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Home Front: WoT
A bit of history: crackdown on illegal Muslims post-9/11
2010-09-13
Yesterday anon1 wrote:

When we first learned who flew the planes into towers, we should have just ended islamic immigration immediately and locked down muslims ie: religious profiling. vigilant surveillance of mosque, movements etc. They should be registered and watched.

And she was absolutely right. The title of this article links to a National Public Radio report from 26.June, 2003 about how we did exactly that. I had remembered the general outline, but the details went a great deal beyond my memory. But back then I didn't have the background to understand the extent to which the measures must have disrupted the jihadis' plans, how much the measures destroyed the culture supporting jihadi efforts.

Here's the first bit. You'll want to take a few minutes to read the entire PDF, I think. Please ignore the high indignation of the tone; it is NPR, after all.
Critics say strict enforcement of immigration laws has turned the war on terror into a war on immigrants

BOB EDWARDS, host:
Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, a cornerstone of the Bush administration's counterterrorist strategy has been strict enforcement of immigration laws. Officials say a broad crackdown on illegal aliens was needed to find terrorists already here and prevent more from entering the country. But critics say that approach has turned the war on terror into a war on immigrants and they question whether the changes are making the nation safer. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports.

JENNIFER LUDDEN reporting:
Six weeks after the attacks on New York and Washington, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a new focus on prevention. He said he was taking a page from Robert Kennedy who, it was said, had mobsters arrested for spitting on the sidewalk.

Mr. JOHN ASHCROFT (Attorney General):
It will the policy of this Department of Justice to use the same aggressive arrest and detention tactics in the war against terror. Let the terrorists among us be warned. If you overstay your visas, even by one day, we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, we will hope that you will and work to make sure that you are put in jail and be kept in custody as long as possible. We will use every available statute. We will seek every prosecutorial advantage.

LUDDEN: Law enforcement agencies began raiding airports across the country, arresting hundreds of illegal aliens working at them. At a recent Justice Department press conference, Paul McNulty, the US attorney for eastern Virginia, said the program has been expanded to other critical sites.

Mr. PAUL McNULTY (US Attorney, Virginia): We're looking at the power plants, the military bases, other places where people are employed that are vulnerable and we're running their names through criminal issue record checks. We're making sure that everybody who works there is who they say they are, and these are the ways we have to do business if we're going to prevent terrorism in the future.

LUDDEN: Many caught in these raids have been from the large Hispanic population, but the government's most controversial moves have been against Arab and Muslim men. Hundreds were detained and deported in the months after 9/11. An internal report by the Justice Department's inspector general criticized the harsh treatment and near random roundup of many of them. More recently, 80,000 Arab and Muslim men have been fingerprinted and interviewed under a new registration program; 13,000 of them face possible deportation, many for technical violations of immigration law.
I would dearly love to know what happened to the ones who were sent back, or went back willingly, not to mention their families. The children who were old enough to remember what America was like should just be reaching adulthood now.
Posted by:trailing wife

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Posted by: trailing wife   2010-09-13 22:34  

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