February 14th with the INS

re: assistance for Pakistani famillies

I would check out the South Asian grassroots womens groups like Sakhi, Apna Ghar and Mannavi-not only have they historically provided shelter for women and their children fleeing abusive domestic and proffessional situations, but they also handle immigration issues and have lawyers with impressive credentials and activist backgrounds. These cases would are an imp. chapter in South Asian experiences in the US and Canada-and I am sure that they are documenting them as they work with the people in these cases.

I agree that it is not only the responsibility of groups like Asata, Sakhi, etc., but also the middle class, first and second generation Pakistani/Indian/Bangladeshi communities to provide as much support as possible. Now would be a good time, as one interactor suggested, to start developing linkages-anyone know if there are any American Muslim associations responding to these cases?

adnan #47 And likewise for any offensive remarks on my part as well. No hard feelings (we are here to discuss and argue) and thanks for the undeserved compliments. :-)

ajeet #48 I understand that local mosques do put up these families, as well as other area shelters. But the whole thing is relatively new and I dont think there is much organized for this purpose. If their refugee status is rejected, even though in most cases the children are US citizens they would obviously go back to Pakistan if they are not able to live on their own in the US. I doubt if that will happen though, since they can work in Canada while the legal process continues - I have yet to hear of anyone actually being deported from Canada (although I know some people who came here at middle age and decided that they were better off in Pakistan and went back). And deportation (aside from the immediate disruption) would not be the end of the earth since the children could pick up Pakistani culture and get to know their relatives (I know some Pakistanis who have gone back to Pakistan on their own for this very reason, and returned when they needed to earn more to send the children to US colleges). The US born children thus always have the option of coming back to the US when they are on their feet.

In the story that samina posted and others like that, the men and teen boys are arrested and the women and children are left to their own devices. Which is rather cruel. Is there any muslim organisation that is organising some help like the salvation army shelters. I am sure the mosques, in the nearby towns could put them up temporarily and provide some probono legal advice. Tahmed asked Adnan for the names of any organisation involved in this. Why can`t he talk to the management of the masjid that he belongs to, to set up some arrangement. There are a lot of rich Pakistanis in the NY state and it should not be such a big deal for them to come up with something.

Also I am curious, what happens if the application for refugee status is refused. Is the entire family deported or only the men?

tahmed: I value your opinions on other matters and as such don`t want to make this personal. So, I apologize for my comments earlier. We may disagree on this particular issue but there`s no need to make it personal.

12-Head: Don`t bother! Unlike tahmed, there`s nothing valuable that ever comes out of your filthy mouth. Since, you didn`t want to come here and have no qualms about staying here, then what the hell are you doing over here?

adnan_rafiq #42 I do attach value to staying within the law, and if you choose to consider that arrogance that is fine. You also explain to me that you are a legal resident - I did not ask you your legal status and have no interest in your legal status.
As for the compassion part: Please see the article in the New York times today. They have this Pakistani man with a wife and seven (count them) children running between Canada and USA. His wife and children are victims. He is simply an irresponsible man - not only has he chosen to raise a family in a country where he does not have legal papers and as such can be kicked out along with his family at any time, he has also happily produced seven children without being concerned about their future. If his wife had had a choice, most likely she would have asked him to stop with two or three - and I know what I am talking about from the way women in Pakistan try to get protection from further pregnancies without telling their husbands. Most likely the man lied to the wife`s parents about being well settled in the US, otherwise no self-respecting family would give their daughter to a man who is trying to keep one step ahead of the law. If he had been a responsible man, he could have raised a decent family with one or two children, and his wife would have had a much better life regardless of where they lived, USA, Middle East or Pakistan. Now he is running around seeking ``political asylum`` (another lie) from the Canadians, while his wife and 7 children are suffering.
They deserve compassion. Not the man. I do think that the Pakistani community in the US should do more to help the suffering families of such men. If you are aware of any organized effort, I would appreciate your telling me about it.

#42Adnan

``.......But, judging from your reply I can safely say that you`re too full of yourself. So, there`s no point arguing on this matter any further. I just hope that one day you are able to see the human suffering in all this and get rid of the technical and sanctimonious bullshit surrounding such issues. Adios!...``
Adnan
Whats u r problem??????


There are far more disastrous suffering in Muslim history & Pot Poh & Vietnam massacres are real tragedy compared to bunch of Pakistanis wanting to stay by hookor by crook.

I never ASS u .ME about you .Its not the least of My interest .Dont flatter yourself .Any body who is illegal here, i never felt right fighting for them.I never wanted to come to America & i still wont have any qualms leaving it .I KNOW u never believed that .And you accuse me of assuming ?????????

43 ADNAN

The cut & paste story you are so gracious about is in all the news forums .If you want i can send you dozens of the more SUCH stories pasted by your Gurkul Ustaani !!!

Samina,

Thank you for posting this article. Perhaps, one day we`ll learn that compassion for our fellow human beings is the highest virtue ... much higher than any man made laws or boundaries. I assume that you are a born US citizen, and commend you on taking a stand for something that doesn`t affect you personally. Bravo!

- Adnan

tahmed saahib: Wow! Where did you learn such arrogance and disregard for the not-so-fortunate ones? Say, you don`t belong to the most privileged class of Pakistan (that would be the military), do you? Last I checked, only they talked in such an arrogant and dismissive manner?

Perhaps, you are unable to even assume that someone who is legal can stick up for the not-so-fortunates. That`s why you automatically assumed that since I am speaking on their behalf I must be one of them too. For the record, I have not been out of status for even a single day in this country ... and there`s not a single law that I have broken since I`ve been here. I pursued the familiar route of F1 student --> H1 --> Green card like many others. Yet, unlike you, I count my blessings and support everyone`s right to have a better future. Since time immemorial, mankind has migrated in search of better fortunes. Yes, being out of status is a technical violation of immigration laws but I refuse to lump this with other offenses where there`s criminal intent such as theft, murder or fraud. The INS knows that and that`s why it doesn`t go after the 4 million+ Mexicans who are living illegally in this country. In fact, the US government is now accepting id cards issued by the Mexican government in lieu of federal identification. And, thats also the reason the US government announces amnesty every few years. Not everyone is selfish enough to keep the spoils to themselves. Some of us thank God for our good fortunes and try to share it with others.

A few weeks ago, when I was decrying special registration as racial profiling, 12-head automatically assumed that I must be one of those who had to go and register. This kind of selfish thinking surprises me and also lets me peek into the mindsets of people making these assumptions. In your minds, one cannot stand up to an unjust law unless it affects them personally. Sorry, thats just not me.

But, judging from your reply I can safely say that you`re too full of yourself. So, there`s no point arguing on this matter any further. I just hope that one day you are able to see the human suffering in all this and get rid of the technical and sanctimonious bullshit surrounding such issues. Adios!

February 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.``

************** Visit our website at www.asata.org **************

The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA) works to educate, organize and empower the Bay-Area South Asian community in order to end violence, oppression and exploitation within and against our diasporic South Asian communities.

faisaluno #36 The sarcasm is so heavy in your post it almost broke through my computer and made a hole in the ground all the way from the US to Pakistan. :-)
My concern is NOT that hard working cab drivers are spoiling the reputation of Pakistanis. I dont think that reputation (i.e. what people think you are) is anywhere close to being as important as character (i.e. what you really are). My concern is VIP culture which glorifies law-breaking as being a good thing (a sign of a ``macho guy``), while ridiculing the civil servants in INS who are responsible for implementing the law of the land.
And I am thinking not of the cab drivers, but of people like Ejaz Haider who came from Pakistan, was clearly told that he had to report back within 40 days and chose not to do so, AND when challenged by INS agents wrote a whining post in the Washington Post about the terrible humiliation he faced in being arrested for breaking US laws and ridiculing the US government agencies for their incompetence as he saw it. This is the VIP culture and culture of law-breaking and ridicule of law enforcement officials that I am complaining about.

In response to bbabu at # 23 and 24:

What good is law if it is not respected. The total picture of crime against women in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. can be had at:

http://www.unicef.org/newsline/00pr17.htm

Focused picture on increased death incidents in India can be had at:

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/03/30/stories/2002033006841300.htm

But the most eye-opening of them all is at:

http://www.hindunet.org/srh_home/1996_2/msg00193.html

``The rise of BJP is about to bring back an era of darkness for the traditionally oppressed classes of India -- the ``untouchables``, the religious minorities, the women. Powers like BJP and its ally Shiv Sena (SS) could very well be compared with the Christian Coalition, Promise Keepers or Ku Klux Klan of USA, Neo-Nazis of Germany or England, or the dictatorial-monarchican rulers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and their brainchild Islamic radical groups in Pakistan, Bangladesh. Different names, different countries: same racist-separatist socio-religious doctrine, same oppression.``

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No need for this over exaggeration. I myself have an H-1 Visa and I don’t have a US citizen Fiancee as a backup. I went there without any reservations and got the job of Registration done. If your status is legal you have nothing to worry about.

what a beautiful expression of love and affection on Valentine`s day: accompanying ur beloved one to INS.

I guess, all expressions of `zalim sammaj` in urdu literature have missed this. I wonder how Ghalib have done differently if he would have to visit INS rather than some Angrez sarkar for pension.