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97 more detainees on their way to Pakistan

By ANWAR IQBAL, UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- A chartered plane carrying 97 Pakistani detainees from the United States is expected to arrive in Islamabad late Thursday, some of the deportees told United Press International by telephone.

This is the second group of Pakistani nationals to be deported for immigration law violations this summer and includes about 40 people from the city of Karachi and 25 from Lahore. The rest are from other parts of Pakistan, according to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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The detainees were collected at the Tensas Detention facility in Louisiana from across the United States, as part of a post-Sept.11 policy of zero tolerance towards deportation absconders -- foreigners who have already been ordered to leave the country but have not done so.

The INS was recently ordered to track down and deport an estimated 300,000 such absconders.

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Some of the group had been in federal custody for up to ten months. Most are deportation absconders arrested since April, but 17 stand accused of criminal offences including drug possession, theft and fraud, according to the officials. Pakistani and U.S. law enforcement have been interviewing the detainees in Louisiana for three days.

Eyewitnesses -- who all asked that their names not be used -- told UPI of tearful scenes at the prison. Several of the detainees were married to U.S. nationals and had to leave their spouses and children behind, these witnesses said.

But most of the deportees said they wanted to go home.

"We have suffered enough. We want to go home now," said M.A. Jindani, a former Karachi resident who was arrested in Orlando, Florida.

He was left behind at the last moment because his lawyer had obtained a stay order. Jindani, however, attempted to leave with the other detainees and had to be forcibly separated from them, he said.

Asked to comment on the information obtained from the detainees, Pakistani consular officer Imran Ali, who is accompanying the prisoners, said: "We have no comment. We cannot talk to the press."

Some of the detainees had been at New York's Metropolitan Detention Center, recently the subject of criticism from civil rights activists following alleged mistreatment of inmates.

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The INS sent its first chartered flight to Pakistan on June 26 carrying 131 detainees. The plane was chartered from a Portuguese airlines, Air Luxor, at a cost of $342,000.

Although it was more expensive, this second plane was chartered from an American company, World Airways, to help the ailing U.S. airline industry, according to the INS officials.

U.S. and Pakistani officials had originally planned to send 140 detainees on the second flight but some of them obtained stay orders from the local courts and were left behind.

There were a total of 280 Pakistani immigrants in U.S. jails before the departure of this latest flight.

U.S. and Pakistani authorities had planned to send the second flight in July but it was delayed because of the uproar caused by the first flight.

In Pakistan, the government was criticized for failing to get a better deal for that batch of deportees, most of whom wanted to stay in the United States.

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