Immigration Laws
During special registrations in the INS compound San Jose CA*

Don’t blame them
they are only protecting themselves

Who will know better than them
what those who come in later
can do to those who were there before

Who will know better than them
what drives men that are driven
from what they have known to what is not theirs

Who will know better than them
the thin line between hunger and greed
that vanishes when the stomach is full

Why blame them
they are merely protecting their own.

*In 2002- 2003 the US Department of Homeland Security decreed that all male residents who belonged to Islamic countries must voluntarily register themselves with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service). It entailed being fingerprinted, photographed and interrogated. The press chose not to cover any of the arbitrary cases of detention and deportation that ensued. These surfaced much later through investigations by human rights activists.