As Authorities Keep Up Immigration Arrests, Detainees Ask Why They Are Targets

RANSTON, R.I., Jan. 31 — In a bare interview room, Mohamed Desouky describes the early morning arrest that took him from his apartment in Milford, Mass., his pizzeria job and his Polish girlfriend and left him in the cold regimen of the state prison here.

"I was still asleep, so my roommate answered the door," said Mr. Desouky, 28, an Egyptian who moved to the United States five years ago. "I woke up when six F.B.I. agents came into my room. They said they wanted to look around. When they asked for my passport, I gave it to them. I wasn't going to play games. They saw my visa was expired. They told us to wash up and come with them. They said we didn't need to take anything, because we'd be back in a day or two. So I just took $20 and handed my keys to my girlfriend."

Like hundreds of other Muslim men who have overstayed their visas, Mr. Desouky and his roommate, also Egyptian, were arrested on immigration charges, caught in the widening ripples of the post-Sept. 11 terrorism investigation.

By the end of October, more than 1,000 people had been detained. Although the government would not release the names of those held, the mass roundup was big news. Hundreds of the detainees — the government will not say precisely how many — remain in custody.

Much news media attention has moved to the detainees taken to Cuba from Afghanistan, but the arrests in the United States continue, with many police officers and other local officials playing an aggressive new role in immigration enforcement.

In Florida, a Jordanian was picked up and detained when he went to renew his driver's license.

In Virginia, a Moroccan who had registered at a high school the week of the terrorist attacks was asked for immigration documents. When the guidance counselor found that his tourist visa had expired, she gave the passport to the police, who passed it to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The youngster has been detained for four months.

It is unclear just how or why Mr. Desouky and his roommate came to be arrested. Mr. Desouky said that the federal agents who went to his apartment on Jan. 7 knew his roommate's name and that his roommate had recently transferred $10,000 to Egypt, a transaction that may have inspired the visit.

Although the roommate quickly found a lawyer, agreed to leave the United States voluntarily and was freed on bail, Mr. Desouky remains in prison, bewildered by his situation.

"I've never been in any trouble, and now I'm in a jail with murderers," he said. "It's almost impossible to get through to the outside world. I feel like I've been put into a movie made somewhere in the middle of China."

He found legal representation only last week. His lawyer, Halim Morris of Greater Boston Legal Services, said he did not yet know enough about the case to understand why Mr. Desouky was in prison or to predict the outcome of his case.

"The F.B.I. doesn't seem to have any interest in him as part of the terrorist investigation," Mr. Morris said. "But the government's opposing bail in all these cases. Before Sept. 11, no one in this situation would have been detained."

It has always been illegal to overstay a visa or sneak into the United States. But as practical matter, with eight million illegal immigrants in the population, enforcement has been lax. Because the immigration service lacks the resources to track down violators — and, many would argue, because the United States has needed their labor — most illegal immigrants were left alone.

"Generally in the past, when immigration violations like overstaying your visa or working without authorization were enforced, it was without detention," Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, said. "Usually no bond was required, and anyone who agreed to leave the country voluntarily was allowed to leave promptly. Now there is strict enforcement in a selective and discriminatory way against people from the Middle East who are denied bond and detained for lengthy periods, even after they've agreed to leave.

"It's hard to know what's going on, because the Justice Department has refused to disclose information about people detained post-9/11, and now they're providing even less information about new arrests."

"I always knew my visa had expired and I was here illegally, but before it never seemed to matter," he said. "I never had any trouble finding a job. Some of my friends got married so they could be legal. But it just wasn't a problem in my life."

Since Sept. 11, Middle Eastern or South Asian men who are in the country illegally have been subject to much new scrutiny. Some have been placed in detention after having been stopped by the police for speeding or not wearing a seat belt. Others have been picked up at airports, after checking in for domestic flights and showing passports with expired visas as identification.

The immigration agency said the detentions and deportations were an outgrowth of the terrorism inquiry, and not a random sweep of Muslims. The agency emphasizes that the number of Muslims in immigration proceedings remains tiny, compared with the number of Mexicans.

"Given the inevitable tangential encounters you're going to have with people from particular countries as a result of the terrorism investigation, it's understandable that you're going to have a number who are encountered and arrested because they have immigration violations," a spokesman for the immigration agency, Russell A. Bergeron Jr., said. "That's not an indiscriminate targeting of individuals from the Middle East or Muslims.

"To my knowledge, there's been no claim that we have in any way, at any location, simply gone out into predominantly Arab or Muslim communities and, without cause, questioned and arrested people."

Some immigration lawyers said who is detained seems to be less a question of terrorist connections than of racial profiling and random bad luck.

"It's just people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer in Clifton, N.J., who has represented more than 12 Muslim Middle Eastern clients detained since Sept. 11.

Among Mr. Mohammed's clients are an Egyptian who was lost in Newark and flagged down a police officer to obtain directions. But instead of giving him directions, the officer asked for the man's immigration status — and, after checking his passport and finding that he was in the country illegally, arrested him. Mr. Mohammed also represents two Pakistanis, an uncle and a nephew, arrested in their apartment building after the uncle had bumped into F.B.I. agents in the stairwell. The agents were checking a tip about other Middle Eastern men in the building and were leaving after that tip had fizzled just as the uncle was arriving home from work as a limousine driver. The agents followed him to his apartment and woke the nephew, who was staying overnight. Both men had expired visas, and both were arrested.

"The vast majority of the people who got picked up have zero involvement with any terrorism," said Janet Sabel, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society's immigration project. "My sense is that they are picked up because of their religious practices or the way they looked, and then they get cleared by the F.B.I."

Some immigration experts like Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which supports immigration limits, say increased enforcement is good.

"If they're illegal aliens, some of whom might conceivably be terrorists, it's all to the good that the police begin enforcing the law," Mr. Krikorian said. "Concentrated enforcement on Muslims is not a long-term strategy for enforcing immigration law. But as a short-term tactic, as triage, it makes sense. If an illegal alien is arrested, put in jail and sent back home, I don't have much sympathy for the complaint that we didn't used to do that."

Mr. Desouky, who has a hearing on Wednesday in Boston, said he hoped that he would be able to stay.

"I might have to go back to Egypt," said Mr. Desouky, whose family is in Alexandria. "I don't know if I stand a chance to stay in this country or not. Mostly I want to know, if I leave, how long would it be before I could come back?"

How about us NEVER letting you come back, scumbag. You knew your visa had run out and you didn't renew it. That makes you a criminal. If we're going to have immigrants in this country, and I see nothing wrong with legal immigration, then let's make sure we take those people who obey the laws even if they don't 'have to' because they are 'lax.' As far as I am concerned, every illegal here is taking up a spot that could be given to a legal and LAW ABIDING immigrant who would be a REAL asset to the country.

It is very difficult to penetrate terrorist groups. They don't just let in anyone. Who knows if these guys have a connection. But we do know that they are illegaly in our country. That is enough. Boot 'em. Why waste resources trying to prove their innocence. Let them plead from Egypt.

Just got done watching an immigration debate between Grover Norquist and Tom Tancredo on this issue, and I can see that there are plenty on the right like Norquist who get teary-eyed when the issue comes up. They think it's just so wonderful the world wants to come here, and shouldn't we just let them?

Is there any hope the Republican party will come to their senses on immigration and restore common sense?

I still say we should have at least a two year moratorium on immigration until we can sort out the problem. I believe that there are thousands of people here who would supply safe houses to terrorists. We need time to evaluate how severe the problem is. Letting more in now just adds to the problem.

I wouldn't mind a moratorium, either, for now. The INS is so screwed up it is virtually useless. It needs thoroughly cleaned out and policies straightened out. And until they get their computer systems jiving with the FBI and other agencies, they'll be letting people slip right on by without adequate background clearances.

These kind of criticisms of the INS will have a backlash, whereby they will avoid arresting Illegal Moslems. These instances seem few compared to other groups who are in violation of Immigration laws. What do they expect? Overlook these violations?

These people are being arrested because they are ILLEGAL ALIENS. They need to get their asses kicked out of my country. I dont want them here. Most Americans dont want them here. Politicians who want them here are domestic enemies of the Constitution.

"I always knew my visa had expired and I was here illegally, but before it never seemed to matter,"

Maybe this moron never listened to John Ashcroft saying that we are a nation of laws. Run a red light, you get a ticket. What's the issue with these ass-breaths? I'd send 'em back to sand-land in a heart beat!

Did you just wake up from your nap? Wake up fella! We have hundreds of thousands of illegals in this country.

"Did you just wake up from your nap? Wake up fella! We have hundreds of thousands of illegals in this country. "

I realize that by this point you are having trouble opening your next can (nothin' like the ol' days when a bottle opener did the trick), but perhaps you can explain your point. I said we should have a moratorium on immigration. Did you think I wrote marathon to see who will get here faster? I wrote there a thousands of people here who would supply safe houses to terrorists. Did you think I wrote we should supply safe houses to terrorists? When you get the proper blood level and the DT's are under control, try again.

I said we should have a moratorium on immigration.

First of all, I don't drink anything other than water and milk. Aside from your personal problems, Why a moratorium on immigration? When does it end and re-start the influx of immigrants again?

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