Yassine Lakhdar was prepared to be fingerprinted, interrogated and photographed when he went to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Orlando.
But he didn’t expect to be arrested and shipped to the Orange County Jail for a week — especially as he was complying with a Justice Department rule requiring men from predominantly Muslim countries to step forward and register.
Lakhdar, free on $5,000 bail, could be deported to his native Morocco for overstaying his student visa, even though he has applied for a green card and has never been arrested or convicted of a crime.
His story is one of many spreading fear through Muslim communities in Central Florida and nationwide. Since the “special registration” began in December, the community is buzzing with stories of men being treated as threats to national security — grilled by INS officials, feeling harassed by local police and being hauled to local jails.
IMMIGRANTS LOOK FOR WORST
As about 14,000 men from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia prepare to register by the Feb. 21 deadline, many are preparing for the worst. Their families have made living arrangements in case they are deported, and their attorneys have told them to arrive at INS offices with cash bond — as much as $7,500 — in hand.
Nationwide, about 38,000 men from the 25 designated countries have complied with the new INS registration, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 1,527 have been detained. Some risk deportation because the INS determined they are illegal, even though many argue they applied for permanent residency and have committed no crimes.
For years, the INS largely ignored residents living in the United States after their visas expired, as long as they were in the process of applying for legal residency, immigration attorneys said.
INS FOCUSES ON MUSLIMS
The agency acknowledged that it was crippled by a huge backlog — and as long as residents stayed out of trouble, the INS left them alone. But that has all changed and only, it seems, for men from predominantly Muslim countries, immigration advocates complain.
“All of my clients have cases pending with INS — they are not criminals,” said Hina Askari, an immigration attorney in Fort Lauderdale who represents mostly Pakistani clients in South and Central Florida. “Typically, they come to me, they trust me. I assured them that as long as they don’t get in trouble, they could ultimately get residency. Now I’m telling them, ‘You know what? We have to get you arrested first.’ All they have tried to do is make a better life for themselves.”
LONGTIME RESIDENTS LEAVE
Many men think the American welcome mat has been yanked from beneath them. Some who have lived in the United States for more than a decade, operating businesses, rearing families and paying taxes, have decided to go back to their home countries because they feel like targets.
Others will return home, but not by choice.
“I’m scared I might have to go back,” Lakhdar, 25, who lives in Kissimmee, said. “I have a wife; I’ve been here six years. I’m used to American culture. I just want freedom to do work, freedom to go to school. I thought this country was about freedom. Now it seems like they don’t give me freedom to do anything.”
Lakhdar first arrived in the United States in 1996 on a student visa. He studied computer science at the University of South Alabama, until his father’s firm in Rabat, Morocco, had financial setbacks and he couldn’t afford school. Lakhdar’s visa expired and he worked odd jobs until marrying his wife, Darcey, an American and longtime friend, last year. They applied for permanent residency but are still undergoing the process.
TAKEN TO JAIL
Last month, the couple arrived at the Orlando INS office on Tradeport Drive at 5 a.m. for special registration. After hours of waiting and various interviews, INS officials told Lakhdar around 5 p.m. that he would be detained because he had overstayed his visa several years ago. His hands and feet were cuffed and he was transported to Orange County Jail at about 1 a.m., he said.
There, he was taken to a cell with about 30 other INS detainees, in which there were no beds, blankets or food. Lakhdar was not allowed to bring his prescription medication for an acid reflux disorder and his wife wasn’t told his whereabouts for two days, he said.
He has a court date in September to determine his fate.
Orange County Jail officials would not comment on Lakhdar’s stay because security measures since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks forbid them from revealing information about immigration detainees to the public, including detainees’ families. Only an attorney can receive information about an inmate.
ORANGE JAIL OVERCROWDED
Jail spokesman Alan Moore said detainees typically are held about 72 hours, before being transferred to immigration detention centers in Miami, Bradenton or Atlanta. The Orange County Jail is overcrowded by more than 400 inmates and can’t support additional detainees for extended periods of time, he said.
But Lakhdar claims he was held for a week and knows detainees who were held longer. Moore couldn’t explain the discrepancy.
“That doesn’t sound right,” he said. “We can hold them for other jurisdiction but we are under contract and are a detention location for a very brief period of time.”
A Justice Department official said local jails must follow guidelines for just treatment of inmates, but the official said he couldn’t reveal specifics.
Immigration attorneys said the treatment is unfair. Recently, a prominent Pakistani journalist and scholar at the Brookings Institution, a highly regarded Washington, D.C., think tank, was picked up by INS officials for failing to comply with new exit-entry requirements under the registration program. He was detained in an Arlington, Va., immigration facility and released on $5,000 bail.
REGISTRY TO BE EXTENDED
Immigration advocates cite such examples as they try to halt the registration effort. The Senate voted recently to cut funding for the program, but the Justice Department doesn’t plan to stop it. Known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, the program also includes screening at ports of entry. Though 25 countries are involved in registration, Justice officials said it eventually will be extended to all U.S. visitors.
The program has identified 401 people trying to enter ports who were felons or “aliens with serious problems such as fraudulent documents,” Justice spokesman Jorge Martinez said.
“The primary goal is to have a better understanding of who exits and enters our country,” Martinez said. “Are they doing what they said they would be doing while here? The Sept. 11 hijackers, 19 of them were not doing what they said they would or working where they said they would live.”
Martinez said the program has found seven suspected terrorists, but civil-rights advocates dispute that claim. Neither does the program apply to men who have entered the country illegally.
ILLEGALS IGNORED
“If you entered illegally, you don’t have to register because INS doesn’t even know about you,” said Askari, the immigration attorney. “This registration is bogus.”
Civil-rights groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations complains the program does little to find terrorists and instead has disrupted the lives of many good-intentioned immigrants.
“Someone was detained two weeks ago but we didn’t find out until now where he was,” said Altaf Ali, executive director for CAIR Florida. “What are the procedures? We have been trying to find out from INS, but they are so unclear about things.”
For now Lakhdar and his wife are in limbo.
“My attorney told me he can’t promise me anything,” he said. “For now I can’t do anything but wait.”
