Special Registration for Arab Immigrants May Stop

The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to abandon a visitor-registration program that primarily affects Muslim men and caused widespread confusion and protests earlier this year after thousands of people who complied were arrested or ordered deported, according to several government officials.

The decision comes at the start of a second round of registration for men from 25 predominantly Muslim nations. Immigration lawyers and advocates have said the requirement to register again has been poorly publicized by the government and will put tens of thousands of visitors at risk for deportation proceedings. Critics also argue that the system has alienated law-abiding visitors while doing little to protect national security.

Government sources familiar with deliberations on the special registration system said a decision to end the program is likely and could be announced within days.

Homeland Security spokesman Bill Strassberger and other officials said a new border-control effort set to begin Jan. 5, the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program (U.S. VISIT), will play a similar role in monitoring visitors. The program will use photographs and fingerprints to log entries and exits at major U.S. airports and seaports.

"We are continuing to evaluate the effectiveness of the special registration program, to determine if it is meeting efficiency goals and national security needs," Strassberger said.

The program prompted protests in Muslim communities across the United States after it was implemented late last year, in part because the early rounds of registration resulted in hundreds of unexpected arrests. Many Muslims saw the effort as another attempt to single them out and remove them as part of the government crackdown that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

An unknown number of visitors refused to comply, risking arrest and deportation if they are discovered. Still others returned to their countries or sought asylum in Canada. The foreign minister of Pakistan warned that the program could provoke a backlash that would bolster the cause of Islamic extremists in that country.

Immigration officials said the government has an obligation to keep track of visitors to the United States and a right to remove those who have overstayed the terms of their visas or are otherwise out of status.

Nearly 14,000 foreign nationals who showed up to be fingerprinted and photographed for the registration were placed in deportation proceedings. Authorities also have said the effort resulted in the identification of dozens of criminals and seven people with possible ties to terrorism. More than 83,000 visitors were registered.

In addition to criticism from immigration advocates and Muslim groups, the program was the focus of debate within the Bush administration. The approach was implemented by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and the Justice Department, which at the time oversaw the immigration service and border police. Immigration matters have since been transferred to the new Homeland Security Department, where many officials view the special registration program as ineffective and a waste of limited resources.

Immigration advocates said the registration program was poorly conceived and never should have been implemented. "The real question all along has been 'What is the purpose of this system?' " said Crystal Williams, liaison director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "There has never been a clear answer to that. It looks like a trap. It's a game of gotcha, a real bait-and-switch."

A little-noticed part of the program requires that those who remain in the country a year later register again within 10 days of the anniversary of their first appointment. Immigration advocates said that few visitors who registered during the first round are aware of the requirement to register again, although Arab American groups have begun to publicize it. Lawyers complain that many registrants were not informed of the requirement when they first registered and that the Homeland Security Department has made little effort to publicize the rules since then.

"Most people, especially foreign visitors, don't read the Federal Register when they wake up in the morning," said David Leopold, an immigration lawyer in Cleveland. "People are being set up to fail. There is a complete failure to communicate information."

The American Civil Liberties Union complained in an Oct. 30 letter to immigration officials that "we are not aware of any meaningful efforts undertaken by the Department of Homeland Security to publicize these impending deadlines or any of the other requirements that may be applicable to persons who registered."

Strassberger and other immigration officials dispute many of those complaints, saying that all visitors received information when they registered about the need to sign up again a year later.

Now, he said, officials are examining whether another round of registration is necessary given the new measures about to be implemented at airports and seaports. That effort will also effectively replace a separate program that registered more than 90,000 immigrants over the past year at border checkpoints.

The program was set up with a series of rolling deadlines. The first registrations began Nov. 15, 2002, for visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria — countries that the State Department has designated sponsors of terrorism. Authorities said they do not know how many people from those countries have re-registered this year, noting that they have until Nov. 25 to do so but that many have probably left the country.