Damned if you do or don’t — With arrest likely either way, immigrants weigh INS deadline
By Anastasia Hendrix for the SF Chronicle

Members of the San Francisco chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Defamation Committee have been standing outside the INS office on Washington Street conducting an independent survey of those coming to participate in the special registration program.
Heba Nimr, an attorney for La Raza Centro Legal’s INS Watch who is also a member of the anti-defamation committee, said volunteers tallied 12 people who came to register Friday, 30 on Monday and 40 on Tuesday. Of those, three had been detained, and all were from Tunisia.
Not all registrants agree to check in with the group, Nimr quickly added, and the figures were not reflective of the 30-day registration period.
Friday’s deadline affects males over age 16 from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia,
United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
The policy has attracted widespread criticism from several immigrant, Arab and civil rights groups, many of which have organized a protest rally to be held Friday morning outside the INS office on Washington Street. Demonstrators have been positioned at the intersection of Washington and Sansome streets since Monday.

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Let your voice ring out in times of fear
By L.A. Chung for the SJ Mercury News

I’m reminded of Walt and Milly Woodward of Bainbridge Island in Washington
state. More than 60 years ago, the owners of the little Bainbridge Review
weekly newspaper opposed the internment of Japanese-Americans, who were a
vital part of the island community. It cost Walt good money in canceled ads
and goodwill. But he persisted. He hired four Japanese-Americans to send
reports on internment camp life, which he published in the Review. Births.
Deaths. Camp goings-on.
Bainbridge Island Japanese-Americans would return to the island, he
reasoned, and this would be a way for their neighbors to continue to see
them as members of the community.
To his fellow islanders, Walt Woodward wrote in the Review, “These
Japanese-Americans of ours haven’t bombed anybody.” But Lt. Gen. John L.
DeWitt, in command of West Coast defenses, said, “A Jap is a Jap.” So
everyone was painted with the same broad brush…
Now, as then, concerned — and sensible, practical — folk want the United
States to hold fast to one of the tenets of its greatness: due process.
It took courage then. Much recognition for the Woodwards’ stand came
posthumously. The Woodwards remind us that it’s critical, even in this time
of fear, to insist that the United States hold true to its principles.
Do so in your churches, temples and mosques. In letters to the editor. In
calls and e-mails to your elected representatives. And in standing quietly
at a protest or getting arrested for the television cameras.
“We are the ones who have to speak up,” said Dawson. “We have the luxury
of speaking up for our principles without fear of deportation or major
disruption of our families’ lives.”

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Class action lawsuit filed against the US government

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Alliance of Iranian Americans (AIA), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the National Council of Pakistani Americans (NCPA) filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against John Ashcroft; Attorney General of the United States, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
The essence of the lawsuit is that on Dec. 16-18, the INS unlawfully arrested large numbers of people, especially in Los Angeles, as they came forward to voluntarily comply with new “special registration” requirements. The groups are seeking an injunction before the next registration deadline to avoid a repetition of last week’s mass arrests. Six individuals detained as a result of the new INS policy of special registrations are co-plaintiffs, and represent a broader group of victims in this class action suit.

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I’ve been working on the web site for this week’s INS Immigration Roundup Protests going on in various locations around the country all week. I’ve got more footage from the Dec 23 protest, footage from yesterday’s protest, and footage from the SF protest everyday this week (This Friday, January 10, is the big day guys!)
Anyway, sorry for leaving my post here for a couple days. It’s been *really* hard to wrap my head around this crazy stuff going on over at the agency-formerly-known-as-the-INS (now part of Homeland Security). It’s hard to believe that poor planning and a series of administrative gaffs are the only excuses our government has for the incarceration and subsequent brutal treatment of thousands of people. But that’s what’s happening alright.
I’ve been assembling all of the information together and collecting it into a website that will hopefully help you to understand everything quickly — so you can all do what you can to help. It’s really important.
Okay — Back in a flash! I’ve got an excellent Daily Show Interview with Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of “The Nation”, I’ll be uploading in a second to tide you over until I can get the other stuff up later this morning.
Thanks!

Detentions today remind of yesterday’s
By L.A. Chung for the San Jose Mercury News

Critics have scoffed at protesters’ comparisons of the detentions with the well-known internment camps that detained 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans from 1942 to 1946.
Successive restrictions
But ask someone who is intimately familiar with the events affecting the Japanese-American community after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The initial calls not to blame a community. The gradual restrictions. Curfews. Registration. Finally, internment…
Lest we forget. It is time to turn up the volume. Next Friday, at the INS building in San Francisco.

More on the protest going on all next week in front of INS Buildings all around the country!

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