Nation

Comments (0) By James Ridgeway Tuesday, Nov 26 2002

Meanwhile the Bush administration is stepping up the cataloging of aliens. The government recently announced plans to interview, photograph, and fingerprint Iraqi men. Last week the roll was expanded to include recent male visitors to the U.S. from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The government remains far behind in its efforts to assess those foreigners who might pose a potential threat. According to a recent General Accounting Office report, a Justice Department task force tried to find 4112 aliens after 9-11 but could only come up with 2261.

With some 35 million immigrants living in the U.S., the sheer numbers may be overwhelming. Each alien is required by law to submit a change of address form when he or she moves. The Immigration and Naturalization Service receives 30,000 such notices every day, and it can't possibly keep up. What's more, since the law hasn't been enforced, aliens often ignore it.

Routing the Enemy, Circa 1956
History Lessons

"Grandmotherly Mrs. Hobart of Cincinnati, first president of the American Legion Auxiliary 36 years ago, calmly advocated bomb extermination for homegrown communists in her talk to Legion women yesterday. 'We will push them out and push them out,' Mother Hobart said, 'until we have them all in Russia. Then we'll have a circle of good bombers and every weapon we can find, and that will take care of them.'" —Los Angeles Mirror News (as quoted in The American Inquisition: 1945-1960, by Cedric Belfrage)

Additional reporting: Josh Saltzman and Rebecca Winsor