Sept. 11 panel: little value in new immigration rules

"Clearly, the government was overreaching."

Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks has concluded that immigration policies promoted as essential to keeping the country safe from future attacks have been largely ineffective, producing little, if any, information leading to the identification or apprehension of terrorists.

The commission said one program had proved so fruitless that it was discontinued after less than a year.

The critical assessment was released this week as part of a preliminary finding to a final report due in July. It returned a spotlight to programs that have been controversial from the start, aimed mostly at people, like the Sept. 11 hijackers, from Muslim or Arab countries. Critics have said the government engaged in a wholesale roundup of these people, kept them in jail for months, in some cases without access to lawyers, and conducted closed-door legal hearings on their status.

Many the libertarian and pro-immigration groups that criticized the administration of US President George W. Bush for what they deem the unfair and unnecessary focus on these groups hailed the findings. They said that as the first independent assessment of government actions after Sept. 11, it affirmed their misgivings.

"Clearly, the government was overreaching," said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, about the immigration programs.

"We raised concerns from the beginning that they not only interfere with time-honored civil liberties, but they were likely to prove to be ineffective," Edgar said.

But a former Justice Department official involved in the development of the programs defended them as critical to counterterrorism efforts.

Kris Kobach, a Republican candidate for Congress in Kansas who served as counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft from 2001 to 2003, said the programs had yielded great benefits by leading to the identification and deportation of hundreds of people with criminal backgrounds or indirect ties to terrorism.

Kobach the commission viewed the impact of the programs too narrowly, drawing conclusions based solely on the application of antiterrorism laws, rather than others, like immigration law.

"The commission is looking for a terrorism label affixed to an individual," Kobach said.

"But it's failing to realize that just because the FBI hasn't gotten to the point of applying the terrorism label, it doesn't mean the individual is not a terrorist," he said.

Perhaps most controversial of the programs was one that sought to identify "special interest" immigrants, which resulted in the arrests of more than 700 people, most from Middle Eastern countries, who were charged with violating immigration laws and held for months, in many cases, until federal agents cleared them of any involvement in terror-related activities.

The commission report echoed concerns raised when these programs were initiated. The concerns led to an investigation by the inspector general at the Justice Department that found that officials "made little attempt to distinguish" between immigrants who had ties to terrorism and those who did not.

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, called the detention program misguided, saying, "Hundreds of people's rights were violated, and, very importantly, the United States is now seen around the world as a country where Arabs and Muslims can be arrested in secret and held without charges. That's a very dangerous development in terms of a country promoting democracy and human rights as an antidote to terrorism."

But Kobach said the detention program had proved valuable, leading to the deportation of at least three men with "strong, substantial connections to terrorism."