Registration of foreign men has wide effect

LOS ANGELES — The federal government's controversial new requirement that foreign men from many mostly Muslim nations register with U.S. authorities has drawn in almost 24,000 men nationwide — more than one in 10 of whom face possible deportation, according to Justice Department officials.

The program also has led to the detention of 1,169 immigrants.

The figures for detentions and deportations are considerably higher than those offered previously by government officials.

With two more rounds of registration scheduled in the next several weeks, the numbers arrested or facing deportation greatly exceed the 765 foreigners — also mostly Middle Easterners and South Asians — detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as part of the post-Sept. 11 investigation.

The registration program, extended last week to cover several additional predominately Muslim nations, has resulted in the arrests of three suspected terrorists, said Kris Kobach, counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Kobach declined to provide details, but it is known that the fingerprints and identities of all registrants are checked against databases and lists of suspected and known terrorists and other criminals.

Another person detained through registration and now targeted for deportation, Kobach said, is a Saudi national who came to Florida for flight lessons — a path also followed by three of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

"It's gone very well," Kobach said of the program. "We think it's been a worthwhile investment of our resources."

But as with the post-Sept. 11 arrests, the registration program has evoked fierce criticism from civil libertarians and Middle Eastern community representatives.

The critics say that by requiring people to register at INS offices and then ordering them deported for even minor visa irregularities, the registration program unfairly traps immigrants.

"It's almost a setup for deportation," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The registration program has two parts.

Men 16 and older from 25 nations who arrived in the United States before Sept. 30 are required to register at INS offices. All nations covered by the program are heavily Muslim in population except for North Korea. Ashcroft last week added five nations — Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait — to the list of countries whose men must report.

Men and women arriving since September from roughly 150 countries have been required to register at airports and other ports of entry. Under that part of the program, officers had registered 30,828 foreign nationals from more than 100 nations as of Tuesday, authorities said. They had turned back or arrested 330 people for criminal or other violations, the officials said.

Federal officers at ports consider matters such as suspect travel patterns, place of birth and intelligence information when considering whether to register new arrivals, authorities said.

For many immigrants — those whose visas have expired but who are awaiting legal residency because they have relatives in the United States or are being sponsored by employers — the program offers a difficult choice.

If they fail to register, they risk deportation and even criminal prosecution.

If they show up, they also might face deportation although they can hope to throw themselves at the mercy of the INS or an immigration judge. Thousands have opted to come forward.

As of Jan. 14, 2,477 men who showed up at INS offices nationwide had been issued "notices to appear," the initial step in the deportation process, said Jorge Martinez, a Justice Department spokesman.

Such cases typically are referred to immigration court for "removal," or deportation.

Of those initially detained, 164 remained in custody as of Tuesday, when the most recent statistics were compiled, officials said.

Most of those detained had immigration violations, but 15 of those arrested were considered serious felons, officials said.

Despite the large number of arrests and possible deportations, Justice Department officials say the program is foremost a national-security effort. They deny it was crafted to ensnare people in violation of their visas — although that is one practical effect.

The Justice Department last week granted a 12-day grace period for people from Iran and 19 other countries who missed their first deadlines for registering.

Activists who favor reduction in immigration call it an overdue step to begin apprehending some of the estimated 4 million immigrants who entered the country legally and then broke the law by overstaying or otherwise violating their visas.

Visa violators represent about 40 percent of an overall illegal population estimated at 8.5 million.

"As Confucius says: When you enforce immigration law you inconvenience illegal aliens," said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors a crackdown.

"It's hard to enforce immigration laws without inconveniencing somebody."