WASHINGTON, Jan 14: The US Justice Department has warned that it is the duty of the immigration authorities to detain any individual living in the country illegally.
In an interview released by the US State Department here on Tuesday, Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez defended the arrest of hundreds of immigrants in Los Angeles last month, saying that many of them were common criminals who would have been a potential threat to the society had they not been detained.
In some cases, where individuals were detained but had lawfully filed an application to stay in the country, Martinez said immigration officials would take those circumstances into account. But, he added, for “any individual who is out of status or in illegal status, INS has a duty and a responsibility to ... temporarily detain that individual.”
Since Sept 11, 2002, when the current registration programme was introduced, US authorities have identified 250 known terrorists, wanted criminals and others suspects, said Martinez, indicating that the registration could prevent future terrorist attacks.
“Due to changing intelligence and national security requirements, the Saudi and Pakistani registrations due in February might not be the last (call in) notices,” he said.
He rejected criticism that the registration system may not lead to the arrests of suspected terrorists as such people never go to a government department to give interviews.
Not so, argues Martinez. Besides the possibility that some individuals might not be aware that their names are on databases or watch lists, many would also fear drawing extra scrutiny for violating the law, he said.
“It is known that the Al Qaeda leadership tells its cell members to assimilate within the community, to comply with all laws and regulations, and not to shine a spotlight on any terrorist planning activities that they may be conducting,” he said, adding that “(Sept 11 hijacker) Mohammad Atta actually applied for an adjustment of (visa) status.”
He also speculated that when faced with the choice of being in criminal violation of the law or trying to “bluff their way through a federal law enforcement officer” some would-be terrorists might even choose to leave the US.
Martinez pointed to the example of the 19 Sept 11, 2001, hijackers, all of whom arrived in the US on valid visas. Ideally, he said, had a programme like this been in place, it could have aroused suspicions towards those individuals.
“All of the 19 hijackers were doing something else other than what they said they were going to do while they were here,” he said. “Three of them overstayed their visas. None of them lived wherever they said they were going to live.” In fact, he added, some of those who held student visas “weren’t even enrolled in college”.
The INS programme, whether used to register visa applicants abroad or those already in the United States, would verify the stated purpose of the visas, residential addresses, and would include photographs and fingerprints of the visa holder. The fingerprints, said Martinez, would be matched against databases of wanted terrorists, felons or other criminals.
Also, should a visitor overstay his or her visa, “the system would automatically give you a notice that this is happening, something that we didn’t have before,” he said.
As a first step toward implementing a comprehensive system by 2005, visitors in the US from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria — all countries designated by the State Department as “state sponsors of terrorism” — were asked to register with the INS by Dec 18. A second group of non-immigrant male aliens over the age of 16 who are citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen were ordered to register by Jan 10, and a third group consisting of Saudi and Pakistani citizens have until Feb 21 to comply.
Given the overwhelming predominance of Muslim and Arab-majority countries on the list, some have charged that the programme is racially, ethnically or politically motivated. For example, citizens of Armenia, a Christian-majority country, were originally required to register in December, but that requirement was subsequently lifted.
On Dec 24, community advocacy groups, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, filed a class action lawsuit against the INS and Attorney General Ashcroft.
Martinez, however, claimed that US authorities use “discretionary criteria” which “apply to anyone, from any country in the world” at all US ports of entry in order to determine which individuals are subjected to extra scrutiny. So far, he said, individuals from as many as 145 countries have been registered under this programme.
“That’s proof positive right there that this is not a system based on race or religion or ethnicity. It is solely based on national security and intelligence-based criteria about terrorist threats,” he said.
Criticism of the programme also came in a Dec 26 letter to Ashcroft from Senators Russell Feingold (Democrat from Wisconsin), Edward Kennedy (Democrat from Massachusetts) and Representative John Conyers (Democrat from Michigan) when hundreds of registrants were detained in Los Angeles after they had showed up at INS offices to comply with the new requirements.
The three members of Congress charged that many had been “arrested and detained without reasonable justification”.
Martinez countered that the individuals detained at the INS registration “are not under arrest” but kept in custody until a national security check was run to make sure they were not on any terrorism, criminal or felon watch lists.
In the case of the Los Angles detentions, not only did the authorities find individuals in violation of their visa terms but also many “serious criminal violators”, who could pose a potential harm to the public, according to him.
“You have a twice-convicted child molester, you have a couple of individuals with assault and battery charges with deadly weapons, you have narcotics violations, narcotics convictions or charges,” he said.
“These are individuals, mind you, that come from countries that sponsor terrorism, who are considered an elevated national security concern because of national security and other intelligence information, and ... are people with serious violations of either criminal or immigration law.”
