WASHINGTON, Jan 30: US Attorney General John Ashcroft has informed Islamabad that the INS process is irreversible, and no country can be deleted from the list of the countries whose nationals are required to register while in the United States.
He conveyed this message in a meeting with Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri at the US Justice Department.
Mr Kasuri had urged Gen Ashcroft to remove Pakistan from the INS list, saying that “if any country deserves to be exempted from the registration, it has to be Pakistan”, the Pakistan Embassy said on Thursday.
The foreign minister said Pakistan was a key coalition partner of the US in the war against terrorism and all major arrests related to Al Qaida had been affected because of the valiant sacrifices given by Pakistani law enforcement personnel.
The US attorney general said that although he shared Pakistan’s concerns on the issue, registration was an irreversible process.
The foreign minister said that if Pakistan’s deletion from the list was not possible, there was a dire need to significantly extend the deadline for registration in the case of Pakistanis.
This, he said, was crucial as Pakistanis formed the largest group affected by the INS registration and also because this would enable many expatriates with pending adjustment-of-status applications to register without fear, and requested that such Pakistanis should not be harassed, detained or put into deportation proceedings till the finalization of their cases.
Similarly, he requested that all Pakistani nationals going in for registration should be treated with dignity and respect, and their minor blemishes be condoned.
The attorney general assured Mr Kasuri that the Justice Department would seriously consider extending the deadline for registration in Pakistan’s case. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), he said, would also provide maximum relief to those Pakistanis whose cases were pending in the INS for conclusion.
The attorney general agreed to the foreign minister’s request that Pakistani Embassy officials be allowed to be present in select INS offices on designated dates to assist those expatriates who come for registering.
Earlier, the foreign minister met US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Their talks encompassed the entire range of Pakistan-US bilateral ties, the embassy announced. The two sides also exchanged views on developments in Asia, including relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, particularly in terms of the Kashmir issue, the latest developments in Afghanistan and the situation in Iraq.
