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Hotline eases visitors' fears
VOLUNTEERS IN NEWARK RESPOND TO IMMIGRANTS' QUESTIONS, CONCERNS ON SPECIAL REGISTRATION
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News – March 1, 2003
In a long, narrow room with one window, Samina Faheem operates the country's only volunteer hotline designed to answer questions about a new national security program that requires men and boys from certain countries to register with the federal government.
``AMA-PADF hotline, may I help you?'' Faheem said in the cramped Newark office of the American Muslim Alliance and the Pakistan American Democratic Forum, two Bay Area-based national groups that set up the hotline about a month ago.
The hotline is a response from immigrant communities across the Bay Area to the program that requires certain people on temporary visas to register with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service -- which today was dissolved and absorbed into the Department of Homeland Security.
The security measure, a response to the attacks of Sept. 11, is designed to allow the government to monitor the movement of foreign visitors in the United States.
Faheem, national coordinator for the Muslim alliance, is one of several volunteers who staff the line, which is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Originally fielding as many as 100 calls a day, volunteers have gotten fewer calls, she said Friday, since the reporting deadline was extended to March 21 for visitors from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Some callers have questions about the requirements for special registration. Others want to find a lawyer. Several needed bail because they or loved ones had been detained.
``People are fearful and panicky,'' Faheem said.
Under the new regulations, visitors from 25 countries from Asia, the Middle East and Africa must register. Government officials and some groups in favor of restricting immigration believe the special registration is a necessary measure to take control of the country's border security.
Since the first deadline in December, immigrant advocacy and civil liberties groups in the Bay Area have conducted a number of legal clinics for people required to register. The Newark hotline was set up Jan. 26 and will continue operating for as long as a year after the March 21 deadline.
``The response has been overwhelming,'' said Agha Saeed, chairman of the Muslim Alliance. ``The need was for people to get immediate help and advice. We thought the best way is a hotline.''
Faheem says she has heard from people across the country who hold valid visas but have nonetheless been detained.
``It's like being on parole from prison. They're treating people who haven't done anything like criminals,'' Saeed said.
Immigration lawyers have been overwhelmed by the number of calls about special registration, said Ivy Lee, a staff attorney with the Asian Pacific Islanders Legal Outreach in San Francisco.
``The hotline doesn't replace a face-to-face consultation with a lawyer, but it's still a good idea because not everyone can attend a legal clinic,'' Lee said.
[Ms. Samina Faheem, the former National Coordinator of the American Muslim Alliance and Coordinator of the AMA/PADF Hotline is now the Executive Director of the American Muslim Voice.]
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