In the wake of 9/11, Congress put the Department of Homeland Security in charge of immigration and tightened registration procedures for male visitors from 25 countries with large Muslim populations. It wasn’t hard to argue that Sept. 11 represented a huge INS failure -- especially when the public learned that the agency had reissued a visa to Mohammed Atta months after he had killed himself by flying a plane into the World Trade Center. But it seems the new procedures have caught a number of law-abiding low-risk visitors in its widely cast net. The latest Philadelphia resident to be snagged is Pakistani national Yahya Jalil, an MBA student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school -- by all accounts, a man who would have wanted to work in the World Trade Center, not blow it up.

According to new regulations issued by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS), as the immigration department is now known, men from Muslim countries are required to submit to being photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed if they stay in the United States more than 30 days. Jalil complied with this requirement, registering with BCIS in Philadelphia. The Lahore native had been studying and working in the U.S. since 1992 when he enrolled as a freshman at Stanford University. But this March, when Jalil flew out of Newark airport to London on a job-hunting trip, he didn’t realize he had to register again. According to Jalil, he asked at the United Airlines counter if he needed to do anything other than bring his student visa and they told him he did not. When he returned to Newark on March 12, his visa was revoked and Jalil was barred from the country. (His wife, Hifza Jalil, also Pakistani, was admitted since the new regulations do not apply to women.) In order to apply for another visa, Yahya Jalil had to return to Pakistan, where he remains today.

According to Page 4 of a five-page BCIS information packet for visitors from the 25 designated nations, "If you leave the United States … you must notify INS on the date of your departure and leave through a designated port. If you do not report your departure, you may be denied admission to the United States at a later date."

To David DiSabatino, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, "It seems the system is designed to deport as many people as possible, whether they present a danger to the U.S. or not." DiSabatino cites the recent detention of Ejaz Haider, a Pakistani newspaper editor and visiting scholar with the Brookings Institution, who was accosted by immigration agents on the streets of Washington, D.C. Haider’s violation was not registering with BCIS between day 30 and 40 of his visit as required. "If people who are as sophisticated and well-educated as [Jalil and Haider] can’t figure out how to comply with the rules, how is an ordinary person supposed to?" DiSabatino says.

Communicating via e-mail from Pakistan Jalil writes, "I had been in the U.S. for several years before and was very meticulous about following immigration rules and regulations. I had never contemplated that this could happen to me."

"There should be some level of reasonable exemption for people in Yahya’s position," says Jeremy Korst, a Wharton student, friend of Jalil’s, and chair of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. After all, between Stanford and Wharton, Jalil worked for General Electric and Credit Suisse First Boston -- hardly workplaces of choice for anti-Western fanatics. Korst has drawn up an online petition calling upon the "United States government to grant Yahya Jalil reentry to the United States at the earliest possible time." So far, more than 3,000 students and faculty members have signed the petition. University of Pennsylvania President Judith Rodin and Wharton Dean Patrick Harker have also written letters to the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan in the hopes of speeding up the visa-issuing process. Normally, the application process takes between eight months and one year. Korst has also contacted U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum.

BCIS spokesman Lance Payne says notifying the senators is the right thing to do. "If there are some problems, this is a good way [for the senators] to find out about these problems," he says, noting that only Congress has the power to modify the law. When new laws are passed, it takes some time to get the kinks out. "There’s a learning curve here for everybody," Payne says.

The press offices of Sens. Specter and Santorum did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Back in Pakistan, Jalil is worried not just about his separation from his wife but about his future employment prospects. "U.S. corporations are starting to learn about the implications of the new special registration laws especially as it pertains to travel, and are becoming increasingly reluctant to hire people who might be affected by such regulations. This is particularly true of corporations that require their employees to do international travel." Hifza Jalil says her husband has received a number of interview requests from American companies via e-mail but is unable to get to them. With Jalil scheduled to graduate from Wharton next month, the university has made arrangements to allow him to take his final exams by fax. Assuming he passes his courses, the school will mail him his diploma.

Meanwhile Hifza Jalil is preparing to sell their furniture before the couple’s lease expires in June. "We don’t know when we’ll be back," she says.