Policies Focused on Those with Perceived Links to al Qaeda
However, the government's immigration measures immediately after 9/11 were directed at those perceived to be linked to or sympathetic towards al Qaeda. That resulted in disproportionate impact on Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians. Described by policymakers as imperative to assure national security and protect the country from further attack, the government's actions were seen by civil libertarians as excessively harsh. And to many legal scholars they undermined core constitutional principles. Among the programs:
• Secret Detentions and Proceedings: The government arrested more than 1,200 people in the months after 9/11, but refused to release their names or their place of detention. Some were barred from contacting their lawyers. The immigration hearings in at least 611 cases (classified as "special interest" cases) were closed to the public and the press. Secret evidence, withheld from the defendants and their attorneys, was introduced in some cases.
• Detention Practices: Many detainees taken into custody in connection with investigations subsequent to the attacks were arrested without warrant, held without charge for long periods, detained despite an immigration judge's decision to release them on bond, and detained even after a final determination of their cases.
• Country-Specific Actions: Various post-9/11 immigration programs explicitly targeted country -specific groups. Under the voluntary interview program, FBI interviewed more than 8,000 nonimmigrants from specified countries with a suspected al Qaeda presence. Those interviews were extended to over 10,000 Iraqis and Iraqi-Americans. Under NSEERS (or the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System special registration program), adult males from 25 predominately Muslim countries were required to register and be fingerprinted and photographed at ports of entry or present themselves at immigration offices inside the country for fingerprints and photographs. More than 80,000 individuals were interviewed under the program, and over 13,000 were placed in removal proceedings. Similarly, the government designated as "priority absconders" thousands of men from countries with a known al Qaeda presence who had violated their final orders of removal, and placed their names in an FBI database used by local and state law enforcement officials. Almost all those affected by these country-specific programs were nationals of Muslim-majority countries.