Two days before the Foreign Minister of Pakistan’s arrival in the United States, Attorney General John Ashcroft said that Pakistan will not be removed from the list of dangerous countries and its nationals will have to register. He said this to the Pakistani Ambassador, who in turn said that no future leniency can be expected from the administration.

The Urdu Times believes that the administration has the moral right to make this country secure for everybody. However, no Pakistani has been found guilty of terrorist activity in a year and half of FBI and INS investigations. Meanwhile, the state of Pakistan is a key ally in U.S. foreign policy. The contrariness of this administration’s policies burden the heart of every Pakistani in and out of the United States.

Pakistanis and other Muslims have businesses and property and lives here, and whether legal or not, they feel they are American like everybody else. Amnesty International has called the registrations discriminatory in nature. The plight of those who go register themselves is heartrending: all over the country people are being detained. People who are voluntarily going forward to make visible their illegal status are being trapped. Of 200,000 Pakistanis in the New York area, 150,000 are illegal. Will they all have to flee?