National security programs targeted undocumented immigrants on group religious identity, not individualized suspicion.

Evidence

In the months leading up to the 2004 presidential elections, Operation Front Line targeted more than two thousand undocumented immigrants, three quarters of whom were from Muslim-majority countries, on national security grounds. Operation Front Line was a partnership between the ICE National Security Investigations Unit and the FBI to identify and prevent potential terrorist activities in connection with the 2004 presidential election and 2005 inauguration. The selection criteria were not individualized but rather based on the association of Islam with terrorism. If these individuals had in fact planned terrorist plots, the government would have criminally prosecuted them. Instead, they deported them. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 908

Categorization

• XREF: Reinforces the pattern established earlier in the chapter that national-security rhetoric functioned as a cover for immigration enforcement against Muslims specifically. — connects to: NSEERS targeted 83,000 immigrants yet produced zero terrorism convictions — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 551