Pakistanis held after entry from Canada

Two Pakistani men arrested Saturday night at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport remained in custody yesterday after being smuggled into the United States and making cash purchases of one-way tickets on separate airliners to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

One of the men’s names later turned up on a terrorism-related no-fly watch list.

Law-enforcement authorities said both men, who were not identified, carried Pakistani passports. They told Port of Seattle police they paid alien-smugglers to bring them into the country through the port of entry at Blaine, Wash., whence they then made their way to the Seattle-Tacoma airport.

One had a Canadian driver’s license; the other carried a driver’s license issued in New York.

The men, ages 36 and 29, were arrested about 10 p.m. on the airport’s ticketing level after an American Airlines ticket agent became suspicious and ran their names through the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly database of suspected terrorists.

They had been seen together at the airport, according to Port of Seattle Police, but went to separate airline counters to purchase one-way tickets to New York.

Since the September 11 attacks, airlines routinely run security checks on passengers who purchase one-way tickets or use cash. Hundreds of people have been briefly detained at airports after their names matched those on the TSA no-fly list, according to TSA records.

“The two individuals are being held on immigration charges right now,” said Michael Milne, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We’re looking at how they entered the country. Sometime in the near future they’ll be scheduled for an immigration hearing.”

In Washington, D.C., ICE spokesman Garrison Courtney said the FBI had been notified in the case and that the bureau’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle was looking into the matter. He did not elaborate, though law-enforcement authorities said ICE and FBI agents are trying to determine what relationship, if any, the men have.

Port of Seattle police initially detained the men, turning them over to the FBI. They are now being held by ICE on suspected immigration violations. No criminal charges have yet been filed.