Obama junks Bush Muslim registry; rights advocates hail move

FSRN

WASHINGTON, DC — The Obama administration junked a much-criticized Bush-era Muslim registration program aimed at Muslims.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that it will publish a regulation to rescind the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) program.

Enacted in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush-era program called NSEERS has been roundly criticized, even by internal federal government watchdogs, as being ineffective as an anti-terrorism tool.

The program has been compared by both supporters and opponents to the racially hostile sentiment that led to the Japanese internment where innocent people were incarcerated solely on the basis of their national origin.

As a result of NSEERS, over 83,000 boys and men who held non-immigrant visas from 25 Muslim majority countries were required to register w and 13,000 were placed into removal proceedings.

Yet not a single known terrorism conviction resulted from this blanket policy, which detained immigrants, tore families apart, and cut short educational opportunities.

Among the advocacy efforts in support of the NSEERS rescission was a letter to President Obama signed on November 22, 2016 by nearly 200 human rights, civil liberties, education, social justice, and inter-faith organizations; a letter by Members of Congress on the same topic and a petition by DRUM and Moveon.org with over 135,000 signatures.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice applauded advocates and the Administration for taking this critical step to protect Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities who President-elect Trump has vowed to place on a “registry” based on the false and biased assumption that people of a particular religion or nationality pose a greater national security risk and should be subject to racial and religious profiling.