Round-up

Okay, let’s turn down the Hyperbole Meter a tad as we consider the mass arrests of immigrants in California.

The press keeps referring to it as a “mass arrest of Muslim immigrants.” Well, yes, a number of the immigrants (perhaps even all of them) are, in fact, Muslim, but they were not arrested for being Muslim.

Instead, they were arrested for visa and other immigration status problems. In that, they are no different from La Migre swooping down on the sweatshop and bundling off a number of illegals from south of the border.

The particular selection of this group came because of new US regulations requiring special immigration registration for non-resident males over 16 from a list of various Arab and Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. Because the INS has had crappy record-keeping, this was a first step toward better keeping track of where those without permanent residency in the US are, so that if there’s a need to find them, or they are no longer legally in the country, they can be picked up.

And, lo, a number of the folks were no longer legally in the country. And they were therefore picked up.

The deadline for these folks to further register was this week, and when it turned out that a number of the folks who did show up had expired paperwork and the like, they were arrested.

Now, you can argue that the INS should have better record-keeping already. You can argue that current regulations about when or under what conditions folks should be detained for immigration violations are draconian. You an argue that delays and underfunding of green card processing has created a bit of a Catch-22 for some of these folks. You can argue whether people from these particular countries should be singled out (or made the first on the block) for tighter registration.

But to claim that this is tantamount to the internment of Japanese-Americans in 1942 is going way overboard. These are not US citizens, or permanent residents. They are not whole ethnic (let alone religious) groups being swept up en masse. They are, in fact, individuals in violation of immigration law (or wanted for other crimes) — some with only the best intentions, or even lack of knowledge, but, as the law is currently written, subject to detainment and deportation as much as if they were illegals from Ireland or Mexico or Hong Kong.

The worst you can say is that the INS, in handling things this way, was expeditious, but likely to run into trouble pursuing future actions of this sort, since folks will be scared that they’ll be picked up, rightly or wrongly.

There’s plenty to critique or argue about how we’re handling both Homeland Security and immigration policy, but going off half-cocked with the Myanmar comparisons only discredits more serious debate on the subject.