Search the Internet          Tips  Links: Terror in America

US to enforce law on non-citizens changing residence

The United States is clamping down on immigrants, including green-card holders, with the justice department announcing that it intends to use criminal penalties against non-citizens who fail to notify the government of a change of address within 10 days.

Failure to report such change could result in a fine of up to US $200, a jail term of up to 30 days, and even deportation.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said the move would help secure America's borders by making it easier to track non-citizens, a media report said on Tuesday.

"By clarifying the existing requirement that non-citizens report their address to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, we are able to increase our ability to locate quickly an alien if removal proceedings must be initiated," Ashcroft said in Washington, DC.

The ten-day notice requirement, which has long been on the statute books but is widely ignored and rarely enforced, would apply to at least 11 million people older than 14 who are living in the United States legally but not as citizens.

The INS plans to enforce the regulation after a 60-day comment period.

The San Jose Mercury News said immigration advocates denounced the plan as heavy-handed and unworkable, saying the INS would not be able to handle the paperwork.

"It's sheer fantasy to think the INS can handle the avalanche of information under this mandate," said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group.

"This initiative is going to leave a pervasive feeling in immigrant communities that they're all under suspicion... Of course we need to know who is in the United States. But let's be smart and not talk about throwing people in jail for the equivalent of having an overdue library book," she said.

The Bush administration said the rule was intended to improve the justice department's ability to track down visitors and other immigrants who enter the country legally, but later arouse suspicion.

But some advocacy groups worry that the INS might use it to deport law-abiding immigrants merely suspected of terrorist connections.

"The people who are going to be caught up in [the regulation] are people who haven't done anything wrong," the paper quoted Cecilia Muqoz, a spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group in Washington, as saying.

PTI

America's War on Terror: The Complete Coverage
The Attack on US Cities: The Complete Coverage

The Terrorism Weblog: Latest Stories from Around the World

External Link:
For further coverage, please visit www.saja.org/roundupsept11.html

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report