Legislation passed in the wake of 9/11, like the Special Registration program of the Department of Homeland Security, are supposed to protect national security. This article reveals how these policies don't make sense.
Bahar Paykoc
"Where were you on 9/11, and do you know Osama Bin Ladin?"
More than 80,000 men were asked these questions, in immigration offices across the United States in the aftermath of the attack on World Trade Center.
A program launched by the US government called “Special Registration,” required all non-resident men above the age of 16 with citizenship in one of 24 Muslim countries or North Korea to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). They were fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated.
"We felt like we did something wrong, like we were responsible for 9/11. For people who never committed crimes and went to the police station, it was a weird situation," says Kamal, a 24-year-old Queens resident, who complied with the program.
Avideh Moussavian is, a lawyer at the New York Immigration Coalition, a non-profit organization devoted to solving the problems of immigrants in New York. She says Special Registration had the most devastating impact on New Yorkers.
Of the 83,000 men who registered with the program nationwide, almost 14,000 were placed into deportation proceedings, and 3,000 of them were from New York. Not one of these people were charged with a terrorism related crime. Many had been in New York for years, and had lives, families, and jobs.
Racial profiling against Muslims became pervasive after 9/11. Moussavian said even hospitals and the Department of Motor Vehicles began inquiring about the immigration status of anyone perceived to be South Asian, Arab or Muslim, introducing a risk factor for any immigrant seeking health or public services.
"I got the dirtiest stares on the subway, and was cursed on the street. I remember one day on the subway, there was this woman who got up right after I sat down, and sat somewhere else. I felt so terrible," says a Muslim New York University student who wears a headscarf.
This post 9/11 environment drove New York activist Theresa Thanjan, to film a documentary called “Who’s Children Are These?” She wanted to tell the untold stories of young people whose lives were devastated by Special Registration and discrimination. The movie has been received well at primarily Asian and South Asian film festivals. In spring of 2006, it will reach national audiences on PBS television.
One of the young people in the movie is 18-year-old Mohammed, from Pakistan, who faced deportation after registering with Special Registration. "I don't know how I feel about America anymore. My feelings are mixed," he says in a quote on the web site for the documentary. His deportation proceedings were stopped after his case caught the attention of a congressman.
“He feels the weight on his shoulders knowing that he was one of the very few lucky people. For every Mohammed there are thousands of others who are still struggling to get legal status," says Thanjan.
Special Registration's call-in program was terminated in December 2003, due to widespread international criticism and scrutiny. But in its short lifespan it did a lot of damage, and it is still not over for many of the people who were put into deportation proceedings. Thanjan says Muslim men continue to be rounded up and detained as a result of registering with the program 3 years ago.
But Moussavian says immigrants were targeted for national security purposes long before 9/11, especially under Bill Clinton’s presidency. According to a multi-ethnic network of immigrants facing deportation, Families for Freedom, around 1.2 million people from more than 120 different countries have been deported since 1996, compared with just over 213,000 from 1981 to 1990. These figures include both those who are caught on the border with those who had lives, families, and jobs here.
In 1996, under the Clinton administration, legislation was passed that expanded the grounds for deportation, and subjecting long-term immigrants to mandatory detention and automatic deportation for relatively insignificant crimes. There are no second chances. Deportation is mandatory, and you have no right to prove to a judge that you are rehabilitated, have community ties, or deserve to stay in the U.S. The Attorney General can even place asylum seekers into expedited removal – expulsion without a court hearing. The ability of federal courts to review deportation cases is severely restricted.
“Showing your patriotism and love for this country means nothing any more in terms of legal status. You could be a member of the school board, or even a gulf war veteran, and that would not necessarily keep you in this country,” says Subhash Kateel, one of the two co-founders of Families for Freedom.
In November 2005, President George W. Bush announced his new strategy “to enhance America's homeland security through comprehensive immigration reform." This strategy includes the expansion of expedited removal.
The president asserted that, "every illegal entrant we catch at the border" will be returned "with no exceptions."
Human rights groups find this attitude problematic as it ignores the US’s international commitment to provide asylum for those who have fled from repression. Bush also said that he would increase the capacity of detention facilities to hold thousands more. Kateel confirms that immigrants awaiting deportation are the fastest growing population in US prisons.
Not just Muslims
Kateel agrees that Muslims were definitely targeted, and racially profiled after 9/11. But, this did not change the fact that both nationwide, as well as in the New York area, Black (Immigrants from Dominican Republic and Caribbean) and Latinos get deported in much higher numbers. Muslims have never been the most targeted group in New York.
Since 1996 Jamaicans in New York have been at the top of the list. Nationwide, Mexicans hold the record.
“The problem is not only racial profiling of Muslims. The problem is that immigration enforcement is getting steadily worse since 1996, and has been separating families of all nationalities,” says Kateel.
Both Moussavian and Kateel agree that 9/11 created a greater opening for harsher immigration laws and administrative policies. “It created a new political role for the government to go after people they never went after before and with a level of sophistication without precedent,” Kateel says.
“1996 laws were also passed as a national security measure, but then 9/11 happened. We saw they did nothing for national security,” says Kateel. “If someone really was a terrorist, you would not want to deport them, you want to put them into jail. Deporting terrorists is not the smartest thing in the world,” adds Kateel, ridiculing the government’s policy.
He stresses that the people in power do not see the families getting separated and the hardships that the immigrants are going through. They do not see the important facts like that 15% of American families are mixed status, meaning that there is one citizen and one immigrant in the same household.
“I think what is really important is that families are being separated in record numbers in a country that has a lot of rhetoric on family values," says Kateel.
Thanjan agrees the policies have been flawed, “It is interesting that the war on terror is focusing on undocumented immigrants, because they really, in many ways, do not have power and access. Many of the men who showed up to register at INS Federal Plaza did so in good faith, thinking it would help their case for residency. You don’t see a lot of terrorists showing up in the INS Federal Plaza to be fingerprinted and photographed!” she says.
Certainly, there is no evidence to support the fact that the post 9/11 security measures, specifically Special Registration, have actually made the US safer.
Kamal, the graduate law student in New York whose Moroccan family faced deportation after registering with the Special Registration says, "I understand the reaction and feelings that led to special registration: we all wanted answers; we all wanted to know what happened on 9/11 and wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. But the saddest part is that the men and families devastated by Special Registration loved this country just as much as everyone else."
Moussavian thinks the problem extends to the exploitative relationship with undocumented immigrants in the US. "We take their taxes, their contributions; we benefit from them, but we don’t actually reward them with legal status. That is a problem,” she says.
9/11 did not change the fact that the US economy depends on undocumented labor. Kateel stresses that undocumented labor keeps New York in operation around the clock more than anyone ever wants to admit.
"If you go to Central Park, you will see that every person who is taking care of a child is an immigrant, most likely an undocumented immigrant. Those children's parents are the same group of people talking about how immigrants need to get deported," Kateel says.
"Special Registration is a program that received very limited media coverage. There are a lot of people who have never even heard of it, or haven’t heard that it happened in the US. The general public has very little information about these laws, and the actual validity and success," says Thanjan.
"There is a lot of misinformation out there about ‘harmful effects of having these people in the country," she says, "There is a lot of negative press directed towards them."
The President proudly asserted in his speech on the comprehensive immigration reform, "Since I took office, we have increased funding for immigration enforcement by 44%."
"See, we have a chance to come together on a strategy to enforce our laws, secure our country, and uphold our deepest values," he says.
But whose national security is he talking about? Politicians with the collaboration of the mainstream media create a collective consciousness suggesting immigration laws and national security are interchangeable. People in this country should remember that the US is an immigrant nation. Targeting immigrants, and especially ones from certain countries, with the rhetoric of national security could do more harm than help to the security and unity of this country, and the international image of the US.
Bush says: “The American people should not have to choose between a welcoming society and a lawful society. We can have both at the same time.” Surely, the US cannot welcome everyone. There will be limits of allowing people to live in this country. However, the laws and policies should seek to minimize the unjust consequences so that they really distribute justice instead of just claiming to do so. People have the right to know if their tax money goes towards making their country safer, or destroying lives of their neighbors, by slamming the door and saying, “And stay out!”
By Bahar Paykoc
