The San Francisco Chronicle reports today on a demonstration of about fifty "activists and civil rights advocates" outside a federal building in San Francisco to protest the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) that requires immigrants from select countries to go through additional procedures. In the course of these steps, some of them have been detained and others deported. To be specific, as of Oct. 30, 2003, "83,519 men had voluntarily reported to immigration offices around the country to be fingerprinted and interviewed. Of those, 13,799 were put into deportation proceedings, 2,870 were detained, and 143 were arrested on criminal charges."
What is striking about this news item is the following sentence: "Several demonstrators held blue paper triangles, designed to be a likeness of the identifying symbols used in Nazi Germany, with the names of Arab men who had disappeared or been deported." (The blue triangle was a symbol of emigrants; other persecuted groups had other-colored triangles to identify them.) Also striking is the accompanying photograph:
In other words, these demonstrators monstrously are implying, the U.S. government is equivalent to the Nazi regime. That's the state of the far Left's discourse today.
Also: Why would any emigrants – free anytime to leave the United States – wish to stay in a land so repressive? (November 20, 2003)
July 22, 2004 update: The picture above shows a woman carrying a blue upside-down triangle with "Osama Awadallah, Jordanian, 1 of 5,000" handwritten on it, a reference to Awadallah allegedly having disappeared or been deported. Well, for anyone curious about this Osama Awadallah, Jordanian, the 9/11 commission report, out today, has some details. They come in the course of a discussion of Mohdar Abdullah, an associate of 2 of the 19 suicide hijackers, Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar:
Other friends of Abdullah also translated for Hazmi and Mihdhar and helped them adjust to life in San Diego. Some held extremist beliefs or were well acquainted with known extremists. For example, immediately after 9/11, Osama Awadallah, a Yemeni whose telephone number was found in Hazmi's Toyota at Washington Dulles International Airport, was found to possess photos, videos, and articles relating to Bin Ladin. Awadallah also had lived in a house where copies of Bin Ladin's fatwas and other similar materials were distributed to the residents.
Awadallah, in short, is someone I am glad to learn is either arrested or deported.
