Mass LA Muslim arrests condemned

Iranian-American Lawyers Association president Kayhan Shakhib said he feared that the men were being held in inhumane, overcrowded conditions.
California was among the first states where non-resident men from the Middle East were obliged to register. Other states with large Muslim populations have been set later dates.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has refused to say how many people were arrested, but said detainees were being held for suspected visa violations and other offences.

Continue reading →

Get involved, or perish
There are innocent people in jail. What are you going to do about it?
By Payam Mohseni for The Iranian.

We were led upstairs and then down almost freezing-cold hallways to the chamber that held all the detainees. It was like a scene from a movie: a glass wall separated the two worlds and our only line of communication was by the phones provided. The detainees were seated behind the glass panes speaking with their families when we arrived to interview them.
They were very excited since they had not been able to communicate with the outside world for a long time, and they had thought that there would be no one to help them. They had been waiting to tell us their story. I was able to interview three Iranians, an Iraqi, and a Syrian.
Although they each had different stories to tell, there was a common thread that tied them all together. First, none of them had received notices to appear to register with the INS. Not a requirement, they had all voluntarily gone to the INS just as a precautionary step. They were legally exempt from deportation.
Second, the officers did not explain anything to the detainees as to what was happening, why it was happening, and what the procedures thereafter would be. A few were told not to worry because the judge would release them in less than 72 hours, but here they were speaking with me in jail a week later.
Third, they were all from the San Francisco Bay Area but had been transported around the country. Boarded unto jets, they went from the SF Bay Area to Arizona, then Colorado, back to Oakland, then Bakersfield and finally San Diego. Throughout the travels, they were not told the destination until they actually landed.
This continuous transport was extremely consequential to the services the detainees were able to receive. The detainees have rights to use the phone to call a family member and an attorney, and they also have the right to receive medical attention (a few of the detainees were ill). However, none of these basic rights were given to them with the explanation that since they were “in transit”, they would not receive these rights. The ill detainees were not treated by a doctor and did not receive medication either.
Fourth, they were handcuffed and then shackled with chains from around their feet connecting to their handcuffs. This was on them for hours without end while they were held in rooms or were being transported. Eating was a very difficult experience for them.
Fifth, none of them had received court date hearings or been given a bail amount. This is very difficult to handle legally as they are not in the legal system so that an attorney can serve them efficiently and justly.
Sixth, they all reiterated the strategy of sleep deprivation used by the agents. They would be in offices during the day till 1AM waiting to be interviewed or to fill out forms. Then they would be woken up at 4AM to be transported again.
All identified lack of sleep as their most pressing concern as it destroyed their short-term memory and increased stress. Seventh, facilities were of poor quality or misused. They were forced to sleep on concrete floors even though there were rooms with beds present.
There was always an open toilet in the middle of the room that was usually clogged and unsanitary. Blankets were not provided at times even though the detainees requested them. There was an incident where toilet paper was used for insulation from the cold.
Furthermore, the detainees were able to take a shower only once last week. Also, vending machines for food were provided but the detainees were not allowed to use their money to purchase food. And of the food that they were served, some had passed their expiration dates.
Lastly, they were all harassed verbally with extreme profanity and ethnic slurs relating to their Middle Eastern origin. They would not tell me precisely what was said as they hoped to forget the obscene comments. The treatment by the officers was overall very rude. Some were even described as downright “scary”, such as a man in the San Diego detention camp, the place they had been taken before the CCA, who smoked a big cigar behind his desk in the facility and made continuous insulting slurs to the detainees.

Continue reading →

Okay I’ve got to go to another meeting at in downtown SF this morning to find out more about what we can do to help the situation. (It’s at Van Der Hout & Brigagliano, 180 Sutter St., 5th floor, at Kearny and Sutter, Downtown San Francisco – from 10:00-11:30 am, if you’re interested in showing up.)
But here are some photos and footage of yesterday’s small (200 people) but effective demonstration in front of the San Francisco INS office.
Both of these movies are of Farhan Memon, Legal Aide for the Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers, describing the terrible conditions in which these detainees are being treated by the security company contracted out by the INS. (Yep, that’s right, these people aren’t even in governement custody. Oh yeah, there will be more on this later!)
Farhan Memon explanation 1 (90.3 MB)
Farhan Memon explanation 2 (88.4 MB)

What’s next? Photo essay: L.A. protests against detention of Iranians
Photos by Ramin Tabib and Dorna Khazeni.

Danny O’Brien explains how complicated the INS paperwork can be.

When I say, “in the midst of”, let me tell you what that involves. I’m on my third attempt to have the documentation even processed. Twice it’s been sent back because of a filing error on my part. This is not surprising: the documentation needed to even apply for permanent residency is so vast, and so often changed, that even with the best explanations in the world, there are dozens of ambiguities. And the explanations are not the best in the world. INS requirements differ from office to office: official Website explanations contradict one another. This is hard. Here’s the first step in my application process (picture of all of his paperwork here).

Red Flag guys!
Immigrants from a number of Middle Eastern countries are being arrested after coming forward voluntarily to register with the INS.
These people are being treated like as any other criminal suspect while in custody. They have been hosed down before having to sleep on the floor (if there’s room) or forced to sleep standing up. (Yeah, I know, even criminal suspects shouldn’t be treated like that, but that’s another story…)
Now these innocents may be sent away to a jail or internment facility elsewhere — to be further processed because of the overcrowded living conditions in the Jail they are currently being held in. Their lawyers and loved ones aren’t being told when or to where exactly they are to be moved.
These people have committed no crime except that of being a citizen of the country they are from.
This is way to close for comfort to the WWII roundups of Japanese-Americans from 1942-1944.
When Our Government Freaked Out — and went around rounding up and imprisoning Japanese-Americans in “internment camps” in locations across the country.
I’m not sure yet what it is exactly we can do to help these people, but I’m going to do my best to find out.
We’re not going to make let them wait two years like the Japanese had to wait, are we?
Note: There was a big protest (3,000+ people) about this in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.
Here’s story by Megan Garvey, Martha Groves and Henry Weinstein (with Greg Krikorian, Teresa Watanabe, Johanna Neuman and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar) for the L.A. Times:
Hundreds Are Held After Visits to INS
Mideast boys and men living in the Southland were complying with an order to register

Hundreds of men and boys from Middle Eastern countries were arrested by federal immigration officials in Southern California this week when they complied with orders to appear at INS offices for a special registration program…
Monday’s registration deadline applied to males 16 and older from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. Men from 13 other nations, mostly in the Mideast and North Africa, are required to register next month.
Many of those arrested, according to their lawyers, had already applied for green cards and, in some instances, had interviews scheduled in the near future. Although they had overstayed their visas, attorneys argue, their clients had already taken steps to remedy the situation and were following the regulations closely…
“These are the people who’ve voluntarily gone” to the INS, said Mike S. Manesh of the Iranian American Lawyers Assn. “If they had anything to do with terrorism, they wouldn’t have gone.”
Immigration officials acknowledged Wednesday that many of those taken into custody this week have status-adjustment applications pending that have not yet been acted on.
“The vast majority of people who are coming forward to register are currently in legal immigration status,” said local INS spokeswoman Virginia Kice. “The people we have taken into custody … are people whose non-immigrant visas have expired.”
…Jonoubi said that the mother has permanent residence status and that her husband, the boy’s stepfather, is a U.S. citizen. The teenager came to the country in July on a student visa and was on track to gain permanent residence, the lawyer said.
Many objected to the treatment of those who showed up for the registration. INS ads on local Persian radio stations and in other ethnic media led many to expect a routine procedure. Instead, the registration quickly became the subject of fear as word spread that large numbers of men were being arrested.
Lawyers reported crowded cells with some clients forced to rest standing up, some shackled and moved to other locations in the night, frigid conditions in jail cells