Issue No. 613
International
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21 - 27 November 2002 Issue No. 613 International |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | |||
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America's welcoming promise
Life just grew more complicated for visitors from Arab and Muslim countries landing on American shores, writes Negar Azimi
As of 1 October, nationals of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria face increased scrutiny at the hand of the US immigration services under the banner of the newly minted National Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS). Visitors from these countries as well as nonimmigrant aliens, whom the State Department has determined to present as an elevated national security risk, will be subject to heightened fingerprinting, photographing and general security procedures.
While the US already holds visitors from the aforementioned countries to a higher immigration standard, the new legislation reportedly represents an unprecedented departure from past norms in the degree of rigor and invasiveness it imposes. An Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) memo last month remarked that additional criteria would apply to men from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Others subject to checks may include people who have recently visited Afghanistan, Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia and North Korea.
Even once cleared, the visitors in question will have to check in with immigration services 30 days after initial arrival, every 12 months thereafter, and report to the INS each time there is a change of address or before they are to leave the country. In addition to requiring the fingerprinting of higher risk visitors, the NSEERS programme will ask the same individuals to periodically confirm where they are living and what they are doing in the US, as well as to confirm their exit from the country--a practice that has long been common in some European countries.
Defenders of civil liberties in the United States have deemed the new legislation a mere extension of reactionary norms set into place in the aftermath of 11 September.
Muzaffar Chishti, professor of law at New York University and a senior policy analyst at the Washington DC-based Migration Policy Institute commented in an interview with Al- Ahram Weekly: "the new measure is troubling because it adds to the family of measures taken since 9/11 ... it is the combination of the actions that lead to the unfortunate conclusion that specific nationality and religious groups are being targeted for the actions of the government. And that does raise a significant civil rights and liberties challenge."
Responses from American Muslim interest groups have been strong, with terms such as "racial profiling", "selective enforcement" and "unconstitutionality" being thrown about in ubiquitous (polemical) fashion. Jean AbiNader, managing director of the Washington-based Arab American Institute told the Weekly: "the mood in the American Muslim community is fearful. They feel disappointed in this administration's lack of regard for the civil liberties of Muslims through its enforcement policies." He added that the new measures represent little more than a continuation of the general deterioration of civil liberties in the aftermath of 11 September.
Others have been equally as quick to dismiss the development. The Council on American-Muslim Relations argues that the measure "creates a false sense of security and creates a great deal of resentment in the entire Muslim world when ordinary people are treated as though they are criminals." The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has categorically deemed the policy "discriminatory".
The new security measures have had immediate international resonance as well. On 16 September, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was asked to remove his shoes and belt in Los Angeles, despite holding a diplomatic passport. Days later, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Mohamad accused the US of "anti-Muslim hysteria", -- prompting a speedy apology from US officials. Badawi was on his way to address the United Nations General Assembly when he was stopped in Los Angeles.
Pakistan has also expressed its discontent in official fashion. The country's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, argued that the decision to register all Pakistani men between the ages of 16 and 45 entering the US was anything but fair. Pakistan is presumably additionally upset because it regards itself as a close ally of the US (however controversial) in the aftermath of 11 September.
Just last week, celebrated Canadian author Robinson Mistry cancelled the second half of his US book tour because of what he deemed "racial profiling" at US airports. Mistry, the Indian- born writer short-listed for the Booker Prize, "was stopped repeatedly and rudely at each airport along the way -- to the point where the humiliation of both he and his wife had become unbearable", according to a memo from the writer's US publisher, Alfred A Knopf.
And perhaps in most embarrassing fashion, leading Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami was resolutely denied entry to the US in September, told that no visa could possibly be issued in time given the advent of new background checks on applicants from certain countries, Iran among them. Kiarostami was to attend the screening of his newest film, Ten, at the New York Film Festival. The New York Times denounced the rejection in its editorial pages, writing, "the idea that the US government is incapable of distinguishing between a potential terrorist and a renowned 62-year-old filmmaker who has been here seven times without incident is not flattering to America's intelligence capabilities or its reputation for cultural literacy."
Nevertheless, it is not only those in the civil liberties realm who are concerned about an additional expansion of power, but also libertarian conservatives who perceive this latest move as one more step in consolidating "Big Government". Conservative American columnist William Safire pontificates, "the seizure of new powers of surveillance is a smokescreen to hide failure to use the old power." Meanwhile, debates in Congress over the nature of the Homeland Security department continue unabated.
While the new policies are not without their critics, Philip Frayne, spokesman at the US Embassy in Cairo cautions against writing them off as wholly discriminatory in nature. He told the Weekly: "yes a man from the Middle East is more likely to be fingerprinted, but that does not mean that a woman from Norway will not be stopped. It is simply a question of probability."
Whether objectionable or not, in the end, the question remains as to whether the new procedures offer more work for an already overburdened immigration system or indeed prove effective in bypassing the glitches that contributed to the events of 11 September. Recent revelations have shown that the CIA was tracking hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi as early as January 2000, but only alerted authorities at US points of entry three weeks before the attacks. All 19 of the suspected hijackers entered the US illegally, while three had overstayed their visas.
New York University's Christi adds: "the profile of people is too broad to be effective. Just targeting people on the basis of their nationality casts too broad a net--it leaves too many big holes and takes resources away from a more targeted and effective enforcement action."
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the NSEERS programme in June, initially estimating that 100,000 to 200,000 visitors would be subject to the legislation's stipulations. Nonetheless, some contend that the loose language of the policy signals that its measures could potentially apply to any of the 35 million foreign visitors who come to the US every year.
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