By Yvonne Lim
Daily Texan
January 16, 2003, Thursday

Kamran Bokhari, a University of Texas-Austin Middle Eastern studies graduate student, said goodbye to his wife and child Tuesday, wondering if his next call to them would be from an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center.

Bokhari is one of about 160 Pakistani and Saudi Arabian citizens in the UT community summoned by the INS to undergo special registration under Group 3, a category of noncitizens established by the government.

Special registration began with a notice released Nov. 6, 2002, by the federal government requiring all nonimmigrant aliens from 20 countries including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria, which comprised Group 1, to register at the nearest INS field office within a four- to five-week period. Since then, foreign nationals from 15 other countries have had to do the same.

Monday marked the first day for the third group, citizens of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, to register under special registration. The third group will have until Feb. 21 to comply.

Deane Willis, manager of the UT International Office, said that Group 3 is the largest group for UT. Group 1, including Iran and Iraq, affected about 20 students and Group 2, which includes Middle Eastern and North African countries, affected about 40.

Bokhari said that a lack of communication from the government led him and others to expect the worst.

"I was expecting that I'd probably be deported for something that I don't even know what I did," Bokhari said. "I had told everybody here, 'I'm going, so goodbye if I don't see you.'"

While Bokhari has lived in the United States for 20 years and is here legally with a student visa, he was worried that the INS could deport Group 3 nonimmigrants based on something as small as a parking ticket. He also worried about how others would react to his being deported.

"Are they going to say, 'What did you do that was so awful that they deported you?'" Bokhari said.

Once interviewed, Bokhari said he realized that the INS is severely ill-equipped to handle the special registration procedure.

"The process itself is in the making -- a lot of money has been invested in it, but I see the INS employees are overworked," Bokhari said. "They are not properly trained to do this. I felt as if myself and the others were like guinea pigs for a new system."

He said he also observed that the software did not work properly and the computers crashed.

Bokhari said that he answered basic questions about his profile, was fingerprinted and photographed and also given a date next year for a soon-to-be annual interview.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is one of a group of organizations filing a class action lawsuit against the government arguing that the arrest of foreign nationals resulting after special registration is unlawful.

Kareem Shora, the committee's legal director, said terrorists are not limited to the countries identified and that a terrorist from Britain, for example, would not be required to undergo special registration.

The INS did not return phone calls Wednesday.

Though Bokhari had always intended to return to Pakistan, he said the experience has only discouraged him from staying in the United States.

"Having lived here so long, I feel part of the community over here," Bokhari said. "This is like a second home, but I'm reconsidering the idea of a second home."