WASHINGTON, Dec 30: The National Council of Pakistani Americans, a Washington-based advocacy group, has urged the Pakistani community to join hands with US lawmakers who have raised voice against the special registration programme.

Last week, several US lawmakers wrote a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft demanding that he suspended the special registration programme that requires people from 20 mainly Muslim nations to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They are also interviewed by law enforcement officers, fingerprinted and photographed when they come for registration.

The letter was prompted by the Dec 16-18 mass detentions of Arab and other Middle Eastern immigrants in California during the “special registration process.”

Between 500 and 1,000 Middle Eastern immigrants were detained in the Los Angeles/ Orange County area alone as they voluntarily came forward to comply with orders that they subject themselves to fingerprinting and photographing.