INS Registrations

I am getting more and more concerned over the lack of any South Asian outcry over the overtly racist and discrimanatory practices with the new INS regulations requiring, so far, only males from certain Arab countries and North Korea to register. Bangladesh was most recently added to the list and who knows what countries will be next, Sri Lanka, India? Is this really to help with keeping terrorists at bay, or is this a ploy to rid the states of illegal aliens? (I wonder how many actual terrorists will go and get registered) If so, why is it just the Arabs and North Koreans who are being forced to leave, why not aliens from other countries? It just seems to me that the U.S. is trying to compose its own dynamic of who gets to stay and who gets to leave based on what country they came from. Some may agree with this practice, but I see it as inherently racist to say that people who come from Ireland are more agreeable to America than those from Bangladesh (this is a total hypothetical).

The government is now suggesting that they will begin to register all visitors from all countries, but this is not what has always been reported. The Washington Post, on 1/17 indicated that the "government says the registrations are a way to track tens of thousands of visitors from countries that the United States has designated sponsors of terrorism or that are believed to harbor large numbers of members of al Qaeda."

Well, what about residents of Colombia, Northern Ireland, Spain--all countries with large terrorism issues.

posted by sajit @ 10:52 AM