Table 1 Selected post-September 11, 2001 federal policies targeting Arab and Islamic Americans
Date | Policy or action |
|---|---|
Within weeks of September 11, 2001 | 1,200+ Muslim and Arab citizens were arrested and detained. |
September 20, 2001 | New rule allowing INS to indefinitely detain non-citizens |
November 9, 2001 | DOJ “issued guidelines for “voluntary” interviews of non-citizen men in the US on nonimmigrant visas from countries suspected of harboring terrorists” (all Arab or Muslim). |
November 2001 | State department announced it had slowed the process for granting visas to men ages 16-45 from certain Arab and Muslim countries |
November 2001 | INS announced mass arrests of nonimmigrant students who had violated terms of their visas |
National origins of students included only Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Yemen | |
December 5, 2001 | DOJ directs INS round up 6,000 “young Arab men” who had ignored deportation orders. |
March 20, 2002 | DOJ announces plans to interview another 3,000 Arab and Muslim men for “voluntary” interviews. Men are ages 18 - 33 who have entered the US since September 11, 2001. |
August 12, 2002 | The fingerprinting and registry initiative announced for persons from select Arab and Muslim countries (Cainkar, 2002a). |
On May 26, 2004 | Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that the FBI would launch a new round of nationwide interviews in Muslim communities (American Civil Liberties Union, 2004). |