By Haider Rizvi
New York, Aug 22 2003 (IPS)

"Look at him. I don’t understand why they are punishing this innocent one," says Rukhsana Saeed, pointing to her infant son who cries in her lap, his small hands holding a plastic bottle filled with milk.

Separated from her husband for more than 10 years, Saeed, a mother of three, came to the United States in April last year, but within 12 months the couple were separated again.

"This all happened in March this year. They raided our apartment in the morning. My husband woke me up. He was crying. He said to me, ‘please protect me. They are going to put me in jail’," she says, tears constantly rolling down her cheeks.

"I said, ‘how could I protect you’? I just cried and cried. The kids were crying too … but they took him away."

Saeed’s husband was no hardened criminal, and he had no links to any terrorist organisation. He was simply one of the millions of economic immigrants who come to the ”land of the free” dreaming of prosperity and a bright future for their children, say neighbours and lawyers familiar with the family’s plight.

Sitting in a shady apartment that immigrant rights activists have converted into what they call a ”legal clinic”, located in one of New York’s working-class neighbourhoods, Ms. Saeed admits that her husband lived in the United States on fake documents but adds, ”he worked hard. He was a good father."

"This is happening in clear violation of the U.S. constitution. This is a policy of discrimination and bias towards Muslim and Arab immigrants, who have nothing to do with the terrorist acts of the Sep. 11,” says Bobby Khan, an organiser at the Coney Island Project, a group providing legal help to the families of immigrants who are in detention or expect to be deported.

Beginning last year, the Department of Homeland Security ordered adult males from 24 Arab and Muslim countries (and North Korea) to visit immigration offices to be fingerprinted, photographed and interrogated, or face deportation and criminal prosecution.

Hundreds of people who answered that call were detained. They were reportedly kept in overcrowded cells and many were denied food, sleep and necessary medicine. Among those arrested and jailed were large numbers who had properly applied for visas, but whose paperwork was pending.

"Many of these people applied to adjust their immigration status under the ‘safe harbour’ provision, a programme designed to keep families together, which was strongly supported by President George W. Bush," said a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the oldest U.S. civil rights group.

Immigration officials say more than 13,000 men (about 16 percent of those who answered the "special registration") are likely to be deported. But they admit that only a few of those men have been linked to terrorism.

”The dramatic rise in deportations is a side effect, not an objective of the registration programme,” Bill Srassberger, a Homeland Security spokesman told the ‘Washington Post’ newspaper in July.

"Any time an immigration officer comes into contact with someone who is unlawfully present, they do have a responsibility to place that person in deportation proceedings."

But activists say the process creates a deportation trap for immigrants. "It is causing a lot of fear and apprehension," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in a statement. "It creates a sense of being besieged."

"I fear they are going to deport me in October," Mian Ahmed, a 48-year-old Pakistani immigrant who works at a New York area grocery store told IPS. "I have been waiting for work authorisation for the past two years. But so far there has been no word from the labour department. I don’t know what to do."

Sitting next to Rukhsana Saeed at the legal clinic is a young Pakistani man who is equally frustrated and fearful. Sajjad (who refused to give his last name), 26, says he has been in the country for about 18 years. His authorisation has been pending since late 1980s, but now he has been served with deportation orders.

According to government statistics, about 13,000 people from Middle Eastern and Muslim countries are deported annually, but that number has more than doubled after the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.

More than 5,000 Pakistanis have also fled the United States for Canada since 9/11, said a report this week in the ‘Philadelphia Inquirer’ newspaper.

Among nations included in the special registration were: Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Khan says his group has come into contact with the families of about 300 detainees and more than 200 deportees. "Many of these people have been cheated by the immigration authorities because they were not properly informed about the procedures," he says.

Saeed says it has become increasingly hard to feed and clothe her children since her husband was deported. Two of her elder children, who are enrolled in a local public school, keep asking when their father will return.

"I don’t know to what to tell them. I just make false promises to them."

Holding an eviction notice from the landlord, she is also worried about losing the family’s one-bed room apartment, but says she cannot telephone her husband in Pakistan, because, "I have to choose between a long-distance phone card and the food for my kids."

She sees no future for her children in Pakistan; the infant is a U.S. citizen. ”There’s poverty, guns and sectarian violence in the city I came from. I just dream … I just pray to God that one day Saeed will be back among us. I don’t understand why they separated us."

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