NSEERS targeted men from Muslim-majority nations while ignoring Western countries with known terrorists

Evidence

The National Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) is a good example of a state-led surveillance initiative that specifically targeted Muslim men and illustrates how the state conflates gender, religion, and national identities to determine who is a threat to national security. NSEERS was initiated in September 2002 and retired in April 2011. For almost nine years, noncitizen men from twenty-five specified nations were fingerprinted, photographed and interrogated at ports of entry to the United States. Furthermore, noncitizen men over the age of sixteen who lived in the United States prior to September 10, 2002, were required to register with an immigration office. Of the twenty-five nations specified by the program, twenty-four are Muslim-majority countries, with North Korea being the sole exception. These nations each have their own unique history and culture, yet twenty-four of the twenty-five share one thing in common: Islam is the state religion. The fact that there were known terrorists from countries like England (Richard Reid, known as the “shoe bomber”) and the terrorist attacks that occurred in Spain, France, and Germany at the time NSEERS was policy and yet these countries were not on the list reflects the state’s bias toward Muslim-majority nations (Bayoumi 2006). — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 54

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete evidence for the racialization-of-Muslims thread alongside Beydoun’s work on the Muslim ban and state targeting; also factual anchor for the reader’s US-focused Global Racial Enemy slot.
• SHARE: Send to someone tracking post-9/11 surveillance policy — the North Korea exception and the England shoe-bomber omission are striking details.
• QUESTION: Why exactly was North Korea the sole exception? Worth chasing the program’s drafting history.