January 7, 2003

MPAC is planning on having INS monitors on the last day of special registration of phase two which will be on Friday, January 10th. A team of Human Rights Monitors coordinated by MPAC and cosponsored by the South Asian Network and ADC will be observing the INS registration and providing services to the immigrants.

On Tuesday, January 7th, MPAC trained over 100 community members to become monitors during a training that took place at All Saints Church in Pasadena, CA. Local attorney Ban Al Wardi and MPAC hate crime prevention coordinator Susan Attar conducted the training.

This is a national project and MPAC chapters in the following locations will be monitoring the INS registration process.

Los Angeles, CA
Santa Ana, CA
Wichita, KS
Houston and Dallas TX
Las Vegas, NV
Iowa City, IO
New York, NY
Fresno/Bakersfield, CA

The support of the community and the interfaith groups has been outstanding who responded to the call to show solidarity with those whom are required to register.

MPAC Human Rights Monitoring Team will be providing immigrants and their families with a list contaning the contact information of lawyers, counselors and community organizations after they register. Also, we are affirming our stand vis-vs-vis the INS and its registration process whose policies singled out the Muslim community. Most importantly we will be able to document any sort of misconduct on the part of the INS.

In doing this project, we need your participation. So far we have received overwhelming support for this project. If you would like to participate please contact the MPAC office at 213 383 3443 or sign up online.

Click on the links below to watch the training tapes online. The tapes includes the following:

1- Tape # 1: Welcome Remarks and goals of the training by Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC Executive Director

2- Tape # 2: Remarks by Ban Al-Wardi, immigration attorney and board member of ADC. Ms. Al-Wardi described the registration process as well as the INS treatment of the non-immigrants.

3- Tape # 3: Remarks by Susan Attar, MPAC's Hate Crime Prevention Coordinator. Ms Attar explained what the monitors are expected to do while serving as Human Rights Monitors.