WASHINGTON, Nov 20: A group of 87 Pakistanis were deported on Wednesday from the United States, mostly for ignoring court orders to leave the country, US and Pakistani officials told Dawn.
A chartered flight of the private YES Airlines is carrying them to Islamabad, from Buffalo, New York, where they were gathered from across the United States.
The first batch of 131 Pakistani detainees left for Pakistan on June 25 and the second comprising 95 detainees on Aug 21.
“Most of those on today’s flight — more than 70 — are deportation absconders,” said an official. “They had either applied for political asylum or had tried to legalize their stay through other means, such as marriage, but their pleas were already rejected by US courts,” he added.
The group also includes five detainees who overstayed visas, four arrested on drug charges, three on assault and three on sexual offences, the officer said.
Since early October, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has softened its campaign against those who overstay their visas and is instead concentrating on deportation absconders — those already ordered to leave the country but refusing to do so.
An INS official, who requested not to be identified, told Dawn that immigration officials were allowing those who can legally extend their visas to do so. “That’s why there are so few cases of visa overstay among the deportees,” he added.
Initially, those who had overstayed their visas were also treated like deportation absconders and were deported when arrested.
Although the laws for deporting illegal immigrants have existed for decades, the INS launched an aggressive campaign for deporting them after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001.
The INS had arrested 300 Pakistanis along with the group deported on Wednesday. But many of them have cases pending in US courts and INS official are awaiting decisions.
All the detainees will stay in INS custody until their cases are decided.
The Pakistan Embassy in Washington also endorses the claim that INS has now softened its attitude towards Pakistani nationals. “It is no more chasing those who overstay their visas as it was doing after 9-11,” said an embassy official. “This change came about 6-7 weeks ago,” he added.
But leaders of the Pakistani community in the United States do not agree with the embassy. Instead, they blame the Pakistani government for failing to protect the interests of its nationals in the United States.
“We are supposed to be a US ally in the war against terrorism and yet Pakistani nationals in the United States are being treated as enemies,” said a community leader who did not want to be identified for fear of repercussions.
“It is clear now that the Pakistani government needs to raise the detainees issue with the US government in a substantial, non-cosmetic manner, at the highest level as well as with a more strident pitch. Otherwise, it is obvious that the Pakistani community in the United States would face even more difficult times ahead,” he added.
Sources in the United States Immigration and Naturalisation Service and the Pakistan Embassy confirmed that an embassy officer and INS officers conducted joint interviews of Pakistani detainees in the Bathavia Detention facility in upstate New York in the last three days to determine which of the 150 or so detainees with Final Orders of Removal would be repatriated to Pakistan. An INS source revealed on Wednesday night that 87 detainees had been cleared by midnight.
Talking to Dawn, Pakistan’s Deputy Chief of Mission Mohammad Sadiq said the Pakistan Embassy was already providing “significant assistance” to the Pakistani nationals in INS custody. But interviews with INS officers and families of the detainees revealed that much more would be required by the Pakistan government if it wanted to stop arrests of illegal Pakistani residents in the United States.
The DCM revealed that the embassy policy had been to issue travel documents only after ensuring that the detainee has been dealt according to US law and afforded proper legal relief. “Such information is collected from three sources; the detainee himself, the family of the detainee and the US authorities. All detainees have access to a designated embassy telephone number on which they can make collect calls 24 hours a day and receive advice and assistance,” he said.
But members of the Pakistani community complain that “after-hours assistance” was provided only by the embassy consular officials in Washington DC and rarely by the New York consulate.
They appeared particularly upset with the consulate in Los Angeles. “The condition in the Los Angeles consulate is so pathetic that you cannot reach anybody during office hours for routine visa/passport matters, let alone after-hours assistance in immigration matters,” said Nusrat, the wife of one of the detainees deported on Wednesday. “I do not even know who deals with such matters in the Los Angeles consulate,” she added.
All efforts to contact the Los Angeles consulate by this correspondent proved fruitless as no body picked up any of the four lines of the Los Angeles consulate.
INS sources revealed that the last two flights took off from Louisiana, but this time the location was changed to Buffalo, New York, because the Embassy had requested better holding facilities for detainees.