Hundreds of Pakistanis are fleeing to Canada to avoid the new INS registration requirements in the U.S.

Rather than wait for the inevitable, many Pakistanis have chosen to run, often with families in tow. They hope to obtain asylum in Canada.

New York City has a vast Pakistani community, and everyone knows the route north.... Each night, Pakistanis board the midnight Greyhound bus at Manhattan's Port Authority and six hours later they arrive at a deserted strip mall on the western edge of Plattsburgh, N.Y. Taxi drivers charge $50 for the ride up through frozen northern farmlands to the border turnaround. They walk the final 300 yards through the snow to the Canadian immigration center.

...without visas in these nervous times since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, deportation is almost a certainty. Hundreds of registrants have been arrested since the program began on Dec. 16. The detentions have sparked protests and demonstrations and this week the INS extended deadlines, but also added five nations to the registration program.

The Director of the Canadian Immigrations center says his staff runs criminal background checks on all of the Pakistanis, and very few of them flunk.

If applicants pass that hurdle, they can continue on to Montreal or Toronto and begin a year-long series of asylum hearings. Canada grants asylum to 54 percent of the applicants. Those who are rejected are returned to the United States and turned over to the American border station.

The stories are sad, because of the uncertainty facing these refugees.

Everyone here is "without status," meaning that they overstayed American visas, or lost papers or have applications pending. The complications are endless and exhausting. They only know they don't want go back to Pakistan, because it's poor and dangerous, and because their lives would be without prospects.

Their families are like seeds tossed to the wind. Brothers work the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, sisters as domestics in Manila or Kuwait. In their telling, the United States was a golden place. Malik, 28, who has a good command of English, landed at JFK airport eight years ago. He traveled to Manhattan on his second day and fell in love. Within a month, he had an apartment in Brooklyn, near Kings Highway. He was a limousine dispatcher, he belonged to a gym, and he says he paid taxes for the past seven years....

The application process stretches late into the afternoon. Bags are searched and they are asked many questions. They are stateless and expect no less. By mid-afternoon, Malik from Brooklyn allows himself an optimistic accounting. He has no criminal record, he was a good Pakistani and a good New Yorker. He will be a good Canadian.

The INS foreigner registration progam is as harsh as any we can recall. Surely there must be a better way.