NSEERS registration produced deportations but zero terrorism convictions
Evidence
Another program initiated in 2002, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which had its origins in the 1996 AEDPA terrorism bill and was amended by the USA PATRIOT Act, required male immigrants sixteen and older from twenty-five countries to report to INS offices in order to be “fingerprinted, photographed, interviewed, and have their financial information copied, or to register when they enter the country, then re-register after thirty days,” as legal scholar Nancy Murray writes. (The countries were named this time, and included Muslimmajority and Middle Eastern countries as well as North Korea.) By fall 2003, more than eighty-three thousand immigrant residents had registered under the program. As their reward for coming forward, 13,799 found themselves facing deportation proceedings. As for whether “terrorists” were apprehended by this program, eleven people were found to have “links” to terrorism. The program yielded not a single terrorism conviction. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 447 (
#expands, via linked claim)
The men were interviewed, fingerprinted, and photographed by federal officials. According to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), between September 11, 2002, and June 1, 2003, almost 128,000 Arab and Muslim men were registered at their US port of entry, while approximately 83,000 Arabs and Muslims already residing in the United States were registered. While the DHS initially indicated that targeting men from these nationalities was necessary for national security, in 2011 the department reversed course and suspended the program, noting that collecting such data “no longer provides any increase in security.” A grand total of zero terrorism convictions resulted from the program. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 566 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Uzma Jamil notes that NSEERS “did not net any terrorist ‘sleeper cells,’ but did disrupt families, communities and neighbourhoods, while cementing the public’s negative perceptions of Muslims as both collectively guilty and threatening” (“Reading Power: Muslims and War on Terror Discourse,” Islamophobia Studies Journal 2, no. 2 : 33). — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 763 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: NSEERS targeted 83,000 immigrants yet produced zero terrorism convictions — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 551; NSEERS registered eighty-three thousand immigrants but produced zero terrorism convictions — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 447; The NSEERS profiling program produced zero terrorism convictions in its decade of operation. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 566 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- NSEERS registered eighty-three thousand immigrants but produced zero terrorism convictions
#expands(0.97) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 447 - The NSEERS profiling program produced zero terrorism convictions in its decade of operation.
#expands(0.95) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 566 - NSEERS surveillance disrupted communities while netting no terrorists.
#corroborates(0.92) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 763