Registration Stirs Panic, Worry

Thousands of nervous immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, many risking arrest and deportation, have been flooding into U.S. immigration offices in advance of today's deadline to register for a controversial program that has already resulted in more than 500 detentions nationwide.

The "special registration" effort — designed to register, fingerprint and question thousands of male foreign nationals from countries identified as terrorist harbors — has caused widespread confusion and panic in Muslim immigrant communities across the United States, according to attorneys and advocacy groups.

Lines at Immigration and Naturalization Service offices have grown so long this week that registrants at some locations have arrived before 5 a.m. to avoid being turned away, according to many observers. INS officials have been forced to divert hundreds of employees to handle the increased workload.

Once inside, the men — all 16 and older — have been fingerprinted, photographed and questioned about their activities and associations in interviews that have lasted as long as two hours. If their visas are expired or if they have otherwise violated U.S. immigration law, they may be detained and deported, officials said.

In recent weeks, lawyers across the Washington area have been inundated with calls from panicked immigrants. "We've had literally 300 to 400 people calling our offices with inquiries, and dozens of them are in a position where they could be handcuffed and detained," said Ashraf Nubani, an attorney in Springfield.

Sohail Mohammed, a Clifton, N.J., immigration attorney, said, "People are very confused and very afraid." Mohammed met in Washington yesterday with Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.) and other lawmakers. "There is not enough information out there," Mohammed said. "This is a nightmare for a lot of people."

Registration began last month for temporary male visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. Men from 12 other heavily Muslim countries and North Korea must register by today, and will be followed by an estimated 14,000 Saudis and Pakistanis, who must appear at INS offices by Feb. 21.

The INS and the Justice Department say the registration program is an attempt to get a handle on tens of thousands of visa holders and other visitors from countries that have sponsored terrorism or are havens for members of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. A companion registration effort began in September for new arrivals at U.S. ports of entry.

So far, authorities said, more than 15,000 foreign nationals from the first two sets of countries have registered — far more than the INS estimate of 10,000 who would qualify.

"That is pretty good evidence of the need for this program," said Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez. "We need to have a better understanding of who exits and enters our country, and these are people from countries that have been identified as possible national security concerns for the United States."

But since a clumsy start last month — when at least 200 Iranian visitors were arrested in Los Angeles alone — the program has turned into a mounting public relations problem for the Bush administration. And it is only the latest government immigration initiative since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to generate controversy. The FBI previously interviewed thousands of Middle Eastern nationals, and various law enforcement agencies collectively detained more than 1,200 immigrants after the terrorist strikes.

A growing number of Arab American, civil liberties and religious groups have sharply criticized the way the current effort has been administered, arguing that the INS has done a poor job of notifying those who must register, and then has arrested some for minor paperwork violations. Immigration attorneys contend that most of those arrested have legitimate pending applications for residency that have been delayed by chronic INS backlogs.

The problems are exacerbated by the INS's longstanding reputation for bureaucratic bungling, and by dramatic differences in the way registrants are treated by the various INS offices, many critics said.

The Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council and other groups have organized monitoring efforts for today at large INS offices in Southern California, Texas, Michigan and elsewhere.

Protests are also planned in some areas, including Baltimore, and several Democratic lawmakers have called on President Bush to halt the program until problems can be resolved.

Some prominent national security experts who otherwise support the Bush administration's anti-terrorism campaign said the effort may do more harm than good.

"The pure accumulation of just massive amounts of data is not necessarily helpful, especially for an agency like the INS that already has problems keeping track of things," said Juliette Kayyem, a terrorism expert at Harvard University. "Basically, what this has become is an immigration sweep. The idea that this has anything to do with security, or is something the government can do to stop terrorism, is absurd."

But Martinez said that of the approximately 500 people detained during the registration, nearly 50 are still in custody because they were wanted on outstanding criminal complaints or for other reasons. The name and fingerprint of each registrant are compared with information in FBI terrorism watch lists and criminal databases, Martinez said.

Today's registration deadline applies to men from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. In the Washington region, there are nearly 114,000 people from North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, and several South Asian and Southeast Asian countries with Muslim majorities — the fourth largest such concentration in the nation.

At the INS office in Arlington, foreign nationals began arriving at 4:30 a.m. yesterday. Three hours later, the queue had wrapped around all four sides the building, lawyers said. As the morning gave way to late afternoon, many were still waiting to be interviewed.

"I think we'll be here for at least another two hours," said attorney James Roberts, speaking by cell phone as he sat with four Somali clients at about 4 p.m.

Some of those waiting for their turn were repeat visitors. Four of attorney Emanuel Mpras's clients had arrived at 6:30 the morning before, only to be told that there were already too many immigrants in line for the INS to register, Mpras said.

The men, all Moroccan, were directed to an alternate site, an INS office at Dulles International Airport, Mpras said. But when he and his clients arrived there, an INS official told Mpras that he would not be able to accompany them to their interviews.

"I said, 'No way, my clients have a right to legal representation,' " said Mpras, adding that the problem was eventually resolved.

One man, a Moroccan living in Arlington who asked that his name be withheld, said in an interview that he had put off registering for nearly two weeks.

"Every day I'd say, 'I'll go today,' and every day I was too scared," said the 34-year-old man, who arrived on a tourist visa with his wife four years ago and has two U.S.-born daughters.

He said a local restaurant that wants to hire him as a chef sponsored him for a green card two years ago. But because that application for permanent residency is pending, and because his tourist visa has long expired, the man knew that he risked deportation if he registered.

After arriving for his interview Tuesday morning, the man said he was handcuffed, placed in leg irons and taken to the Stafford County Jail. He was released Wednesday night and faces a hearing on his future.

"I couldn't believe it was happening," the man said. "It was like being in a terrible dream ... My youngest daughter was born only a month and a half ago, and my wife doesn't speak good English. If something happened ... who was going to help them?"

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.