In January 2003, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft implemented a new policy requiring male visitors - including tourists, workers, and students on short-term visas - from 18 mainly Muslim countries to be fingerprinted, interviewed, and photographed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now USCIS) or risk deportation. On January 13, 2003, several hundred people gathered in Seattle's Chinatown - International District Neighborhood for a candlelight rally to protest the mandatory registration as unconstitutional and tantamount to racial profiling.
Here, protesters march in the rain from Hing Hay Park to the INS detention center, located at the time a short distance away at 815 Airport Way South. A banner carried at the head of the march reads "Stop the War on Muslims."
Caption information source: "Hundreds rally in Seattle" by Chris McGann, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 14, 2003, pp. B1, B6
Additional Information: Metadata created as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
Credit: MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 2000.107.20030113.CD04.004, photo by Meryl Schenker
