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December 26, 2002
ADC Press Release
Senators and Congressman Demand Ashcroft Suspend INS
Special Registration
WASHINGTON
DC - On Monday, December 23, Senators Russell D. Feingold
(D-WI), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), and Congressman John
Conyers, Jr., (D-MI) sent a letter to Attorney General John
Ashcroft demanding that he suspend the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) "special call-in registration"
requirements (also known as the National Security Entry-Exit
Registration System "NSEERS").
The following is the text of the letter:
December 23, 2002 The Honorable
John D. Ashcroft Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice 10th Street and
Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20510
Dear Mr. Attorney General: We write to urge you to
suspend further implementation of the National Security
Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) by the U.S. Department
of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) until
Congress and the Department conduct a complete and thorough
review of this program. We have grave doubts about whether the
INS’s implementation of NSEERS has struck the proper balance
between securing our borders on the one hand and respecting
the civil liberties of foreign students, businesspeople, and
visitors who have come to our nation legally on the other.
Rather, this special registration program appears to
be a component of a second wave of roundups and detentions of
Arab and Muslim males disguised as a perfunctory registration
requirement. Reports indicate that hundreds of individuals who
have voluntarily appeared to register at INS offices around
the country (but primarily in California) have been arrested
and detained without reasonable justification. According to
news reports, many of those detained have applications pending
for adjustment of status on which the INS has not yet acted.
For example, according to a news report, a 16 year old
boy who entered the country lawfully on a student visa was
separated from his pregnant mother, even though he is seeking
permanent residency to be able to join his mother, who is a
permanent resident, and stepfather, who is a US citizen, in
America. According to another report, a successful Iranian
Jewish businessman, who had fled Iran and believed he could
find freedom and security in America, was arrested and jailed
even though he has had an application for permanent residency
pending with the INS for five years. It is unjust to penalize
and detain people who have a claim to lawful status when, in
many cases, it is the INS processing backlog that has caused
the delay in approving status-adjustment applications.
We are also concerned by reports that detainees have
been denied access to counsel and are being held in deplorable
conditions, including being deprived of food for more than 24
hours and being forced to sleep on cold floors.
These
reports are all the more troubling because this new program
comes one year after the Department launched its first roundup
and detention of mostly Arab and Muslim men, the vast majority
of whom were detained for immigration violations and
ultimately cleared of any involvement in terrorist activity.
You have so far failed to identify most of the hundreds of
individuals arrested and detained in the wake of September 11
or their counsel. This pattern of targeting persons for arrest
based on race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin rather
than on specific evidence of criminal activity or connections
with terrorist organizations only serves to undermine the
trust of the American people, especially the Arab and Muslim
American communities whose cooperation we need more than ever
to protect our nation.
Furthermore, we are concerned
about the interview stage of the NSEERS special registration
program. We understand that information is sought on the
individual’s credit card, bank account, and video rental card
numbers, and, for those on student
visas, on affiliation with campus political and
religious groups and names of roommates. These questions raise
serious privacy and constitutional concerns.
We
request that you immediately provide to us and release
publicly information about implementation of NSEERS, including
the following:
1. All policy directives or guidance
issued to officials about implementation of NSEERS, including
the role of the FBI in conducting national security background
checks of registrants;
2. An explanation of why
certain INS District Offices detained persons with pending
status-adjustment applications;
3. All policy
directives or guidance issued to officials about making public
statements or disclosures about these individuals; and
4. A full explanation of how information gathered
during interviews of registrants will be stored, used, or
transmitted to other federal, state, or local agencies.
We further request that you release information about
individuals taken into custody as soon as possible, including
the following:
5. The identity of each individual who
attempted to register pursuant to NSEERS but was taken into
custody, including the individual’s name, citizenship status,
and place of birth;
6. The date of arrest of each
detainee;
7. The date charges, if any, were brought
against each detainee;
8. The charges brought, if any,
against each detainee and, if no charges were brought, an
explanation of why the individual was taken into custody;
9. The basis for continuing to detain those
individuals who have been cleared of any connection with terrorism but are still in detention;
10. The identity of and contact information for any
lawyer representing any detainee, including names, addresses,
and phone numbers; and
11. The identity of any
detainee who is not represented by counsel.
The
Department of Justice should aggressively investigate and
prevent future terrorist attacks, but should at the same time
act with constitutional restraint. The Department of Justice
has a responsibility to release sufficient information about
the special registration program and the detainees to allow
Congress and the American people to decide whether the
Department has acted appropriately and consistent with the
Constitution.
In addition, we urge you to suspend
further implementation of NSEERS pending congressional review.
It is imperative that you take steps to reassure Congress and
the American people that this special registration program is
not a detention program falling just short of widespread
internment of Arabs and Muslims. We further urge you to take
all necessary steps to ensure that the fundamental
constitutional rights of individuals already detained are
protected, including access to counsel. Times of crisis
are the true test of a democracy. Our nation still bears the
scars of an earlier crisis when our government went too far by
detaining Japanese, German, and Italian Americans based on
their race, ethnicity, or national origin. We should not
repeat these painful mistakes.
We look forward to your
response.
Sincerely,
Russell D. Feingold
U.S. SENATOR
Edward M. Kennedy U.S. SENATOR
John Conyers, Jr. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
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