Smaller protests during the course of the week built toward the January 10 date--the registration deadline for men 16 years of age and older who were born in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, north Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The protests were sponsored by a number of organizations, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC); the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union; and groups representing Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Iranian, and Latin American residents of California.

The issue exploded into public prominence at the first registration date in December, after INS officers in Los Angeles arrested many people as they registered. Amid widespread outrage, thousands joined protests in Los Angeles at that time. Since then pickets have been mounted to coincide with each week’s registration process outside INS offices in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco (see coverage in this issue).

The Justice Department has admitted to 400 arrests in California since the process began.

In defending their actions, government officials have made it clear that they have every intention of extending the "registration" process. INS representatives say they are merely fulfilling a 1996 congressional mandate to develop an entry-exit system that would track all immigrants here as visitors, whether under work, tourist, or student visas. They predict that the program will encompass all immigrant groups by 2005.

Registration of men from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia begins January 13 and ends February 21.

A number of organizations put forward speakers at the January 10 action in San Francisco. They included representatives of the ADC; Filipinos for Affirmative Action; the Islamic Society of San Francisco; the San Francisco Labor Council; and the Glide Memorial Church.  
 
Internment of Japanese-Americans
"We must not let the government muzzle us now," said Chizu Iiyama, 81, who was sent to one of the camps for Japanese-Amerians set up by the U.S. government after its 1941 declaration of war on Japan.

John Tateishi of the Japanese-American Citizens League, said, "60 years ago this government enacted the 1940 Federal Alien Registration Act for those from Japan, Germany, and Italy to register. This led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese-Americans. This was the worst case of racial profiling."

Renee Saucedo of La Raza Centro Legal’s INS Watch project said, "When you detain some of us, you detain all of us; when you terrorize some of us, you terrorize every single one of us. No human being is illegal!"

While the protest proceeded, members of the ADC and other participants spoke to men coming and going from the INS office to register. They noted that several have been detained over the past week in San Francisco.

Men leaving the INS building said it took about four hours to be interviewed, fingerprinted, and photographed. INS agents had asked questions about where they lived and worked, they said, as well as about their families and their country of origin.

"I’ve seen people going in and not coming out. Basically it’s like luck whether you have to stay," said Ali, a Marin resident who had just been questioned.

On the same day several dozen people staged a protest along similar lines outside the INS office in San Jose. "No community should go through this," said Anabel Ibanez, the organizing director for the South Bay Labor Council. "So today it’s one group. Who’s next tomorrow?"

San Francisco resident Nabil Jemai told the Oakland Tribune that he had been detained for two days after voluntarily turning up to register, in spite of the fact that he is married to a U.S. citizen and had just filed an application to become a legal permanent resident himself. Immigration officials told the Tunisian-born man that he had to provide proof that he was married. However, they would not allow him or his wife to go home and fetch the necessary documentation.

"They treated us like criminals," he said of the prison guards he had faced. The Yuba County Jail where he was placed didn’t even have a bed for him the first night, he said. For food he was given ham sandwiches even after he explained that he does not eat pork.

Jamais’ wife Justina Perry reported that the INS had shipped her husband to Yuba County for a second night despite the fact she had posted $5,000 bond for him as instructed.

Deborah Liatos is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 120.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home