Treating detainees fairly

The Department of Homeland Security has taken a welcome step toward preventing recurrence of a flagrant abuse of due process following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

In short order, 762 foreigners, men of Middle Eastern or South Asian origin, were rounded up on often minor immigration violations, held in secret and not allowed to contact their families or lawyers. The average detention, presumably while the FBI checked for terrorist connections, was three months, the longest 10 months. Some detainees, especially those held at a Brooklyn detention center, were brutalized by jailers.

In the end, no terrorist-related charges were filed.

Said Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security undersecretary for border security: “Immigration basically acquiesced in the decision-making, or the lack of decision-making process, by another agency and that resulted in a very serious problem.” The law required giving potential immigration violators a hearing or allowing them to post bond within 48 hours.

Neither was done. In other words, the FBI bullied the Immigration Service into waiving its own procedures. Both agencies were then part of the Justice Department.

The whole episode was the subject of an extremely critical report by the department’s inspector general. In response to a post-September 11 call from the federal government, many Muslim Arab immigrants voluntarily reported to the FBI only to find themselves summarily jailed for immigration offenses. The result may well have been to scare an entire community from cooperating with the government.

Now Immigration is a part of Homeland Security and new procedures have been set up for detaining foreigners in an emergency.

An FBI request to detain an individual under a national security emergency exception must be approved by a senior bureau official. Immigration officials are then to “independently review the individual circumstances of each case in which the FBI requests detention.” And the detainees must be told in writing why they are being held, essential if they are to be able to challenge the reasons for their incarceration.

Sweeping up and jailing a whole class of people based on religion and national origin is bad precedent and not what this country is about. National emergencies should not make us forget who we are.

Mr. Hutchison said, “This is not a fine-tuning, this is a very significant correction.” One that has been made, and that’s the important part.

Dale McFeatters is a columnist for Scripps Howard News Service.