"I think it is shocking what is happening," she said.
"We are getting a lot of telephone calls from people. We are hearing that people went down wanting to co-operate and then they were detained."
Islamic community leaders said many detainees had been living, working and paying taxes in the US for up to a decade and had families there.
"Terrorists most likely wouldn't come to the INS to register," said Sabiha Khan of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations.
--BBC: Mass arrests of Muslims in LA
I feel safer already.
Re:Fairness
jjohn on 2002-12-20T00:02:14
These people are here illegally
It appears that these folks were trying to get themselves squared away with the INS.
US immigration officials in Southern California have detained hundreds of Iranians and other Muslim men who turned up to register under residence laws brought in as part of the anti-terror drive.It seems like these people were trying to become legal immigrants. Were these all terrorist suspects? I don't know, but the article does say:
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is refusing to say how many people were arrested but said detainees were being held for suspected visa violations and other offences.My rule of thumb is that criminals don't follow the law and certainly don't respect government bureaucracies (which is why gun control laws are unlikely to reduce firearm casualities). I don't know what these "other offenses" are. No doubt there were some unsavory people in the lot, but this is an awfully large and inefficient net with which to catch terrorist fish.
Also to be clear, the subject of this journal entry is a quote from a protest banner. You are quite right in pointing out the huge difference between what the INS has done and the inhuman death machines employed by the Nazis. Such a comparison is simply overwrought hyperbole. However this administration has been far too cavilier in dismissing due process and the rights of the accused in its attempt to avert another 9/11 [assuming that is what they're trying to do] A partial listing of these abuses includes Guantanamo Bay, the Patriot Act, scuba students investigated, Total Information Awareness and Homeland Security).
In the "War on Terror," might will not secure a lasting victory. More than ever the ideas of American liberty and justice, as hokey as that sounds, most be adhered to. A "Pax Americana" resulting from an overwhelming show of force only strengthens those critics of America.
Re:Fairness
pudge on 2002-12-20T00:46:23
It appears that these folks were trying to get themselves squared away with the INS.... It seems like these people were trying to become legal immigrants.
I understand that, and this is why I think it was a bad, unreasonable, and unproductive move. However, it doesn't take away from the point that they ARE breaking the law, and the government has the right to detain them, and that this makes it very different from anything related to a "concentration camp."
However this administration has been far too cavilier in dismissing due process and the rights of the accused in its attempt to avert another 9/11
My point is that, as best I can tell, no rights have been violated, and no due process has been ignored, in this event. This falls under the "stupid" label instead of the "illegal" label.
