Ordinary immigration violations were repeatedly framed as terrorism with no proof

Evidence

A 2011 report appropriately titled Under the Radar: Muslims Deported, Detained, and Denied on Unsubstantiated Terrorism Allegations, released by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, documented the ways in which the law has been used to “cast Muslims as dangerous threats to national security.” The report argued that “religious, cultural, and political affiliations and lawful activities of Muslims are being construed as dangerous terrorism-related factors to justify detention, deportation, and denial of immigration benefits.” Muslims have been presented as terrorists in cases that were actually about immigration violations. Charges brought against Muslim immigrants “are almost always ordinary immigration violations,” the report states, yet the government has routinely insinuated connections to terrorism without providing any proof of these allegations. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 562

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the pattern of moral panic over Muslims as a racialized threat, echoing the book’s earlier chapters on how empire constructs the Muslim as other. — connects to: Ordinary immigration violations are routinely relabeled as terrorism charges — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 455; Muslims are framed as terrorists in cases only about immigration violations — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 562; Political dissidence plus Muslim identity turned a trivial immigration error into a deportation case — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 890 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what happened to the Under the Radar report’s findings in the decade-plus since 2011? Did the patterns change under different administrations?

Broader Connections

• Ordinary immigration violations are routinely relabeled as terrorism charges #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 455
• Muslims are framed as terrorists in cases only about immigration violations #exemplifies (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 562
• Muslim immigrants are detained for minor immigration violations that normally escape detention #exemplifies (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 564
• Political dissidence plus Muslim identity turned a trivial immigration error into a deportation case #exemplifies (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 890
• Immigration law’s permanent exception powers were repurposed for the war on terror #expands (0.80)
• Anti-terror and immigration policies become conflated in framing Muslims as foreign enemies #expands (0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 580
• Immigration detention can imprison people who committed no crime #exemplifies (0.75) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 159