In Tracking Down "Absconders," DOJ to Target Nationals of Countries Where Al Queda Is Active

IMMIGRATION LAW & POLICY

Arrest and Detention

IN TRACKING DOWN "ABSCONDERS," DOJ TO TARGET NATIONALS OF COUNTRIES WHERE AL QUEDA IS ACTIVE
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 16, No. 1, February 28, 2002

The U.S. Dept. of Justice is implementing an "Absconder Apprehension Initiative" in order to locate, apprehend, interview, and deport non-U.S. citizens who are subject to final removal orders and who have failed to surrender for removal, according to a memo from Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson to agencies within the DOJ responsible for implementing the plan. According to the memo, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has determined that there are approximately 314,000 such individuals, termed "absconders." The initiative will focus its initial efforts on several thousand individuals from countries where Al Queda, the organization presumed to be responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., has been active. The DOJ calls these individuals "priority absconders." The memo says that some of them "have information that could assist our campaign against terrorism."

The memo sets out the process for apprehending and interviewing the priority absconders. The first step is for the department's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force to draw the names of priority absconders from the INS Deportable Alien Control System database, search public databases to determine a last known address for the absconder, and search other investigation databases to remove from the list individuals who are subjects or targets of other investigations. Then the INS is to review the A-files of priority absconders to confirm "that the absconder was on notice and that the deportation warrant remains valid," after which the INS is to enter the names into the National Crime Information Center database (NCIC). With copies of relevant information from each absconder's A-file, the INS is to create and transmit an "absconder fugitive file" to the INS field office located in the judicial district of the absconder's last known address.

Local INS and FBI field offices are to coordinate in forming apprehension teams for locating, apprehending, and interviewing each absconder. The memo notes that INS agents can arrest absconders based on the warrant of deportation, while other federal officers can arrest them, under section 243 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, for the felony of willfully failing to depart.

The memo cautions that, unlike the Interview Project, which involved consensual interviews (for more on the Interview Project, see "Justice Dept. Announces Plan to Interview 5,000 Men," Immigrants' Rights Update, Dec. 20, 2001, p. 2), this initiative is directed at persons who violated the law by failing to comply with a deportation order and, in some cases, by committing other criminal acts. Therefore, they "are to be apprehended and treated as criminal suspects, and they are to be afforded all standard procedural rights and constitutional protections." Absconders are to be advised of their Miranda rights, and the interview should proceed only if they waive those rights.

The memo notes that investigators conducting interviews "should feel free to use all appropriate means of encouraging absconders to cooperate, including reference to any reward money that is being offered and reference to the availability of an 'S' visa." However, investigators "should be careful not to promise that [such inducements] will be forthcoming in a particular case." Interviewers will have a list of questions similar to those used by the Interview Project.

The FBI must review each absconder's case and the results of the interview and determine if it appears that the absconder has any knowledge of terrorism that would justify further investigation. The U.S. attorney's anti-terrorism coordinator will decide whether to proceed with a prosecution under INA section 243 or to allow the absconder to be deported by the INS.

The Jan. 25, 2002, memo was made public by the Washington Post, and a copy may be obtained at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42330-2002Feb7.html. The paper reported on Feb. 8, 2002, that, according to DOJ officials, arrests were to begin the following week with a group of fewer than 1,000 noncitizens, most of whom are convicted felons, mostly from the Middle East and Pakistan.