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By Luciana Lopez
Capital News Service
Thursday, March 20, 2003

WASHINGTON - Baltimore lawyer Blaine L. Gilbert has gotten a lot of calls this week from anxious men, reluctant to give their names.

"They'll say this is Joe," Gilbert said. "When I ask, 'Joe who?' they say, 'Just Joe.' "

The "Joes" are Pakistani and Saudi Arabian men in this country who have until Friday to register with the Bureau of Immigration and Citizenship Services, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"They're really paranoid about this," Gilbert said. "They're so nervous that some people won't even give their true names" on the phone with him.

Muslim and civil rights groups say the registration, which collects fingerprints, photographs and other information, treats the foreigners "like common criminals" and will do nothing to help fight terrorism, as the government has claimed.

The registrations "amount to little more than a round-up-the-usual-suspects approach," said Hodan Hassan, a spokeswoman with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The system "is highly ineffective at tracking people who don't want to be tracked," she said. "It's picking on people who haven't done anything wrong."

But Chris Bentley, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the information will let the government verify that long-term visitors to the United States are complying with their visa requirements. And by running the collected data through national databases, he said, the government can identify those registrants who are known criminals or security risks.

The registration applies only to men over the age of 16 from specific countries. Permanent residents and green card holders from those countries are exempt.

The current group is the third group being required to register. Previous groups, including men from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and North Korea, registered earlier this year. A fourth group of men from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait has until April 25 to register.

Bentley said the program targets countries where there has been terrorist activity or where there have been other security threats, but that other countries could be added in the future.

He said that 46,035 men have registered nationwide since the program started, but he could not say how many of those were in Maryland.

So far, 25 countries have been identified. All but North Korea are predominantly Muslim.

Raeed Tayeh of the Muslim American Society said that some Muslims are scared of being "stigmatized as people who the government has an interest in." Some with legal status problems fear the government might coerce them into spying on their friends and neighbors, Tayeh said.

The program is already having an impact, said Nail Al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi Arabian Embassy. Fewer Saudis are visiting the United States for vacation and for schooling, he said, since they do not want to be treated "like common criminals."

Brenda Brisbon, another Baltimore immigration attorney, said she has had clients call over the registration, and has gained a client because of registration concerns. She has also accompanied clients to be registered.

"It's un-American to make people do what we're making them do," she said. "I don't like it personally and legally."

But if nothing else, she said, at least immigration officials in Baltimore have been "courteous and professional."

Gilbert agreed that the Baltimore officers are mostly "pretty nice people."

"They have a tough job. They realize that the people who are in front of them are very frightened," Gilbert said.

But he said that does not mean the Maryland office has been easy on the men, many of whom have been required to come back and appear before a judge to decide questions of legal status.

The Baltimore office is the only immigration office in Maryland where targeted foreigners can register. Bentley said the office would open at 7:30 a.m. Friday and stay open "as long there are people there to register."

 

Copyright © 2003 University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism