Longer Visa Waits for Arabs; Stir Over U.S. Eavesdropping
By Neil A. Lewis and Christopher Marquis
The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 -- The State Department said today that it would slow the process for granting visas to young men from Arab and Muslim nations in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks.
The move came as the Bush administration was engulfed in complaints about a separate new antiterror policy by the Justice Department to allow the authorities to monitor all communications between some people in federal custody and their lawyers. That move provoked an outcry from the legal profession, civil liberties groups and Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the
Vermont Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee.
The changes in visa procedures and the new authorized eavesdropping represented what government officials said was a fundamental shift in antiterror policy to emphasizing prevention.
The government is considering more changes and is enacting others, some of which stem from new antiterrorism legislation. These measures include the following:
**The use of wiretaps secretly authorized by a special federal court to prosecute people suspected of involvement in terrorism on charges unrelated to terrorism. The wiretaps are supposed to be primarily for intelligence gathering and are more easily obtainable than wiretaps sought for criminal investigations.
**The revision of guidelines prosecutors use to determine when to oppose bail for people charged with relatively minor crimes. Federal prosecutors have in many cases urged judges not to release people suspected of involvement in terrorist activities even if they are charged with minor and unrelated crimes.
**The holding in New York of at least 10 people as material witnesses with their arrest records sealed by court order.
The new State and Justice policies on visas and the monitoring of communications between suspected terrorists and their lawyers highlighted the problem of trying to reconcile growing national security concerns with traditional civil liberties issues.
State Department officials said that starting next week, visa applications from 26 nations from any men 16 to 45 years old would be checked against databases maintained by the F.B.I.
The security procedure will take up to 20 days, officials said. The applicants will also be required to complete a detailed questionnaire on their backgrounds, including questions about any military service or weapons training, previous travel, and whether they had ever lost a passport.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell today portrayed the new rules as temporary. "Those who come to the United States, we're going to check on to make sure that we are safe," Mr. Powell said. "We want people to come to our shores but at the same time, we have to protect ourselves. This will be a temporary measure for a number of countries."
Mr. Powell acknowledged that the change could antagonize some Muslim nations whose support the United States seeks in its war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's organization in Afghanistan.
"We are sensitive to how it will affect our friends," Mr. Powell told Fox News.
Countries affected by the new visa restriction are Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
The move on visas drew immediate criticism in the United States, where pro-immigration groups and organizations representing American Muslims said the new requirements amounted to profiling by religion or nationality, a shift to methods they called antithetical to American values.
"This policy to me is very gray," said Angela M. Kelley, the deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant policy group. "It will catch up in its net people who mean us no harm. It sends the wrong message for a nation of immigrants."
In defending the regulations about eavesdropping on people in federal custody, which were instituted on Oct. 30 with little public notice, senior government officials said the action would help impede terrorist activities.
The regulation covers not only people in federal prison but also those in the custody of federal marshals and the immigration service.
By monitoring all conversations between lawyers and a small group of people in federal custody, officials said, they would be able to prevent terrorist acts even if the information could not be used to prosecute anyone.
That is a departure from the traditional approach of officials trying to compile evidence to be used in a courtroom.
"The priority now is stopping terrorist activity, saving American lives and not on getting evidence that's admissible in court," a senior government official said.
Under the regulation, the lawyers and their clients would be informed in advance that their personal telephone conversations and mail would be monitored.
Mindy Tucker, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said the new regulation would affect only a small group of people, those who had been designated as requiring special treatment. Ms. Tucker said that, so far, only 13 people in federal custody had been affected; none of them, she said, had been arrested since Sept. 11.
In an interview tonight with Larry King on CNN, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the new guidelines had been misinterpreted by critics.
"Just imagine this," Mr. Ashcroft said. "You have a terrorist who has - as a matter of fact, of the 13, some are terrorists - that has an incompleted task and is waiting to signal those colleagues of his on the outside of a time to complete the task, to finish what the terrorists endeavor.
"We think we ought to be able to try and detect that and prevent that ongoing terrorism."
Mr. Ashcroft said the regulation stipulated that the officials listening in on communications would not be able to pass any information to prosecutors and that none of the information could be used in court without a judge's permission.
Government officials said that among those whose lawyer-client communications had been monitored was Omar Abdul Rahman, the blind sheik convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Senator Leahy said he was "deeply troubled by what appears to be an executive effort to exercise new powers without judicial scrutiny or statutory authorization."
"These are difficult times," Mr. Leahy added. "Trial by fire can refine us but it can also coarsen us."
The administration should devise ways to counter terrorists, he said, without losing "the freedoms that we are fighting to protect."
Robert E. Hirshon, the president of the American Bar Association, said that the new eavesdropping regulation clearly violated the Constitution's guarantees of the right to counsel and to be free of unreasonable searches.
The attorney-client privilege dates to the reign of Elizabeth I in England and, Mr. Hirshon said, "No privilege is more indelibly ensconced in the American legal system than this privilege."
Traditionally, prosecutors may ask judges to wiretap lawyer-client conversations if they can demonstrate probable cause that the lawyer is being used to carry out a criminal enterprise.
The rule about attorney-client conversations was published Oct. 31 in the Federal Register, a day after it went into effect. It states that the monitoring can take place when the attorney general concludes there is "reasonable suspicion" that the communications are intended to further terrorist acts.
Concerning the State Department's new visa policy, even advocates of tighter controls on immigration expressed discomfort with the approach. Steven Camarota, the research director of the Center for Immigration Reform in Washington, said the United States should scrutinize all visa applicants equally and not just focus on Muslim men. Technological advances should allow for all visa applicants to be finger-printed and checked by the F.B.I., Mr. Camarota said.
"There should be a consensus in the United States that we don't want an ethnic- or religious-based immigration system," he said.
USCIS Mismanaged System to Improving Monitoring of Foreign Visitors
By Cheryl W. Thompson
The Washington Post
Immigration and Naturalization Service officials mismanaged a $31 million project aimed at automating a system that monitors the entry and exit of foreign visitors and determines the number of overstays, according to a government audit.
The review by the Justice Department's inspector general also found that during the past five years, USCIS officials have delayed completion dates of automation projects without explanation and increased the costs of projects "with no justification for how the funds are spent.
"The USCIS has a substantial history of difficulties in managing its automation initiatives . . . despite the substantial investment it had made in such programs," the report said.
The most recent audit examined the "design and implementation" of an automated I-94 system. The I-94 is a form used to gather arrival and departure data of most foreign visitors to make sure they don't remain in the United States after the expiration of their authorized stays.
An estimated 40 percent of the 5 million illegal immigrants living in the United States last year were listed as overstays, the report said. It is unclear how many were actual overstays and how many were mistakenly counted as such because of poor record-keeping by BCIS. Canadians and foreign nationals are not required to complete the form.
USCIS began developing the system to automate the processing of air passenger I-94 forms six years ago, the report said. The system is used at airports in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlotte and St. Louis, and only two airlines -- TWA and US Airways -- are participating. Northwest Airlines agreed to test the automated system but declined to permanently participate after
expressing concerns, including questioning the purpose of the I-94 process, according to the report.
Federal immigration laws passed in 1996 and 2000 required the USCIS to create an automated entry and exit system to be used at all land, air and sea ports of entry. The system was not being used at any land or sea ports, according to the report.
The report found that the USCIS "does not have clear evidence that the system meets its intended goals."
"We found that the USCIS has not properly managed the project," the report said. "USCIS management does not have information necessary to determine whether the project is progressing as expected."
USCIS officials, in a written response to the inspector general, said they agree that changes are necessary to the automated system and that they are developing a way to run it more cost-effectively. Under the BCIS's primary system, workers manually collect I-94 forms when foreign visitors board flights to the United States. Inspectors keep the passenger's "arrival record" portion of the form and give the passenger the "departure record" portion. USCIS then sends the arrival record to a contractor who inputs the information into a system. When the passenger leaves the United States, the airline collects the departure record and passes it on to BCIS, which is supposed to input the information into a system. Officials could then match data to determine overstays, the report said.
But there are flaws in the manual system, the report said. Arrival information was not routinely entered into the system; departure records were not always gathered; and 25 percent of the arrival and departure records did not match. The result: Scores of foreign visitors were classified as overstays even though they had left the country. The monitoring of overstays has been a "management challenge," the report said.
USCIS officials said $57 million more is needed through fiscal 2005 to complete the automated system, according to the audit. However, the report cautioned the USCIS about spending more money until the agency conducts a cost-benefit analysis and implements performance measures.
Ashcroft Announces Plan to Split BCIS' Duties
By Michelle Mittelstadt
The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON -- Moving to repair a long-troubled immigration service, Attorney General John Ashcroft unveiled a restructuring Wednesday that he said would allow the government to do a better job keeping undesirable foreigners out while improving service for law-abiding immigrants.
The Bush administration plan, the latest in a series of proposals offered over the years to reform the Immigration and Naturalization Service, would separate the agency's enforcement and service functions. It also attempts to untangle a complicated organizational chart, trimming several layers of management in hopes of making service more efficient and uniform.
"The restructuring of the immigration institutions we undertake today will make the USCIS a better servant to our friends and a greater obstacle to our enemies," Mr. Ashcroft said.
While none of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist plot entered the United States illegally, the attorney general said the attacks had made reform all the more urgent.
"The terrorist attacks of September the 11th underscored in the most painful way for Americans that we need better control over individuals coming to our shores from other nations," he said. "We remain a nation committed to welcoming America's friends from abroad, but we have a new determination not to see our welcome abused by America's enemies."
The administration plan wasn't universally welcomed despite widespread consensus that the USCIS is hampered by conflicting missions, on the one hand acting as a law enforcement agency, on the other doling out benefits such as naturalization and work permits. Since the mid-1990s, the agency has been hobbled by huge backlogs in processing citizenship and other applications. It also has been accused of lax enforcement, with the undocumented immigrant population surging to new highs during the decade.
Some unsatisfied
Several leading members of Congress complained that the administration's blueprint fell well short of the reforms necessary to fix the immigration system.
"The USCIS should be abolished and our immigration system overhauled," said Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., an influential member of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the BCIS. "The administration's plan, like many that have preceded it, does neither. It's another reorganization plan that will preserve BCIS, change the nameplates on its office doors, and continue the monumental failures of the past."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, who is sponsoring legislation that would abolish the BCIS, was equally critical.
"The administrative restructuring of the USCIS proposed today is inadequate for truly restructuring this troubled agency," the Wisconsin Republican said. "Quite simply, it does not go far enough for the rescue mission that is needed."
While USCIS Commissioner James Ziglar indicated a desire to work with Congress, he and the attorney general made clear that they believed much of the changes could be handled administratively, without congressional approval.
As in earlier debates over USCIS restructuring, the main point of contention appears to be who is at the top of the leadership chart.
Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Rogers, and other lawmakers contend nothing short of a total separation will do. Their plan would abolish the USCIS and replace it with enforcement and services bureaus headed by separate leaders.
Though the administration plan creates two bureaus with separate staffs and chains of command, it keeps both entities under the leadership of the USCIS commissioner.
Under the restructuring, a new Bureau of Immigration Enforcement would be responsible for border enforcement, investigations, apprehension of undocumented immigrants, and intelligence gathering. The Bureau of Immigration Services would handle applications for naturalization, work permits, asylum, and other benefits.
The plan would abolish the current management structure, which has given great autonomy to USCIS regional and district directors sometimes at the expense of USCIS headquarters.
The three regional directors and 33 district directors would be replaced by six area directors responsible for immigration services, with one of those regions being headquartered in Dallas.
On the enforcement side, there would be nine enforcement areas one headquartered in El Paso headed by new special agents in charge.
"Efficiency is improved by eliminating layers of management between field offices and headquarters, and accountability is promoted by providing overall direction under a single agency head, the USCIS commissioner," Mr. Ashcroft said at a news conference with Mr. Ziglar.
Initial support
Some immigration-policy experts gave an early endorsement to the plan.
"I think it definitely addresses some of the concerns that we've had, and it maintains a powerful leadership at the top of the organization so that it can speak with one voice," said Michele Waslin of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group.
At the other end of the policy debate, the head of a think tank that favors reduced immigration termed the restructuring of "marginal value" in fixing the BCIS.
However, Center for Immigration Studies executive director Mark Krikorian said the plan may be of benefit to USCIS employees who long have braced for restructuring. "It may not matter that much how USCIS is organized as long as the issue is put to rest," he said, noting that restructuring has been discussed for years.
Changes will begin within 30 days and will take slightly less than two years to complete, Mr. Ashcroft said.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The USCIS restructuring proposal is available online at:
http://www.ins.gov/graphics/aboutins/restruct/proposal.pdf
Newsmaker: Kamlesh Gosai / Country Doctor an Award Winner
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Deborah Mendenhall, Staff Writer
He has taken 4 a.m. calls from the constipated and uncomfortable, treated hospital-phobic adolescents in his living room, taken care of poor people for free and even interrupted a suicide attempt. He makes house calls, too.
But what made Dr. Kamlesh Gosai, 45, of Bentleyville, a shoo-in for the 2001 Country Doctor of the Year award is the difference he has made in his community, said David Faries of Staff Care Inc., a national temporary physician staffing firm, that sponsors the award.
Gosai bested 316 other nominees from 38 states to capture the award. As the story goes, Bentleyville, a depressed Mon Valley coal town of 1,200, had been looking for a doctor for some time. Residents, many of them elderly, had to travel to Pittsburgh for health care. Town officials had even offered free office space to any physician who would set up shop
but found no takers.
In 1988, Gosai was director of occupational medicine at a naval hospital in Jacksonville, Fla. While in Pittsburgh visiting relatives, he said, he trolled the interstate highways looking for a nice place to settle and establish a private practice. Off Interstate 70, he found Bentleyville and fell in love with the community.
He set up his practice in the shadow of the Giant Eagle grocery store, declining the town's offers to pay his way. Potential patients began to trickle in, taking stock of this short, dark man who spoke with a pronounced accent.
"They didn't make appointments. They just stopped by to interview me," Gosai said. "They wanted to know if I speak English well enough and if I had the proper credentials to treat them."
Many of them liked the open, friendly man who smiles as easily as he offers hugs. Soon, he had a thriving practice. He built the Southwest Medical Center on Main Street. It has grown into a four-doctor practice with a satellite office in Charleroi with 1,200 active charts.
Gosai has also encouraged six other doctors to set up shop in the Mon Valley, including an allergist, urologist and other specialists. Though he wouldn't take free office space, he donated space and his staff to many of the newcomers until they set up their practices, Faries said.
Gosai believes in supporting his community, said Margaret Immel, Gosai's office manager of eight years. He buys groceries, gasoline, cars and other items in town and encourages his employees to do the same, she said. He's a regular in the town Halloween parade, his float taking top honors two years in a row. This year, he dressed as a pumpkin and sat atop hay bales.
A loyal patient told his wife before he died that he wanted a 22-acre parcel to go to Gosai, Immel said. Gosai bought it and built the 83-room Bentleyville Garden Inn, a Best Western hotel with an indoor swimming pool. Rooms are often given without charge to patients celebrating anniversaries, or poor relatives in town for the funeral of an elderly patient, she said. Gosai is leasing land adjacent to the hotel to light industries.
On call seven days a week, he lists his home phone number on his business card.
Patients appreciate his homey style.
Debbie Ginther's son, Ed, tore cartilage in his knee during a high school soccer game. Afraid that emergency room treatment might make him worse, he preferred to see Gosai the next morning. Ginther, a nurse in Gosai's office, called the doctor, who invited the boy to his home and treated his injuries in the living room.
"I am available all the time," Gosai said. "I do get some calls at 4 a.m. about simple constipation, but sometimes they just need to be talked to. This call was from a 86-year-old guy who doesn't have a family. I told him to try milk of magnesia and that I'd see him in the morning. I go back to sleep quickly."
About four years ago, Gosai saved the life of another elderly patient who called him at 4 a.m. In a weak voice, she told him that she had written her son a letter that could be found beneath a lamp in her apartment. It sounded to Gosai like she was bent on suicide. He called the police and paramedics and met them at her apartment in time to save her life. She had tried to kill herself by taking a variety of pills.
Predawn intrusions are not a problem for his family, Gosai said. His wife, Smita Gosai, is a physician and her father was a surgeon, so she understands the demands on a doctor.
He serves as a doctor for area schools, nursing homes and community homes for the mentally ill. After a full day of seeing 65 to 70 patients, he goes home for dinner, then makes hospital rounds.
To celebrate the award, Bentleyville is throwing a party for Gosai at 3 p.m. Dec. 1 in the fire hall. Faries will attend to present Gosai with an award, a lab coat embroidered with "Doctor of the Year," and an offer of a temporary doctor to take over so Gosai can take time off.
"Here is a good doctor making a tremendous impact, and providing rural health care every bit as good as you would find in a top facility in Pittsburgh. We found him to be quite amazing," Faries said.
Dr. Kamlesh Gosai
Date of birth: Sept. 28, 1956
Place of birth: Ahmedabad, India
Now working in: Bentleyville
In the News: He was named national Country Doctor of the Year.
Quote: "I belong to this community. My patients look at me as a neighbor. I am happy to make house calls and take their calls at my home. It's not a burden."
Education: He is a 1981 graduate of Gujarat University Medical School, in Ahmedabad, India.
Family: Married to Smita Gosai; they have a 20-year-old son, Tejas, a 15-year-old daughter, Bina, and an 11-year-old son, Shivam
Universities Persuade Senator to Drop Plan to Limit Student Visas
By Diana Jean Schemo
The New York Times
WASHINGTON -- An effort to impose a federal moratorium on student visas in the wake of September's terrorist attacks has foundered after an intense lobbying campaign by university officials, who feared the pause would deal a crippling blow to advanced research programs and to the bottom lines of colleges and universities.
In the days after the attack, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, proposed a six-month moratorium on the issuance of such visas as part of the general effort to tighten the nation's security. University officials who argued against the visa restrictions invoked the lofty values of international education: spreading democracy, promoting knowledge and forging ties with future leaders abroad. But the clash illustrated a more prosaic, pressing side to their concern: the growing financial and intellectual dependence of universities on students from overseas, particularly for graduate programs in the sciences, engineering and math.
A report released this week by the Institute of International Education found that 547,667 foreign students attended American colleges and universities in the academic year ending in June 2001, a 6.4 percent jump over the previous year and the biggest single-year increase in two decades. Nearly 11 percent come from China, followed by India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Canada. While Middle Eastern states, particularly those on the State Department's list of nations that sponsor terrorism, are not among the top sources of foreign students, Senator Feinstein raised concerns in hearings about some 16,000 students from states that sponsor terrorism who have studied in the United States over the last decade.
An analysis by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities shows that although foreign students accounted for 3.4 percent of total enrollment in colleges and universities in 2000, they paid an estimated 7.9 percent of tuition and fees American universities received that year.
International students and their families pump $11 billion a year into the American economy for tuition and fees, housing, living expenses and consumer goods. International education is considered a form of trade, and shows up as one of the largest service-industry exports, said Victor C. Johnson, public policy director of the Association of International Educators.
The largest number of foreign students, 74,281, is in California, where the Institute of International Education estimates they spent nearly $1.6 billion in the last academic year. New York is second, with 58,286 foreign students spending $1.3 billion.
Ineligible for the most common forms of financial aid, like Pell grants, foreign undergraduates tend to pay full freight at a time when 84 percent of Americans attending private universities receive financial aid of some sort. At state institutions, foreigners are charged the highest rates of tuition, corresponding to those for out-of-state residents.
At the University of Nebraska, foreigners account for 21 percent of graduate students. Merlin P. Lawson, who is both dean of graduate studies and dean of international affairs, said that a six-month moratorium on student visas "would have been devastating, initially." Because future applications also depend on alumni recommendations, the long- term impact would have been severe as well, he said, echoing the reaction at many universities.
At the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Randall Hansis, the dean of academic studies, said foreign students were "great on work- study."
"Talk about a work ethic," Dean Hansis said. "It's sometimes embarrassing to see the American students next to them."
With American students ranking poorly over all in international science and math competitions, universities said they would suffer if they could not turn to international students to fill out such courses.
"We have tremendous difficulty in getting American citizens to apply for, enroll and be qualified in many of our engineering and science areas," said Mark Kamlet, provost at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, one of the nation's premier research institutions.
At Carnegie Mellon, 47 percent of the doctoral degrees issued in 1999 were awarded to students from other nations. At the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, the figure was 80 percent. At the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, foreign students earned 73 percent of the doctorates. At Rockefeller University in New York, 61 percent of the doctorates awarded in 1999 went to students from abroad.
From research universities to small colleges, institutions also court overseas students to burnish their international credentials. Many parents, aware that their children will have to function in a global economy, seek out universities that expose students to other cultures.
"Every university is looking for students who have to pay the maximum there is to pay," said Jurg Gerber, director of the office of international programs at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Tex. But Mr. Gerber said he believed the primary motivation for recruiting overseas students was not financial. "There's more of a concern with internationalizing the educational program," he said.
Mr. Johnson agreed. "The first opportunity many students have to have interaction with foreigners is when they enroll at Montana State, say, and meet them there," he said.
In organizing the campaign against the visa moratorium, the American Council on Education, which represents the presidents of universities and colleges, warned members that any pause in visas "would wreak havoc on gradhools, which rely heavily on international students and scholars to assist with teaching and research."
The letter, signed by a broad range of groups representing public and private institutions, urged university presidents to press Ms. Feinstein directly to drop her proposal. David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, arranged for officials from top universities, including California State, the University of California, Stanford and Georgetown, to meet separately with the senator and with her staff.
An aide said that Ms. Feinstein saw the pause as a way of giving the government time to get an electronic tracking system for foreign students up and running, and that she was not completely surprised by the opposition.
"Obviously, international education is a very big business," said the aide. "Many people who wrote said, `International education means this much to our university.' "
In the meetings, academics and their lobbyists also suggested that singling out foreign students would embarrass Senator Feinstein and prove of little usefulness over time, since they account for only 2 percent of all visa holders. They argued that six months would be insufficient to get the tracking system running, Dr. Ward recalled.
The aide to Ms. Feinstein noted that despite dropping the moratorium proposal, the senator, who is chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Technology and Terrorism, had introduced a broader bill to tighten immigration policies and to force government agencies to share information on suspected criminals and terrorists overseas.
NYC Mayor-elect: I Won't Enforce Immigration Laws
By Carl Limbacher
NewsMax.com
New York City Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg said Monday that he would make permanent his predecessor Rudy Giuliani's temporary waiver of U.S. immigration laws for the families of Dominicans who were killed last week on American Airlines Flight 587 -- saying he would extend the waiver to all undocumented aliens in the city. "Whether they're Dominicans or not, those people who are undocumented do not have to worry about city government going to the federal government," Bloomberg told WABC Radio's John Gambling.
"We will provide the services, whether they are health care services or education for their children or anything else we can do irregardless of the federal government rightly trying to make sense out of our immigration policy."
"That statement you just made, will that apply for the forseeable future?" asked the incredulous host.
"Absolutely," Bloomberg responded, without missing a beat. "My job as mayor is to make sure we deliver the city services. It is the federal government's job to make sure we get control of our borders and have an appropriate immigration policy."
Asked if his refusal to enforce U.S. immigration laws would make the feds' job even tougher, Bloomberg said, "I think the federal government just has to have a set of fair and enforced laws but my job is to be a city official and to provide the services.... We just have to step back and say, there's two levels here. They can go in parallel."
Last week Mayor Giuliani said the city wouldn't seek to deport any Dominicans who were discovered to be in the U.S. illegally as a result of the 587 air disaster, which killed 260 people.
The plane carried mostly Dominicans and Dominican-Americans who were traveling back to the Dominican Republic to visit family and friends. Many have expressed concern that if they traveled home for funerals and memorial services, they would not be allowed to re-enter the U.S.
Mexico Told That Amnesty Plans Will Be Deferred
By George Gedda
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States has informed Mexico that a new migration agreement must be deferred because of concerns that easing current restrictions could lead to a terrorist attack, according to administration officials.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mexican officials who were informed of the decision on Tuesday showed understanding. They were told that, on the U.S. list of priorities, border security must come first.
Fox has been a harsh critic of the current system, whereby Mexican migrants who come to the United States fail to escape their illegal status even though they make a valuable contribution to the U.S. economy.
President Bush seemed to agree. During Fox's state visit here on Sept. 5, he and Bush committed themselves to a realistic approach to migration that respects "the human dignity of all migrants," regardless of their legal status.
But the U.S. officials said that too many members of Congress believe that any measure that legalizes undocumented aliens would increase U.S. vulnerability to a terrorist attack.
Since Sept. 11, the administration has been making it more difficult for foreigners to enter the country. For Mexicans, this has meant more stringent searches at border crossings. There also has been a slowing down of visa processes for young men from Arab and Muslim nations. This gives officials more time to search for evidence of terrorist activities.
Immigration reform has been a high priority for Fox since he took office a year ago. When he met with Bush in September, Fox challenged him to reach a migration agreement by the end of the year.
Bush did not embrace the timetable but said that a legalization process short of blanket amnesty was called for given the contributions Mexican workers have made to the U.S. economy.
The U.S. and Mexican delegations met for several hours Tuesday at the State Department. The American delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mary Ryan, also included Justice and Labor Department officials and immigration officials.
Mexico's delegation was led by Gustavo Mohar, a migration expert at Mexico's Secretariat for External Relations; and Rodolfo Tuiran, who heads the government's National Council on Population.
A similar meeting will probably be held sometime in January. The officials said the U.S. side wants to keep options open in the event that political conditions change.
On Monday, a Mexican delegation met with Tom Ridge, the director of homeland security, and other officials to discuss border security issues.
Civil Liberties In Jeopardy
The Hartford (Ct.) Courant
As the government continues to expand the list of people it wants to question in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the potential for violating civil liberties increases.
It is useful to recall the widespread domestic abuse of basic rights that came to light in the 1970s in connection with Watergate and the Vietnam War. For years, Congress had allowed presidents to use the FBI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies to spy on citizens and compile dossiers on them in the name of national security.
At the height of hysteria about communist infiltration, the FBI developed a program to disrupt domestic groups and discredit their leaders, even leaking information to smear dissenters and deny them employment. The abuses were documented by a Senate investigation that led to passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which placed strict controls on domestic spying.
In a time of legitimate national concern about the threat of terrorist attacks, it is easy to forget that sad history.
When terrorists sent planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they in effect declared war on the United States. In a time of war, extraordinary steps must be taken to protect national security. At the same time, individual liberties that distinguish the United States from tyrannies should not be chipped away.
Government's natural tendency is to accumulate power, not give it up. Since Sept. 11, law enforcement agencies have detained more than 1,100 suspects, but have released virtually no information about them.
So far, none has been charged with any crime linked to the terrorist attacks. Lawyers complain that they have trouble reaching their clients and sometimes do not even know where they are being held.
The three latest orders from Washington raise even more troubling questions about whether the government is going overboard.
President Bush signed an order allowing secret military tribunals for foreigners charged with terrorism. Some immigrants held in U.S. jails may be transferred to the military to face trial, without any due process. Hearsay and illegally obtained evidence would be admissible. The public may know only the charges and the verdict. Names of the presiding military officers at the tribunal would be withheld. There would be no appeal.
This is how dictatorships operate.
Such an extraordinary bypassing of basic justice was used during World War II and the Civil War, when America's very existence as a nation was threatened.
The Justice Department plans to question 5,000 young men, most from Middle Eastern countries, who entered the nation legally. The vast dragnet, which includes entering homes at will, appears to be targeting men merely because of their ethnic background, not because of any evidence they are terrorists.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has approved an emergency rule allowing the government to eavesdrop on conversations between suspects and their lawyers when "reasonable suspicion" exists that suspects might use the communications to facilitate acts of terrorism.
The Ashcroft edict requires no monitoring or approval by a judge. It undermines the Sixth Amendment guarantee of suspects' access to effective counsel.
These unilateral decrees, without any congressional review or oversight, must be challenged in court.
There is no need for U.S. military tribunals convened whenever and wherever the president deems fit - even on Afghan or Pakistani soil - to handle what civilian courts can do well. Such courts have obtained guilty verdicts in the 1998 bombings of the two American embassies in Africa and in the first attempt to attack the World Trade Center. Loss of freedom often starts with seemingly reasonable steps taken during emergencies. Each step might sound reasonable in a time of war. Once erosion begins, however, reversing the trend becomes increasingly difficult.
We are winning the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda. But that victory will be Pyrrhic if Americans surrender their basic liberties in the process.
Hijackers of Sept. 11 Took Advantage of a Cornerstone of American Society
By Sydney P. Freedberg
St. Petersburg Times
They used aliases and posed as tourists. They faked out diplomats abroad and zipped through inspections at U.S. airports. Once within our borders, they melted into the melting pot.
Then they killed.
Like millions of foreigners who come to the United States each year, the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on America entered through the front door, on legal visitors' visas.
They exploited a litany of loopholes in the system:
Several didn't need an interview for permission to come here.
One claimed he was coming to study English, but never showed up at school.
Three claimed they were coming for business or pleasure, but enrolled in flight schools instead.
Two were later placed on a terrorist watch list, but no one could find them.
Two were allowed to stay after their visas expired.
Two, maybe more, apparently traveled on stolen passports, and all 19 managed to get U.S. Social Security cards.
Inadvertently, the U.S. government rolled out a welcome mat for all of them.
While American bombers pound Afghanistan, foreign terrorists and criminals can slip into the United States through a chaotic patchwork of immigration laws and procedures. While commandos hit Taliban caves one by one, an overworked corps of visa processors, customs agents and immigration inspectors struggle on the real front line in the war against terrorism.
"We must defend all our borders," says Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, a longtime critic of U.S. immigration policies. "Air, sea and land. North, south, east and west. It has to be a seamless garment, or the terrorists are going to seek to come in through the weakest link."
But as the government belatedly moves to plug holes in the system, some experts wonder if it is up to the job.
"They're taking baby steps in the right direction, but only baby steps," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, a research institute that has long pushed for stricter controls.
A system of contradictions
The people who run the system are caught in the cross-fire of competing missions.
At overseas embassies and consulates, which issue visas, American diplomats have a balancing act: They must promote U.S. commerce and travel in their host countries while ensuring security for the American people.
At the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which enforces the law, inspectors smooth the way for new citizens even as they try to deport growing numbers of illegal aliens.
Members of Congress and presidents, Democrat and Republican, have a history of mixed immigration messages as well.
Before Sept. 11, President Bush was considering an amnesty for millions of illegals, mostly from Mexico. Now, while insisting that America is still a welcoming country, his administration is cracking down on foreign visitors.
America rose to greatness by accepting outcasts from Europe, but the government began closing the door in the 1880s, when the number of Chinese immigrants soared. In 1965, Congress returned to more liberal policies, prompting a historic surge of immigrants -- an estimated 27-million, including illegals, to date.
In the 1980s, even as the system strained to absorb new arrivals, a powerful alliance of business and travel executives and ethnic groups pressed for looser policies.
Krikorian and other critics say that special interest groups eager for low-paying foreign workers have undermined immigration control by thwarting efforts to control the borders.
In 1986, Congress chipped away at the borders. Lawmakers ordered a trial program to let foreign visitors from designated countries into the United States for up to 90 days without a visa.
The visa is a screening mechanism to keep out criminals and terrorists. Law enforcement agents consider it the single most important tool for homeland security.
The government extended and expanded visa-free travel, which was a resounding success for the American economy, providing a golden stream of tourists, jobs and money. But it also provided an avenue for terrorists.
In the early 1990s, lawmakers continued to pass business-friendly migration policies.
Under one provision, they eliminated the so-called "ideological exclusion," making it harder to exclude people simply because they hold radical views.
Under another provision, Congress imposed a 45-minute time limit on the USCIS to inspect each planeload of arriving international travelers. The measure cut down on airport waiting times. But it also put growing pressure on airport immigration inspectors, who often find themselves with only a minute or so per passenger to catch impostors and potential terrorists.
Early red flags
Investigators raised concerns about the leaky system in 1993, after Islamic fundamentalists drove a bomb-laden truck into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center. The explosion killed six people, injured 1,000 others and caused more than $300-million in damage.
Consider this:
Six months before the attack, Ramzi Yousef, the ringleader, arrived in New York from Pakistan on a false Iraqi passport. He came without a visa but was allowed to stay after claiming political asylum. The USCIS released him because it didn't have space in a detention facility.
Mohammed Salameh, who rented the yellow Ryder van used in the bombing, came on a six-month tourist visa issued in Amman, Jordan, in 1988. He applied for legal residency and was turned down, but was still able to live for years in Jersey City, N.J., as he appealed that decision.
Eyad Ismoil, who drove the van with the bomb into the tower garage, came on a student visa in 1989, then dropped out after three semesters at Wichita State.
Yousef's traveling companion, Ahmad Mohammed Ajaj, tried to get in on a fake Swedish passport. But he got caught after airport inspectors found bombmaking manuals in his luggage. Sentenced to six months in prison for passport fraud, he still helped plan the bombing by sending messages to fellow conspirators.
The four plotters, plus two others, each got 240 years in prison. (Another suspect, an American named Abdul Rahman Yasin, is still on the run.)
After the bombing, the State Department mounted a sweeping effort to counter visa and passport fraud.
It shored up its out-of-date watch list of people who should not be granted visas.
Federal inspectors cracked down on aliens as the USCIS mushroomed -- from an agency with a $1.2-billion budget and a staff of 18,000 to almost a $5-billion budget and staff of more than 33,000.
At Congress' behest, the agency spent much of the money to stem the flow of border crossers wading across the Rio Grande from Mexico.
Yet for every step the government took, the terrorists stayed one step ahead. The 3,728-mile northern border, crossed by 100-million people a year, was still porous, an attractive entry point for terrorists.
In some spots, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., recently complained, the only nighttime security is a fluorescent orange cone along a wooded road.
"The nice (travelers) put them back after driving through," he said.
Despite a growing squad of document detectives zeroing in on fake passports and phony ID rings, Osama bin Laden and his foot soldiers found master forgers and travel agents to arrange high-quality fraudulent papers for their operatives.
Or they used connecting flights to America from busy gateway cities such as London, knowing U.S. immigration inspectors tend to give less scrutiny to visa-free travelers.
As federal agents increase scrutiny of foreign visitors, investigators worry that terrorist groups will try to enter the United States by corrupting public employees.
Last month, Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general, told a Senate subcommittee about six fraud schemes in which USCIS personnel got caught accepting bribes or falsifying official documents to let foreign aliens stay in the country.
Visa express
Although the USCIS has taken much of the heat since Sept. 11, many of the problems began at two U.S. State Department offices in Saudi Arabia. That's where 15 of the 19 hijackers took the first step in their quest to enter the United States.
Federal agents are investigating whether any got their official papers under false pretenses.
Some of the hijackers got tourist visas to come here after reportedly honing their explosives skills at terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
The U.S. government opened the door for at least two -- and possibly as many as nine -- who used stolen passports, said Gaafar Allagany, chief of the information department at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
And in May 2001, Hazma S.A. Alghamdi, also known as Hamza Alghamdi, arrived with a U.S. stamp of approval even though Finland turned him away. The Fins concluded after a background investigation that he lied on his visa application.
Investigators say Alghamdi, who lived in Delray Beach last summer, helped hijack United Airlines Flight 175 and crash it into the south tower of the World Trade Center.
"All of those people's names were run through our name check system," Mary Ryan, an assistant secretary of state, told a congressional panel last month. "We had nothing on any of them."
Ryan said the consular officers who granted the visas did nothing wrong. But before Sept. 11, the State Department's Office of Inspector General found that obtaining visas by fraud was "a constant problem" because of poorly trained officers, lax supervisors and "serious management deficiencies."
In 1996, a consular officer in Jerusalem approved a visa for Lafi Khalil to stay in the United States briefly en route to Ecuador. The officer later told investigators that the interview and review of his visa application took about three minutes. She didn't ask Khalil for his address in Israel, his ticket to Ecuador or how he would support himself. He didn't even sign the visa application.
Seven months later, police arrested Khalil and a fellow Palestinian in Brooklyn after a tip that they planned to bomb the New York City subway system.
"The '90s were a terrible, terrible decade for the State Department," Ryan said. "I think consular officers around the world are stretched just about as thin as they can possibly be. We do not have the personnel resources that we need to do the job the way it should be done."
Several former visa officers blame a culture that puts efficiency and foreign policy above U.S. security -- a charge the State Department denies.
Michael Springmann, a consular officer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from 1987 to 1989, said he issued more than 100 visas to unqualified applicants after pressure from his State Department bosses.
"Keep the Saudis happy," Springmann said he was told, apparently because they are America's biggest supplier of crude oil.
He said he later learned that visas went to terrorists recruited by the CIA and bin Laden to train in the United States for the war against the then-Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
"There is a strong fellowship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that sees through different eyes when it comes to Boeing, military installations and oil deals," added Michael Wildes, an immigration lawyer who has represented Saudi defectors and terror suspects.
After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the visa situation became murkier. FBI agents complained that their Saudi counterparts hampered investigations into terror attacks, including a 1996 bombing on Dhahran that killed 19 U.S. servicemen. The Americans also suspected that the Saudi monarchy was doing little to root out terrorism on Saudi soil and to stop anti-American threats.
Yet, instead of tightening visa requirements, the U.S. government made it easier for Saudi visitors to come to America. Under a program called U.S. Visa Express, introduced four months before the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudis were allowed to arrange visas through 10 travel agencies -- often without coming to the U.S. Embassy or consulate for interviews.
Before Sept. 11, critics say, people from other Middle Eastern countries had a far tougher time getting visas.
The State Department counters that it approved Visa Express because Saudis were not known for using fraudulent travel documents and had a good record of complying with visa requirements.
Ryan told Congress she didn't know if any of the Sept. 11 hijackers gave false information on their visa applications, though she said there is no evidence of forgery.
State Department spokesmen deny a link between any of the terror suspects and the Visa Express program. They also say there is no indication the hijackers had a connection to Abdulla Noman, an alleged visa vendor who worked for the U.S. Commerce Department in the consulate in Jeddah.
Noman was charged earlier this month with accepting bribes to arrange visas for Saudi nationals entering the United States.
"He was the go-to man for people getting false visas in Saudi Arabia," Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard Zlotnick told a magistrate in Las Vegas. "It's no secret that the individuals on Sept. 11 came from Saudi Arabia with visas. The nature of that crime clearly poses a risk to the community until the FBI investigates who he provided visas to."
Missing links
A "colossal intelligence failure" led to the hijackings, the State Department's Ryan told Congress.
"We cannot be the outer ring of border security if we don't get information on people who seek to harm our country from intelligence and law enforcement agencies," she said, pointing a finger at the FBI for refusing to share information on possible terrorists.
Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general, noted that a 1999 audit had revealed a series of missing links in the FBI's handling of information. Agents sometimes forgot to enter important information into their database, and even when the information was there, they sometimes failed to find it. There are dozens of computerized government watch lists designed to flag and stop criminals, terrorists, smugglers, extremists and visa violators. But the computer systems sometimes aren't programmed to talk to each other or can miss a terrorist simply if his name is translated with multiple spellings.
For weeks following the attacks, the USCIS had trouble figuring out the visa statuses of some of the hijackers because of different spellings on flight manifests and varying dates of birth.
Though the USCIS dismissed many of the complaints, auditors had been especially critical, before Sept. 11, of the agency's handling of information. Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general, said the USCIS systems were so archaic and questionably managed that his investigators couldn't tell if a $2.6-billion technology upgrade was on schedule, within cost limits, or worked.
The names of four hijackers were apparently known to federal agents, but the information never made it to the right people in time. The New York Times reported that terror suspects Ahmed Alghamdi and Satam Al Suqami had been linked by a previous U.S. Customs Service investigation to al-Qaida operatives. In addition, Nawaf Alhazmi, also known as Nawaq Alhamzi, and Khalid Al Mihdhar, who had four aliases, were placed on a watch list after the CIA connected them to bin Laden.
But even the most complete watch list won't catch a killer who sneaks across a Canadian field. The most solid intelligence at home won't stop a terrorist whose homeland refuses to share information about suspect travelers. And U.S. officials say that in many foreign countries, law enforcement checks would be useless.
"You can buy them," Ryan said in her congressional testimony. "There's little purpose in trying to check the background of people who can, in effect, pay to get a clean police certificate."
Once within our borders, foreigners get lost in America.
Many of the Sept. 11 hijackers blended in by building new identities with different names and dates of birth. They paid ID salesmen $50 or $100 for fake addresses or phony driver's licenses, which they could use as identification to board planes. They collected bank records and residency forms.
All 19 managed to get our national identifier -- a Social Security card. The Social Security Administration says that six hijackers may have "fraudulently obtained" the cards.
The USCIS readily admits it has no system to track foreigners, no way of knowing whether visitors admitted on visas actually leave the country.
Under the current procedure, an airport immigration inspector completes a form for each arriving visitor, showing how long that visitor is allowed to stay. On the departing flight, airlines are supposed to collect the other half of the form and send it to the BCIS. But they often don't collect the forms, or foreigners forget to turn them in. In any event, there often is no trace of their departure.
The Justice Department said last week that two suspects, Nawaf Alhazmi and Satam Al Suqami, had become illegal after their visas expired. A third, Hani Hanjour, had a visa to study English, but failed to show up for class in Oakland, Calif.
"Just kind of disappeared in the country," Ryan said.
In 1996, Congress ordered the USCIS to set up a system to track aliens entering and leaving the country. A second nationwide data base would have kept track of foreign students.
Special interests derailed the systems. The Chamber of Commerce, Canadian officials, U.S. diplomats, immigration lawyers and travel executives complained that an entry-exit system would create long lines at the borders and slow commerce in border cities like Detroit.
Likewise, education groups objected to the foreign-student database because it could financially cripple some universities and stigmatize students.
But even with tracking systems, the USCIS admits it couldn't keep tabs on all the foreign visitors. With only 1,950 agents nationwide (fewer than the District of Columbia police force), they don't normally go after people on lapsed visas. They focus instead on aliens who commit more serious crimes.
"There are lots of priorities out there," Michael Becraft, acting deputy commissioner of the BCIS, told a congressional committee. "We have terrorists. We have criminal aliens. And we have had to prioritize in the past because we just don't have enough folks to go around."
USCIS Memo Details Protocol for Detaining Immigrants with No Links to Terrorism
By Norihiko Shirouzu
The Wall Street Journal
Thousands of men of Middle Eastern backgrounds asked in for questioning by the government could face detention if during their interviews they are found to have violated federal immigration law, according to a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service memo.
The memo says that if individuals who agree to cooperate in the Justice Department interviews are "suspected" of having committed civil violation of immigration law, they can be jailed and held like hundreds of others detained as witnesses or possible suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks. The interviews target 5,000 men as part of a nationwide terrorist investigation.
The memorandum dated last Friday, marked "Limited Official Use/Law Enforcement Sensitive" and sent out to USCIS regional directors, instructs field and regional USCIS managers to be ready to respond immediately to requests from federal and local law-enforcement agents conducting interrogations "in the event that civil violation of the immigration law is suspected." The directive was reported yesterday by the Detroit Free Press.
"Affirmative requests either by the [Federal Bureau of Investigation] or the United States Attorney's Office to detain immigration violators under ‘No Bond' should be honored and will be handled in the same manner as all prior cases with a direct nexus to the Sept. 11th investigation," the memo states.
Susan Dryden, a Justice Department spokeswoman in Washington, said officials must detain any immigration violators they come across because it is their duty to enforce laws. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Cares in Detroit, however, said the procedure suggested in the USCIS memo is "contrary" to how the U.S. Attorney's Office is planning to conduct the questioning.
Mr. Cares said "civil and administrative infractions" such as overstaying a tourist visa or working off-campus with a student visa, and what he called "technical" violations of immigration law, aren't going to trigger detention. But the USCIS will be duly notified of the violation after the interview, he said.
Hussein Ibish, a spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the Washington-based advocacy group is still encouraging people contacted by investigators to cooperate. But in light of the memo, Mr. Ibish said, the organization also has begun advising people to contact a lawyer before being interviewed. "I can't tell them to go ahead and throw caution to the wind," he said.
Mr. Ibish said his organization hadn't heard of any related detentions, but it has received a few calls from people who have been interviewed by investigators. He said their reactions were mixed. "For many people it has been very scary, and for others it has been an absolute breeze," he said.
U.S. Makes it Easier to Detain Foreigners
By David Firestone
The New York Times
The Justice Department has quietly expanded its power to detain foreigners, letting the government keep a foreigner behind bars even after a federal immigration judge has ordered him to be released for lack of evidence.
The change allows the Immigration and Naturalization Service to set aside any release order issued by an immigration judge in cases where the agency says it believes that a foreigner is a danger to the community or a flight risk.
To have such a ruling set aside, the service simply has to file a form that says it plans to appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. If that board orders the detainee released, the service can also set aside that order, under the new regulation, by taking the case to the attorney general.
Immigration lawyers, who represent many of the 1,100 noncitizens held after the attacks on Sept. 11, are furious about the new rule, saying it deprives the detainees of the fundamental right of bond hearings. At such hearings, analogous to bond proceedings in the criminal justice system, immigration judges weigh the evidence to decide whether a detainee should be allowed to be freed on bond. But now, no matter the outcome of those hearings, the government can continue to hold detainees by filing forms in one business day.
"With this rule change, the government can lock someone up on very little or even no evidence and throw away the key until they decide to let them go," said David W. Leopold, an immigration lawyer in Cleveland who represents the first aliens affected by the new rule, 11 Israelis who continued to be detained after a judge had ordered them released. "In effect, it just takes immigration judges out of the mix, bypassing their role entirely."
Two Israelis remain in custody.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it planned to challenge the rule in court as an unconstitutional violation of the right of due process for foreigners. The American Immigration Lawyers Association said the rule, along with actions that permit eavesdropping on detainees' conversation with their lawyers, violated constitutional protections.
Previously, the immigration service could set aside judges' rulings only in cases of clear-cut criminal activity, situations that are unusual because judges generally impose high or no bail in such cases.
The new rule, signed by Attorney General John Ashcroft on Oct. 26, went into effect on Oct. 29 with no public notice. It was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 31, eliminating the usual comment period before a federal rule takes effect. Mr. Ashcroft determined that swift action was necessary "to prevent the release of aliens who may pose a threat to national security."
The immigration service, part of the Justice Department, said the rule was necessary because the current system might require the release of aliens who pose security threats before the agency could present its case to the appeals board. Because of the heavy I.N.S. caseload, officials said, it is occasionally impossible to present all the necessary evidence to an immigration judge.
"It's not that we don't have the direct evidence, but in some cases we simply haven't had time to draft enough material to prepare a warrant," a spokeswoman for the agency, Karen Kraushaar, said.
Immigration lawyers said in many cases such evidence of terrorist links did not exist or was based on flimsy connections, like a similar last name to a hijacker or possession of a box cutter. In other cases, the government has refused to disclose its evidence to judges, citing national security reasons.
Immigration judges rarely release detainees when the government presents virtually any evidence of danger. But in the current cases, several judges have ordered releases because of a lack of evidence, over the objections of the immigration service.
The 220 immigration judges are Civil Service employees of the Justice Department. They were separated from the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1983 to strengthen their independence. Though the judges usually side with the immigration service on deportations, studies show that they frequently impose lower bail than the service requests in detention cases.
Some legal scholars say the new regulation stems from longstanding misgivings immigration service officials have about the judges.
"The immigration judges were intended to be a check on the I.N.S., a set of decision makers who were not beholden to the agency," said Margaret Taylor, a professor of law at Wake Forest University. "But within the I.N.S. is a fundamental mistrust of the immigration judges."
Supporters of the agency, however, say the new regulation is a natural outgrowth of the focus on terrorism. Richard Samp, chief counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, said that immigration judges might be inclined to release detainees when the government based its actions on classified information, but that the government had every right not to enter such information as evidence. "The attorney general has access to large amounts of classified evidence and has no interest in publicly disclosing it, which would happen in an administrative proceeding," said Mr. Samp, whose group has filed briefs to support the agency. "We don't think there's any constitutional problem with that. When you disclose you inform, you give terrorists a road map to American intelligence- gathering techniques."
The nation's chief immigration judge, Michael J. Creppy, declined a request for an interview. His spokesman, Richard Kenney, said Judge Creppy did not believe that the new rule undermined the authority or purpose of the immigration courts.
"This doesn't change the decision- making role of the judges," Mr. Kenney said. "It does mean that the execution is a little softer, and the I.N.S. gets more discretion."
Over the years, Congress has granted wide authority to the Justice Department to run the immigration system. The attorney general appoints the chief immigration judge and can change the detention rules by administrative order.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that foreigners do have some fundamental constitutional rights of due process. As recently as June, the court ruled that the government could not hold foreigners indefinitely, because they are "persons" under constitutional protection.
Civil libertarians said that the new rule violated the spirit of that decision. "Clearly there's a concern for security at the moment, and we recognize that," said Judy Rabinovitz, senior staff counsel for the immigrants' rights project of the A.C.L.U. "But we're concerned that they're taking advantage of the public mood to go too far. If you say you're going to ignore a judge's ruling because you disagree with it, it turns a bond hearing into a farce."