LOS ANGELES, Jan 14: In southern California, where nearly 25,000 Pakistanis are living, few showed up the whole day on Monday, leaving officials of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) just sitting idle, lawyers and INS sources told Dawn.

“In Los Angeles alone, which has over 10,000 Pakistanis, only seven showed up for registration,” an INS district official said.

A lawyer told this reporter that though just seven people turned up, the INS officials took the whole day to register.

“I came at 9 in the morning and till one in the afternoon they did not call us,” the lawyer said.

In southern California, where the biggest number of arrests were made last December, there were two INS offices — one in Santa Anna (Orange County) and another in Los Angeles.

In Santa Anna, the story was the same, according to officials of Pakistan consulate, where hardly seven Pakistanis appeared for registration.

Meanwhile, Pakistan consulate has set up two camp offices in Los Angeles and Santa Anna to provide immediate consular services to Pakistanis, who would go there for registration.

However, in other areas, too, the registration was slow. Faiz Rehman, spokesman for the American Muslim Council (AMC) visited an Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, and could not find a single Pakistani or Saudi in line.

“It’s probably just that people don’t like to go on the first day,” he said. “Also, there were some rumours circulating in the community that Pakistan had been taken off the list.”

Immigration lawyers said that the new rule and arrests of Iranians in California terrified people in the Muslim community. Many feared that undocumented children and relatives who had overstayed visas or had incomplete documents would be arrested and deported.

But seeing the smooth operation in Los Angeles and Santa Anna, Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of southern California, said: “I think the INS has really acknowledged that lots of mistakes were made. There were many flaws. They are saying that anyone who is here legally will not be detained.”