Immigration boondoggle
Special registration continues – and remains loaded with traps

By Camille T. Taiara

In its first year, the National Security Entry/Exit Registration System caused 13,799 men from predominantly Arab or Muslim countries to face deportation hearings and 2,870 to be detained – mostly based on minor immigration infractions. Yet the program didn't net a single al-Qaeda operative.

The record supports what critics predicted all along: far from advancing the government's hunt for terrorists, NSEERS has instead alienated the very communities federal agents sought to cultivate for information and overloaded the authorities with excess work (see "INS Dragnet," 12/25/02).

On Dec. 2 the Department of Homeland Security took an important step. It changed NSEERS so that new visitors who fall under its scope no longer need to report to an immigration office for reregistration after 30 days in the country and longer-term registrants need not reregister on an annual basis.

While some laud the decision as a triumph for immigrant rights advocates, others suspect it was largely the result of more pragmatic considerations – namely, the 62,000 work hours the DHS expected to invest in the process.

But advocates warn that the special registration program is nowhere near over – and remains littered with snares.

The new rule "simply eliminated one kind of requirement," cautioned Chrystal Williams, liaison and information director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "When the media talks about the suspension, a lot of folks are not going to realize that there are continuing obligations."

The government maintains its authority to require some individuals to reregister on a regular basis, but the DHS hasn't produced any details on who will be affected. Those selected for reregistration must appear at a designated immigration office within 10 days of notification. However, notice could come in the form of a letter, an e-mail, or merely publication in the Federal Register.

"Without getting into the whole question of the agency's own ability to keep track of address changes for the regular mail, do you read the Federal Register every day?" AILA's Williams asked.

From NSEERS's inception, attorneys and others have complained the government was doing an atrocious job of getting the word out about the program, which mainly targets men from predominantly Arab or Muslim countries.

"There are tons of examples of people who thought they were complying with the regulations as required, but who weren't," San Francisco immigration lawyer Atessa Chehrazi said.

The Dec. 2 decision does nothing to help people who registered late or otherwise broke the rules simply because of the lack of information and public outreach, she said. (Even as Chehrazi talked to the Bay Guardian, she had a client waiting in the lobby who had only then heard of the program.)

Failure to comply with any of NSEERS's obligations results in stiff penalties – including being deported, barred from the country (for 10 years, for most infractions), and disqualified from gaining permanent residency or other immigration benefits in the future.

Ongoing requirements for all special registrants include reporting any address, school, or employment changes within 10 days. Little known to most special registrants, they also may only leave the country from designated exit points, where they have to know to track down a specific office or desk – often in another part of the airport or border crossing.

Numerous immigrant advocates we spoke to told of instances in which foreign students actually asked airline personnel, and even immigration officials, about the exit requirements before leaving for summer vacation and were told they didn't need to comply with any special procedures – only to be barred from reentering the country a couple months later. In other cases, people have evidently been registered as they entered the country without being told that's what was happening, and thereby didn't know there were specific obligations they were expected to abide by.

Despite all the problems with the program, the DHS plans to implement a new registration scheme by Jan. 5: United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology. Like NSEERS, it will require that foreign visitors be fingerprinted, photographed, and interviewed by immigration authorities.

The DHS says US-VISIT will eventually replace NSEERS and be applied to all foreign visitors, regardless of national origin. In the meantime, Williams cautioned, "what concerns us is whether it's going to be made clear to people who are put under NSEERS that that's what they're under, and not US-VISIT, because the two programs have different obligations."

Special registration, she said, remains "loaded with traps."

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