One Day in The Life of a (legal) Alien

saminashah #40

Saminaji, if you are specifically referring to enforcement of registration requirements for aliens, I do not see why this should be considered `bad faith` by the GOTUS. If anything, it is long overdue. The real bad faith lay in the the prior non-enforcement of the registration law which has been on the books since 1996. That allowed hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to live unmolested until the cruel crunch came early this year.

The government of a country has a clear interest in knowing where various people are within its borders. I know for a fact that many other countries have registration requirements for foreign visitors. India does, for one, and theirs are in many ways considerably more onerous - though I gather that despite this they don`t currently have a very effective handle on the information they need when they need it.

There are genuine privacy concerns, but they have to be weighed against the real risk of another 9-11. At any rate, the GOTUS is not going to end up knowing more about a non-resident alien than it typically does about one of its citizens, so there is no obvious inequity here.

To set the record straight, immigrant labour has been exploited for at least a hundred and fifty years, going back at least as far as the Irish and the Chinese. That continues to this day both with undocumented workers and - admittedly to a far lesser extent, and for a shorter period - with legal aliens in the pipeline for permanent residency. So this is certainly not the *beginning* of a bad faith relationship with immigrants of Arab or subcontinental background. And yet they continue to come ... as I did.

Those who play by the rules are plainly not worse off with the registration requirements than without them. If I manifestly have no plans of mass murder, it is strongly in my interest to make it easy for the feds to rapidly determine that I most likely pose no threat to public safety. Stereotyping and outright prejudiced treatment of a person are less likely to occur, the more information is available about him or her.

Finally, I believe it is especially in the interests of Indians in the US to support efforts along these lines, because they are precisely the most likely to suffer from unfair stereotyping in the absence of a registration database.

pmishra2 #39

That figure (100 billion dollars cost - per annum, presumably - due to infrastructural bottlenecks) is quite believable. As to corruption, at a concrete level, you find development projects not being completed for two decades, teachers in government schools drawing salaries and not showing up to teach, freshly metalled roads falling apart after three monsoons due to the corrupt nexus between contractors, PWD, politicians, and so on. In many of these cases it is apparently not shortage of development funds that is the problem but rather the improper or inefficient utilization of funds.

Just seeing that development expenditure buys what it`s supposed to will make a far larger difference than any peace dividend. Despite various procurement scandals, India`s defence spending is in all likelihood far more effectively utilized - towards salaries and pensions, maintenance, capability expansion - than the rest of government spending. Pakistanis, by ignorance or design, innapropriately project their own country`s situation onto India, where the armed forces do not hog anywhere near the same fraction of available resources as they do in Pakistan.

arjun_m #37

{Actually...The average abdul paki has a very limited ability to positively influence political developements...I dont think many pakis are fooled..I think they know who makes the real policy in Pakiland..}

True ... however, if any real change is to occur in Pakistan, it *has* to come from common Pakistanis. They are the only people who really have the power and should have the desire to fundamentally remake their country and change its direction. The one alternative I can see, foreign occupation followed by the equivalent of a de-Nazification campaign, such as Germany and Japan went through after WW II, is something for which nobody has the resources or the desire or the stomach.

Expecting India to help things along by showing `generosity` as the bigger country etc. is a most impractical suggestion. It is not going to address any root causes, extricate Pakistan from the corner into which its military rulers have manoeuvred it. India on its own can do very little to help democratic elements in Pakistan to reclaim their country. It can do actual harm by doing giving credibility to dictators and thus making them more difficult to dislodge. That is all I meant to say.

Aleph Null, P Mishra 2,

Remember that not too long ago African American, Chinese and female American citizens did not have equal rights by law. In addition, the tenor of the anti-immigration debate has changed now that most people immigrating to the US are no longer European...

...I would direct your attention to the kinds of unrealistic and hysterical attempts at preventing Mexicans from ``crossing the border``-the wire fence, the no mans land on each side, the police surveillance on air and foot...and yet who is picking up day laborers on street corners and in many cases stiffing them for backbreaking work? Ahh, the thrills of being undocumented....in any case, I`ve been doing some studies the various issues regarding immigration including the concepts of dual citizenship, global citizenship, automatic citizenship for undocumented workers...you can check my past interacts -about 2 years ago for more details...it should not be forgotten that our system has the labor of undocumented workers built into it-and benefits from it.

As for ``bad faith policy``; while I understand that there are several Pakistani immigrants who have no problems in registering with the govt. on the premise that they have nothing to hide, the point is that these kinds of info collections are at best, one way of keeping track of ``certain`` people and at worst, a virtual internment camp. When you write that you have no problem registering, the issue of suspicion of your person because of your ethnicity, national origin, religion, etc is completely avoided. Are Christian Ghanaians being asked to register? Iraqi Jews? How is this disparity of enforcement defensible? You may not have a problem with this, but I most certainly do having studied the less than well advised programs of the FBI, CIA and the US govt- and yes Mishra Sahib, to answer your question, none of my concerns make me anti American, just well informed and thinking. You apparently have been blinded by the right in your zeal to toe the line...

In addition, P. Mishra 2, the idea that Indians are the most vulnerable to stereotyping is an interesting one; care to provide some proof?

P Mishra 2-

Are these the Indians of whom you fear stereotyping?

25, 2003

U.S. Crackdown Sets Off Unusual Rush to Canada

By SUSAN SACHS, New York Times

BURLINGTON, VT., Feb. 21 - Once Jalil Mirza decided to leave the
United States to avoid possible deportation, nothing happened quite
as he expected, not even goodbye.

As did hundreds of other Pakistanis fleeing a post-9/11
crackdown on illegal immigrants, Mr. Mirza quit his job, packed up
his possessions and headed north rather than face a
forced return to Pakistan.

After a 16-hour bus ride from Virginia with his wife and seven
children, he arrived at the Canadian border, hoping to take advantage
of Canada`s political asylum law.

But besieged Canadian officials told him to come back in two weeks.
And when he dragged their suitcases back to the American side, United
States immigration agents promptly arrested
him and his two teenage sons, leaving the rest of the family wailing
in despair in the icy cold.

The Mirzas are part of an unusual and chaotic exodus that has jammed
land crossings from the United States into Canada over the past two
weeks, overwhelming immigration officials and
refugee aid groups on both sides of the border.

It is an oddly reluctant migration toward a presumed safe haven by
people who say they do not really want to go but feel compelled to
for fear that they could be deported.

Prompted by rumors of dragnets and by new federal deadlines that
require male foreign visitors, principally those from Muslim and Arab
countries, to register with the government, families
that lived illegally but undisturbed in the United States for years
are now rushing to Canada. They get across the border only to be
bounced back into the hands and jails of the Immigration
and Naturalization Service.

Asylum applications to Canada have increased sharply since the
beginning of the year, according to aid workers and officials on both
sides of the border. Most of the applicants are
Pakistanis, who are required to register with the American
immigration service by March 21. Other nationality groups also face
various registration deadlines, but have not noticeably flooded
the border.

Many of the Pakistani asylum seekers said they decided to flee to
Canada because they knew that Canada was already home to a large and
growing population of Pakistani immigrants,
especially in Montreal and Toronto.

Even before the latest upswing this month and last month, Pakistanis
accounted for the largest number of asylum applications to Canada,
according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Refugee aid workers also speculated that the registration requirement
hit Pakistani immigrants harder than other groups because more of
them lived illegally in the United States and had less
time to legalize their status through family ties or employment. A
result is that hundreds of would-be refugees, some from as far away
as Texas, are now camped out in Salvation Army
shelters, mosques and other lodgings along the border, waiting for
appointments to apply for asylum and struggling to find money to pay
the bond to get their male relatives out of
immigration detention.

Their common refrain, as was Mr. Mirza`s, is that they love America
and do not want to leave.

A former restaurant manager in Virginia with four young children born
in the United States, Mr. Mirza, 45, managed to scrape together the
$4,500 he needed to get himself and his older
sons out of jail on bond. His family stayed two weeks in a shelter in
Burlington, until today when they had an 8 a.m. appointment with
Canadian immigration officials.

But Mr. Mirza wanted to show, one last time, that his heart was in
the United States. ``I`m going to turn and salute the American flag,``
he said as he approached the border. ``I love America.``

Even that plan, though, went awry. In the most prosaic of farewells,
after filling out forms for eight hours he and his family were driven
straight to the Canadian post at St. Bernard Lacolle,
Quebec, early in the morning under a milky overcast sky. No one
bothered to stop him on the American side, where the nearest flag
hung limply on a pole in the distance.

``This is one of the most tragic events I`ve ever witnessed, seeing
this exodus of good, hard-working families,`` said Patrick Giantonio,
executive director of Vermont Refugee Assistance,
which had found the shelter for the Mirzas and dozens of other
Pakistani families trying to reach Canada.

``It`s a tragedy not just for their communities,`` Mr. Giantonio added,
``but for the American community.``

Similar stories are playing out all along the northern border.

At crossing points in British Columbia, some 70 people, most of them
Pakistanis, asked for asylum in January. In all of 2002, officials
said, only 36 Pakistanis made refugee claims.

At land crossings into Ontario, 871 people applied for asylum in
January, double the number just two months earlier. Last November, 5
percent of the asylum seekers were Pakistani. Last
month, 49 percent were Pakistani, according to Canadian immigration
officials in Toronto.

Freedom House, an immigrant aid group in Detroit, said that since the
beginning of the year it had registered 269 Muslim asylum seekers
trying to reach Canada in advance of their
registration deadlines. Seven out of 10 are Pakistanis, with the rest
Arabs. Normally, the group handles about 30 cases a month.

The surge of asylum seekers coincided with the start in December of a
new registration program for men over the age of 15 who were in the
United States on visitor, student or business
visas. Within days, it became clear to foreigners that anyone
registering who had overstayed a visa would be immediately put into
deportation proceedings.

Although the registration law, dating to 1996, applies to all foreign
visitors, the Department of Justice has put it into effect only for
men from 25 countries, all but one of them Arab or
Muslim nations. Of the 32,000 men who have registered so far at
immigration offices around the country, according to officials, more
than 3,000 face deportation.

The choices for illegal Muslim immigrants, then, were stark. If they
had been in the United States for more than one year, they no longer
had the right to apply for asylum here. So they
could have ignored the registration and risked deportation,
registered and faced deportation or gone back to Pakistan. Or they
could try for asylum in Canada by claiming they would face
political persecution if forced to return home.

They are not only overwhelming service agencies, but have also proved
an embarrassment for the Pakistani government, which has been
criticized at home for not demanding better treatment
for its expatriates in exchange for its cooperation with the United
States on fighting terrorism.

After the Pakistani foreign minister protested in Washington this
month against the registration requirement, the deadline for
Pakistanis was extended to March 21 from Feb. 21. The change
also affected men from Saudi Arabia, who faced the same deadline.

But the extension is unlikely to stem the tide of people to the
Canadian border, which has always registered shifts in immigration
policy on either side with surges of people seeking asylum
in Canada.

The widely held perception is that Canada treats applicants with more
leniency, although its refugee approval rate of 57 percent is not
much higher than that of the United States, which
approves 54 percent of asylum cases. Asylum seekers in the United
States are generally placed in detention while their claims are
assessed, however, while those waiting for a decision in
Canada are free to work.

Still, the latest tide of Muslim men and their families took
authorities on both sides by surprise.

Three weeks ago, Canadian border officials at the crossings from
northern New York and Vermont, said they did not have enough workers
to handle the numbers of people asking for
refugee status. They began giving applicants appointments for several
weeks later and sending them back to the American side of the border.

In the past when unable to process people on the spot, Canada asked
for assurances from the immigration service that those applicants
would not be arrested after returning to the United
States to wait for their interviews. But last month, Canadian
authorities did not bother.

``We realized it was useless because whether or not we got assurances,
we could not process these people,`` said Rene Mercier, a spokesman
for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

The United States, in turn, placed dozens of people in deportation
proceedings even if they had documents showing an asylum appointment
with Canada. Others, caught on their way to the
border at counterterrorism checkpoints set up by the United States
Customs Service, were arrested on immigration violations.

The arrests split families and left many women and children to fend
for themselves at isolated border posts in some of the coldest
weather in years. At least 50 people remain in detention
along the border, unable to post bond.

The immigration service said its agents were simply following
procedure. ``Individuals who are illegally in the U.S. are processed
the same way we would process them if we encountered
them any other way,`` said Michael Gilhooly, a spokesman for the agency.

But it is a shock for those at the border. ``I am crying, my wife is
crying,`` said Samir Sheik, a Pakistani who had been working as a
street vendor in New York City and was arrested at a
checkpoint on his way to the Canadian border for having overstayed
his visa. ``It`s not fair because I am leaving the country.``

Mr. Sheik said that he could not return to Pakistan because he and
his wife married against the wishes of both their families - ``a love
marriage,`` as he tearfully described it - and that he
feared his wife would be killed by her father.

His wife, Erim Salim, shuffled silently around the crowded Salvation
Army center in Burlington, where they had been reunited after she
borrowed from friends and neighbors to pay his
$5,000 bond.

``She is sick now, mentally,`` said Mr. Sheik, nodding toward her
sadly. ``Millions of people live here and are overstays. Why is it
only for Pakistanis and Muslim people that they do this?``

Hiraj Zafer, a Pakistani cook from Salt Lake City who was also trying
to enter Canada, gave an answer. ``After 9/11, people hate us,`` Mr.
Zafer said.

Mr. Sheik said: ``Yes, they hate us. But we love America. We feel free here.``

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#53 saminasha

Your note is the same old collection of cliches and plain lies. You claim that the debate about immigration changed when non-europeans began to immigrate in large numbers. Really? Non-europeam immigration began on a mass scale in 1965 -- 40 Years ago! Before 9/11 I did not see any real resistance to immigration except in a few border districts in Texas or California. None at all.

There are literally 10s of millions of mexicans in the US. More that 100,000 indian H-1B employees entered the US in 1998-2000. And basically no one cares very much. The US is now 20% latino and no one cares very much about that either.

But on 9/11 radical muslims declared war on the US. What was even more amazing is that vast number of muslims seemed to be unable to condemn the attacks. In countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia figures like Osama are venerated and have been given cover by the local population. The same old ``just cause`` murderous nonsense that justifies violence against israeli children and goverment employees in J&K is used as justification. Stupid fairy tales such as the Jews are causing all the problems in the world are published even in newspapers like Dawn.

So the US has now insisted on aliens being registered. Ultimately ALL aliens will be registered. This is excellent news for all law abiding peoples. And naturally, people from nations that have supported terror and believe that their religions justfies violence are first in line. Seems entirely fair and reasonable to me.

Indians are in a specially tricky position because Pakistanis and some arabs can pass off as indians. They could then cquire indian papers and commit terrorist acts. So it will be a good thing when indians are also covered by this system.

P Mishra 2

Utter and ahistoric rot. Go and study some immigration history before you embarrass yourself further...

Also, are you related in some cognitive way to P. Diddy? Would explain loads!

Clearly as you have no command of the facts, you have now begun to generate personal insults. No surprises here, this is always the case with people pushing conspiracy theories and hidden agendas.

But here are some links to the facts. As I suggested, asian and latino immigration after the 1965 reforms are highighted:

http://www.itihaas.com/independent/contrib3.html

Congress passed the ``Immigration Regional Restriction Act`` in 1917 over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson. It basically drew a line around the areas in Asia from which Indians and Filipinos were immigrating and banned them. Of course there was a provision to allow Europeans born in this region to immigrate.

http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/aboutins/history/articles/oview.htm

Immigration remained relatively low following World War II, because the 1920s national origins system remained in place after Congress re-codified and combined all previous immigration and naturalization law into the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

In 1965 amendments to the 1952 immigration law, Congress replaced the national origins system with a preference system designed to reunited immigrant families and attract skilled immigrants to the United States. This change to national policy responded to changes in the sources of immigration since 1924. The majority of applicants for immigration visas now came from Asia and Central and South America rather than Europe. The preference system continued to limit the number of immigration visas available each year, however, and Congress still responded to refugees with special legislation, as it did for Indochinese refugees in the 1970s. Not until the Refugee Act of 1980 did the United States have a general policy governing the admission of refugees.

PMishra2 Sahib,

``Congress passed the ``Immigration Regional Restriction Act`` in 1917 over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson. It basically drew a line around the areas in Asia from which Indians and Filipinos were immigrating and banned them. Of course there was a provision to allow Europeans born in this region to immigrate...``

What does this mean in terms of your argument? Make the connections.

My suggestion is that instead of posting these vague partisan overviews that you check out immigration legislation viz immigration from areas with which the US is in conflict with, or considered ``undesirable`` i.e. the Japanese, Germans, Haitians and also, what prevents undocumented workers from going thru the legalization process.

Will check in tom.

PMishra2 Sahib,

``Congress passed the ``Immigration Regional Restriction Act`` in 1917 over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson. It basically drew a line around the areas in Asia from which Indians and Filipinos were immigrating and banned them. Of course there was a provision to allow Europeans born in this region to immigrate...``

What does this mean in terms of your argument? Make the connections.

My suggestion is that instead of posting these vague partisan overviews that you check out immigration legislation viz immigration from areas with which the US is in conflict with, or considered ``undesirable`` i.e. the Japanese, Germans, Haitians and also, what prevents undocumented workers from going thru the legalization process.

Will check in tom.

Re:adnan_rafiq#44
Adnan, I think Pakistanis are moving towards the direction that you are suggesting. If you read editorials in leading newspapers, you can sense that Pakistanis are giving up on the jihadi option in Kashmir in favor of other strategies. Ironically, that may yield them more dividends. For example, if the APHC or similar outfits contest elections and form a state government in Kashmir, it suddenly changes the entire equation. It is one thing to fight against jihadis, it is quite another to oppose a democratic government that gets elected on a platform of separatism. In fact, it becomes eerily similar to Mujib`s position after the 1970 elections. The other interesting thing is that new ideologies are developing in Pakistan, such as Aitzaz Ahsan`s Indus based identity, which is a positive sign.
On the Indian perspective, I don`t believe that there is any apetite for a reversal of partition, as is evident from the reaction to my postings. Indians have moved away from that position but it has been replaced by a bitter hatred of anything Pakistani. I think that is a reaction to the jihadi policies in Kashmir and elsewhere, augmented by muscular right-wing politics in India. It is interesting to note that the right-wingers in India are actually calling for a trifurcation of Kashmir, which is strange given their supposed aversion to TNT.
In spite of all the nay sayers, I still hold out hope for the future because I simply do not believe that our hostility has any real basis. People of our respective territories never fought before 1947. We always shared a common culture and even today, India and Pakistan look remarkably similar. At a people level, there is actually an attraction for each other, as is evident when people from the two sides interact in third countries or when they visit the other side. Even on chowk we have seen firebrand online opponents like sadna and ylh having a very pleasant interaction after meeting face to face. We must always remind ourselves the dictum that there are never any permanent enemies or permanent friends, simply permanent interests. Is it in our interest to keep quarelling ?

#60 amit

If you actually followed indian politics (as opposed to boring us with
your pompous feel good lectures), you would understand the following about the trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir:

(1) When and (if ever) the jihad ends and normalcy returns, J&K will be trifurcated into three parts --- just like many other ``original`` indian states.

(2) Kashmir valley will be given autonomy rights as enshrined in Article 370 of the constitution and part of the legal agreement between Maharaja of J&K and India.

(3) Ladakh and Jammu will be new states and enjoy full economic and legal integration with India.

This is a reasonable view that respects the Kashmir valley viewpoint on ``azadi`` and unique status. However, there is no way we can get there until the jihad is over, the pandits return, normal commerce and interaction resumes between Kashmir valley and rest of the country.