Monali Bhakta

I. Introduction

When people hear the phrase “9/11,” the first memory that pops into their mind is where they were on the morning when the Twin Towers fell. I recall watching clips of the catastrophe unfold on my TV screen as pedestrians were desperately running for survival as dark clouds of smoke transcended from the crashing buildings. My naïve, childlike brain assumed this was just a movie scene; it was not possible that this atrocity happened in real life. But it did happen, and little did I know that our reality as Americans would be forever changed in the years to come.

II. Overview of the USA PATRIOT Act

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” are the famous words etched on the Statue of Liberty in New York.[1] It serves as a symbol of hope for immigrants leaving their native homeland to courageously resettle in the United States. This changed after September 11^th, 2001. Many immigrants who aspired to pursue their “American Dream” were soon faced with uncertainty instead of hope due to harsh national security laws implemented in a post-9/11 era. Specifically, these were Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South-Asian immigrant communities (known collectively by the acronym of “AMEMSA”).[2]

An example of one of these national security laws was the USA PATRIOT Act, short for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism,” passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26^th, 2001.[3] The Act prevented and penalized terrorist activities in the United States and in the world by increasing law enforcement’s investigative capabilities to protect public safety.[4] However, the implementation of this law demonstrates how this was a reactive, emotionally-charged response, rather than one taken based on conflict resolution and cultural awareness. Instead of thoughtfully passing legislation to heal our nation from this devastating tragedy, Congress did not have public hearings or thoughtful discussions about the individual provisions of the PATRIOT Act before swiftly passing it.[5] While this Act was enforced to protect the American people during a scary time, this law was not meant to protect everyone, as shown by the devastating consequences that it had on AMEMSA communities.

One controversial provision was Section 412(a), which gave law enforcement the power to enforce mandatory detention for immigrants suspected of any kind of terrorism. It gave broad power to the Attorney General to take any immigrant into custody and detain them for at least 6 months if the federal government believed they violated immigration laws due to terrorism.[6] The Act also increased federal law enforcement’s authority to monitor both citizens and noncitizens by tapping international and domestic phones, which clearly violated individual privacy rights.[7] The government had overwhelming discretion to violate people’s due process rights, based on fear that they would be disloyal to the United States.[8]

III. The Collateral Damage of the USA PATRIOT Act

One way the U.S. government carried out harmful national security practices was by conducting mass dragnets. Mass dragnets were police operations where police officers would search a specific area to catch a terrorism suspect, largely based on racial profiling.[9] After 9/11, AMEMSA communities endured cruel treatment due to this systemic discrimination. Attorney General John Ashcroft admitted that minor immigration charges would be enforced to detain noncitizens if their investigations were ongoing. The targeted roundups of people from Muslim-majority countries—many of whom were from Pakistan and Egypt—did not reveal any direct connections to the terrorist attacks. In one roundup, about 100 people were charged with minor criminal offenses, and 500 others were detained for immigration violations, such as overstaying their temporary nonimmigrant visas.[10] In practice, the government’s national security interests appeared insincere and inefficient because it detained people with low-level offenses based on the arbitrary assumption that they are connected to terrorism. Not only is this irrational, but it undermines our system of justice.

The public opinion within AMEMSA communities is that the federal government’s national security laws perpetuated racial discrimination against people associated with the Islamic religion.[11] Race and religion were social constructs used to weaponize to fight the “war on terrorism,” where discrimination against marginalized immigrants was normalized within law enforcement. According to the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), just 6 months after the 9/11 attacks, there were 600 cases of violence and 100 cases of workplace discrimination targeting Arab Americans. Meanwhile, there were 60 incidents of violence against students at schools and universities. Approximately 100 cases of discrimination against Arab Americans happened at U.S. airports, where more than 60 people were removed from airplanes based only on their physical appearance.[12]  When the government acted complicit in this dehumanization, it was enough to shatter the human spirit within a vulnerable population, threatening people’s safety and security in this country.

Post-9/11 national security laws also had a detrimental impact on the South Asian community.[13] South Asians faced rigorous security screenings and were denied boarding on planes because security personnel presumed that their nationality would present a safety risk to other passengers. Specifically, South Asian Muslims were forced to experience humiliating and intrusive pre-boarding searches and intensive questioning before they were allowed to board their flights. People were forced to prove their innocence because of the prejudice associated with “flying while brown.” Despite not being a danger to the public, the civil rights of these passengers were violated.[14] Furthermore, this aggressive treatment happened so frequently, it coerced South Asian communities into silence instead of speaking out against this injustice.

IV. A Productive and Empathetic Path Forward

The U.S. government needs to strike a balance between enforcing national security laws and safeguarding the human rights of immigrants in the United States. While I wholeheartedly agree that our government must protect the lives of American civilians, that should not come at the expense of implementing discriminatory laws that target innocent, well-meaning immigrant communities. As a South Asian woman from a community negatively impacted by these national security measures, I empathize with the hostility and exhaustion immigrants feel when they are marginalized by their own government as they work towards a better life in the United States.

Even though I believe the United States should do everything in its power to protect the American people, the most productive way to achieve this goal is by implementing humanitarian and multicultural values within our national security laws. That will allow us to maintain our honor as a global leader in the world without sacrificing human rights as a tradeoff. Additionally, the U.S. government should empower underserved immigrant communities by listening to our lived experiences and developing culturally informed national security policy that adheres to the true meaning of the Statue of Liberty. And I look forward to contributing to this change in my legal career.

 

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[1] Walt Hunter, The Story Behind the Poem on the Statue of Liberty, The Atlantic (Jan. 16, 2018), https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/the-story-behind-the-poem-on-the-statue-of-liberty/550553/.

[2] AMEMSA Fact Sheet (Nov. 2011), https://aapip.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/amemsa20fact20sheet.pdf.

[3] USA PATRIOT Act, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, U.S. Treasury, https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/usa-patriot-act.

[4] Id.

[5] Kevin R. Johnson & Bernard Trujillo, Immigration Reform, National Security After September 11, and the Future of North American Integration, 91 Minn. L. Rev. 1369 (2007).

[6] Drew Fennell, The Usa Patriot Act: Can We Be Both Safe and Free?, Del. Law., Summer 2003, at 10.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] Susan M. Akram & Kevin R. Johnson, Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law After September 11, 2001: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims, 58 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L. 295 (2002).

[10] Id.

[11] Ty S. Wahab Twibell, The Road to Internment: Special Registration and Other Human Rights Violations of Arabs and Muslims in the United States, 29 Vt. L. Rev. 407 (2005).

[12] Id.

[13] Charu A. Chandrasekhar, Flying While Brown: Federal Civil Rights Remedies to Post-9/11 Airline Racial Profiling of South Asians, 10 Asian L.J. 215 (2003).

[14] Id.