: Special Registration For Muslim Visitors Ends, But Fears Continue

Muslim visitors to the US who cooperated with the “special registration” procedure known as the National Security Entry/Exit Registration System (NSEERS) filed into federal buildings this week for regular interviewing and photographing, but found themselves being handed “walkaway papers” informing them of the immediate suspension of the year-old law. “This is definitely a step in the right direction,” said attorney Ramiz Rafeedie of the San Francisco American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, “It’s always a positive development when a law that is founded on the concept of guilt by association or ethnicity is repealed.” Amnesty International welcomed the move, among others, although concerns were expressed about those already affected. During the year the NSEERS program was operational, 83,519 Muslim men voluntarily registered, with 13,000 of them tagged for deportation on visa violations. None of those registered was accused of links with terrorism. “These programs have not made us safer,” said Judith Golub of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, who feels the abrupt end of the program is a tacit admission of its failure. “They have left immigrant communities feeling besieged, harmed our relations with foreign governments, and wasted precious resources.” The controversial program is being replaced with a new program, US-VISIT, which focuses more on individuals rather than “broad categories” of people. Many critics and supporters of the NSEERS program feel that the new system is a smarter, more fair way of dealing with potential terrorist threats. “The immigration law needs to be applied comprehensively to everybody for it to work at all,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Any border that a Mexican busboy can cross, an Al-Qaida terrorist can cross.”

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.