Council on American-Islamic Relations [Archived]

Losing Our Liberties

2007-04-30T18:44:00Z

More than five years removed from the 9/11 terror attacks—the greatest tragedy to befall our nation in modern history—our country has learned certain lessons regarding our role in the global community. But we also have more to learn about treatment of our own citizens—lessons that will hopefully lead us to a stronger, safer and more vibrant society for people of all races, faiths and cultures who are all treated equally under the law.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the most disturbing legal trend in America has been the growing disparity in how American Muslims, Arabs and South Asians have been treated under the law.

For example, in the months immediately after 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft, using his powers under section 412 of the now infamous USA PATRIOT Act, rounded up and imprisoned well over 1,200 Muslim and Arab men based solely on pretextual immigration violations. The most disturbing fact about these mass roundups was the fact that the Justice Department refused to disclose the detainees’ identities, give them access to lawyers or allow them to have contact with their families. The inspector general conceded in his official report that they stopped counting the detainees after 1,200 because the “statistics became too confusing.”

Georgetown University law professor and civil liberties expert David Cole has said that, “Thousands were detained in this blind search for terrorists without any real evidence of terrorism, and ultimately without netting virtually any terrorists of any kind.”

In June 2002, Ashcroft instituted the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, more commonly referred to as NSEERS. One of the most ambiguous and publicly debated aspects of NSEERS was known as “Special Registration.” Special Registration required all male nationals over the age of 14 from 25 countries to report to the government to be registered and fingerprinted. With the sole exception of North Korea, every single one of the 25 countries on the Special Registration bulletin was Muslim or Arab. The ACLU denounced the plan as “a thinly veiled effort to trigger massive and discriminatory deportations of certain immigrants.”

In one year alone, the Special Registration program registered 83,310 foreign nationals, placing 13,740 into deportation proceedings.

In addition to our ongoing Iraqi occupation and other endeavors in the Muslim world, this upward trend in civil rights violations against American Muslims can also be attributed to Islamophobic rhetoric coming from certain right-wing circles of our own political elite.

For instance, when Ann Coulter says that there should be a ‘forced conversion of Muslims’ to Christianity or Pat Robertson states that he would never allow Muslim or Hindu judges on the federal bench, they betray our nation's pluralistic origins and the concept of the equality of all Americans. Such seething hatred expressed in mainstream media outlets breeds prejudice and fosters the perpetuation of stereotypes.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Although much of our government’s focus today is on ‘spreading democracy’ and ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of people abroad, it is high time that the Bush administration try spreading a little American democracy here —while winning the hearts and minds of Americans by treating all people equally under the law.

Citizenship Delays

2007-03-29T21:39:00Z

The Issue

Federal law provides the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) up to 120 days to accept or reject a particular applicant’s request for US citizenship after the applicant has provided the required documentation, been fingerprinted and interviewed.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 a new type of background check, known as a “name check;” a search of FBI records based on the full name of the applicant, is required by USCIS for adjudication of applications for naturalization.
The backlog resulting from this new check is leaving law-abiding applicants in a legal limbo, sometimes for years, in violation of federal law.

Because of thousands of people who are affected by this immense backlog, there should be research requiring USCIS to implement a system that more adequately tracks cases and prioritizes those that have gone beyond the statutory 120 day limit. This data should be reported to Congress to ensure proper oversight.

This has forced several mandamus federal lawsuits to be filed in order to compel the government to expedite the applications of those individuals who have waited longer than the 120 day statutory period.

Lawsuits Waste Tax Dollars and Divert the Attention of U.S. Attorneys Away From Criminal Prosecutions

“U.S. Attorney for Colorado Troy Eid estimated that for the amount of time his staff has devoted this year to defending the FBI, it could “be putting 50 or more bad guys behind bars.” (Denver Post, 12/10/2006)
”Hundreds of lawsuits against the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are pending in federal courts nationwide, including class-action cases in California, Illinois and New York, according to judicial records and attorneys.” (Denver Post, 12/10/2006)
Applicants are seeing that lawsuits get results, encouraging more litigation. A Department of Homeland Security memo reveals that the FBI now considers a “lawsuit pending in Federal Court” as grounds for speeding up stalled background checks.” (Denver Post, 12/10/2006)

If There Are Real Security Concerns About Certain People, Lengthy Background Checks Do Not Serve the Public Good

If it is a national security issue, an expedited process or a properly funded program would more quickly identify and remove threats to our nation.
Background checks taking more than 120 days are neither efficient nor good for security.
People applying for citizenship have already been in the country for at least 5 years.

The FBI Maintains That the Reason For The Delay Is Expanded Requirements To Complete The Background Checks But Limited Resources

FBI spokespeople routinely say the name check program is understaffed and inadequately funded.
"Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General wrote in a recent national review of the security check process that the agency “has difficulty creating and retrieving historical records that show what checks were done when.” (San Francisco Chronicle, 12/22/2005)
In 2004, “advocates estimated that at least 100,000 of the 678,000 immigrants with pending citizenship applications nationwide have been waiting longer than the Bush administration’s six month goal.” (Associated Press, 10/16/2004)

Applicants for Citizenship Have Followed The Rules And Done Everything That Was Asked Of Them; The Government Is Failing Them

Leaving people in a legal limbo for years is a sad return for the immigrant’s patriotism and belief in America’s democratic values.
Leaving them in limbo and then putting them in a position where suing is the only way to get resolution is bad management, penalizes them for the government’s failure to address citizenship delays and is expensive for both the new citizens and the government.

Additional Details

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) is the agency with overall responsibility for applications for naturalization.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the agency responsible for conducting background checks on applicants for Naturalization.
USCIS has made the unfortunate decision to stop granting citizenship interviews to applicants whose “name checks” have not cleared. Rather than forming a partnership with those who support the long-standing American tradition of granting citizenship to deserving applicants, USCIS’s decision makes the situation with immigration rights advocates more combative.
Before the attacks on September 11, USCIS had 3 months to complete a thorough background check on all applicants for citizenship. After the attacks on September 11, CIS required all applicants to obtain National Security Clearance, in addition to the standard background check it conducted, to obtain citizenship status.
National Security Clearance checks are conducted by the FBI. In addition to the standard fingerprint check, the FBI runs the name of the person against another list of persons with criminal history. Names that produce “hits” do not necessarily mean that the person being searched has a criminal record, but that their name may have a spelling or sound match with someone who has a criminal record. If such a “hit” is produced, each record that is “hit” must be pulled up and examined to determine whether the individual being searched is the individual with the criminal record. According to the FBI, delays occur when several hits are produced, and in waiting or trying to locate the records that are a ‘hit’.
Consequently, the 3 month limit that USCIS had to conduct the background check was lifted. There is now no time limit to adhere to when conducting background checks. (Note: CIS still has a time limit on making a decision on an application – see 8 U.S.C. §1447(b))
It is possible that USCIS’s failure to adjudicate the applications due to delays in “name checks” violates the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. The Administrative Procedures Act requires administrative agencies to conclude matters presented to them “within a reasonable time.” See 5 U.S.C. §555.
“The immigration agency refuses to release the relevant data on processing times- Freedom of Information Act requests from Muslim advocates, investigative journalists and immigration restrictionists have all been denied. And a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, chastised immigration officials for not tracking cases pending six months or longer.”” (Dallas Morning News, 3/15/2006)

In response to skyrocketing fees in order to provide the adequate monetary resources to USCIS to expedite citizenship applications; Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Rep. Luis Guttierez (D-IL) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced the Citizens Protection Act on March 7, 2007.

“Setting sky high immigration application fees could deter immigrants from following a legal path citizenship, sending those that played by the rules into the shadows.” said Senator Obama. “This legislation sends the fee hikes back to the drawing board, providing new sources of funding for the application process and allowing immigrants to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Wealth should not be the test to determine whether or not an immigrant can become an American citizen.”

Senators Menendez, Bingaman and Salazar, as well as Representatives Honda, Abercrombie, Solis, Pastor and Grijalva, joined as original co-sponsors of the legislation.

Let's Call It 'Racist' Profiling

2007-02-13T16:04:00Z

According to the Congressional Research Service, the phenomenon of 'profiling' is defined “as the practice of targeting individuals for police or security interdiction, detention or other disparate treatment based primarily on their race or ethnicity [or religion], in the belief that certain minority groups are more likely to engage in unlawful behavior.” The debate on profiling has again resurfaced after 9/11 and its most disparately affected groups have been the American Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities.

A July 2001 Gallup poll reported that 55 percent of whites and 83 percent of blacks believe racial profiling is widespread. According to Amnesty International, approximately 32 million (1 out of 9) Americans, a number equivalent to the population of Canada, report they have already been victims of racial profiling.

Amnesty also finds that approximately 87 million (1 out of 3) Americans are at a high risk of being subjected to future racial profiling during their lifetime.

A year-long study conducted by the Domestic Human Rights Program of Amnesty International USA found that the unlawful use of race in police, immigration, and airport security procedures has expanded since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause.

In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution requires that all US citizens be treated equally under the law. It has been argued that this makes it unconstitutional for a representative of the government to make decisions based on race. This view has been upheld by the USSupreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky and several other cases.

Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) on the introduction of his End Racial Profiling Act of 2004 said that: “…President Bush declared that racial profiling is wrong and pledged to end it in America. He then directed his Attorney General to implement this policy," Feingold said. "It is now three years later, and the American people are still waiting for the President to follow through on his pledge to end racial profiling."

As Americans, how can we end profiling, you ask?

Well, for starters, for Americans dedicated to the protection of our constitutional rights, calling for the re-introduction of the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) of 2005 (S. 2138) in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, which was originally co-sponsored by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), would go a long way in ameliorating the profiling phenomenon.

ERPA would do the following:

Prohibit the use of racial profiling based on race, religion, ethnicity or national origin;
Institute programs to eliminate racial profiling in local, state and federal law enforcement by general prohibition, monitoring tactics, establishing procedures for receiving, investigating and responding to complaints and create procedures to discipline agents who engage in racial profiling;
Allow the Attorney General to withhold grants from law enforcement agencies not complying with the Act and to provide grants to agencies to encourage compliance with the Act;
Mandate that the Attorney General submit an annual report to Congress on racial profiling by federal, state and local law enforcement.

From the FBI to Republican senators, anyone who is serious about protecting our national security knows that racial profiling is not an effective law enforcement tool. When you judge someone by the color of their skin (or the religion to which they adhere) and not on criminal suspicion; not only is that inherently racist and antithetical to our beloved Constitution, but it is also against every American democratic principle which makes our nation the greatest country in the world.