U.S. not safe for Arab immigrants
Canada issues travel advisory
By G. Dunkel
Canadian officials are fed up. Arab, South Asian and Muslim
Canadian citizens traveling from Canada to the U.S. have been
detained in the United States, sometimes without their families
or consulates being notified. In some cases the U.S. has
secretly deported them to a third country. Three hundred
Ontario residents were recently fingerprinted, photographed and
interrogated before being allowed into the U.S.
The case of Maher Arar, a highly skilled communications
engineer born in Syria, particularly rankled the Canadian
authorities. U.S. immigration officials detained Arar while he
was changing planes at Kennedy International Airport in New
York on Sept. 26. They deported him two weeks later, and he
wound up in Syria.
Arar's family still has not been in direct contact with him,
though Syria has allowed Canada consular access to him.
The U.S. has ignored a number of diplomatic notes from
Canadian officials angry about this conduct toward their
citizens. It was causing quite a bit of botheration at the
least, and anguish at the worst.
So the Canadian foreign ministry on Oct. 28 issued a travel
advisory warning Canadians born in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya,
Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Yemen "to consider carefully
whether they should attempt to enter the United States for any
reason, including transit to or from third countries."
This was quite a shock to the U.S. political establishment,
which is not used to problems, or even public complaints, from
Canada. And the U.S. had just kicked off a $15-million public
relations campaign to convince Muslims throughout the world
that it's okay to be a Muslim in the United States.
U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci quickly told Canadian Foreign
Minister Bill Graham that the restrictions would be eased on
Canadian citizens. Canadian officials welcomed the move but
said they would keep the advisory in place until they saw the
revised regulations in writing.
That's where the dispute remains. It is getting major media
attention in Canada and U.S. cities close to the border.
For a country like Canada, which is so strongly overshadowed
by U.S. imperialism, to take such a bold step testifies to the
international isolation of the Bush administration and to the
growing perception that its immigration policies are blatantly
racist, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.
Reprinted from the Nov. 14, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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