"I think America overreacted a great deal by singling out Arab-named men like myself," he said in a phone interview.

But in recent interviews, immigration officials said they did not want to be seen as singling out Middle Eastern men, and they did not plan to search for undocumented immigrants on their own.

The Daily News reported Monday that the F.B.I. was investigating a letter-writer who singled out Jeter and other prominent black men because of their interracial marriages or relationships.

Some said the rebels had singled out young men from the flood of refugees and separated them from those who were allowed to go home.

Surveying the group with those gimlet eyes of his, he singled out men and beckoned them to the bench.