nMuslim Public Affairs Council, the Iranian-American Bar Association, Japanese \r\nAmerican Citizens League and Not in Our Name, have issued statements and press \r\nreleases denouncing the registration.<\/p>\r\n
A community meeting on December 20 in Orange County drew 600 people from 20 \r\ndifferent organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations \r\n(CAIR), the ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, People for the American Way, \r\nChristians and Muslims for Peace, the L.A. County Bar Association, and the \r\nCoalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in L.A. (CHIRLA). Others, including the \r\nJapanese- American Citizens League, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Sweatshop \r\nWatch, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP), South Asian \r\nNetwork, Muslim Public Affairs Council and Asian Pacific Legal Center, have \r\nprotested the roundups.<\/p>\r\n
A protest was held on January 4 at the INS office in downtown L.A., sponsored \r\nby the American- Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Alliance of Iranian \r\nAmericans, CAIR and the National Council of Pakistani Americans. Other groups \r\nare organizing volunteer lawyers to accompany immigrants to the interviews.<\/p>\r\n
Protests are planned nationwide at INS offices to coincide with the January \r\n10 registration deadline. In New York a coalition of 40 community, religious and \r\npolitical organizations is planning a demonstration on January 10. In the San \r\nFrancisco Bay Area a coalition is calling for a week of actions from January 6 \r\nto January 10. And demonstrations are also planned for January 10 in Chicago and \r\nLos Angeles, and for January 13 in Seattle. The South Asian Network has called \r\nfor an immigrants' rights contingent at the Say No to War march in L.A. on \r\nJanuary 11.<\/p><\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/b>
\"Let Our People Go\"<\/p>\r\n
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\"We believe it was designed to actually discourage further cooperation from \r\nthe community with the government, thus ultimately giving the government wider \r\nlatitude in its ongoing trampling of constitutional and civil rights. \r\nHenceforth, when thousands of people don't cooperate in any given initiative out \r\nof well-founded fear and mistrust of the Bush-Ashcroft regime, detention camps \r\ncan be set up all over the country.<\/p>\r\n
\"The fact is that the government is only interested in instilling terror \r\nin the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims everywhere. Why? The coming \r\nfirestorm in the Middle East. Conducting the Bush Administration's brand of \r\nforeign policy can be difficult with a nation of immigrants looking on, so \r\nshutting those immigrants up is mandatory. If our foreign policy were just, of \r\ncourse, that would not be necessary. But that is a distant dream right now. This \r\nis our worst nightmare.\"<\/i><\/p>\r\n
Editorial titled \"Let Our People Go,\" in the
Arab-American \r\nNews <\/i>in Dearborn, Michigan<\/p><\/i>\r\n<\/i>
\"The Bush administration has begun to monitor Iraqis in the United States in \r\nan effort to identify potential domestic terrorist threats posed by sympathizers \r\nof the Baghdad regime, senior government officials said. The previously \r\nundisclosed intelligence program involves tracking thousands of Iraqi citizens \r\nand Iraqi-Americans with dual citizenship who are attending American \r\nuniversities or working at private corporations, and who might pose a risk in \r\nthe event of a United States- led war against Iraq, officials said... `This is \r\nthe largest and most aggressive program like this we've ever had,' said one \r\nsenior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.\"<\/p>\r\n
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New York Times <\/i>, November 17, 2002<\/p>\r\n
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\"These roundups are not about protecting people in this country. These \r\nattacks against young Muslim men are about getting people to go along with all \r\nthe repression against Muslim, Arab and South Asian immigrants and not oppose \r\nany U.S. foreign wars and domestic repression, or, at a minimum, to be cowed \r\ninto silence by these attacks.\"<\/p>\r\n
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Fact sheet put out by the
Blue Triangle Network<\/p>\r\n
This situation calls for mass and broad resistance. A statement from Not In \r\nOur Name speaks to this: \"NION calls on all people of conscience to stand in \r\nsolidarity with our Arab, Muslim and South Asian brothers and sisters by voicing \r\nopposition to the `new normalcy' in creative, determined and daring ways. The \r\nnext deadline when boys and men from 13 more countries are required to register \r\nis January 10th, 2003. We are calling on concerned citizens, organizations, \r\nindividuals, the religious community, students, anti-war activists, politicians, \r\nbusiness owners, teachers, union members, housewives and more!! Let the INS and \r\nour Government know we are opposed to this outrageous and unjust `re- \r\nregistration' and the detentions and roundups of our friends, neighbors, \r\nclassmates, professors and co- workers.\"<\/p>\r\n
In 1945, summing up the emergence of Nazi Germany, Pastor Martin Niemoeller \r\nsaid, \"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I \r\nwasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I \r\nwasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up \r\nbecause I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I \r\ndidn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that \r\ntime no one was left to speak up.\"<\/p>\r\n
Today, they are coming first for immigrants and it is crucial that people \r\nspeak up--and stop <\/i>these attacks. We cannot afford to wait and see where \r\nthis is heading. Things have gone too far as it is. Now is the time to \r\nresist.<\/p>\r\n
*****<\/p>\r\n<\/i>
\"In 1939 we did not understand--we refused to believe--both out of ignorance \r\nand a desire not to see... If only we had realized; if only we had understood; \r\nif only we had been able to turn the historical tide back to the year 1939 we \r\nshould have shouted `Revolt at once!' For then we were at the height of our \r\nstrength. Then we were possessed of vigor and self-respect.\"<\/p>\r\n
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From the memoirs of Izhak Zuckerman,
one of the few surviving \r\nleaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising<\/p>\r\n
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker \r\nOnline
rwor.org
Write: Box 3486, \r\nMerchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: \r\n773-227-4497
(The RW Online does not currently communicate via email.) \r\n<\/p>\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"www.rwor.org","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"In December 2002, hundreds of immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries were arrested and detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) after they voluntarily reported to INS facilities around the country to comply with a "special registration" program ordered by Attorney General John Ashcroft.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2003\/01\/rw_online_profiled_and_persecuted.htm","filesize":"24.0 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2003\/01\/25355.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}