In the Air and on the Ground
Organizing against 9/11 INS Abuses
By Heba Nimr

INS is publicly prioritizing the arrest of so-called “criminal aliens” and “terrorists.” Narrowly defined, these are non-citizens with criminal convictions that make them deportable or people allegedly engaged in terrorist activity. However, INS is using this priority to target and arrest large numbers of people who are undocumented or have minor immigration problems.

The INS, with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, has been questioning and detaining unknown numbers of Arabs and Central and South Asians living in the U.S. No one detained by the INS since September 11 has been charged with actual involvement in terrorist activity. Yet, when announcing the creation of the Homeland Defense Department, which under his proposal includes INS, President Bush declared that the homeland defense coalition already in existence “has hauled in about 2,400 of these terrorists, these killers.” The government has yet to account for how many have been detained, deported, and/or under what charges.

INS is also escalating worksite enforcement in “national security” industries. Service workers affiliated – sometimes remotely – with airports were initially targeted under Operation Tarmac. Adapting this model, INS is to proceed with “Operation Glowworm,” targeting workers affiliated with nuclear power facilities, and will almost certainly target other industries that could be identified as security-related, such as other transportation systems, public utilities and perhaps the food and health care industries.

In the name of “protecting” workers from exploitive employers and preventing trafficking by terrorist organizations, INS has also targeted “alien smuggling pipelines.” Such operations have involved the arrests of hundreds of Mexican and Central Americans traveling by bus and air.

Community Organizing against INS Abuses

In New York and New Jersey, where many of the initial post 9/11 detainees were held, DRUM (Desi’s Rising Up and Moving) have continued their ongoing efforts to expose INS enforcement and detention abuses and support the families and communities being targeted by INS. In the various cities where Operation Tarmac raids have happened, defense and support committees have formed to assist the workers caught up in the sweeps and draw public attention to the harmful effects of the INS raids. Some of these groups are working together to try and develop “toolkits” that can be used to educate workers in areas and industries that have not yet been hit by the raids. Campaigns have also arisen in support of particular pro-Palestine activists detained by INS in the last few months. Various local and national bodies have been speaking out about the dangers of local police involvement in immigration enforcement. And, various cities – Ann Arbor, MI, Cambridge, MA, and San Francisco, CA, -- have passed resolutions condemning INS abuses and call for upholding due process for non-citizens.

Heba Nimr is the Soros Justice Fellow at INS Watch, a project of La Raza Centro Legal, in San Francisco, California.