U.S. begins interning Muslim immigrants

[Boris Godunov]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...dc_3&printer=1

Hundreds of Muslim Immigrants Rounded Up in Calif.
Wed Dec 18, 8:47 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iranian and other Middle East citizens were in southern California jails on Wednesday after coming forward to comply with a new rule to register with immigration authorities only to wind up handcuffed and behind bars.

Shocked and frustrated Islamic and immigrant groups estimate that more than 500 people have been arrested in Los Angeles, neighboring Orange County and San Diego in the past three days under a new nationwide anti-terrorism program. Some unconfirmed reports put the figure as high as 1,000.

The arrests sparked a demonstration by hundreds of Iranians outside a Los Angeles immigration office. The protesters carried banners saying "What's next? Concentration camps?" and "What happened to liberty and justice?."

A spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service said no numbers of people arrested would be made public. A Justice Department (news - web sites) spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The head of the southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) compared the arrests to the internment of Japanese Americans in camps during the Second World War.

"I think it is shocking what is happening. It is reminiscent of what happened in the past with the internment of Japanese Americans. We are getting a lot of telephone calls from people. We are hearing that people went down wanting to cooperate and then they were detained," said Ramona Ripston, the ACLU's executive director.

JAILS OVERFLOWING

One activist said local jails were so overcrowded that the immigrants could be sent to Arizona, where they could face weeks or months in prisons awaiting hearings before immigration judges or deportation.

"It is a shock. You don't expect this to happen. It is really putting fright and apprehension in the community. People who come from these countries -- this is what they expect from their government. Not from America," said Sabiha Khan of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

The arrests were part of a post Sept. 11 program that requires all males over 16 from a list of 20 Arab or Middle East countries, who do not have permanent resident status in the United States, to register with U.S. immigration authorities.

Monday was the deadline for men from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan. News of the mass arrests came first in southern California, which is home to more than 600,000 Iranian exiles and their families.

Officials declined to give figures for those arrested or for the numbers of people who turned up to register, be fingerprinted and have their photographs taken.

"We are not releasing any numbers," said Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) spokesman Francisco Arcaute.

CALLS FOR HELP

Islamic groups and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said they had been swamped with calls for help.

INS spokesman Arcaute said those arrested had violated immigration laws, overstayed their visas, or were wanted for crimes. The program was prompted by concern about the lack of records on tourists, students and other visitors to the United States after the Sept. 11 hijack plane attacks on New York and Washington.

Islamic community leaders said many of the detainees had been living, working and paying taxes in the United States for five or 10 years, and had families here.

"Terrorists most likely wouldn't come to the INS to register. It is really a bad way to go about it. They are being treated as criminals and that really goes against American ideals of fairness, and justice and democracy," Khan said.

The Iranian protesters said many of those detained were victims of official delays in processing visa and green card requests.

"My father, they just took him in," one young man told reporters. "They've been treating him like an animal. They put him in a room with, like, 50 other people and no bed or anything."

Khan said one of those in jail was a doctor, who was being sponsored for U.S. citizenship when his sponsor died.

One Syrian man said he went to register in Orange County with a dozen friends. He was the only one to come out of the INS office. "All my friends are inside right now," M.M. Trapici, 45, told reporters. "I have to visit the family for each one today. Most of them have small kids."

I can't believe the Reichsta...er, Congress can allow this to continue...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Who will be next? Maybe if they find out that the Kenya bombers were blacks, they might try to "register" all blacks too.

You are guilty until proven innocent.

[Jac de Molay]

Yeah, I agree. There's been a lot of arrests and detentions around here too that suddenly "disappear" from the front pages.

They seem to be targeting Arab businesses and groups around here for crimes under the Patriot Act, but seem to ignore everyone else.

Sad

[Arrian]

Disturbing.

-Arrian

[Docfeelgood]

bout time

(another thought)


At least they are not telling the masses that the quickest way to heaven is to kill a muslim

[mrmitchell]

What DetroitDave said sounded spookily familiar to the tests for voting rights in the South during the segregation era.

It'd been found that whites were getting away putting stuff like "Pie tastes good" (I can't remember exactly, but that's about close ) on the tests and passing. Some blacks were writing sophisticated essays and failing.

Arrian summed it up best:

Disturbing.

[lightblue]

Not good at all. It doesn't help, seeing as the people in terorist cells are hardly going to register, but it does hurt overall community relations as well as presumably relations with the countries of origin.

[Docfeelgood]

It'd been found that whites were getting away putting stuff like "Pie tastes good" (I can't remember exactly, but that's about close ) on the tests and passing. Some blacks were writing sophisticated essays and failing.

WTF

[mrmitchell]

Eh, that's what was going on IIRC.

[Guynemer]

Bad mouthing the PATRIOT Act?

What's the matter, people? Aren't you patriots? Don't you love this country? You aren't anti-American, are you???

John Ashcroft is watching.

[DanS]

Looks to me like another INS fubar. They aren't citizens, so don't have certain rights that citizens have. Yes, we can even intern them if we choose. But this is just hamfisted.

[Thrawn05]

If a red ford was spotted in a drive-by shooting, the police are not going to pull over every car, just red fords.

It's called Profiling, and dispite what your PC teacher says, it works. If a Black man is spotted comitting a crime, the cops are not going to look for White women. Likewise, if a Carrot-top irishmen like myself was also spotted comitting a crime, the cops are going to look for a Carrottop Irishmen, not a Black man.

We know all the terrorists in the US are arabs, so we are not going to look for anyone else.

Geez, you San-Fran liberials need to get a life.

[MikeH]

Yeah, like the unabomber guy. He was Iranian right?

[Spiffor]

Don't you understand these people are enemies of the Land of the Free ?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Thrawn05
Likewise, if a Carrot-top irishmen like myself was also spotted comitting a crime, the cops are going to look for a Carrottop Irishmen, not a Black man.

That's not necessarily true. My former neighbor, who was also a comrade (in a different group) once came outside to find a white man stabbing his wife. She died in my neighbor's arms. This was an overwhelmingly Black neighborhood. My apartment, my neighbor's apartment, and apparently these two people, were the only whites in ano otherwise all Black neighborhood.

Despite the fact that my neighbor was an eye-witness (one among several), despite the fact that she repeatedly told the police "It's that man, standing right there," (he didn't leave the area after stabbing his wife) who did it, the police kept trying to get her to say a Black man did it.

Another friend of mine was stopped almost everytime the police were looking for a Black person. We used to joke about it, looking for a Black male between 5'6" and 6'6", light to dark complextion, thin to overweight, short to long hair, 16- 60, possibly armed. Profiling was just an excuse for the police to harrass Black students at DePaul, which is in a largely white neighborhood.

[Andrew1999]

Originally posted by Thrawn05
If a red ford was spotted in a drive-by shooting, the police are not going to pull over every car, just red fords.

It's called Profiling, and dispite what your PC teacher says, it works. If a Black man is spotted comitting a crime, the cops are not going to look for White women. Likewise, if a Carrot-top irishmen like myself was also spotted comitting a crime, the cops are going to look for a Carrottop Irishmen, not a Black man.

We know all the terrorists in the US are arabs, so we are not going to look for anyone else.

Geez, you San-Fran liberials need to get a life.

Wow, I didn't know Richard Reid, Jose Padilla, and John Walker Lindh were Arabs. Thanks for enlightening me.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DanS
Looks to me like another INS fubar. They aren't citizens, so don't have certain rights that citizens have. Yes, we can even intern them if we choose. But this is just hamfisted.

They are legal immigrants who are not charged with any crime. And just because they aren't citizens doesn't mean they don't have rights--it has been consistently held that non-citizens in the U.S. do have the same basic rights as others, excluding ones granted specifically to citizens in the Constitution (i.e. voting).

This is just wrong.

Thrawn05, please tell me that post was a joke, because I certainly laughed at it.

[Kropotkin]

Profiling, my ass. First off, it's profiling for a crime that hasn't happend yet. That's not to say that the govt shouldn't look into islamic extremists in the US. But that's not really the same thing as arresting people just because they come from a specific country. They need something more to go on than etnicity and religion. It's hardly so that the police arrests white christians more or less at random when they suspect attacs against abortion-clinics.

This is just contra-productive. If speaking out against random arrests against people from different groups is PC (is starting do get more and more ridiculious as a argument imho) there's nothing wrong with being PC.

[Ozz]

More courtroom action on the way, if the US ever
gets off a "war" footing.

Has the US settled with their Japanese interns from WW2 yet?

[Edan]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
They are legal immigrants who are not charged with any crime.

Incorrect. "INS spokesman Arcaute said those arrested had violated immigration laws, overstayed their visas, or were wanted for crimes. "

And just because they aren't citizens doesn't mean they don't have rights--it has been consistently held that non-citizens in the U.S. do have the same basic rights as others, excluding ones granted specifically to citizens in the Constitution (i.e. voting).

Which was what Dan said. "They aren't citizens, so don't have certain rights that citizens have. "

This is just wrong.

Probably, though I want to hear the Justice department's explanation (or lame excuse ) for this before jumping to a conclusion.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Edan
Incorrect. "INS spokesman Arcaute said those arrested had violated immigration laws, overstayed their visas, or were wanted for crimes. "

The did enter the U.S. legally, however, and they have yet to be charged with any crime. And many of them who had "overstayed" were victims of government snafu/slugishness in the first place.

Which was what Dan said. "They aren't citizens, so don't have certain rights that citizens have. "

Yeah but the certain rights they don't have are irrelevant to this, because among the rights they DO have are entitlement to due process, protection from false/malicious arrest, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, etc. Nobody here was arrested for voting illegally.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


The did enter the U.S. legally, however, and they have yet to be charged with any crime. And many of them who had "overstayed" were victims of government snafu/slugishness in the first place.

Excpt that once they "overstayed", they were no longer legal immigrants, even if it was the government's slugishness. Should they be released (or at least, returned to their country of origin) if the government is at fault? Certainly. But that doen't mean that the US shouldn't arrest them until an investigation can find that out.

Yeah but the certain rights they don't have are irrelevant to this, because among the rights they DO have are entitlement to due process, protection from false/malicious arrest, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, etc. Nobody here was arrested for voting illegally.

Actually, I'm not sure all of those are protected (for illegal immigrants) under the constitution. Heck, not even US citizens get those things some of the time . I'll wait until I get a more clear and detailed and balanced source that gives me a better picture before I start screaming bloody murder.

[Sonic]

Scary...

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Edan
Actually, I'm not sure all of those are protected (for illegal immigrants) under the constitution. Heck, not even US citizens get those things some of the time .

It has been pretty consistently ruled that even illegals get due process. There is nothing in the Constitution that limits due process and protection of civil liberties to citizens only. It's not really something you can imply in the Constitution.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Ozz
More courtroom action on the way, if the US ever
gets off a "war" footing.

Has the US settled with their Japanese interns from WW2 yet?

Yep.

Has Canada settled with theirs?

[Jac de Molay]

Excpt that once they "overstayed", they were no longer legal immigrants, even if it was the government's slugishness

This is exceedingly common with people who overstay their visas. The government allows for a certain grace period when people are awaiting visa approvals as the necessary paperwork moves through.


Still, they shouldn't be targeting just Arabs alone for these types of infractions.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


It has been pretty consistently ruled that even illegals get due process.

And where is your evidence that these illegal citizens are not recieving due process?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Edan
And where is your evidence that these illegal citizens have not recieved due process?

Part of the deal is being granted equal protection. If INS is solely targeting Arab immigrants, that violates equal protection.

[Edan]

Originally posted by DetroitDave
Still, they shouldn't be targeting just Arabs alone for these types of infractions.

True. They should hae registered all immigrants, not just ones from Middle Eastern countries, and then arrested those who were illegal imgrants (or commited crimes, etc).

[Edan]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Part of the deal is being granted equal protection. If INS is solely targeting Arab immigrants, that violates equal protection.

I don't think that quite applies. The INS are targeting people whom they know are illegal immigrants and who they can locate and arrest - it just happens that thanks to the latest efforts, they happen to locate a lot more Middle Eastern illegal immigrants than other nationalities. And from what I can tell, they are treating these illegal immigrants the same way they have treated other illegal immigrants.