PHILADELPHIA — A Syrian immigrant, Khattar Aizooky, said he felt a chill while being fingerprinted and questioned by the U.S. government last month, a decade after leaving his authoritarian homeland.
It reminded him of Syria.
“This is one of the most open and accepting societies,” said the 33-year-old Pittsburgh physician. “We hate to see it changing for the worse.”
Today is the next deadline for thousands more men from selected Middle Eastern, African and Asian countries — almost all of them Muslim — to undergo “special registration” by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The fingerprinting, photographing and questioning, which started in September at border crossings nationwide, is provoking outrage as it expands to people already admitted into the country.
Immigration advocates are urging men to comply but also are fanning out to monitor the process at INS offices. An Arab American group has filed a class-action lawsuit to stop the registration. Other Arab and Muslim groups and at least three members of Congress are demanding a halt. A protest network has called for actions at INS offices nationwide Friday.
Eventually, millions of foreign visitors — Muslim or not — are to be registered under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, ordered by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks and intended to track most of the 35 million foreign nationals who annually enter and stay temporarily in the United States.
The Justice Department has defended its system, saying it started with males from certain countries known to harbor terrorists. Initially, there were few complaints from immigration advocates, civil libertarians, and Arab-Muslim activists.
But the three-week-old process now is angrily criticized largely for being unfair in its implementation. While accepting the need for better record-keeping on foreigners, the critics complain that some men run the risk of being detained and face deportation after voluntarily walking in to register.
© 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.