PREVENTION AND CONFLICT

Under the Radar: Muslims Deported, Detained, and Denied on Unsubstantiated Terrorism Allegations

Under the Radar traces the discriminatory deployment of immigration and law enforcement practices against Muslim communities in the United States through the lens of national security and counterterrorism policy, situating it in the broader framework of international human rights law and evaluating five under-documented patterns of government conduct that exploit lower evidentiary standards and due process gaps within the immigration system. This Briefing Paper argues that the targeting of Muslim immigrants on the basis of religious and ethnic stereotypes rather than evidence of wrongdoing carries profound human rights significance through the compounding dynamics of unsubstantiated allegations, coercive detention, overbroad statutory application, and institutional opacity, generating systematic violations of due process, liberty, religious freedom, and privacy that demand an immediate end to discriminatory practices and meaningful government accountability.

Through the targeted use of a wide set of immigration and law enforcement policies and actions, the U.S. government has cast Muslims as dangerous threats to national security, leaving Muslim communities across the United States vulnerable to discrimination and discriminatory profiling. This Briefing Paper by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) documents the U.S. government’s deployment of lower evidentiary standards and lack of due process guarantees in the immigration system against Muslims to further marginalize this targeted group in the name of national security and counterterrorism.

A number of particular immigration programs and practices—such as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) name-check system in the naturalization process, and racial profiling at U.S. borders have received critical attention for their discriminatory impacts on Muslim communities. This Briefing Paper draws on interviews with immigration and criminal defense attorneys and community-based groups, court documents, and media accounts to identify five key under-documented patterns of government practices that appear to be targeting Muslim communities through the immigration system:

1. The U.S. government’s use of unsubstantiated terrorism-related allegations without bringing official charges in cases involving ordinary immigration violations. This practice has the effect of prejudicing the immigration judge or placing the Muslim immigrant in a precarious situation where he is unable to defend himself against the allegations. As a result, he is often pressured to self- deport.
2. The U.S. government’s practice of subjecting Muslim immigrants to detention ostensibly for posing national security threats in cases involving minor violations that ordinarily do not warrant detention. Detention and threat of immigration detention are also used to coerce Muslims to drop challenges to immigration charges or accept plea deals in criminal cases.
3. The U.S. government’s use of flimsy immigration charges. For example, the government often uses false statement charges for failure to disclose tenuous ties to Muslim charitable organizations in such a way that seems to target Muslim immigrants for religious and political activities and affiliations.
4. The U.S. government’s unfair application of overbroad statutory language of the terrorism bar provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to remove, bar, and detain Muslims.
5. The undue influence of the FBI on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities. The FBI is known to exploit the vulnerability of Muslim non-citizens as a way to facilitate its preventative counterterrorism policing objectives in prejudicial ways.

Although the Department of Homeland Security’s April 27, 2011 announced  the indefinite suspension of the NSEERS program, this  documentation suggests the government continued to use subtler—though no less abusive—practices of detention, deportation, and denial of immigration benefits.