Posted on 11/28/2001 6:12:27 PM PST by expose
November 28, 2001
THE IMMIGRANTS
U.S. Makes It Easier to Detain Foreigners
By DAVID FIRESTONE
the Justice Department has quietly expanded its power to detain foreigners, letting the government keep a foreigner behind bars even after a federal immigration judge has ordered him to be released for lack of evidence.
The change allows the Immigration and Naturalization Service to set aside any release order issued by an immigration judge in cases where the agency says it believes that a foreigner is a danger to the community or a flight risk.
To have such a ruling set aside, the service simply has to file a form that says it plans to appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. If that board orders the detainee released, the service can also set aside that order, under the new regulation, by taking the case to the attorney general.
Immigration lawyers, who represent many of the 1,100 noncitizens held after the attacks on Sept. 11, are furious about the new rule, saying it deprives the detainees of the fundamental right of bond hearings. At such hearings, analogous to bond proceedings in the criminal justice system, immigration judges weigh the evidence to decide whether a detainee should be allowed to be freed on bond. But now, no matter the outcome of those hearings, the government can continue to hold detainees by filing forms in one business day.
"With this rule change, the government can lock someone up on very little or even no evidence and throw away the key until they decide to let them go," said David W. Leopold, an immigration lawyer in Cleveland who represents the first aliens affected by the new rule, 11 Israelis who continued to be detained after a judge had ordered them released. "In effect, it just takes immigration judges out of the mix, bypassing their role entirely."
Two Israelis remain in custody.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it planned to challenge the rule in court as an unconstitutional violation of the right of due process for foreigners. The American Immigration Lawyers Association said the rule, along with actions that permit eavesdropping on detainees' conversation with their lawyers, violated constitutional protections.
Previously, the immigration service could set aside judges' rulings only in cases of clear-cut criminal activity, situations that are unusual because judges generally impose high or no bail in such cases.
The new rule, signed by Attorney General John Ashcroft on Oct. 26, went into effect on Oct. 29 with no public notice. It was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 31, eliminating the usual comment period before a federal rule takes effect. Mr. Ashcroft determined that swift action was necessary "to prevent the release of aliens who may pose a threat to national security."
The immigration service, part of the Justice Department, said the rule was necessary because the current system might require the release of aliens who pose security threats before the agency could present its case to the appeals board. Because of the heavy I.N.S. caseload, officials said, it is occasionally impossible to present all the necessary evidence to an immigration judge.
"It's not that we don't have the direct evidence, but in some cases we simply haven't had time to draft enough material to prepare a warrant," a spokeswoman for the agency, Karen Kraushaar, said.
Immigration lawyers said in many cases such evidence of terrorist links did not exist or was based on flimsy connections, like a similar last name to a hijacker or possession of a box cutter. In other cases, the government has refused to disclose its evidence to judges, citing national security reasons.
Immigration judges rarely release detainees when the government presents virtually any evidence of danger. But in the current cases, several judges have ordered releases because of a lack of evidence, over the objections of the immigration service.
The 220 immigration judges are Civil Service employees of the Justice Department. They were separated from the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1983 to strengthen their independence. Though the judges usually side with the immigration service on deportations, studies show that they frequently impose lower bail than the service requests in detention cases.
Some legal scholars say the new regulation stems from longstanding misgivings immigration service officials have about the judges.
"The immigration judges were intended to be a check on the I.N.S., a set of decision makers who were not beholden to the agency," said Margaret Taylor, a professor of law at Wake Forest University. "But within the I.N.S. is a fundamental mistrust of the immigration judges."
Supporters of the agency, however, say the new regulation is a natural outgrowth of the focus on terrorism. Richard Samp, chief counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, said that immigration judges might be inclined to release detainees when the government based its actions on classified information, but that the government had every right not to enter such information as evidence.
"The attorney general has access to large amounts of classified evidence and has no interest in publicly disclosing it, which would happen in an administrative proceeding," said Mr. Samp, whose group has filed briefs to support the agency. "We don't think there's any constitutional problem with that. When you disclose you inform, you give terrorists a road map to American intelligence- gathering techniques."
The nation's chief immigration judge, Michael J. Creppy, declined a request for an interview. His spokesman, Richard Kenney, said Judge Creppy did not believe that the new rule undermined the authority or purpose of the immigration courts.
"This doesn't change the decision- making role of the judges," Mr. Kenney said. "It does mean that the execution is a little softer, and the I.N.S. gets more discretion."
Over the years, Congress has granted wide authority to the Justice Department to run the immigration system. The attorney general appoints the chief immigration judge and can change the detention rules by administrative order.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that foreigners do have some fundamental constitutional rights of due process. As recently as June, the court ruled that the government could not hold foreigners indefinitely, because they are "persons" under constitutional protection.
Civil libertarians said that the new rule violated the spirit of that decision. "Clearly there's a concern for security at the moment, and we recognize that," said Judy Rabinovitz, senior staff counsel for the immigrants' rights project of the A.C.L.U. "But we're concerned that they're taking advantage of the public mood to go too far. If you say you're going to ignore a judge's ruling because you disagree with it, it turns a bond hearing into a farce."
With the weapons of mass destruction of today. I call on the president and Congress to do their duties. To protect the citizens of America; anything less, than this, is not doing their job.
By Cindy Rodríguez, Globe Staff, 11/23/2001
after intense lobbying by college and university administrators from across the nation, a congressional proposal that would have barred foreign students from entering the United States for six months has been dropped.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, is instead focusing on the creation of a biometric card for all visa holders that would contain their fingerprint and a retinal scan.
''She decided to pull back'' on the moratorium proposal after meeting with college officials and organizations that represent them, Jim Hock, her press secretary, said this week. ''The schools assured her they would work with [the Immigration and Naturalization Service] to improve security.''
The US student visa program has been under scrutiny after it was revealed that at least one of the 19 suspected terrorists from the Sept. 11 attacks came into the United States on a student visa. Though federal officials and lawmakers are looking for ways to better track foreigners, the idea of a moratorium on visas has met opposition from civil rights organizations and, in the case of student visas, institutions of learning.
The retraction of the proposal is a major victory for colleges - including Boston University, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - which have substantial numbers of foreign students as well as foreign-born researchers.
''It would've put a chill on the most talented people entering the US,'' said Kevin Casey, senior director of federal and state government relations at Harvard. ''It would have created a `foreigners need not apply' sign.''
About half of all foreign students who study in the United States come from Taiwan, mainland China, and Korea, according to the American Council on Education, or ACE, a lobbying group based in Washington, D.C.
''Were we going to tell all of our friends in Western Europe that they can't come here to study?'' asked David Ward, the president of ACE. He said that rather than focus on student visas, the State Department should fix problems with the entire visa program.
Aside from being able to choose from among the most gifted minds in the world, US universities rely on foreign students economically. While many arrive on special research fellowships or scholarships, undergraduate foreign students often pay higher fees than US students.
The number of foreign students studying in the United States increased by 6.4 percent in the 2000-2001 academic year to a record total of 547,867, according to a report by the Institute of International Education.
Among the top schools for foreign students were New York University, with 5,399; the University of Southern California, 5,321; Columbia University, 4,837; Purdue University, 4,469; and BU, with 4,443 foreign students.
''A moratorium would've been detrimental to our students who benefit from studying alongside students from all over the world,'' said BU spokesman Colin Riley.
I'm sure they are. The trial and tort lawyers paid a fortune to get gore elected, they lost, and now they are seeing a major source of income going down the drain. American law has always recognized that people who represent a serious danger to society and are unlikely to appear in court if released should not be granted bail.
While these detentions may be necessary to help prevent terrorism, if you don't have any evidence that one is a terrorist or such, you really shouldn't be holding them. Or, at least, they should have a fair hearing -- due process and all that.
Exactly what I was thinking! This is not, at all, the kind of war our Founding Fathers fought. One man can kill thousands.
Noncitizens are not American citizens, and have no rights under our constitution.
The money. Forget national security, they want the money.
I agree with you. It's nice to see the government move swifty to crack down on these losers. You know its working when the libs and the rest of the ACLU are going nuts and the rest of the country just yawns.
I can't agree with you. I have to wonder which side of the fence you are on. If these people have a problem with the INS, they should at the very least be given the boot. If they are terrorists, take them out and shoot them.
Would America actually being attacked on our own soil answer the question?
Who told the citizens the OKC was a middle Eastern attack? Nobody. It didn't happen according to the American populace.
9/11 did. That's where it comes from.
And the right arm of the liberal left.
By Jim Leusner | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 28, 2001
Florida is home to one of every 10 men targeted nationally by anti-terrorism investigators hoping to find new information about the Sept. 11 hijackings or future attacks.
In an unprecedented canvassing of predominantly Middle Eastern men who entered the United States since Jan. 1, 2000, federal, state and local police officials will go door to door seeking tips and leads from 500 men in Florida -- including about 175 in five Central Florida counties.
The goal: Unearth nuggets of information in the murky, secretive world of terrorist organizations.
Today in Orlando, names of the men will be divided among the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and several local sheriff's and police agencies so the interviews can begin.
"They're not suspects or anything," Justice Department spokesman Mindy Tucker said Tuesday. "We're asking them to provide information about past terrorism and to prevent future terrorism."
The names are part of a 5,000-name list compiled by the State Department, FBI, Immigration and Naturalization Service and intelligence agencies on people in an age group and from countries where they may have obtained information on terrorism or encountered people with information on terrorism, Tucker said.
The list was based on intelligence from past investigations involving al-Qaeda -- the Osama bin Laden-led terrorist organization suspected in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Tucker said the names also were chosen based on the countries where passports were issued and were limited to men ages 18 to 33.
The plan to interview the men, announced two weeks ago by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, has alarmed Arab-American groups.
Carol Khawly, an attorney with the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, said her organization has received many calls from Middle Eastern men who fear they will be questioned and jailed based on their ethnicity. Those to be interviewed are men on student, work and visitor visas, Khawly said, and some may have difficulties speaking English.
The committee, she said, wants to meet with Justice Department officials to find out what questions will be asked.
"A lot of people who come here are from the Middle East and are suspicious of the government," said Khawly, noting that many fled from repressive regimes and fear law enforcement. "Is that person going to be red-flagged for the rest of their lives?"
Tucker denied any racial profiling was involved, emphasizing that questioning of the men is based on the countries where their passports were issued.
"And they're not all Middle Eastern countries," she said. Tucker would not elaborate.
The canvassing announcement came on the day that Ashcroft delivered an update on the Justice Department's terrorism investigation.
The government is detaining 603 people, he said, including some alleged members of bin Laden's network. Ashcroft announced Tuesday that 104 people have been charged with federal crimes in the probe.
In his most-detailed public accounting yet, Ashcroft released names of those facing federal charges. But he refused to provide names for the hundreds held on immigration violations.
"I am not interested in providing, when we are at war, a list to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network of the people we have detained that would make any easier their effort to kill Americans," he said.
One of those in custody as a result of the terrorism probe was Nabil Sarama, 51, a Palestinian charged in northern California with making a false statement to obtain a permanent-residency card. Sarama was arrested Sept. 16 in Orlando after police found him near a pay phone used to make bomb threats, an INS affidavit shows. A search of his suitcase turned up a kit capable of making as many as 12 box cutters -- similar to those used by the Sept. 11 hijackers -- six identification cards or drivers licenses from Florida, Georgia and California. INS records also show that Sarama entered the United States on at least five occasions in the years 1994 and 2001 using passports from Israel and Jordan.
FDLE Commissioner Tim Moore said about 500 men will be interviewed statewide. Other police officials said about 175 of them are in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Volusia and Brevard counties.
"We're looking for information, not bodies," one law-enforcement official said.
Moore said he is drafting a letter to 100 religious centers in Florida to explain the interview process. FDLE also is consulting with experts on Islamic culture.
"The concept does not bother me totally. . . . In light of what happened [Sept. 11], the government is justified in what it has to ask," said Muhammad Musri, spiritual leader at the Islamic Society of Central Florida in Orlando. "It's fine if they're asking questions. But if it's intimidating, then it's not right."
In letters dated Nov. 9 and made public Tuesday by the Justice Department, Ashcroft and a deputy asked state and local law-enforcement officials to help conduct the interviews, because federal agents are overwhelmed with terrorism investigations.
"These individuals were selected for interviews because they fit the criteria of persons who might have knowledge of foreign-based terrorists, criteria that are shared by many of the persons -- both American citizens and visitors to our country -- who have provided valuable information and assistance to law enforcement in our anti-terrorism efforts since September 11th," Ashcroft wrote.
The other Justice Department memo details guidelines for the interviews, which it says are voluntary.
The subjects are not being treated as suspects, and police are not to inquire about their religious beliefs. Though ascertaining immigration status is not a primary purpose, INS officials are to be contacted regarding violations, it said.
The memo also tells police to obtain from the interview subject: documents to verify his identity; phone numbers for him, his family and associates; employment and source of income; whether he has scientific expertise, any professional licenses or what he is studying in college; and whether he visited Afghanistan or fought in any armed conflicts abroad.
It also says to ask which U.S. cities and landmarks he visited or plans to visit; whether he has knowledge of anyone involved in the Sept. 11 attacks or contemplating future attacks; whether he knows anyone raising money for terrorist activities or engaged in illicit, cash businesses such as drug-trafficking; and whether he has been threatened or harmed because of religion or nationality.
"You should also ask if he knows of anyone who is capable of developing any biological or chemical weapons such as anthrax," it states.
The Cold War (which we won, by the way)relied upon Mutually Assured Destruction.MAD.That plan could only work with a society that was not willing to die for its ideological purposes. If you check out the facts on this confrontation, you can not escape the conclusion that our current adversaries welcome destruction.Therein lies the difference.
Yes.
This article doesn't state the number of people held, or for how long they've been held.
I doubt there has been much abuse of this process, but there is no need for abuse since the new terror bill allows some detentions practically at the AG's discretion.
Even in the present mess, after 30 days, or so, it would be abusive to be holding people without evidence IMHO.
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