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87 Foreign Detainees Languish In Legal "Gray Area"
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| British detainee Feroz
Abbas
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WASHINGTON,
Feb. 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At least 87 foreigners remain in a
legal limbo, having received orders to be deported to their home countries.
They’ve been in federal detention for more than 100 days as the U.S. Justice
Department checks and re-checks information about their possible links to
“terrorist organizations”.
The
Justice Department has indefinitely blocked the detainees, most of whom are
Arabs or Muslims. Nearly all were jailed after being picked up on visa
violations at traffic stops or because of neighbors' suspicions following the
deadly September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon
outside Washington, D.C.
Armed
with new information gleaned from interrogations of suspected al-Qaeda and
Taliban members being detained overseas or at "Camp X-Ray" at the U.S.
Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, federal investigators are interviewing some
of the detainees for a third or fourth time.
Officials
said available evidence suggested they had played no role in the Sept. 11
attacks or Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, and the immigration cases against
some of them were resolved as long as four months ago.
In
the past, visa violators, who had no other charges against them, were usually
deported or allowed to leave voluntarily 60 to 90 days after their immigration
cases were closed, lawyers said. But these detainees are being treated
differently.
U.S.
officials acknowledged a great reluctance to release people who could be
involved with terrorism and said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
was working hard to complete the checks.
"We
have to be very careful about the people we let go," said a senior Justice
Department official, who spoke on condition of not being identified by name.
The
new policy, however, has drawn criticism from some U.S. civil liberties
advocates, who are concerned that this "gray area" is being used to
subvert existing laws against holding people indefinitely without charging them
with a crime.
"It's
gotten to where we're really in uncharted waters," said Lee Gelernt, a
senior lawyer for the Immigrants' Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU). "The government has effectively reversed the presumption of
innocence. They are holding people for months once their immigration cases are
concluded while they look to see if there is a reason to bring other
charges."
Critics
are also concerned about the increasing use of "secret evidence" by
law enforcement officials to hold immigrants without charge, especially those of
Middle Eastern or South Asian backgrounds.
"We're
concerned about what appears to be targeted law enforcement by ethnic background
or national origin," said Allison Collins, an associate director for U.S.
programs with Human Rights Watch. "We're trying to figure out what's good
law enforcement and what's outrageous."
Collins
said there was an overall confusion about exactly what the Bush administration's
get-tough policy was and who was in charge of implementing it.
Immigration
lawyers say the new policy, created by Attorney General John Ashcroft shortly
after Sept. 11, has led to a collision between the traditional rights afforded
foreigners and the need for heightened security. Many of the detainees do not
have lawyers, but some who do have begun to file lawsuits in federal court
demanding their release.
So
far, more than 5,000 Arabs or Muslims have been questioned by law enforcement
authorities in the wake of the "9/11" tragedies. And the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) recently announced that it was placing a
priority in deporting more than 6,000 alleged "absconders," foreigners
who have overstayed their visas to remain in the United States.
In
response, the Justice Department official replied "There is some
justification in their position that we can't hold the detainees forever. But we
feel we do have some leeway."
Law
enforcement officials said that some detainees were still being scrutinized, but
that many others had been released recently or were simply awaiting completion
of travel arrangements or new passport documents.
More
than 700 people were held on immigration charges after Sept. 11. Officials said
on Friday that they were still holding 327 people, including the 87 already
under departure orders.
Interviews
with defense lawyers suggest that the clearance process has delayed the release
of many of the detainees held in New York and New Jersey. A close look at some
cases shows that the inquiries have created murky standoffs in which the FBI
cannot prove that the detainees are dangerous, and the detainees cannot allay
the FBI's suspicions.
Bhanu
Goldsmith, a New Jersey lawyer, said she represented a detainee from Mauritania
who agreed to leave in early November, prompting an immigration service lawyer
to predict that the man would be home by Thanksgiving. But Goldsmith said she
recently heard that the man was still in jail awaiting FBI clearance.
Officials
at the INS, which is part of the Justice Department, said they were ordered to
move more slowly with those detained after September 11 than with other visa
violators.
Referring
to the FBI reviews, Andrea Quarantilla, the immigration service's district
director in Newark, New Jersey, said, "There is certainly an extra step in
the process."
Lawyers
for the detainees say visa violators who agree to leave usually must leave in 60
days, but can sometimes take as many as 120 days.
Federal
law provides that deportations should take place within 90 days of a deportation
order. But the Supreme Court has ruled that the immigration service can extend
that to 180 days if other countries refuse to accept a deportee.
Civil
rights lawyers said deportation laws were enacted to deal with cases in which
the government was trying to make people leave. "But now we have the
opposite situation, where the alien is ready to comply and leave but the
government doesn't want to let him go," said Bryan Lonegan, a lawyer at the
Legal Aid Society in New York.
The
only recourse for detainees held longer, lawyers say, is to file writs of
mandamus in the federal courts to try to force the immigration service to send
them home, or to file writs of habeas corpus to seek release.
With
additional reporting by S.M. Khalid
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