SAN DIMAS -- Some of the men who were detained during an immigration registration program for foreign men, mostly from Muslim countries, that started last month are being excused from deportation hearings.

Hundreds of men born in Iraq, Iran and Syria were detained in December during a special registration period ordered by the Department of Justice. Many of them were legally in this country but at one point had let their legal status slip.

Tony Sahlepour, an Iranian who has been in the United States for more than 20 years, spent three days shuttling between jails in Los Angeles County after he reported to be interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed.

The computer store salesman had dropped out of the University of La Verne in the 1980s and thus was in violation of his student visa. In the 1990s, he qualified under an amnesty program approved by President Clinton that allowed him to pay a $1,000 fine and apply for legal residency.

He feared that status was in jeopardy or that he might be sent back to a country he fled after the Islamic revolution, leaving behind his Indian-born wife in San Dimas.

"You never know what's going to happen; it could go any which way," Sahlepour said.

The policy that resulted in his detention was a feature of the USA Patriot Act under which Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft issued regulations for aliens. Men older than 16 who are not immigrants or who had won political asylum, from mostly Middle Eastern, Muslim-dominated countries, have to register.

The INS drew protests and criticism after the Dec. 16 registration when Sahlepour and others were detained for days and registration itself took a full day. A second round earlier this month went much more smoothly, with shorter waits and fewer detentions.

"We had improved guidelines from Washington," said Francisco Arcaute, spokesman for the INS in Los Angeles. "We avoided, the second time around, detaining individuals who were close to obtaining an immigration benefit -- U.S. citizenship or a green card. We realized it didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked" on Dec. 16.

The increased scrutiny has college officials who are liaisons to foreign students judiciously watching for new regulations and issuing strong advisories to students to avoid even the most minor violations of their immigration status, said Charlene Martin, director of International Place at the Claremont Colleges.

"There are a lot of things that were required before that weren't enforced, like change of address," which nonimmigrant aliens are required to tell the INS, Martin said.

Sahlepour was deeply relieved, he said, to get a letter from the INS advising him that he didn't have to appear in court and prove why he shouldn't be deported. But he says he's still miffed at how the federal government handled men who, he said, are hardly a threat to the United States.

"It's an illogical thing they did and cost them a lot of money," he said.