The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter November/December, 2002;  Volume 9, No. 6 Trying Times for Immigrants and the U.S. Constitution By Jay S. Marks

Mr. Ashcroft is now bugging attorney/client conversations when he deems it appropriate to do so, and has arrested a defense attorney in New York for zealously defending a man accused of terrorist acts.

The government has vigorously, and almost successfully, opposed the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in the case of a criminal defendant held on charges of terrorism in the Southern District of Virginia. Although a brave federal district court judge took the government to task for its position, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered further hearings on the matter, not satisfied with the Judge's fact finding in the original hearings.

Although the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit stated that "democracy dies behind closed doors" in its rejection of secret immigration hearings,

If there is no end to this "war on terrorism" then, as Benjamin Franklin predicted, we will have neither liberty nor security.

the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held the opposition, allowing secret removal hearings to go forward in its jurisdiction. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will decide this issue.

In Atlanta, the Immigration Service charged a legal permanent resident of the United States with removal (deportation) because he failed to file a change of address form; the immigration judge thankfully exercised the little discretion left to him and denied INS' aggressive tactics. INS has decided to enforce this old provision, after 50 years of failing to do so.

Attorney General Ashcroft rounded up over 5000 men of Middle Eastern decent shortly after the attack of September 11. The Attorney General soundly rejected any attempts by the media to shed light on the masses of those held, where they were held, and their fates. To date, no public accounting has been made to anyone, anywhere, about these people, some of whom may have been long-time residents of the United States, some of whom may have even been citizens of the United States. But we will never know; they are the United States Government's first "disappeareds", a human rights violation once reserved for dictatorial Argentina, Turkey, or Syria.

Mr. Ashcroft also has attempted to enlist state and local law enforcement authorities to serve as an extention of the INS Border Patrol, arresting individuals who may or may not be in this country legally. An Ohio Court recently rejected the state police practice of confiscating "green cards" belonging to legal permanent residents for days and sometimes weeks, after traffic stops on Ohio highways. This is Mr. Ashcroft's policy of local law enforcement acting as Border Patrol, gone awry. Fortunately, some jursidictions, though not many, objected to Mr. Ashcroft's dubious policies, and declined to participate, citing important law enforcement objectives such as cultivating strong ties with immigrant communities to enhance community policing.

The Department of Homeland Security abolishes the Immigration and Naturalization Service and replaces it with a Directorate of Border and Transportation Security within Homeland Security. The directorate will include a Bureau of Border Security and a Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services; Consular functions, after more than 200 years in the Department of States, will now be the province of the Department of Homeland Security. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has over fifty years of liason activity at every level of INS to track and cure policy issues as well as individual cases that get lost or botched in the current byzantine bureaucracy; there is no telling whether these vital liason fucntions will remain with the new agency, or whether Secretary Ridge will simply consider these important contacts with the legal community superfluous in the name of "national security."

Assuming there is a happy ending to the current "war on terrorism", Americans will have consented in the name of security to a shearing of their Constitutional rights and protections the likes of which they have never known before. Of course, if there is no end to this "war on terrorism" then, as Ben Franklin predicted, we will have neither liberty nor security.