Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano recently highlighted her department's efforts to reach out to build "stronger relationships with Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as South Asian communities across the country," seemingly reflecting an awareness of how the war on terror has stigmatized and cast irrational suspicion on these groups. Despite the best of intentions, however, Napolitano's self-assurance is premature. DHS's engagement of vulnerable communities emphasizes form over substance and, historically, has amounted to mere public relations.
Outreach efforts conducted by the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), for instance, have long fallen short of repeated requests from vulnerable communities. Just last month, a coalition of over a dozen civil rights organizations issued a letter (PDF) to Secretary Napolitano reiterating a series of substantive and structural concerns, while proposing concrete solutions to fulfill the new administration's promise to pay greater respect to the Constitution and civil liberties.
Under the Bush administration, the FBI and various DHS components grew notorious for their aggressive scrutiny of American Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians: infiltrating mosques around the country with ex-convicts hired to initiate plots, selectively prosecuting immigration or tax violations, and subjecting entire ethnic groups to targeted surveillance. To placate these communities' legitimate concerns about racial and religious profiling, outreach became a substitute for meaningful reform of discriminatory underlying policies. President Obama's historic recent speech in Cairo seemed to reflect a change.
Yet eight months into the new administration's tenure, continuity appears to have triumphed. The FBI continues to infiltrate mosques and maintain the secrecy of its investigative guidelines, while CRCL has yet to address many policy concerns raised by organizations representing vulnerable communities.
CRCL, in particular, is failing its mission under its existing leadership. Examples abound. For years, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) has faced criticism for abusing civil rights, and undermining trade relations with our nation's foreign allies and international exchange programs. Yet NSEERS remains in effect.
A recent report by the Asian Law Caucus confirmed that federal officials routinely violate the civil rights of law-abiding Americans, including U.S. citizens, through invasive interrogations about their constitutionally protected religious beliefs and practices, as well as political views and activities. Responding to systemic racial, ethnic, and religious profiling by DHS personnel, such as Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) airport screening officers and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials, civil rights organizations have requested that DHS revise its inadequate guidelines on racial and ethnic profiling. Specifically, they have urged -- thus far, in vain -- the adoption of new guidelines prohibiting profiling on the basis of religion, and removing loopholes that allow profiling for national security and border integrity purposes.
Finally, the DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP), originally intended to help remedy abuses by providing a process for resolving complaints, has instead become an exercise in futility. Even after submitting complaints about potential violations, individuals receive no notice about the status of their TRIP complaint, the timing of potential resolution, or what shape the resolution (if any) ultimately takes. Not only are administrative redress procedures inadequate, but there is no process for communities' concerns to inform the policymaking process.
Rather than resolve civil rights violations or raise them in the policymaking process, CRCL's activities mostly involve sending entry-level bureaucrats to community meetings to mollify individuals who complain about violations. Several staffers responsible for conducting this outreach are themselves from marginalized communities, recruited under the pretense that the Department would leverage -- rather than merely co-opt--their cultural competency, subject matter expertise, and language skills. Instead, recent developments suggest a potential political purge by holdovers from the Bush administration who continue to run CRCL in the absence of appointed political leadership.
Officials responsible for field outreach should enjoy sufficient authority to, where appropriate, investigate potential abuses. Ideally, they would also enjoy access to senior management and an opportunity to influence the policymaking process to prevent potential abuses before they occur. Because CRCL lacks such institutional authority within the DHS organizational structure, however, it will remain limited even after the administration finally appoints someone to lead its efforts.
President Obama ran on a campaign of hope and change. Hope may spring eternal, but change is proving more elusive. In the meantime, American Muslims, Arabs, South Asians, and Latinos continue to wait for federal officials to respect our civil rights.
This article was originally posted at alt.muslim.
This is just more proof positive that the founders of our country, having undergone oppression understood it better than anyone who commented here. That's why we have the First Amendment to our Constitution.
Maybe some of you need to read and understand what it all means. Right, fat chance! We're just talking about Muslims aren't we? Everybody knows about them!
A lot of Americans are still in denial that our P O T U S was borned in Hawaii.
And....
You can be 4th or 5th generation American born, speaking with no foreign accent, you are still looked upon as a foreigner.
Here's a report about one in LA: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/monteilh-niazi-informant-2319851-islamic-center.
And another in NYC: http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-07-08/news/the-alarming-record-of-the-f-b-i-s-informant-in-the-bronx-bomb-plot
No one questions legitimate counter-terrorism. It's arbitrary profiling according to race, religion or nation of origin to which principled constitutionalists object, because it both (a) violates our nation's commitment to equal justice under law, and (b) fails to make anyone more safe.
We're been waiting for even longer.
Love,
The Black People.
It will shock the living daylights out of you. To believe that the very same thing is not going on in North America would be foolish and naive.
Your "vulnerable communities" are a hard sell, in a world of Islamist terror and deafening silence from mainstream Muslims about its horrors. Your credibility would take a giant leap forward, if you were to take responsibility and expose the dangerous movements within these so-called "vulnerable communities."
The only "vulnerable" in these communities are the women forced to walk down the street under the shadows of body-covering veils and robes, while their male companions walk ahead of them in the latest duds, sunglasses and jewelry.
You mean FBI should reveal its investigative guidelines so potential Jihadists can learn how to manipulate them?
This is considered a patriotic ( or even reasoned) approach to this issue?! Please.....
I recently wrote about "Secrecy Sacrificing National Security" in this column (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shahid-buttar/secrecy-sacrificing-natio_b_213571.html) and invite you to learn more.
African Americans, Hispanic Americans, poor Americans, woman, Gays, Democrats... feel the same way.
America is a work in progress. We are working on it.
You means oppressed people like Carolyne Kennedy ($500 mill) Kerry ( $2 billion) and Steven Spielberg( $3.1 billion.?
ROLF...
Muslims certainly do "stand in line with the rest of" Americans seeking justice. Five years ago, I organized one of the first test cases seeking marriage rights for same-sex couples when helping represent Jason West, the Mayor of New Paltz, NY. And I can think of any number of Muslim-American activists working on issues of broad concern, including healthcare, education and the environment.
America is indeed "a work in progress." Comments like mine and others seeking greater equality in our legal regime aim precisely to help identify the way forward. They are a vital part of "working on it," which is a project that we all share together.
I read several accounts from Muslims at the time reporting their reaction to the 9/11 attacks. They all went like this. Reaction part one was the same as all Americans, shock and horror at the attack on our homeland. Reaction part two was, "Oh no....They'll be coming after us!" with us here being Muslims. You might recall at the time the particular vulnerability of Muslim women who wore traditional garb that identified them as Muslim. Their lives were literally under threat. (I remember a speech by Al Gore at the time speaking about non-Muslim women who chose to wear the identifying garments as an act of solidarity with their Muslim compatriots.) The Muslims were running for cover; speaking out about the horrors of 9/11 was not a life-lengthening option.
Moreover, terrorism stems from many sources, most of which have been overlooked entirely in the mainstream's fixation with violent religious extremism from Muslim countries. Dr. Tiller's assassin was a terrorist by any definition, and counter-terror agents familiar with right-wing extremism (e.g., FBI veteran Mike German) have noted that groups like the Aryan Nation and KKK pose a grave threat to national security.
While counter-terrorism may be a legitimate aim, focusing on Muslims is thus both overinclusive (in that doing so erroneously sweeps peaceful adherents of a peaceful faith into the same box as violent militants) and underinclusive (in that focusing on Muslims ignores the entire range of more serious threats to national security).
to a terrorist who deliberately massacred 270 innocent people.
(Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi served only 11 days in prison for each life he took).
A Lebanese hero who fought and ( won) against a 4 year old girl. His return was declared a national holiday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/world/middleeast/17lebanon.html
And secondly, was the "Religion of Peace" comment meant as a reference to Islam? Certainly the followers of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism. Buddhism, etc. could all benefit from studying their holy texts. I don't think the scriptures of any of these traditions would roundly endorse all of the behaviors of any of the cultures where their followers are prevalent.
the religion of peace
Why would anyone worry about Muslims when wherever Muslims go they bring the kind of freedom to murder anyone who does anything that stands against the Muslim's permanently-hurt feelings?
And so many Muslim accomplishments are as recent as the year 1000.
We have nothing to fear from Muslims except having the Muslims blow us up, bring their backward Sharia Law and Burqua based respect for women (women should neither be seen or heard unless on a leash in Muslim countries).
This is a joke. We ignore the immediate and long-term threat of Islam at our peril. There is no democracy or Civil Rights in Islam. None, and no examples. The Muslims even harassed and tried to silence their great poets like Rumi, despite Rumi's love of Islam.
Aug 08 - Aug 14
Jihad Attacks: 47
De/ad Bodies: 201
Critically Injured: 474