WASHINGTON, 25 September — Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan have been added to an INS list that will require immigration inspectors to register and fingerprint men from these countries, ages 16 to 45, when they enter the United States. The memo, sent to immigration inspectors by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, requires that male visitors from these countries be registered effective of Oct. 1.
Registration will be required on arrival to, and departure from, the United States. Visitors from these countries must also now be interviewed at an INS office for visits of more than 30 days. They must also notify the INS within 10 days of any change of residence, employment or academic institution. Prior to this announcement, the Justice Department had begun registering visitors from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Libya — all who are on the State Department’s list of state-sponsored terrorism.
As part of the new registration rules, visitors from these countries are required to provide their fingerprints, photographs and details about their travel plans while in the United States. The memo says inspectors for “national security reasons” also can register visitors who they determine are worth monitoring. Inspectors have also been told to check if the visitor has made any trips to an extensive list of countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, Indonesia and/or Malaysia.
They are also told to consider whether the visitors’ explanation for the trip is credible, and are instructed to judge the respondent’s behavior, demeanor or answers — which may indicate the person could be security threat.
The additional investigation for Saudi nationals follows an earlier application of stricter rules for Saudis who apply for visas to the United States. Visa paperwork that was formerly handled by travel agents in the Kingdom now requires interviews at US Embassy consular offices.
“I’m sympathetic to what the INS is doing,” Daniel Griswold, trade and immigration analyst at the Washington-based Cato Institute, told Arab News. “Given the limited resources of the US government, I think it’s a rational policy to focus on those parts of the world where terrorists seem most likely to originate. It’s just a simple fact that most of the terrorist activity, since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has involved nationals from the Arab world and the Middle East.”
