US Justice Department officials on Monday defended their decision to detain for months more than 750 illegal immigrants in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and said similar powers were still being used to hold suspected terrorists.
"Since they are here illegally, you err on the side of enforcing the law and locking them up," a senior Justice Department official said in response to a critical report on Monday from the department's inspector general, an independent agency watchdog. "We don't apologise at all for detaining these people until it could be resolved whether they were involved in terrorism."
The report is likely to raise new questions about how far US authorities should be able to stretch the law in carrying out terrorism investigations, particularly in a country long known for tolerating illegal immigrants.
US law allows the detention and subsequent deportation of illegal immigrants, though they were rarely jailed before September 11 2001. Usually they were informed of the charges against them and then deported as quickly as possible.
But in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the report says, the law was used as a thin pretext for rounding up about 1,200 people suspected of terrorist links. Pakistanis comprised the biggest group of detainees, with 254, even though no Pakistanis were involved in the September 11 hijackings.
One detainee was arrested after a neighbour raised questions about a 24-hour grocery store run by "numerous Middle Eastern men". Another was detained after dropping off at a photo store a roll of film containing pictures of the World Trade Center towers.
Others were seized almost at random by FBI investigators following leads, the report said. One FBI agent told the inspector general's office that "no distinction generally was made between the subjects of the lead and any other individuals encountered at the scene 'incidentally', because the FBI wanted to be certain that no terrorist was inadvertently set free".
The individuals were jailed under provisions that allow illegal aliens to be held for at least 90 days, or longer if they are the subject of a terrorism investigation. But the Justice Department went further, refusing bail to those detained and insisting they be cleared of any suspicions of terrorism before being released. Even so, more than 40 per cent were not charged within three days with immigration violations, as the law requires, and the government blocked their efforts to obtain lawyers or to contact families.
The US continues to use immigration laws aggressively as a tool to weed out suspected terrorists. More than 2,700 people have been detained under a programme requiring all male visa holders from two dozen mostly Muslim countries to register with US authorities.
An FBI official said the crackdown was one reason there had been no further attacks.
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