NEW YORK, 4 October 2003 — The US Justice Department’s registration policy for Middle Eastern immigrants constitutes racial profiling, a panel convened by Amnesty International was told Thursday.
“As the US government continues to wage its war on terrorism with no end in sight, immigrant communities in the US face escalating assaults on our civil and human rights,” said Monami Maulik, founder of Desis Rising Up and Moving, a South Asian immigrant group.
In an effort to keep track of recent arrivals from countries linked to terrorism, federal authorities last fall began requiring young men from certain nations to register. Males over 16 from Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Indonesia and Bangladesh were required to register by late April. Deadlines passed earlier for males from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and other countries.
Immigration lawyers have complained that the registration program amounts to racial profiling and does nothing to prevent terrorist attacks because terrorists are unlikely to register. Maulik said the policy amounts to an immigration raid in which the targets turn themselves in. She said more than 13,000 people who complied with the law are in deportation proceedings because they were in the United States illegally.
“Clearly the net is being cast wider and the pool of immigrants who are detainable and deportable is ever expanding through intensified enforcement mechanisms,” she said. Omar Mohammedi, president of the New York area Muslim Bar Association, said many of his clients have been prevented from flying or from wiring money because they are Arab or Muslim.
He gave an example of a man who was unable to wire $80 to a friend because his name, Mohammad Ali, turned up on a list of “known terrorists.” “Mohammed Ali’s a common name,” Mohammedi said. “It’s as if you were blocking everyone with the name of John Smith.”
