Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: November 30, 2001
Washington - The United States
is dangling offers of visa and citizenship to foreigners who bring in useful
information on terrorism.
The US Justice Department on Thursday
announced the "Responsible Cooperators Program", under which it will offer
immigration incentives to non-US citizens, including illegal aliens already
in the country and aspirants living abroad, who come forward with credible
information on terrorists.
"It is designed to say to people
that if you would like to have an improved visa status for your own presence
in the United States and a pathway to citizenship, one of the ways you
can do that is by providing reliable and useful information about terrorism,"
Attorney General John Ashcroft said while disclosing the programme, which
is an upgraded version of an existing scheme
Under the existing program, the
US currently issues a 3- year "S" visa every year to noncitizens who provide
"critical and reliable information" concerning a terrorist organization.
But number of visas is restricted to 50 and the criteria to qualify for
an "S" visa require the applicant to have placed his or her life in danger
as a result of providing that information and to be eligible to receive
a government reward.
The new programme will have fewer
restrictions although the numbers being considered is not yet known. In
an effort to entice potential informants into coming forward, Justice department
officials they would focus would be on the terrorism-related information
the visa aspirants provide and not on their status.
The upgraded programme kicked off
a furious debate in immigration circles with questions about its validity,
desirability and ethics. Justice Department officials defended the move
saying potential immigrants might have valuable information because of
their language skills, especially if they were coming from their "home
countries". Federal prosecutors would decide whether the information provided
meets the standard, they added.
Although it was not explicitly mentioned,
the lure of a US visa appears aimed mostly at aspirants from Islamic countries.
More than 600 people are still under detention following their arrest in
the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, most of them on immigration
violation charges. Among them are 20 Indians. But the maximum number of
detainees -- around 250 -- are from Pakistan.
