WASHINGTON, Feb 8: In a shift from its previous policy, the US is said to have decided to apprehend and interrogate, rather than simply deport, the 314,000 foreign nationals who have ignored orders to leave and who are classified as “absconders”.

A dragnet is being spread for the missing immigrants, and The Washington Post reported on Friday that arrests will begin next week of a group of 1,000 illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Pakistan, “who are believed to be the most dangerous (among absconders) because they are convicted felons”.

Outlined in a memo circulated by the Justice Department late last month, the new policy, dubbed as the “absconder apprehension initiative”, will focus first on about 6,000 immigrants from countries which the US has identified as Al-Qaeda strongholds, although the vast majority of absconders is from Latin America.

The Post says the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have created a special computerized reporting system that already includes information gathered from recent interviews with thousands of Middle Eastern men who were asked to cooperate with investigations.

The Justice Department argues it is only logical to start the absconder programme by gathering information on people living here who may have ties to Al-Qaeda. But the Arab-American Anti- Discrimination Committee has said the “whole path the government is taking is clearly a case of racial profiling”.

Apart from those Pakistani origin people who may be suspected of living illegally in the US and are missing, some 140 Pakistani citizens are still in custody after being arrested in a sweep of illegal immigrants following the Sept 11 attacks.