December 20, 2002 11:32 AM

More than 500 Iranian and other Middle Eastern citizens were arrested in southern California under the guise of a new program that requires all men over 16 from the Middle East who are not permanent residents to register with immigration.

Ramona Ripston, ACLU executive director: "I think it is shocking what is happening. It is reminiscent of what happened in the past with the internment of Japanese Americans. We are getting a lot of telephone calls from people. We are hearing that people went down wanting to cooperate and then they were detained."

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