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San Jose Mercury News – November 20, 2003
Re-registration for immigrants draws protest
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News
The federal government has failed to notify tens of thousands of men and boys from certain Middle Eastern, African and Asian countries that they are required to reregister as part of a national security program, civil libertarians and immigrant advocates said Wednesday.
About 60 people chanting, ``Registration, no more!'' outside of the federal immigration offices in downtown San Francisco protested the controversial program, which began last November in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Special registration requires male citizens of 24 primarily Muslim countries to be fingerprinted and photographed as part of the government's national security effort to track the movement of foreign visitors to the United States. More than 80,000 have registered.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights organizations have criticized the federal government for not giving adequate notification to people that they must return to reregister a year later.
``It looks to us like legal entrapment,'' said Banafsheh Akhlaghi, an immigration lawyer from San Francisco who represents dozens of Bay Area men and boys who registered last year and now are facing deportation for having expired visas.
One Bay Area resident, a math teacher from Oakland who asked not to be identified, said he thought the special registration was ``a one-time process.''
``I didn't know I had to go back and register again,'' said the 54-year-old teacher, who was detained for five days and is now fighting to stay in the United States.
Samina Faheem, who operates a free national hotline on special registration, said she has heard similar concerns from callers around the country. The hotline is based in Fremont.
``People are not aware that they are required to reregister even though they might have gotten a bunch of papers explaining it,'' Faheem said.
Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for the Citizenship and Immigration Services, the former INS, said everyone who registered was informed, on paper and verbally, of the requirement.
``We feel like there's every reason to believe that they were informed properly,'' Rummery said Wednesday.
The reregistration process is a shorter, streamlined version, she said: ``It's basically a review.''
Hundreds of Iranians in Los Angeles and the Bay Area were detained after registering last December after federal immigration officials found that they had overstayed their visas. Immigration lawyers said most of them have pending applications for green cards, or permanent residency.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7307294.htm
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