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A NATION CHALLENGED: DEPORTATIONS;
U.S. Begins Crackdown On Muslims Who Defy Orders to Leave Country

By SUSAN SACHS (NYT) 1409 words
Federal law enforcement agents have started to hunt down and arrest Muslim immigrants who failed to comply with pre-Sept. 11 deportation orders, a crackdown aimed as much at generating antiterrorism leads as enforcing orders that have piled up over many years.

Justice Department officials said that taking aim at people from countries where Al Qaeda has been active will give investigators the opportunity to interrogate Muslims as they are detained on immigration violations. Civil rights advocates said the approach unfairly singled out one religious group in the enforcement of immigration laws.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is part of the Justice Department, has categorized at least 320,000 foreigners of all nationalities as ''alien absconders,'' or people who managed to remain in the country after immigration judges ordered them to leave.

The new crackdown concentrates on fewer than 2 percent of those with outstanding deportation orders, or an estimated 6,000 people on the list who come from Arab and other Muslim countries.

As of March 19, the last date for which I.N.S. statistics are available, 168 people from the absconder list had been arrested. They include failed asylum seekers, noncitizens who committed crimes serious enough to require their deportation, and people who overstayed their visas.

Because the immigration agency rarely pursued the people who received deportation orders, many of those arrested have been in the country for years. Some have children born in the United States, and in several cities, including New York and Seattle, friends and colleagues of Muslims caught up in the latest sweep have protested their arrests.

''No one is saying that people who have been ordered deported and are still here should not be deported,'' said Hussein Ibish, communications director for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington.

But he said that the singling out of Muslims on the deportation list should be considered alongside the government's secrecy surrounding the continued detention of hundreds of Muslim men since Sept. 11 and the government's mass questioning of Muslims with visas.

''Each policy, taken on its own, can be rationalized,'' Mr. Ibish said. ''What is expressed in these policies, when taken together, is the belief that young Arab or Muslim males are suspicious, potentially dangerous and of interest to the authorities.''

Late last year, in a separate effort, the Justice Department culled the names of 4,793 young Arab and Muslim men from government lists of foreigners who had entered the United States on business, student or visitor visas. The men, when found by the F.B.I. or the local police, were asked to submit to voluntary questioning about any terrorists in or outside the United States.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, defending the effort, said last week that the goal was to generate tips and to sow fear among potential terrorists hiding in immigrant communities. He said that federal agents would ask an additional 3,000 young Muslim men with visas to submit to voluntary questioning over the next two months.

The interview program actually improved relations between the government and Muslims in the United States, Mr. Ashcroft said, despite the fact that 20 of the 2,200 men who agreed to meet with F.B.I. agents ended up being arrested on immigration and other violations.

But Arab-American groups and immigrant advocates said the government's use of immigration laws in its terrorist investigations had sowed panic in immigrant communities.

''Communities are very scared,'' said Rita Zawaideh, a spokeswoman for the Arab-American Community Coalition in Seattle. ''It's not because people are illegal. They're scared what this administration is going to do.''

A number of those already arrested on old deportation orders remain in detention in county jails around the country as they attempt to fight their expulsions, according to immigration lawyers. Some have been interrogated about terrorism in an attempt to develop leads; others said they have had no contact with investigators.

When Safouh Hamoui was arrested with his wife and three children in their suburban Seattle home at dawn on March 1, he was asked by F.B.I. agents what he thought about Osama bin Laden and the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to his lawyer, Bernice Funk.

He had nothing to reveal, Ms. Funk said, adding, ''They're squeaky clean.''

Mr. Hamoui, a Syrian-born grocer whose application for political asylum was turned down, remains in an I.N.S. jail with his wife and a daughter who is burning with resentment.

''It seems we were caught up in a 9/11 mixup, but it's not fair,'' said the daughter, Nadin Hamoui, 20, in a telephone interview from the jail. ''Who are they going after -- a 52-year-old man who's trying to make a living for his family. They're using us as an example just because of the religion we practice.''

Ms. Hamoui said the family had been arrested at gunpoint and that the arresting agents had not allowed her mother to follow religious tradition and cover her hair before leaving the house.

''I might not have citizenship, but I'm not ignorant,'' said Ms. Hamoui, who was 9 when she came to the United States. ''An illegal immigrant does not have to be treated that way.''

Two younger children, 15 and 12, were released into the custody of a relative.

Ms. Funk said the family should not be called absconders, since they had been advised by their previous lawyer to remain in the country and were not hiding from the government. She has asked a federal appeals court to reopen the Hamouis' asylum case, arguing that the family would face torture if forced to return to Syria.

Immigration lawyers said they feared that some of those arrested on deportation orders might end up in jail for long periods of time, as they wait for investigators to clear them of any link to terrorism before deporting them. Several hundred Muslim men arrested in the weeks after the September attacks remain in detention, with the government refusing to clarify why they are still being held.

Chandry Saeed, a Pakistani gas station attendant who was arrested last month in Elizabeth, N.J., for ignoring a 1994 deportation order, said he had not been questioned about anything. ''I don't see anyone to talk to me, no F.B.I., no I.N.S., no social worker,'' Mr. Saeed said in a telephone call from the Hudson County jail in New Jersey where he is being held. ''I didn't even see a judge.''

Immigrant advocates said that a crackdown on absconders might be overdue, but that given the agency's well-known lapses in record keeping, the automatic detention and interrogation of people may be too harsh.

''For one thing, we've had a several-year period where change-of-address cards sat in shoe boxes in various I.N.S. centers,'' said Margie McHugh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Forum, an advocacy group for immigrants. ''So some people don't know if they've been ordered deported or not, because those orders can be issued in absentia.''

Such complaints will be sorted out as people are arrested, said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the I.N.S. in Washington.

''Still, it would be rather disingenuous for someone to say, 'I moved and the I.N.S. didn't serve me with a notice,' '' he added. ''They had their day in court, and if they knew they had immigration problems and they're trying to establish their right to remain in the country, I would think they would have maintained close contact with their lawyer or their bonding company.''

Until the terror attacks, the immigration service did little to find people who evaded deportation orders, focusing its efforts instead on border control. After Sept. 11, as the agency was being flayed in Congress for its failure to keep track of foreigners in the country, I.N.S. officials said they would enter information about deportation orders into the national criminal database so it would be available to local police officers.

It will take at least until this summer to finish entering the names and last known addresses of more than 300,000 people, according to the agency.

Deportation orders can be issued whether the immigrant is in court or not. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, said that about 22 percent of such court orders were issued in absentia. In cases where immigrants do receive the order, they can appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, a process that takes at least five years, given the board's current backlog.