Category: Immigration

From the NY Times: Tens of thousands of pieces of mail come into the huge Immigration and Naturalization Service data processing center in Laguna Niguel, Calif., every day, and as at so many government agencies, it tends to pile up. One manager there had a system to get rid of the vexing backlog, federal officials… Continue reading INS gets rid of backlog

I can tell you a lot of horror stories of INS bungling, but I’ll desist for now and point out a post on Ginger Stampley’s blog. She is one of the few bloggers who knows something about immigration issues. It’s difficult for an alien to follow the law when nobody knows what it is, and… Continue reading INS Problems

AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association) has the list of standard questions being asked of all special registrants. Seems fairly innocuous.

The Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Javed Ashraf Qazi, met with Ashcroft regarding the special registration of Pakistanis by INS. [The Ambassador] asked Ashcroft to allow Pakistani nationals to take advantage of a general amnesty announced by the Clinton administration in 2000. Qazi also demanded sympathetic treatment for those Pakistani students and workers who had… Continue reading Special Registration: Turning a blind eye to violations

From the Pakistan embassy website: What if my last entry to the United States was not legal (without inspection and admission), do I have to register? This category applies to those Pakistanis whose entry to the US was not on a valid visa and they crossed the border. No. The current Registration requirements apply only… Continue reading Special Registration Advice

A lot of people don’t have any idea of what special registration entails and how it is inconvenient to frequent travellers. Non-immigrants from mostly Muslim countries have to go through special registration at the airport as well as at INS offices. For the call-in special registration currently happening for Pakistanis and Saudis, here is what… Continue reading INS Special Registration Procedures

Suman Palit of the Kolkata Libertarian has two posts on the pros and cons of the special registration process: If I were a de-facto emigrant from Pakistan, like someone on a H1-B work visa or a F-1 student visa, or a J-1 exchange visa, or even a B-1 business traveller visa, I would be worried… Continue reading Special Registration: Pros and Cons

Iranians are protesting according to LA Times: In peaceful Irvine, where Iranians who fled the Ayatollah Khomeini established a tight-knit community of professionals and young families, the last thing anyone expected was to be tossed in jail. On Tuesday — the day after dozens of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries and Sudan were taken into… Continue reading Special Registration: Again

Here’s a news item from Reuters: Hundreds of Iranian and other Middle East citizens were in southern California jails on Wednesday after coming forward to comply with a new rule to register with immigration authorities only to wind up handcuffed and behind bars. Shocked and frustrated Islamic and immigrant groups estimate that more than 500… Continue reading Special Registration: PR Failure