September 27, 2002	Friday	Rajab 19, 1423

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LOS ANGELES, Sept 26: The US Justice Department on Wednesday put visitors from Pakistan on the list of Special Registration category with Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

A memo issued by Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS), which comes under the Justice Department, the Special Registration will be come into force from Oct 1 for the above three countries. It will include, but not limited to, finger-printing and photographing at the airport and background check-up.

The visitors from Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Yemen have already come under this category since Sept 11.

Sources in the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) said the Justice Department might put seven more countries in the list, all Muslim, which include Lebanon, Indonesia and Malaysia. However, not everyone will be called for Special Registration and those who will arouse suspicion in the eyes of the INS officials at the port of entry will be processed under the new system.

The INS has already set various criteria for the suspicion. According to the memo, obtained by Dawn, these criteria include: if the visitor recently made an unexplained visit to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Yemen, Indonesia, Egypt, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan or the explanation lacks credibility; the visitor engaged in other travel, not well explained under his/her job or without any legitimate circumstances; the visitor had overstayed in the US during his previous visit; meets characteristics established through current intelligence updates (e.g. such as beard); identified by local, state or federal authorities to be monitored for internal national security and the visitor’s behaviour and demeanour show that he or she should be monitored for national security.

In the post-Sept attacks, Muslim Americans have been facing a number of issues, although their track record did not prove that they were involved in any kind of such activities.