| Date |
Summary of Change |
Impacts |
09.18.01 |
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issues new “administrative
order” expanding the time the INS may detain
immigrants from
24 to 48 hours, or for any other “reasonable” period
of time under “extraordinary circumstances”, before
having to charge them with an immigration violation. Attorney General
Ashcroft orders INS to take into custody “aliens who have
violated the law and may pose a threat to America”. |
To date, more than 1200 mostly Middle Eastern immigrants have
been arrested. Department of Justice (DOJ)
admits to holding 460 people for immigration violations having
no connection to terrorism
eg expired visas, and charging another 117 immigrants with crimes
unrelated to the attacks, including failure to file changes of
address. Some waited in jail for weeks, even months, before being
charged, despite INS’ 48-hour rule. Many more were detained
and released, often on condition that they leave the U.S., so the
actual number of detainees is hard to calculate. Almost 100 were
ordered deported or agreed to leave the U.S. but remained detained
in violation of rule that anyone ordered deported must be removed
within 90 days. Many detainees signed waivers forfeiting the right
to contact their consulate, retain legal counsel or have a deportation
hearing because they were told that if they waived these rights
their cases would be processed more quickly. In August ‘02,
the DC District Court ruled in favor of advocates’ lawsuit
and held that the government must at least reveal the names of
the hundreds of persons arrested. DOJ condemned the judge's ruling
as a threat to national security. |
|
“Operation Safe Travel”; “Operation Tarmac”:
sweeps and audits at airports in L.A., Salt Lake City, Denver,
Portland, Las Vegas, Anchorage, and Miami have resulted in criminal
indictments for possession of false docs and/or making false statements
to obtain a SSN, detentions, deportations, and firings. The government
claims it needs "to make sure that the employers are following
proper immigration policies. ... It's critical to the nation's
security". |
SEE SEPARATE CHART PREPARED BY INS WATCH/LA RAZA CENTRO LEGAL
IN SAN FRANCISCO, CA. |
09.21.01 |
DOJ instructs its immigration judges (IJs) to keep “Sept.
11-related” (officially described as based on FBI or other
investigative tips) bond and deportation hearings
closed. Hearings
are to be conducted in secret with "no visitors, no family,
and no press" present, and the "record of the proceeding
[are] not to be released to anyone", including "confirming
or denying whether such a case is on the docket or scheduled for
a hearing." The rule was based on a regulation predating Sept.
11 that provides immigration hearings "shall be open to the
public," but permits judges to close them "to protect
witnesses, parties or the public interest." |
Thus far, no closed hearing has involved classified or secret
evidence.On 01.29.02, the ACLU filed lawsuit against this policy: "The
Justice Department's policy of blanket secrecy is unconstitutional
and incompatible with the values of a free society." On 08.23.02,
after a series of lower court rulings declaring secret hearings
unconstitutional and a violation of the 1st amendment, the 6th
Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed those rulings, marking the first
appellate level ruling against the Administration's actions since
9/11. |
09.31.01 |
Ashcroft issues rule allowing the monitoring
of attorney-client communications without a court order when there is “reasonable
suspicion” that the contact is facilitating terrorist acts. |
"The effect of this rule is achieved by the simple threat
of monitoring. The mere chance that the communication may be monitored
is enough to silence the most cooperative defendant.” |
10.26.01 |
Bush signs the USA PATRIOT Act which substantially
expands the government’s ability to investigate and detain
citizens and non-citizens, including giving “certifying” for
itself the authority to hold people indefinitely without charges
and giving law enforcement easier access to American’s personal
lives. |
To date, certification process has not been utilized. DOJ is
also required to develop an entry-exit tracking system by 2005
to monitor the whereabouts of all non-immigrants entering the U.S.
Increased student visa monitoring outlined in Bush’s homeland
security policy memo issued on Oct 29 which calls for DOS and INS “to
curb abuse of student visas” incl limiting access to “sensitive
courses of study”, and increasing data reporting by universities
incl all courses taken by students and their sources of funding. |
10.31.01 |
Ashcroft publishes new rule, made effective Oct 29,
that INS can, by filing an intent to appeal, continue to detain
an immigrant even after an IJ has ordered his/her release for lack
of evidence. Serves as an “automatic stay” of
release order. |
Regulation is being utilized and, in effect, results in indefinite
detention. |
11.09.01 |
Ashcroft issues memo ordering the questioning
of 5k mostly Middle Eastern immigrants. Although “voluntary”,
investigators have been instructed to check immigration status
and hold those with any immigration violations. |
In some parts of the country, local and federal LEA are going
door-to-door looking for Middle Eastern men who didn't respond
to request to “voluntarily” come in for questioning. |
11.09.01 |
Bush signs Executive Order for military
tribunals for non-citizens, to be held in secret and with no right to attorney. |
|
11.14.01 |
Ashcroft publishes regulation allowing the AG to
invoke “special circumstances'' such as terrorism, national
security, danger to the community and health reasons as bases for
keeping foreign nationals with final orders of deportation in indefinite
custody. |
Regulation is government’s attempt to circumvent the US
Supreme Court decision (Zadvydas) limiting to six months the time
that immigrants with final orders of deportation can be detained. |
11.19.01 |
Federal Aviation Authority decides to require US
citizenship for airport security screeners, which include baggage
and passenger screeners. |
Out of 28k screeners nationwide, as many as 10k are thought to
be immigrants. By the time the court ruled in favor of lawsuit
challenging this requirement, laid off immigrant workers had been
replaced. Their names are on a re-hiring waiting list. |
11.29.01 |
Ashcroft announces the “Responsible Cooperators
Program”, promising immigrants that, for the right information,
they would get help with visas and other immigration matters. |
|
12.06.01 |
INS announces plans to compile list of over 300k
immigrants with outstanding orders of deportation and enter into
the National Crime Information Center database for local LEA to
access so police can help track them down. Estimates are that it
will take about a year to compile list.
Known as the “Absconder
Apprehension Initiative”.
Immigrants with outstanding orders
of deportation include those who failed to appear at their hearing
either intentionally or without knowledge of the hearing because
they either never received notice or were not advised of it by
their legal service provider. Note also that some immigrants
are put in
deportation proceedings as a result of improper filings by inadequate
or unscrupulous service providers. |
By early January, DOJ had identified about 6k Middle Eastern
men whose names will be entered into the database first. Authorities
have given their arrest top priority, with 1k of these targeted
for arrest beginning week of 02.18.02. Their arrest and removal
will be carried out by regional “apprehension teams” composed
of FBI, INS, U.S. attys and Marshals. INS 01.25.02 implementation
memo instructs the “apprehension teams” to find methods
of detaining immigrants for possible criminal charges, rather than
merely expelling them from the U.S. as previously planned; “.
. . these are criminal fugitives from deportation [and] are to
be apprehended and treated as criminal suspects…”In
early February, INS announced that the names of 110,000 Central
Americans with final orders of deportation and TPS will not be
added to the database. |
12.21.01 |
“Smart Borders Agreement” with Canada is signed: allows armed US Customs agents to be posted in Canada,
creates jointly operated Customs facilities at remote border crossings,
allows US Customs agents to carry firearms at those facilities
(Canadian Customs agents are not armed), calls for joint scrutiny
of refugee applications, the co-ordination of visa policies, common
security features on traveler ID cards, the sharing of information
about airline passengers, joint immigration databases, and the
pre-clearance of land goods away from the border. |
Sets unprecedented co-operation to tighten continental security
while speeding cross-border trade. Most important to Canada was
the land goods provision (87% of its exports are to the US). Business
hailed the Agreement as a major step toward the creation of a North
American security and trade perimeter. Notable how quickly this
deal was made. US now negotiating Agreement’s expansion into
Mexico. |
01.02.02 |
Starting this month as a pilot at San Francisco,
Newark and Miami international airports, the government will begin
comparing the foreign travelers who stand before them to authentic digitized
photographs taken when they applied to enter the U.S.
On 06.15.02, the practice was expanded to the more than 300 U.S.
ports of entry. |
The joint INS-State Department data-sharing program, “DataShare”,
was launched in 1995 but the computer system was made 17 times
bigger than it was before Sept. 11. The database, which previously
could authenticate the more than 400,000 immigrant visas issued
annually, now includes the more than 7 million nonimmigrant visas
issued each year to foreign students, tourists and temporary workers. |
01.31.02 |
In a rebuke to Ashcroft, the nation's immigration
judges are asking Congress to remove their courts from control
of the DOJ, noting that the judges should not be in the same department
as the "enforcement agency that is initiating the proceedings
against the alien." |
"The taint of inherent conflict of interests caused by housing
the Immigration Court within the DOJ is insidious and pervasive," the
IJ union's report says. This is the first time the 220 judges have
taken a public stand on an issue since their union was created
23 years ago. |
02.03.02 |
Bush releases his FY 2003 proposed
budget. Included
is a $1.2 billion increase in INS’ budget, bringing it to
$6.3 billion. The bulk of the increases are allocated for enforcement: "building
greater homeland security and combating terrorism." |
|
02.19.02 |
Following stmnts by Ashcroft that the Board of Immigration
Appeals (BIA), which hears appeals of IJ decisions, is “too
liberal”, DOJ publishes proposed rules that would make major
changes to the BIA. New rules would change the current practice
of 3-judge panels to single-judge review except in certain cases.
An appeal would first go before a "screening panel," where
a single member would decide if the case is to be reviewed by the
Brd. The introduction and consideration of new evidence in Brd
proceedings would be prohibited, and the number of BIA judges would
be reduced from its current 23 to 11. After only one month for
public comments on such a major proposal, these rules became final
on 08.26 and are effective 09.25.02. |
According to the L.A. Times, the proposed rule was based on an
audit of a pilot program for streamlining the BIA. The audit was
performed by Anderson (yes, the Enron accountants). Like Enron,
Anderson proclaimed the streamlining program an "unqualified
success." In responding to the due process concerns raised
in the public comments, DOJ stated: “[T]he AG could dispense
with the appellate review process in immigration proceedings…The
Brd acts on the AG’s behalf, rather than as an independent
body.” However, Brd has had such power for over 40 years,
all previous AGs have acknowledged this, and there is much BIA
and fed. crt. case law on point, including one case in which the
INS complained about this, but the Board - and the AG - agreed
that the Board had such power. |
03.04.02 |
Through a cooperative agreement between DOJ and Department
of Defense, the National Guard will assist the INS on the Northern
and Southern borders for up to six months, including providing
approximately 700 military personnel along the 2 borders, administrative
and air operations support. |
Officials are calling this the largest activation of the service
since the Korean War. |
04.03.02 |
DOJ Office of Legal Counsel issues opinion that local
law enforcement agencies have “inherent authority” to
enforce immigration laws. |
|
04.08.02 |
INS proposes to reduce tourist
stays from 6 mo’s
to 30 days. |
|
04.25.02 |
SSA announces it will issue 800,000 “no-match” letters
to companies that employ nearly 7 million people whose Social Security
numbers don't match their names. In previous years, 100,000 of
these have been sent. |
SSA officials acknowledge that most of those 7 million mismatches
are the result of simple typos. A study released earlier this year
by the agency's Office of Inspector General found that more than
100,000 immigrants obtained Social Security cards in 2000 by using
fake documents. |
Spring ‘02 |
Members of Somali community report that they have
received phone calls from the INS asking them to come in and “sign
some papers.” When they went in, they were detained by the
INS and told that they would be deported. DOJ institutes fast -track
plans to deport Somalis with immigration violations as part of
the war on terrorism. Proceedings initiated in Seattle, Minnesota
and Louisiana. |
On 12.09.02, injunction issued in class action lawsuit, halting
all deportations until at least 01.10.03. The judge noted that
many Somalis facing deportation came to the U.S. lawfully and that
their immigration violations amounted to misdemeanors. This war-ravaged
East African homeland has not had a unified government since 1991.
About 2,800 Somalis nationwide are covered. |
05.14.02 |
Bush signs the Enhanced Border Security and Visa
Entry Reform Act. |
|
05.15.02 |
INS issues memo re new “increased security
checks” for persons replacing or renewing green cards |
|
05.28.02 |
DOJ publishes interim reg which authorizes immigration
judges to issue protective orders and seal records relating to
law enforcement or national security information. |
The rule will apply to all proceedings before the immigration
court, known as the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR). |
06.06.02 |
Without consulting Congress, AG announces proposed
regulations creating a Nat’l Security Entry/Exit Registration
System (NSEERS) for certain non-immigrant visa holders seeking
to enter the U.S.. These regs, which became final on 08.12.02 and
go into effect on 09.11.02, require non-immigrants from certain
countries and certain other non-immigrants who meet secret criteria
to be fingerprinted and photographed as they enter the country,
and to report to the INS after 30 days and at one year intervals.
Effective 10.01.02, departures must be registered and may only
be done through one of the designated ports of entry. This is the
first phase in the entry-exit tracking system mandated by Congress. |
This “Special Registration” applies to non-immigrants
from Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan, with additional countries to
be announced. The info that must be provided by persons subject
to this rule was not specified. A non-immigrant can be subject
to this requirement because an inspections officer at a port of
entry has "reason to believe" that the visitor meets "pre-existing
criteria", criteria that DOJ states will not be released to
the public.Syria was added on Aug 13. INS confidential memo dated
Sept 5 added Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as any individuals
who’ve made “unexplained trips to Iran, Iraq, Libya,
Sudan, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen,
Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, Indonesia, or Malaysia”. |
06.26.02 |
Administration announces proposal for new Department
of Homeland Security, which would include INS (enforcement, services
and the EOIR) in its largest division, Border and Transportation
Security. Neither the FBI nor CIA would be part of Homeland Security. |
The House has countered with a bill which leaves services in
the DOJ but move enforcement to Homeland Security. The Senate is
looking at a bill that transfers all immigration functions to Homeland
Security but puts them in their own division, separating enforcement
from services within this fifth division. |
07.02.02 |
Utilizing an obscure provision of IIRAIRA which allows
the INS to "deputize" local or state police, FLA became
the first state to sign an MOU with DOJ that will allow certain state law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws. |
Until now, local and state police sometimes helped the INS with
transportation or security when it was conducting a raid. But they
could not make arrests on civil immigration violations. |
07.12.02 |
The Social Security Administration announced that
it will check all non-citizen applicants for
social security numbers against the INS "SAVE" database to verify eligibility.
There is also talk of creating a system for cooperation between
the SSA and the INS. |
Social Security has cooperated with the investigations at airports
across the nation. |
07.26.02 |
Proposed regs published re implementation of a 50-year-old
requirement that foreigners, including undocumented, must alert
the government within 10 days when they change
addresses. The INS
proposes to amend all of its application forms to contain the notice
of obligation to provide a current address. Note also that failure
to do so is a misdemeanor, punishable by a $200 fine and/or up
to 30 days in prison. |
A possible consequence of willful failure to register under this
law is deportation. By amending its forms, INS feels it would resolve
a problem it has had in deporting immigrants in absentia. Note
that regs not needed for law to be implemented; regs are just to
amend their forms. “The requirements...have been in effect
for many years and a lack of publicity about specific enforcement
of the provision does not change the legal effect of the requirements." It
has been reported that 200,000 change-of-address cards sit in boxes
in an underground storage facility in Missouri. |
07.24.02 |
Final regs published re local LEA authority to enforce
civil immigration laws when the AG declares an immigration emergency
due to an “actual or imminent mass influx of aliens arriving
off the coast of the US or near a land border.” |
See 04.03.02 note re DOJ still-unreleased memo. |
08.16.02 |
INS Commissioner James Ziglar announces that he is
resigning as head of agency. |
|
09.22.02 |
State Dept, at Congressional insistence, announces
that it will stop shredding the losing diversity
visa lottery entries “so
that unsuccessful entries will be shared with law enforcement and
intelligence agencies if they decide they are useful”. |
Entries include personal information such as name, date and place
of birth, and a photo. |
11.06.02 |
Effective Nov 15, the Special
Registration program
is expanded to males age 16 and older already
in the U.S. from
the 5 designated countries who entered on or b/4 09.10.02 and will
remain at least until 12.16.02. Authorities estimate 10,000 people
are affected (LA Times, 12.15.02). |
Deadline for in-person “call-in” registration is
12.16.02. Failure to comply without a reasonable excuse may result
in criminal prosecution and/or deportation. INS will ask the men
for information including detailed family and work histories, credit
card and telephone numbers. This program does not apply to LPRs,
asylees or those with asylum apps pending since 11.06.02 or before. |
11.13.02 |
Expansion of expedited removal announced in Fed’l
Register to now also apply to persons who have already entered
the US and have been here less than two years continuously. |
Expedited removal was created by IIRAIRA in ’96 and enables
INS to immediately deport persons arriving at ports of entry who
do not have proper travel documents or whose travel documents are
suspected to be fraudulent. |
11.22.02 |
Effective 12.02.02, DOJ adds 13 additional
countries to the Special
Registration program: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain,
Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia,
the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Must report by 01.10.03 if
entered on or b/4 09.30.02 and will remain at least until 01.10.03.
Authorities are estimating that 100,000 persons will have to register
(Bradenton Herald, FLA 12.14.02). |
This brings total number of impacted countries to 17 Muslim countries
and North Korea, with the notable absence on the list of Saudi
Arabia and Egypt, strategically important American allies, and
also home to all but one of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Immigration
attorneys across the country are beginning to report some arrests
at INS offices (valid EAD based on pending LPR app). |
11.25.02 |
Former federal prosecutor Michael Garcia is named
as Acting Commissioner of INS, having handled terrorism-related
cases such as the ‘93 World Trade Center bombing, and the
prosecution of four defendants charged with conspiring with Osama
bin Laden in the bombing of two American embassies in East Africa. |
Ashcroft said, "I welcome the President's choice of Michael
Garcia to shepherd the INS into the new Department of Homeland
Security, with its central mission to keep our nation safe from
future acts of terrorism. Mr. Garcia is one of America's top terrorism
prosecutors and will lead tough enforcement of our immigration
laws to protect Americans from terrorism and secure our homeland." |
12.11.02 |
INS publishes final rules implementing the Student
and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) which imposes reporting
requirements by non-immigrant students and the collection of information
by their schools. Schools must begin implementing this program
on 01.30.03 and have until 08.30.03 to complete all records for
current students. This includes elementary and secondary students.
INS waived privacy requirements imposed on schools. |
Legal bases for this program are IIRIRA, PATRIOT and the Enhanced
Border Security and Visa Reform Act. Information to be reported
includes student’s and dependent’s change of address
or name, any changes in field of study, extension of a program,
dropping below a full course of study, start date of student’s
next session or term, graduating early or prior to program end
date. |
12.16.02 |
Three more countries added to the Special
Registration program: Saudi Arabia, Armenia and Pakistan. By the end of the
day, Armenia was reported to have been removed from the list. On
01.16.03, an extension was granted to the first two registration
groups (from Jan. 27 to Feb. 7), and five more countries were added:
Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Bangladesh, who will have
between Feb. 24 until March 28 to register. |
As of 01.12.03, about 550 in Southern Californian alone had been
arrested; all but about 20 were released. A total of 2,327 men
showed up for registration in L.A. over the course of the two registrations.
Nationwide, 15,000 men had registered, far more than the expected
10,200. Nationwide on 01.10.03, there were 150 "temporary
detentions," and seven were detained indefinitely because
they had criminal records. 500 people were detained nationwide
during the first deadline, 400 in L.A. alone. INS estimated there
were 3,000 and 7,200 visitors subjected to the first two rounds,
respectively, but visitors from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia number
an estimated 20,000 nationwide. The L.A. area has the nation's
largest populations of Iranian-born and Syrian-born residents as
well as the largest Lebanese-born population. The largest concentration
of Pakistanis is in the New York City area. (St Louis Post) The
Pakistani population in the U.S., about 100,000, is the largest
in number of all the countries on the registration list thus far.
As of 01.19.03, 1,200 registrants have been put in deportation
proceedings. |
01.03.03 |
DOJ proposes regs requiring every person who enters
or leaves the country to provide detailed information that will
be sent electronically to gov’t for matching against security
databases. This marks first time U.S. citizens
will be required to fill out forms detailing their comings and goings. |
|
01.10.03 |
INS states that a suspension
on approvals of permanent residence and citizenship applications
has been lifted. The INS
said problems with FBI fingerprint checks have been resolved, and
approvals of adjustment of status and naturalization applications
are proceeding. |
|
04.08.03 |
NY Times reports that Congressional Republicans,
working with the White House, are maneuvering to make the Patriot
Act permanent. |
When it passed in Oct ’01, Congressional moderates agreed
to support it only by making some critical provisions temporary.
Those provisions will expire, or “sunset”, at the end
of ‘05 unless Congress reauthorizes them. Note that none
of the immigration-related provisions are covered by the sunset
provision. |
04.25.03 |
“In a decision that further hardens U.S. immigration
policy” (USA Today), Ashcroft concludes that undocumented
immigrants can be held indefinitely without bond when national
security is at risk. This decision comes as a direct response to
the case of a Haitian refugee whose release on bond pending a decision
on his asylum request was upheld by the BIA. DOJ objects to his
release on grounds that it could trigger mass migration from Haiti
and present national security risks. |
This action is also significant because it is the first immigration-related
decision made by the AG since authority for immigration policy
was transferred from Ashcroft’s DOJ to the Dept of Homeland
Security. Ashcroft stated that he retains authority and “broad
discretion” to make “controlling determinations” on
legal questions related to immigration law. |