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Bush Approves Racial Profiling, Deportations Escalate
After the Office of Inspector General issued its scathing report on the Justice Department's treatment of immigrants, the Bush Administration on June 17 issued a policy on racial profiling in federal law enforcement. The new guidelines explicitly allow racial profiling when it comes to national security and border enforcement. "The [president's] racial profiling guidance recognizes that race and ethnicity may be used in terrorist identification," declared a Justice Department press release. Indeed the Justice Department recently announced that 13,353 Arab, Muslim and South Asian men will be deported even though they complied with the Department's "anti-terrorist" registration program. None are charged with any terrorism-related crime. The majority of the deportees committed minor immigration violations. Due to the government backlog in processing visa applications, they were unable to adjust their immigration status in time. Many thought that by registering, they would be treated leniently. Now they face certain separation from their families and community. Their loved ones left behind will face additional hardships. Abdel Hakim Benbader, a cabdriver from Algiers, said he registered because he wanted to help the government, even though he was undocumented. His wife is a legal permanent resident and his son is a U.S. citizen. Benbader then told the New York Times, "We were thinking of having good jobs like everybody. If I'm leaving, it's going to be a big problem." Last November the government ordered all males 16 years and older from 25 mainly Arab or Muslim countries to register. Over a six-month period beginning in December 2002, more than 82,000 men voluntarily stepped forward to be fingerprinted, photographed and interrogated on their knowledge of terrorism. During this time, over 3,000 were detained, many in inhumane and degrading conditions. Most were released after a few days. After Sept. 11 and the onset of special registration, hundreds of Pakistani and Arab families in New York, Vermont and Michigan, fearing the crackdown, sought asylum in Canada. In the U.S., immigration police agents, now under the new Department of Homeland Security, began fanning out along states on the Canadian border and arresting people at bus depots and highway rest stops. The U.S is detaining even those who already have appointments with the Canadian government to apply for refugee status. Arnoldo García works at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Oakland and is an editor of War Times. |
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