WASHINGTON, Nov 23: At least 60 young Israeli Jews are reported to have been arrested and detained in the United States on immigration charges since the Sept 11 attacks.

The information appears to have been released amid mounting concern and criticism over the detention of hundreds of Arab Americans and Muslims of South Asian origin under new powers acquired by the executive to question and hold people suspected of having terrorist links.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that federal officials have presented no evidence against the detained Israelis, most of whom worked selling toys and trinkets at kiosks in shopping malls. One Israeli arrested on Oct 31 in Ohio said it was obvious that investigators mistook many of them as Israeli Arabs.

According to the Post, in several cases, Immigration and Naturalization service officials have testified in court hearings that the detained Israelis were of “special interest to the government”, a term that federal agents have used in many of the hundreds of cases involving mostly Arab men who have been detained around the country since the attacks.

The case of the Israelis working at shopping malls is said to be separate from another case of detained Israelis in New York. There, the Post says, five young Israeli veterans who worked for a firm of movers were observed on Sept 11 in a park on the Hudson River in New Jersey snapping photographs of the burning WTC and seemingly clowning around. To complicate matters, when authorities arrested them, they had box cutters in their moving van, the type of weapons used by the terrorist hijackers. Two other Israelis working for the same firm were held later.

Meanwhile, the police chief in Portland, Oregon, has refused to send his officers to question about 83 people who are among the 5,000 the federal authorities want to interview in for information on terrorism and terrorist links. The police chief cited state laws to say police could not question immigrants when they were not suspected of any crime.

The head of the Detroit police has also said he did not want to “go out and treat people like criminals or even go out and find these people”.