As many as 700 Middle Eastern immigrants, mainly Iranians, have been detained by US officials in southern California after they turned up to register in accordance with the requirements of new residency laws.
The arrests sparked protests by thousand of Muslims congregating at the offices of the immigration and naturalisation service (INS). They were waving placards which read "What's next? Concentration camps?", "Detain Terrorists not Innocent Immigrants", and "Free our fathers, brothers, husbands and sons".
Radio stations in Iran and across the Middle East took a dim view of the arrests, which the INS insisted were merely a matter of detaining those who had overstayed their time on tourist or short working visas.
US immigration rules introduced after the September 11 attacks require all male immigrants aged 16 or over from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria to register with the authorities by last Monday unless they have been naturalised as citizens. There is a substantial Iranian community in southern California.
A second deadline orders male immigrants from Afghanistan, Lebanon, Eritrea, North Korea, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen to register with the INS by January 10 next year.
Ramona Ripston, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the arrests were reminiscent of the internment of Japanese-Americans during the second world war. "I think it is shocking what is happening," she told the BBC. "We are hearing that people went down wanting to cooperate and then they were detained."
Those arrested spent the night in overcrowded cells; some had been shackled.
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