Detention, racial profiling contradict democracy

By Blair Thedinger

In November of 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an order that required many Arab and Muslim men over the age of 16 to register with local Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS). Men from over 18 countries throughout North Africa, West Asia and the Middle East were ordered to report with records of their legal status in-hand. The order has resulted in the mass arrests, detentions, harassment and deportation of Arab and Muslim men. The United States has once again slipped into its familiar habit of profiling based on racial and religious difference in response to public fear and ignorance.

The new INS registration orders are an insult to the dignity of Arab and Muslim men who lawfully reside in this country and a waste of INS time and resources. The United States government is perpetrating a "round up" of Arab and Muslim men based on racist profiling akin in spirit to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

On Dec. 16, the first deadline for INS registration, thousands of men across the country reported to INS offices. Lines formed outside of the buildings and the men were forced to wait for hours. When the men did reach INS agents inside the building, many were detained.

It has been estimated that over five hundred men were detained in Southern California alone (the INS claims that 400 were arrested and the American Civil Liberties Union claims that 700 were arrested). "In some cases the men had expired student or work visas; in other cases the men could not provide adequate documentation of their immigration status," stated the New York Times. The detainees were then forced into prison cells and treated without any regard for their civil rights, human dignity or well-being.

According to the Independent, "Lawyers reported that some detainees were forced to stand up all night for lack of room, that some were placed in shackles, and others were hosed down with cold water before being thrown into unheated cells."

The men who showed up at the INS offices, were questioned about Mosque attendance, their political views and their thoughts about Israel. They were clear targets of racial and religious profiling, a practice that many Americans wish would fade into the shame of America's racist history.

"In one case, a 16-year-old boy was ripped from his mother's arms and told he would never return home. The mother is a legal resident married to an American citizen," according to the Independent's Dec. 20 issue.

According to a report by the Washington Post, the official purpose for the round-up is "to know who is in the country, legally and illegally, or is applying for residency status, and possibly to ferret out those who might know of terrorist activities or pose a threat to U.S. interests." No "terrorist plots" have been uncovered as a result of these round-ups and none will be.

The idea that anyone who planned on participating in illegal terrorist activity would respect the Attorney General's order to report is absurd. No terrorism-related charges have been brought against any of the men who have been detained and there has been no evidence of any links to Al Queda or other major terrorist networks.

The wave of anti-Arab sentiment that has swept the country post Sept. 11 has manifested itself through our legal and political structure. Ashcroft's order is a useless gesture that will not make America any more secure.

The attack on the civil liberties of all Americans, especially Arab and Muslim Americans, is frightening. There is no justification for the INS detentions. They are an insult to Americans and people across the globe.

These members of the Multicultural Center Programming Board encourage all Santa Clara students and faculty to denounce the detentions as racist attacks on our American Muslim and Arab brothers and sisters.

Profiling is the act of generalizing across an entire people. It contributes to the national hysteria and results in the unjust harassment and detention of people based on the color of their skin or the character of their religion. We encourage all students of conscience to learn more about the situation and to voice opposition to these unjust detentions.