* Name has been changed

Tariq Khan* smokes Marlboro Lights — soft pack. The smoke curls up into the cold November air and disappears. Khan looks up into the night sky — the stars are blocked by clouds tonight. It’s almost 10 p.m. in Ames, which means it’s almost 7 a.m. in Kuwait.

Khan takes another puff, then stomps the cigarette out. He looks up at the sky again, hunches his shoulders against the cold wind and turns to go back into his apartment building.

Once inside, he wraps his hands around a mug of hot coffee with cream. Khan is glad the sun has gone down; he is fasting for Ramadan, meaning no food or drink from sunrise to sunset.

Khan brews the coffee with a one-serving coffee pot he keeps in his room, next to his bed. The white walls of the room hold a desk and chair.

The desk is cluttered with his homework, coffee, cigarettes, vitamins and a laptop computer. A shelf connected to the desk holds his textbooks and two copies of the Quran.

Khan pulls a file out of a folder. The file tells what he has been charged with: violation of immigration laws.

“I have a criminal record,” he says, looking at the stamped document he holds in his hands and shaking his head.

“You just have to give a smile”

There are 25 countries on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s special registration list. Three hundred forty undergraduates and graduates from those countries attend Iowa State.

Khan is from Pakistan, but because of his father’s job, his father, mother, brothers and sisters moved to Kuwait. When Khan came back to Ames in August for the school year, he was required to register with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Chicago’s O’Hare airport. People from those 25 countries are also not allowed to use airports without an USCIS office and cannot be monitored.

In the USCIS offices at the airport, a person is fingerprinted, a mug shot is taken, the number of credit cards the person has and the credit card account numbers are recorded, the person’s parents’ names and dates of birth are recorded and the person’s identification numbers, as well as other information, are recorded.

“It’s about a 24-hour flight from Kuwait, and when you get back you have to wait for at least eight hours in the [USCIS] office,” Khan explains. “If [the USCIS officers] cuss at you, you just have to give a smile because your future is in their hands … you’re treated really badly. It’s hard to act nice. You can tell they do not like their jobs.”

Recording people from the 25 countries on the special registration list is the one of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s measures to prevent another terrorist attack.

When leaving the United States, people from the 25 countries must report to the USCIS office in the airport before boarding their planes.

After being in the country for 30 to 40 days, Khan is required to report to the USCIS office in Des Moines and update any information that may have changed. For example, if Khan gets a new credit card, he must let the office know, as well as give the account number of the new card.

Trouble came Khan’s way when he failed to report to the Des Moines USCIS office on time.

“I was a week late. I went to register on the 47th day,” he says.

Khan says he had a ride with a friend lined up before the 40 days were up, but the ride fell through at the last minute because the friend had an exam he could not miss.

“I asked a lot of people, but they couldn’t risk [taking me]. They can’t have it as an excuse to miss an exam,” he says.

Taking someone to the USCIS office takes the full business day, not just a couple of hours, he says.

Buses run from Ames to Des Moines, but they don’t go anywhere near the USCIS office. And taking a taxi is too expensive, he says. If he didn’t have friends, it would be almost impossible to register when and where the USCIS wants him to.

“It’s my fault [for missing the deadline] to some extent,” Khan says, but he says the circumstances were beyond his control.

“It was a polite arrest”

When Khan arrived at the Des Moines USCIS office on the 47th day, an officer called him into an office, saying, “‘It’s highly unlikely you will leave today.”

“It was a polite arrest — no handcuffs,” Khan says.

Khan says once he was in the office, he explained to the officer why he was late and was met with attitude. The officer told Khan not to mess with him — he was having a bad day.

The officer’s supervisor told Khan, “‘You will be detained today,'” Khan recalls.

While waiting for the officer’s supervisor, Khan says he talked to the officer about the officer’s problems.

The officer opened up to him, telling Khan about how a family member had died, and that his son had just told the officer that he was gay. Khan and the officer shared their problems, and the officer empathized with him, he says.

The officer talked to his supervisor, and they let Khan go, but took his passport into custody. Khan says although he was thankful he didn’t have to go to jail, his passport is his only form of identification. He has a driver’s license from Kuwait, but he says no one can understand the Arabic in which it’s written.

Because Khan has no form of identification, he is unable to apply for a driver’s license, and is not allowed to have a job, on- or off-campus, in order to earn money to buy a car. He has no other choice than to completely rely on friends to take him where he needs to go.

Because he missed the 40-day deadline, he also now has to go see a deportation officer in Cedar Rapids or Omaha on the first Tuesday of every month in addition to reporting to the Des Moines USCIS office every 30 to 40 days.

Khan’s hearing is scheduled for early August 2004. Until then, he must stay in the United States and continue reporting to the USCIS offices required.

Kuwait requires Khan to return every six months to keep his residence visa there. If he does not, he will not be allowed in Kuwait, and it could take years for him to get a new residence visa.

“If I do not return to Kuwait before February [2004], my residence visa is canceled,” he says. “I won’t be able to go home — that’s where my family lives … I’m a citizen of Pakistan, but what will I do there? My family has moved.”

Khan says credits from Iowa State are unlikely to be honored in Pakistan, and he would have to go to school for another four years in Pakistan to get a degree and find a decent job.

While Khan is waiting for his hearing in over a year, his dad sent him some emergency money on which to to live, but Khan says he doesn’t know how long the money will last. He says he can’t expect his dad to support him forever.

“[The USCIS takes] everything away from you, and still they expect you to comply and do everything they want you to do perfectly,” he says. “My family was speechless. At first they thought I was joking when I told them what happened, they couldn’t believe it. It took them awhile to finally take it seriously.”

Khan’s mother says she misses her son.

“We are very worried. We are very upset we can’t see [him],” she says. “He’s only doing his studies. It’s very bad for him.”

Khan says while he is waiting, he is relying on ISU Student Legal Services to help him.

“Student Legal Services attorneys are not too experienced in this, because these are all new laws, but they’re doing their best and researching my problem,” he says.

“It’s a mess”

Khan says if he knew this was going to happen to him, he wouldn’t have come to the United States in the first place.

“It’s a mess. I never would’ve come here if I knew I would be treated like this,” he says. “I’m learning more legal things than [things in my major].”

Khan says he has two pieces of advice for other international students from the 25 countries on the list:

“Number one, smile no matter what happens. If the guy tells you to kiss his hand, kiss it. You’d better act nice to him. He has the power to deport you. Two, first priority should be the USCIS, then education.”

Trying to prevent a terrorist attack is understandable, but making everyone, even people who were in the country long before Sept. 11, jump through hoops, may not completely work.

“How would registration make them not attack?” he asks. “The only way you know someone is a terrorist is by knowing them … even if you’re not a criminal you’re treated like one. What if you were treated like this elsewhere?”

Khan says one solution that would help international students and the USCIS alike would be for the USCIS to make visits to campus.

If the USCIS was on campus, students would not have a reason to not report, and the USCIS would be able to have better access to international students, he says.

Khan crosses his legs, revealing that the sole on his left brown leather shoe is falling off. He presses the sole back onto the shoe, but the sole falls away again.

“Nobody ever said ‘Welcome to America,'” he says, gripping his coffee mug.