NSEERS Program Violated Civil Liberties Without Making Us Safer
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights thanks the Obama Administration and Secretary Jeh Johnson of the Department of Homeland Security for issuing a final rule to dismantle the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), a program that profiled visitors to the United States based on country of origin, almost exclusively from 25 Muslim-majority countries. This program resulted in a registry based on race and ethnicity.
We especially welcome this rule as we approach Chanukah, a holiday during which Jews display our religious and ethnic identity by placing a Chanukiah in our window to “publicize the miracle” of winning the right to embrace our identity and to practice Judaism publicly. As a people with a long history of being targeted based on our identity, we support the right of all people to embrace their own identities publicly without being subject to being targeted for this identity.
As a people who have suffered as well from terrorism and hate-based attacks, we rely on our government to keep us safe from those who wish to attack us or other Americans. However, the NSEERS program produced no single known terrorist convictions since being instituted in 2002, while targeting thousands of Muslim men for deportation and detention and creating fear within Muslim communities. National security policies should target suspects based on actionable evidence, not on those suspects’ nationality, religion, place of birth, race or ethnicity.
Today’s decision by the Obama Administration sends a firm message to the new President that a Muslim registry under any guise is an attack on American values and civil liberties.
T’ruah has longed opposed policies that violate the civil liberties of Asian and Muslim communities under the guise of safety and national security, including working to end the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslims and our longstanding leadership in the fight against U.S.-sponsored torture. We applaud the strong leadership of Muslim, Asian, and Arab communities, whose members were directly impacted by NSEERS, and whose ceaseless advocacy led to today’s critical announcement about the program’s end.
NSEERS was developed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 and continued to operate for nearly a decade. The program targeted certain male visitors from 25 largely Arab, Muslim, African, and South Asian countries for interviews at local immigration offices. Special registration created havoc in Muslim, Arab, African and South Asian communities, leading to deportations, separation of families, and the closures of immigrant-owned businesses. Though NSEERS was discontinued in 2011, the regulatory structure remained on the books until today.
As Jews, we understand too well the danger of compromising the civil liberties of any national, ethnic or religious group and of holding entire groups collectively responsible for the actions of individuals. America is great when we unite around the aspirational values of inclusion, tolerance and freedom. T’ruah and its allies will remain vigilant in continuing to oppose any attempts to restore NSEERS or otherwise to target people based on their identities.