FYI: The Bush administration had collected information on 82,581 men and boys from primarily Muslim Asian and African countries through its “special registration” process as of May 2003, and put 13,153 of them in deportation proceedings. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund published a report offering a window into who those people are and what they’ve been put through. Researchers surveyed 219 of the approximately 800 people who got legal help from AALDEF in dealing with special registration. They found 95 percent were Muslim and 59 percent were in working-class jobs. Nearly 60 percent of those who registered spent more than 10 hours on the process. After the initial registration and investigation, the rule requires those targeted to report whenever they leave or enter the country, restricts their entry and exit to certain border crossings and airports, and forces them to notify the administration whenever they change address, jobs or schools, among other things. No one in AALDEF’s study was found to have any connection to Al-Qaeda or other groups associated with political violence. [11/13/03]