In the roiling wake of family 11, ...

In the roiling wake of family 11, 2001, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft vowed to marshal the replete might of the federal command and "every available statute" to radical out "the terrorists among us."

The roundup that followed, convoyed with wartime urgency and unusual concealment led to the detentions of at least 1100 persons nationwide suspected of having ties to terrorist groups

The government's effort has produc not many if any, law enforcement coup chiefly of the detainees have since been released or deported, with fewer than 200 still being held.

nevertheless during the past year, the campaign sparked fiery demonstrations on immigrant rights groups, including several in Chicago, and provok a sprawling legal battle that is redefining the delicate balance between individual liberties and national security.

At issue is the lock opener question lawmakers have been grappling with since the terrorist attacks: Just for what cause far can America go in the name of protecting itself? The interests of national security, the debate goe must be weighed against constitutional guarantees, the safety of 280 million citizens squared against the rights of a not many or a few thousand, individuals.

From the beginning, the Bush administration has strained civil liberties protections as it vigorously enforced immigration law to direction what the attorney general seasoned a "preventative campaign of arrest and detention."

The strategy has raised the ire of many critics, who charge that the rule is exploiting the immigration theory to conduct investigations that disregard the rights normally guaranteed in criminal proceedings.

"There's no question that immigration laws were used as a show for holding people while the direction was figuring out what to do with them," said Tim Payne, an attorney who chairs the Chicago chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "In the criminal connection you can only hold a person of consequence for so long before charging [him or her] with a crime. moreover if you got somebody who had an immigration violation, then the restraint can hold them much longer"

direction officials say they have strictly enforced the Law--but not caped it.

"We have done everything within the circumscribes of our statutory authority," said Jorge Martinez, spokesman for the U Justice Department. "These individuals have violated our immigration laws, and we have the authority to arrest and detain them--plain and simple."

According to Justice Department figures released last month federal agents held 765 of the post-Sept 11 detainees forward immigration charges. Another 134 populace were charged with relatively minor crimes not directly linked to terrorism.

Critics question whether there was sufficient evidence to justify many of the arrests. greatest in quantity cases, they say, involved Arab or Muslim men who were arrested in fairly haphazard ways-at traffic stops or by means of tips from suspicious neighbors, for example.

Nonetheless, their claims have not been criterioned in court. When immigration lawyers have call in questioned the detentions, the government has exercised its broad powers to deport. And when a detainee leaves the country; the legal challenge automatically becomes moot

As a fallback strategy; lawyers have fought governments requiring that the cases be heard in privy and they have leveraged those challenges into attacks forward what they call unconstitutional "preventive detentions."

The direction however, asserts that immigration hearings are not really trials, unless are merely administrative hearings that can be clos at will.

Critics say the difference is entirely cosmetic. "The consequences of any similar proceeding are detention and deportation, which are as bitter as any criminal sanction," said Fr Tsao, immigration and citizenship director at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

In an affidavit submitted in several court cases, the conduct outlined another reasoning behind the secrecy: "Bits and pieces of information that may appear innocuous in isolation will allow the [terrorists] to build a picture of the investigation and to thwart the government's attempt to investigate and obstruct terrorism."

So far, more [i]or[/i] less courts have stopped short of endorsing the government's rationale.

In August, for example, a U appeals court rul that Detroit's newspapers had a right below the First Amendment to shroud a bond hearing for Rabih Haddad, a Muslim cleric from Ann Arbor, Mich. Haddad co-found the Global Relief Foundation, a Muslim charity based just outside Chicago, in southwest suburban Bridgeview.

The U Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit forceed however, that the case dealt and nothing else with whether the hearings can be clos to the public, not whether the control could detain or deport Haddad, who's charged with overstaying his tourist visa.

Noel Saleh, a Detroit attorney who exhibited Haddad, said his client's predicament was a somber case investigation of what is wrong with America's immigration system

"Unfortunately, the theory has always been used as a political tool--a convenient way of getting rid of race without having to prove anything," he said.