Muslim governments regulate labor migrants as both economic assets and terror suspects

Evidence

As part of the global War on Terror, governments across the Muslim world, including those in Pakistan and the Gulf countries, have designed regulatory systems that often target labor migrants through mixed interpretations. They are viewed simultaneously as positive, because their remittances benefit domestic economies, and as negative, as culprits in potential terrorism through their use of uno≈cial monetary exchange systems. In compliance with the interests of a U.S. security state that seeks to control such flows, these governments use complex technologies of surveillance purportedly designed to prevent terrorism and to combat criminal activities associated with migration, such as the production of false documents, tra≈cking, and smuggling. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 650

Categorization

• XREF: The dual framing of migrants as remittance assets and terror risks parallels the discourse on diaspora remittances vs. terrorist financing (e.g., hawala after 9/11), and the 2001 PATRIOT Act hawala crackdowns.
• QUESTION: Would be worth a closer look: how the U.S. security state’s demand for surveillance was ‘complied with’ by sovereign Muslim states — a mechanism of extraterritorial governance this chapter will presumably unpack.