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which there has been al-Qaeda terrorist presence or activity” were designated as “priority
absconders” in January 2002.88
Implemented on the one-year anniversary of the attacks, the U.S. National Security Entry-
Exit Registration System requires male nationals of certain countries—Afghanistan, Algeria,
Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon,
Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia,
United Arab Emirates, and Yemen—to register with the Bureau of Citizenship and
Immigration Services at specified points of entry and departure. Amnesty International
reports that by the end of the program’s first year, 177,260 men and boys were registered
and 13,799 men were placed in deportation proceedings, but not one was charged with
“terrorism.”89 Re-registration was required annually until December 2003. In effect, the
program restricts the airports that nationals of these countries can fly into and out of, and
requires that after receiving their boarding passes, participants present themselves to the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection office. Another measure, the US VISIT program,
requires that visitors from almost every country be fingerprinted and photographed each
time they leave or return to the United States.
All of these measures have been controversial. A study by the Migration Policy Institute
argues that by basing such requirements on national origin rather than intelligence-driven
criteria, the government is violating the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection.90
There is no doubt that these policies should be scrutinized, both to assess their utility in
combating terrorism and for their civil liberties implications. The reality, however, is that
national origin has always played some role in U.S. immigration policy, and that the United
States has often expected its immigration policies to serve its perceived national security
needs. During times of national security crisis, this formula has always affected the rights
and treatment of various immigrant groups to some extent.

A survey released in May 2007 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
found that a majority of Muslim Americans—53 percent—believe it has become more
difficult to be a Muslim in the United States since the 9/11 attacks, and that “most also
believe the government ‘singles out’ Muslims for increased surveillance and
monitoring.”91 However, the Pew survey more generally found that Muslim Americans are
highly assimilated into American society, especially as reflected in income and education
levels. In fact, the average salary of immigrants from Muslim countries is roughly 20
percent higher than that of other U.S. residents, and a larger percentage of Muslims have
graduate degrees.92 Moreover, according to the Pew survey findings, fully 71 percent of
Muslim Americans feel that “most people who want to get ahead in the U.S. can make it if
they are willing to work hard.”93
While the number of anti-Islamic hate crimes spiked in 2001 to a high of 481 “incidents”
as recorded by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the number had dropped
significantly to 128 by 2005. To help put these figures in context, it may be worth noting
that the number of reported incidents against Jews was 1,043 in 2001 and 848 in
2005.94
After a sharp post-9/11 decline in the number of immigrants from Muslim countries (the
figure dropped by more than a third in 2003),95 nearly 96,000 people from Muslim
countries became legal permanent U.S. residents in 2005—more than in any single year in
the previous two decades.96 Some 40,000 of these people had arrived in the country the
same year. Notwithstanding clear reservations about U.S. policy in the Middle East and

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