Minority groups and federal agencies met at the US Attorney’s office in Seattle on January 26, 2012 as part of the quarterly community engagement roundtable organized by the office of civil rights and civil liberties (CRCL). Kareem Shora, head of community engagement at CRCL, described the roundtable as “a very informal conversation, but agenda driven. The idea is to try and answer as many questions as we can, gain an understanding of certain policies and work together on improving things in these areas.” Last held in Seattle in October, 2011, on the agenda this time were several issues raised by CAIR-WA in relation to the citizenship applications of Muslim applicants.
Below are the items raised by CAIR-WA along with the responses from the officials present:
1) A representative from the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) refused to meet with a complainant at the CAIR-WA office or with a CAIR-WA representative present and instead wanted to meet at a location without a CAIR-WA representative present. This meeting was to be with regard to a complaint filed with CRCL on behalf of the local Muslim man by CAIR-WA and which was then sent by CRCL to the OIG for review and is now subject to an open investigation by the OIG. Kareem responded that it was difficult to find out exactly what happened as the OIG couldn't share information until they wished to and that they have their own policies.
2) Various complaints have been received by CAIR-WA about delays in the citizenship application process for Muslim applicants without any explanations given. In response to this, District Director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Anne Arries Corsano said, “Most of our case loads are within processing times, some are lengthier than others. Once a case is out of processing time, you should contact the field office director where the case is pending. Some cases just take longer than others.” (This response was noted as unsatisfactory by CAIR-WA as many local Muslims have complained of their citizenship or green-card applications being delayed for months and sometimes years, reportedly due to the FBI “name-check” phase of the citizenship process. Many applicants have successfully sued to have their citizenship or green-card applications expedited after lengthy delays.)
3) Some citizenship applicants have had FBI agents contact them via phone or by a visit to their home or workplace, to interview them and CAIR-WA wanted to know if such interviews were now a part of the citizenship process. The USCIS District Director said that these interviews are not a part of the process and that if an FBI agent did interview someone in relation to their citizenship application, they should inform USCIS. CAIR-WA Director Arsalan Bukhari asked if the USCIS can contact FBI agents to cease such activity if these incidents were reported to the USCIS.
4) There have been complaints from applicants about questions from FBI agents about their political and religious beliefs during FBI interviews. The USCIS District Director responded that the immigration and nationality act has a number of provisions that render someone’s citizenship ineligible if they were part of an organization that may be terrorist or anarchic, so it would be necessary for such questions to be asked and they are present in the application form too. (This response was noted as unsatisfactory by CAIR-WA as first, according to the USCIS response above, there should not be FBI agents approaching citizenship/green card applicants to ‘interview’ them, and secondly questions about religious observance and activity are irrelevant to criminal activity.)
5) The last item related to the use of citizenship or a green-card by FBI agents as an incentive offered to members of Muslim communities for becoming an ‘FBI informant.’ The USCIS District Director responded that the USCIS was not involved in any such practice.
Arsalan Bukhari, Executive Director of CAIR-WA, elaborated further on the issue of informants. “They are not simply informing but they are provoking young men who are disillusioned with life in general, and motivating them to commit certain acts. They provide them (the young men being targeted) with all the materials, motivation and financial incentives they would need to commit those attacks. In this specific case however, (raised by CAIR-WA and listed above) it is about a law-abiding person applying for citizenship having this offer made to them.”
Kareem pressed for such incidents to be immediately raised with the FBI and Department of Justice. Said Kareem, “If you think there are certain criminal violations taking place, there are processes for you to make sure that (the authorities are made aware) when you feel there is a wrong being done.” Aynab Abdirahman of Somali Community Services expressed his distress at the issue. Said Aynab, “We’re kidding ourselves if we say that Muslims aren’t under a microscope. That’s the reality, whether people admit it or not.”
Also At the Roundtable......Before the discussion of the agenda items, there were two presentations at the roundtable by federal officials on the work of their respective agencies. The first one was by Todd Rignel, a special agent in the human trafficking unit of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He started off by giving a description of the government structure in place to deal with human trafficking in Seattle and around the country. According to Todd, there is a lot of media attention on the sex trafficking of domestic minors but there are other kinds of trafficking such as domestic servitude and forced labor that are more common in the Northwest with over 80 per cent of the cases at the Seattle office involving labor trafficking. When it comes to the victims of trafficking, there are various challenges when it comes to prosecuting a case. The most common problem is that victims usually don’t come forward, “A lot of the time our community partners have to work with these victims and convince them it’s ok to work with us and that we’re here to help them. (This needs to be done because) many of these victims come from countries where law enforcement can’t be trusted at all.” Another issue is that many don’t see themselves as victims in the first place. “They know they’ve been victimized, but it takes them some time to realize the level of their victimization,” said Todd. In response to a question on whether there is a statute of limitations regarding trafficking given that someone who may have been trafficked as a child might want to file charges when s/he’s grown up, it was explained that while for most kinds of trafficking there was a limit of five years, a victim of sex trafficking could file charges as long as s/he were alive. One measure that is taken to alleviate the immediate problems of the victim is the granting of continued presence, a temporary immigration status that gives them access to social services such as healthcare, housing and also authorizes them to seek work. This however is a status meant to last the course of the investigation and has to be renewed annually. Once the investigation is over, the victim can apply for “T nonimmigrant status” and set foot on the road to eventual citizenship. Todd ended his presentation with the story of a Thai woman who was rescued from a massage parlor and is now The presentation on human trafficking was then followed by one on the role of voluntary agencies in disaster management. First to speak was David Myers who is the Director of the Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships at the DHS. According to him, around 90 per cent of disasters don’t meet the criteria of becoming a Presidentially-declared disaster which would trigger the assistance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). So in the absence of these federal resources, groups such as the Washington Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (WAVOAD) step in. Said Myers, “Voluntary organizations have Jim Kehoe, the president of WAVOAD elaborated further on the role of his organization, “VOAD is not an operational entity, it is a cooperative effort bringing different organizations together, mostly faith-based. We try to prevent a Keystone cops kind of thing where we duplicate each other’s efforts. There are people who want to help but they go in without any training. (By doing that) they only re-victimize the victims of a flood, we try to avoid that re-victimization.” |
