The Road to Internment: Special Registration and Other Human Rights Violations of Arabs and Muslims in the United States
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THE ROAD TO INTERNMENT: SPECIAL REGISTRATION AND OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS OF ARABS AND MUSLIMS IN THE UNITED STATES Ty S. Wahab Twibell∗ Dust storms. Sweat days. Yellow people, Exiles. I am the mountain that kisses the sky in the dawning. I watched the day when these, your people, came into your heart. Tired. Bewildered. Embittered. ∗ The author is an attorney with The McCrummen Immigration Law Group, L.L.C. in Kansas City, Missouri. He is a member of American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration. He is a member of the bar in Missouri and Kansas. He received a national award, the Pro-Bono Attorney of the Year Award, from the American- Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) at the ADC’s 2004 Annual Convention in Arlington, Virginia, in part for the work involved in some of the cases discussed herein. The author would like to acknowledge and thank Malea Kiblan, a civil rights attorney in McLean, Virginia, for her invaluable mentoring and referral of many of the cases described in this article, which in large part made this article possible, including her ideas suggesting a relationship between Special Registration as a preparation for interning Arabs and the preparation of camps in Louisiana for this purpose. The author would like to thank Roger McCrummen for his mentorship and assistance with many of these cases, as well as Robin Goldfaden an attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project in California for joining as co-counsel for the brief in two of the Special Registration cases described herein. Her assistance was critical in formulating and assisting with the legal strategies for these cases over a course of over a year which led to successful resolution and dismissal of charges against the clients. See infra Part IV.K. None of this would be possible without the moral support and inspiration of my wife, Rima, during the two years it took to write this article and the three-year period in which these cases and my research took place. The author would also like to thank Professor Susan Akram at Boston University for her comments, ideas, and helpful references, particularly in regards to her and the work of others, such as David Cole, in discovering government plans to intern Arabs prior to 9/11. The author would also like to thank the following attorneys for their often critical assistance in the form of legal analysis, discussion, or comments with some of the concepts and observations in this article that were primarily in the form of assistance with the cases discussed in this article over a period of three years: Suzanne Gladney of Legal Aid of Western Missouri; Stephen Kirschbaum of Stephen M. Kirschbaum, LLC in Kansas City, Missouri; Roger McCrummen, Jonathan Willmoth, and Alexander Solorio with my law firm; Lauren Reinhold with the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas; Kareem Shora, Leila Laoudji, Carol Khawly, and Nawar Shora with the ADC in Washington, D.C.; Faith Nouri with Nouri Law Corporation in Los Alamitos, California; Malea Kiblan with Kiblan & Battles in McLean, Virginia; Atessa Chehrazi with Jackson & Hertogs, LLP in San Francisco, California; Crystal Williams with AILA in Washington, D.C.; Mazen Sukkar with the Law Offices of Sukkar, Arevalo, and Associates in Hollywood, Florida; Suzanne Brown with the Law Offices of Suzanne Brown, P.C. in St. Louis, Missouri; and Karen Pennington of the Law Office of Karen H. Pennington in Dallas, Texas. However, the ideas expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of any of those acknowledged above, nor of the shareholder and associates of The McCrummen Immigration Law Group, LLC. 408 Vermont Law Review [Vol. 29:407 I saw you accept their compassion, impassive but visible. Life of a thousand teemed within your bosom. Silently you received and bore them. Daily you fed them from your breast, Nightly you soothed them to forgetful slumber, Guardian and keeper of the unwanted. They say your people are wanton Sabateurs. Haters of white men. Spies. Yet I have seen them go forth to die for their only country, Help with the defense of their homeland, America. I have seen them look with beautiful eyes at nature. And know the pathos of their tearful laughter, Choked with enveloping mists of the dust storms, Pant with the heat of sweat-days; still laughing. Exiles. And I say to you these you harbor and those on the exterior, “Scoff if you must, but the dawn is approaching, When these, who have learned and suffered in silent courage; Better, wiser, for the unforgettable interlude of detention, Shall trod on free sod again, Side by side peacefully with those who sneered at the Dust storms. Sweat days. Yellow people, Exiles. —Manzanar by Michiko Mizumoto, Japanese American Relocation Center (circa 1942–45)1 1. Michiko Mizumoto, Manzanar, Japanese-American Relocation Center Records, Dept. of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University (circa 1942–45), available at http://www.densho.org/learning/spice/lesson4/4activity4-4handouts.PDF (last visited Nov. 7, 2004). DEBORAH GESENSWAY & MINDY ROSEMAN, BEYOND WORDS: IMAGES FROM AMERICA’S CONCENTRATION CAMPS 108–09 (1987). 2005] The Road to Internment 409 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The Road to Internment....................................................... 411 I. Thesis.................................................................................................... 419 II. The Discrimination and Persecution of Arabs and Muslims in the United States ............................................................................. 422 III. Special Registration: The Road to Internment ................................... 442 A. The Legal Authority and Logistics of Special Registration............. 443 B. Research and Reports of the Implementation of Special Registration...................................................................................... 446 IV. Experiences in the Field..................................................................... 454 A. Immediate Post-September 11th Aftermath..................................... 455 B. Universities as Sword and Shield of Arab and Muslim Students .... 460 1. The Shield: Protecting Students from INS “Cowboys Who Come to Scare the Crap out of the Students”.......................... 461 2. The Sword: Discriminating Against Arab and Muslim Students and Assisting in their Deportation............................ 462 C. FBI Interviews: “Voluntary” Questioning as Means to Deport Arabs & Muslims Rather than a Valid Law Enforcement Purpose.. 464 D. Abuse of Arab and Muslim Detainees............................................. 472 E. U.S. Attorney General Utilizing Criminal Prosecutorial Discrimination to Target Arabs and Muslims.................................. 475 F. Discriminatory Arrest, Harassment, and Deportation ...................... 477 G. U.S. Citizens with Muslim or Arab Spouses Falsely Accused of Fraudulent Marriages or Forced to Withdraw Immigrant Petitions. 480 H. Discriminating Against Arabs and Muslims at Local CIS Information Window ....................................................................... 482 I. Discriminating and Investigating Arabs and Muslims Applying for Permanent Residence ................................................................... 483 J. General Climate of Discrimination ................................................... 484 K. Special Registration Field Experience............................................. 485 1. Improper Registration of Arab and Muslim U.S. Citizens and Other Issues for Muslim U.S. Citizens............................. 487 2. Arabs and Muslims are Treated Differently Because of the Logistics of Special Registration ...................................... 489 3. Continued ICE Targeting of Arabs and Muslims After Two Special Registration Requirements are Suspended................. 491 V. U.S. Government Defense of Special Registration ............................. 501 A. Analysis of Attorney General Response to Comments on Special Registration in the Federal Register ................................................ 502 B. The Attorney General’s Defense of Special Registration ................ 507 410 Vermont Law Review [Vol. 29:407 VI. The Fallacy of Discriminating on the Basis of Race, Ethnicity, or Religion.............................................................................................. 527 A. Historical Failure of Discrimination in Protecting National Security............................................................................................ 527 B. Alienation of Arab and Muslim Communities................................. 532 C. Deportation Can Be a War Crime, and the Irony is that Discrimination Based on Nationality, Social Group, and Religion Can Be a Basis for Seeking Asylum ................................. 533 VII. Special Registration Paves the Road to Internment for Arabs and Muslims..................................................................................... 536 A. Special Registration and Census Data Utilized as Tracking System of Arabs and Muslims......................................................... 536 B. INS Contingency Plan for Interning Arabs and Muslims Prior to September 11th................................................................................. 538 C. The Dark Precedent of Racism and Continued Discrimination of Ethnic Minorities......................................................................... 540 1. The Japanese Experience .......................................................