SAN FRANCISCO: Joginder Singh came to the United States in October 1988 seeking refuge. Accused of being a Sikh extremist he had been arrested twice by Indian police tortured hung upside down and given electroshocks so intense they caused him to have a heart attack according to his lawyer. When Singh carrying a phony passport arrived at San Francisco International Airport he was arrested again this time by the Immigration and Nationalization Service.
He spent 12 months in jail before winning his political asylum claim. Still the INS refused to release him arguing that he should remain in custody pending the service’s appeal. Two months later Singh was released but not until he posted a $2500 bond. The appeal remains undecided says his lawyer Robert Jobe of San Francisco.
Singh’s incarceration was the result of INS detention policies for excludable alien’s policies that critics charge are cruel and unnecessary. Because Singh now 38 never passed through an INS inspection point at the airport he never technically entered the United States.
Had Singh made it through an INS check point before being detected he would have been placed in deportation proceedings that grant substantial due process including the right to be released with or without a bond.
But Singh was placed in exclusion proceedings which begin when an alien is arrested at a point of entry usually for carrying false travel documents. Federal immigration laws provide for little due process for excludable leaving them to linger in INS detention facilities.
While the service could not provide figures on average jail stays for excludable aliens 30 immigration lawyers interviewed for this article reported imprisonments ranging from three months to two years. The INS says about a half of the 5000 people in its custody on a given day are in exclusion proceedings. Most of the detainees are seeking political asylum.
Exclusion procedures are irrational and inhumane says Niles Frenzen head immigration attorney at Public Counsel a Los Angeles-based public interest group. The rights available to asylum seekers in deportation should be equally available to those in exclusion.
But local INS officials argue that their policy of detaining excludable follows the letter and spirit of 1980 amendments to Immigration and Nationality Act.
Congress says David Dehert INS district director in San Francisco never intended for people to come here through subterfuge and apply for asylum that way. There is an orderly way for admitting refugees established by Congress.
Dehert adds that. a tough exclusion policy deters others from attempting to come and sends a message to people who provide false travel documents.
Word gets out that if you come to San Francisco you’ll get detained says Dehert. The message is that they’ll have to go elsewhere to try and find the soft underbelly of the INS.
Local INS directors can decide to release an excludable alien. But local immigration lawyers complain that such discretion is exercised rarely except in cases of serious illness.
These individuals are not security risks says San Francisco Attomey Jon Wu. He and other attorneys maintain that excludable aliens aren’t flight risks and more often than not want to tell their stories of persecution to an immigration judge.
But Duke Austin an INS spokesman in Washington D.C. dismisses Wu’s theory.
Less than 30% of the people we parole in deportation and exclusion show up for their initial hearing he says.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 28, 1991
