Iraqis United States

Thousands of Kuwaiti students in the United States have had to scramble for money because of the Iraqi takeover of their country, but the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington has taken steps to pay their tuition and other expenses. In a statement sent recently to colleges and universities across the country, the embassy asked that "all tuition bills" of Kuwaiti students be forwarded to Washington. And it said that all Kuwaiti students will be given a monthly stipend to cover living expenses.

Six U.S. residents returned home Thursday to hugs and cheers from relatives after being held for more than a week in a Mexican jail on charges of providing illegal help to Iraqi Christians seeking asylum. Relatives rushed to greet them as they walked across the border crossing that links San Diego and Tijuana. "We were innocent," Kathy Barno of El Cajon said. "We have done nothing wrong and I'm glad I'm back home with my family."

Four years after the United States signed a global accord condemning torture, federal immigration authorities have finally granted protection to one of the scores of people seeking to use the agreement to avoid deportation, in this case an Iraqi army deserter who had been whipped, punched and hanged by his heels from a ceiling fan. The case creates a potentially broad new class of newcomer for the U.S.

More than 200 Iraqi Christians, including 133 who were detained by Mexican police in Tijuana last week, were safe on U.S. soil Wednesday as immigration officials processed their asylum applications. Their journey is turning out a lot happier than that of many who pay smugglers to get them to a new life in the United States. Chinese groups are regularly captured off the Baja California coast and sent home--at U.S. expense--without setting foot in the United States.

Inside the federal detention center on Terminal Island, Dr. Ali Yasin Mohammed Karim sat in a drab visitors room and tugged the collar of his red overalls, which identify him as a high-security risk. "Look," he said bitterly, "I'm considered an important criminal now." According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the stocky physician, who once treated the top echelon of the Iraqi opposition movement, might be a spy for a Middle Eastern power.

In a spare Tarzana apartment, her five children seated around her on folding chairs, Mehdia Alzubydy did not look like a threat to the security of the United States. A black hejab, or veil, covering her hair and shoulders, the 43-year-old flung her arms around a neighbor and cried. She spoke of her children, and cried again. Alzubydy, the wife of a prominent Iraqi dissident, was released on bond last week from the Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center in San Pedro.

Eight Iraqi men who say they have been wrongly accused of being spies for Saddam Hussein were ordered Friday to be deported to Iraq. Although a legal defeat, the ruling allows them to proceed to a second phase of the immigration hearing and apply for political asylum. The men, who have been jailed at a Lancaster facility, say they were recruited by the CIA in a failed attempt to oust Hussein.

The reported barring of Iraqi nationals from Pam Am flights may violate a New York civil rights law, and the airline's president has been subpoenaed to testify about the policy, the New York City Human Rights Commission said. City law prohibits discrimination against people based on their citizenship and national origin, commission spokesman Lonnie Soury said Sunday. The commission has subpoenaed the president of Pan American World Airways, Thomas Plaskett, to explain the policy, Soury said.

On a day when Iraqi missiles struck Israel, fears of terrorism hit home in the United States as schools, office buildings and other facilities were evacuated after bomb scares, bridges were closed and police scrambled to keep up with a growing number of calls from an alarmed public. Thursday evening, a California manhunt ended with the arrest in San Francisco of an Iraqi man authorities want to question about suspected terrorist activities.

The head of a New York-based Arab-American group reacted angrily Saturday to Pan American World Airways' apparent policy of refusing to accept Iraqi citizens as passengers. "This action by Pan Am stimulates prejudice in this country against Arab-Americans, as if they are a separate category prone to terrorism," said M.T. Mehdi, president of the American-Arab Relations Committee. "It is guilt by association. It intimidates (Arab-Americans) and throws a chill on the freedom of expression."

Inside the federal detention center on Terminal Island, Dr. Ali Yasin Mohammed Karim sat in a drab visitors room and tugged the collar of his red overalls, which identify him as a high-security risk. "Look," he said bitterly, "I'm considered an important criminal now." According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the stocky physician, who once treated the top echelon of the Iraqi opposition movement, might be a spy for a Middle Eastern power.

Four years after the United States signed a global accord condemning torture, federal immigration authorities have finally granted protection to one of the scores of people seeking to use the agreement to avoid deportation, in this case an Iraqi army deserter who had been whipped, punched and hanged by his heels from a ceiling fan. The case creates a potentially broad new class of newcomer for the U.S.

Denouncing a "stain on the honor of this country," former CIA Director R. James Woolsey was formally added Friday to the legal team representing six Iraqi dissidents whom the U.S. government is trying to deport as security risks. The nation's former top intelligence official, now an attorney in Washington, met with the six men at the Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center in San Pedro and presented each with a copy of the Koran.

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said Friday that he has agreed to help represent six Iraqis who worked to overthrow Saddam Hussein in a U.S.-backed coup but now face deportation to their homeland from Los Angeles. Woolsey, now a Washington attorney in private practice, said he was approached for help in the case after a U.S. immigration judge in Los Angeles ruled last week that the exiles "pose security risks to the United States." The order by Judge D.D.

Four days after ordering six Iraqis deported as threats to U.S. national security, an immigration judge in Los Angeles on Friday granted political asylum to a 47-year-old Kurdish journalist from northern Iraq, the man's attorney said. Judge D.D. Sitgraves found that Hashim Hawlery would likely face persecution if returned to his homeland, said lawyer Niels Frenzen.

Relying on secret information from FBI agents and other government officials, a U.S. immigration judge in Los Angeles has ordered the deportation of six Iraqi exiles who say they were involved in a failed 1996 coup attempt against Saddam Hussein. Judge D.D. Sitgraves found Monday that the six "pose security risks to the United States," though the basis of her ruling remained largely concealed in a 92-page decision that is off limits even to defense attorneys.

With the possibility of war only hours away, official and unofficial Washington went into a state of high alert Tuesday that was evidenced by tightened security, the laying of last-minute contingency plans and a palpable sense of foreboding. Senior Justice Department officials said the FBI has countered more than five possible terrorist attacks against targets in the United States since Iraq invaded Kuwait in August.

Officials in the U.S. intelligence community are increasingly concerned about evidence that Iraq is stepping up its involvement with international terrorism--reactivating relations with one infamous terrorist, for example, and encouraging attacks by a deadly faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

An immigration judge granted political asylum Thursday to an Iraqi refugee who fled his homeland with the help of the CIA only to be thrown behind bars when he reached the United States. After 15 months of captivity, Mohammed Jode Qaisar, 30, walked out of a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center in San Pedro, a free man eager to join his wife and four children in Salt Lake City.

Eight Iraqi men who say they have been wrongly accused of being spies for Saddam Hussein were ordered Friday to be deported to Iraq. Although a legal defeat, the ruling allows them to proceed to a second phase of the immigration hearing and apply for political asylum. The men, who have been jailed at a Lancaster facility, say they were recruited by the CIA in a failed attempt to oust Hussein.