LOS ANGELES, Dec 24: Wives of Muslims from various Arab countries narrated on Sunday the sufferings meted out to their husbands and families when they responded to the Justice Department’s call for special registration.

Hundreds of people gathered together in the weekend for the Emergency Townhall Meeting regarding the new Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) special registration requirements.

The wife of S. Badran spoke about the impact of her husband being detained, putting the over 600 in attendance to tears. Accompanied by her three children, she spoke of not seeing her husband for four days when he complied with the new requirement to be registered and fingerprinted. Though her husband has lived in the United States for 20 years, he thought that he was still in status because he had applied for regular status under 245-I of the relevant section of the immigration law.

His case was representative of the hundreds of other men detained as well. She pleaded with INS officials for her husband, as well as for the hundreds of other men, to open their files and free them.

Another Muslim woman from the audience stood up holding a document that showed proof that her husband, who has been detained for 10 days, was being held simply for being from one from the five countries’ list.

One recently released detainee shared his and other detainees’ stories of what happened to him after going to be fingerprinted and registered with the INS four days earlier. He spoke of the overcrowding of detention cells to the point of suffocation where at times people only had room to stand. He confirmed reports of men being bullied and strip-searched.