Even in the face of the negative Inspector-General's Report on the treatment of detainees, Ashroft continues to defend his policies.

Others tell a different story:

...at a forum on Capitol Hill, one immigrant after another told of the toll that they said the fight against terrorism had taken on them. After Sept. 11, 2001, the authorities questioned, jailed or deported hundreds of people who had no known ties to terrorism.

If we trample the Constitution in the name of security," Jeanne Butterfield, director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a participant in the forum, warned, "the terrorists have won."

The report concluded that the department's arrests of 762 illegal immigrants, most of them Middle Eastern, were plagued with "significant problems." Many of the suspects were left in jail cells for weeks or months without being formally charged, with some suffering physical and verbal abuse from their jailers, investigators found, and few of the detainees proved to have ties to terrorists, investigators found.

The inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, found that the problems were rooted in part in an unstated policy that allowed the F.B.I. to keep the suspects in detention unless it was established that they were not tied to terrorism.

At his press conference today,

....Mr. Ashcroft did not mention the inspector general's findings, and he left the briefing room without answering questions about the report.

Also in denial was Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who said,

the report showed that the Justice Department "scrupulously followed the law, while aggressively protecting innocent Americans from future terrorist attacks."

Update: The ACLU is considering lawsuits on behalf of the rounded-up immigrants as a result of the report. [link via Cursor.]