Local Actions to Protest INS Detaining Immigrants

A new policy requires all male immigrants, 16 or older, mostly citizens of Middle Eastern and Muslim countries to register with the INS. The first group of immigrants who were required to register were males from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. The second group required to register in January are males from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The requirements for selecting these countries have not been made public but reading the list, it seems pretty clear.

What has outraged the legal and civil rights organizations is the fact that a large number of immigrants have been arrested and detained by the INS when they showed up to register last week. Some were detained simply because INS didn't have sufficient personnel to handle their cases; others who have applied for permanent residency and are waiting for their case to be heard by INS were arrested because their visas had expired (in the past, a provision existed that allowed immigrants who have applied for a Green Card to remain in the US while their applications were being processed, even if their visas expire). At least 50 were detained in San Diego when they showed up to be fingerprinted and registered. Reports suggest that in Los Angeles and Orange County, between 500 to 1000 people had been detained. In fact, it has been reported that in Los Angeles, nearly 1/3 of those who complied with registration were handcuffed and detained by the INS, despite compliance with the law and lack of criminal activity. INS refused to reveal the total number of detainees until recently. Many have noted the similarities of these actions with the events that took place during Wold War II escalating into the internments of Japanese immigrants in the US.

COALITION OF GROUPS GAINS ADVANCES

On Saturday, December 21, various San Diego organizations met to address these events. Representatives from various local community, immigrant rights and social justice groups were present and we agreed to hold a press conference on Monday, December 23rd, in front of the Federal Building [Read press release].

Lawyers representing the Iranian-American and Arab-American communities as well as members of ADC met with INS officials following the press conference.

Thanks to the efforts of all the organizers and participants, 12 out of 17 men being detained in San Diego will be freed by December 24th to return to their families. A number of these detainees were transferred to San Diego from Los Angeles and San Francisco due to lack of space. In addition, INS has promised to add staff for the Jan 10 deadline, streamline the process of checks, and to make available to the organizations the new, revised procedures as soon as they get them ironed out. The San Diego INS also promised to request from Washington a sort of declaration to the affected communities to apologize and explain the intent of the law better.

This just in: On December 24th, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Alliance of Iranian Americans (AIA), and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against John Ashcroft; Attorney General of the United States, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The essence of the lawsuit is that on Dec. 16-18, the INS unlawfully arrested large numbers of people, especially in Los Angeles, as they came forward to voluntarily comply with new "special registration" requirements. The groups are seeking an injunction before the next registration deadline to avoid a repetition of last week's mass arrests. Read press release

GET INVOLVED!

Join us at the protest and rally in front of the INS building on January 10th when the second group of immigrants are supposed to register. Read more about it at our Green Party Events page.

WRITE TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVE

Please fax, call and e-mail your senators and members of congress and tell them that you are concerned about the way the immigration registration was handled by INS, in particular in Southern California, and that such actions do not deter terrorists but alienate lawful immigrants.

Senator Barbara Boxer