May 17, 2011- The U.S. government has ended a controversial counterterrorism program created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that required men living in the U.S. who came from mostly Muslim countries to register with federal authorities. Called NSEERS -- National Security Entry-Exit Registration System -- the program required registration, interviews and fingerprinting of male visitors 16 and older from Muslim nations as well as North Korea. The program targeted men entering the country as well as more than 80,000 men already in the U.S., about 1,000 of them from metro Detroit. Nearly 13,800 residents were further investigated, and 2,870 were later deported. But not a single case resulted in anyone being charged with terrorism -- a fact that experts say proves the program was a failure that unfairly harassed thousands. NSEERS did "not catch terrorists," said Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, a law professor at Penn State University who has extensively researched the program. "It was ineffective and alienating."
May 17, 2011- The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on April 28 that it would terminate the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), one of the most controversial immigration programs implemented in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
May 6, 2011- Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government established a policy requiring men and boys from 25 countries - almost all Muslim, and all of them in Asia or Africa - to report for "special registration." Turns out it wasn't such a hot idea.
How the Hunt for Bin Laden Made U.S. Muslims and Immigrants Threats [Colorlines]
May 4, 2011- Ten years after Sept. 11, 2001, the animating target of the war on terror is dead, his body cast into the sea. A chapter is closed. Yet, in many communities here in the United States, it seemed the target was never just Osama bin Laden. For Arabs and Muslims in the U.S., and for those lumped carelessly together with them, the war on terrorism has not been an abstraction waged in far off lands, but a fight that’s engulfed communities right here at home.
May 3, 2011- After nine years of pressure from civil rights advocates, the Department of Homeland Security has quietly announced the end of NSEERS (National Security Entry/Exit Registration System, sometimes called Special Registration), one of the most explicitly racist, underreported initiatives in post-9/11 America, Colorlines reports.
Read more...
Read more...
