Obama Administration Makes Last-Minute Bid To Stall Trumps Ability To Create Muslim Registry
The outgoing president rescinded the regulatory framework behind the controversial NSEERS registry. Jessica Schulberg Foreign Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post
WASHINGTON ― The Obama administration is dismantling an inactive national registry that was used to track foreign visitors from a designated list of countries, most of which have Muslim-majority populations.
The move represents a last-minute effort by the outgoing president to delay his successor, Donald Trump, from reinstating what critics say would amount to a Muslim registry.
The registry, known as National Security Entry-Exit Registration (NSEERS), was created shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. It required men 16 and older from certain countries to register in person with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and submit to questioning and fingerprinting when entering the U.S. By 2003, the list of designated countries had swelled from a handful to 25, with 24 of them majority-Arab or Muslim.
The Department of Homeland Security is removing the regulatory structure behind NSEERS, effective immediately, the agency said in a statement on Thursday.
The administration of President George W. Bush found the program to be ineffective and stopped using it after only a year and a half. With the program already obsolete by the time Obama entered office, his administration de-listed the countries designated under NSEERS, effectively suspending the program.
But the regulatory structure behind it remained in place, prompting fears that Trump, who spoke during the campaign about banning Muslims from entering the country, would use the framework to quickly reinstate it.
Last month, 200 human rights, civil liberties and interfaith groups urged the Obama administration to rescind the NSEERS regulatory framework before handing the presidency over to Trump. During the short period the registry was active, the groups wrote in a letter to Obama, it had a devastating effect on the people targeted.
Families were torn apart, small businesses in immigrant neighborhoods closed their doors, and students discarded their educational aspirations, the letter read.
The national registry, which didnt lead to a single terrorism conviction, was also wildly ineffective, according to former government officials.
The people who could be identified as terrorists werent going to show up, former INS commissioner James W. Ziglar told The New York Times in 2004. This project was a huge exercise and caused us to use resources in the field that could have been much better deployed.
An expansive, generalized search is an ineffective way to look for a small group of wrongdoers, former FBI agent Michael German told The Huffington Post last month.
NSEERS looks at tremendous numbers of people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing, German said. The likelihood of that type of system somehow tripping upon somebody who is otherwise unknown is pretty small.
In 2012, the DHS inspector general found that Customs and Border Patrol officers tasked with processing information from registrants saw NSEERS as an inefficient use of resources.
When the program was launched in 2002, there were more than 250,000 entry and exit registrations. CBP officers told the inspector general there was little value in the interviews they conducted with NSEERS registrants and that their time would be better spent doing more targeted investigations.
Reinstating a national registry that predominantly targets Muslims entering the U.S. appears to be a top priority for the incoming Trump administration. Weeks after winning the election, Trump met with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who was the architect of NSEERS when he served in the Bush administrations Justice Department. Kobach, at the time thought to be in the running for Homeland Security secretary, was photographed entering the meeting with Trump carrying notes that read:
Update and reintroduce the NSEERS screening and tracking system (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System) that was in place from 2002-2005. All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked.
Add extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution.
Trump didnt end up choosing Kobach to head DHS, but his recommendations are in line with what Trump has been pledging to do once he enters the White House.
The Obama administrations move to rescind the regulatory framework does not preclude Trump from reinstating it, making the outgoing presidents action a largely symbolic effort to avoid complicity in actions taken by his successor.
Still, it would at least slow down the process of recreating the registry and could open up the process to more public scrutiny.
The next administration would likely have to publish a rule, run a public notice and comment period, and then let a period run before the rule is effective, said Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, director of the Center for Immigrants Rights Clinic at Penn State Law.
Its also possible there will be legal challenges to any version of a registry that violates U.S. law, Wadhia said.
Registry used to track Arabs and Muslims dismantled by Obama administration
Department of Homeland Security will tear down Nseers, in an attempt to place a roadblock in front of Donald Trumps declared intention to ban Muslims
The Obama administration is dismantling a discriminatory surveillance system that was used after 9/11 to keep tabs on Arabs and Muslims across the US, in a move that will make it more difficult for president-elect Donald Trump to achieve his goal of introducing a Muslim registry.
Thursdays announcement by the Department of Homeland Security that it is tearing down the remnants of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (Nseers) marks the most audacious attempt yet by Barack Obama to place roadblocks in the way of his successors declared intentions. A key element of Trumps bid for the White House was his threat to prevent non-citizen Muslims from entering the US and to keep them under surveillance once inside the country.
The Nseers program was one of the most contentious and widely hated elements of the Bush administrations anti-terror policies in the wake of 9/11. More than 80,000 people from 25 listed countries, 24 of which had majority Muslim or Arab populations, were forced onto the scheme in which they were required to provide fingerprints and a photograph and periodically present themselves for in-person interviews with DHS officers.
About 14,000 of those individuals were placed into deportation proceedings. Yet not a single individual was found to have any links to terrorist or violent activities.
Mohammad Jafar Alam, a member of South Asian social justice group Desis Rising Up and Moving (Drum) that was at the forefront of the campaign to dismantle Nseers, was one of those who endured Nseers surveillance. He said he knew from personal experience what it did to individuals and their families.
The extreme mental, emotional distress, the financial problems, the pressures on a family and the isolation that happens is a punishment not just for one person, but everyone involved.
Joanne Lin, legislative counsel with the ACLU, which was also at the front line of opposition to Nseers, said it was a completely failed counterterrorism program. Out of 80,000 men who registered for it, there was not a single terrorism prosecution, yet it alienated Muslim and South Asian communities across the country. So we are very pleased that the Obama administration has moved to end it.
Obama has come under intense lobbying in recent days from human rights and Muslim American groups to do something about the Nseers system. Though the current president has generally acted cautiously in avoiding any impression that he wants to foil Trumps policies, his move to unpick the surveillance scheme is a sign of how opposed he is to his successors threats to put Muslims under the governmental spotlight.
Nseers was allowed to fall into abeyance in 2011 after DHS and FBI officials concluded that it was discriminatory and ineffective. But the framework for the registry remained in place until this week, meaning that it could easily and quickly have been revived by the incoming Trump administration simply by putting majority Muslim countries back onto the list.
Now with the posting of the DHS order dismantling the final remnants of the scheme, it will be much more difficult for Trump to implement his avowed intent to place Muslims under renewed surveillance. The final order tearing down Nseers will be posted on Friday, with immediate effect.
Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, director of the Center for Immigrants Rights clinic at the Pennsylvania State University, said that the rescinding of the Nseers structure would put a break on Trumps plans. At the very least it is going to take time. At most it will take a whole lot of time, as it will force the Trump administration to introduce a rule change that could be open to public comment and legal challenge.
Wadhia added: This is the best Christmas present I could have asked for.
The contentious call for a ban on all Muslims entering the US became a cornerstone of Trumps presidential campaign. He later changed that posture to proposing the introduction of extreme vetting of newcomers with a focus on a number of identified countries deemed a terrorism threat.
Kris Kobach, one of the original architects of Nseers who has been advising the Trump transition team on immigration and anti-terrorism, proposed last month as his no 1 priority for homeland security that he would update and reintroduce the surveillance program.
Gregory Chen, director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that Nseers had upended the lives of tens of thousands of businessmen, scientists, families and other individuals lawfully present in our country. The Obama administration has publicly acknowledged that the program is obsolete and unnecessary as a counterterrorism tool.
[h=1]Obama pulls regs that could have fueled 'Muslim registry' under Trump[/h]
The Department of Homeland Security filed a notice that it is deleting the published rules for the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. | Getty
The Obama administration is removing dormant government regulations that some immigrant rights and civil liberties advocates feared could be used by President-elect Donald Trump to establish registration requirements for immigrant Muslims living in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security filed an official notice Thursday that it is deleting the published rules for the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, a program the Bush administration used in 2002 and 2003 to require male foreigners over 16 from 25 largely Muslim-majority countries to register with U.S. immigration authorities.
During the presidential campaign, Trump proposed a temporary ban on immigration of Muslims to the U.S. After an outcry over that proposal, including from some of his supporters, he said the moratorium would only apply to countries whose nationals have been involved in terrorism against the U.S. or its allies.
Since the most controversial part of the Bush administration's registration effort was abandoned in December 2003, the Obama team's move to dismantle the regulations is largely symbolic. Nevertheless, more than 200 civil rights, religious and other organizations urged the administration to delete the rules out of concern that they would serve as a framework for Trump to renew or expand the registration effort. The Homeland Security notice released Thursday and scheduled for formal publication on Friday called the NSEERS program "obsolete and inefficient."
"Although DHS retained the regulations that provide the NSEERS framework, subsequent experience has confirmed that NSEERS is obsolete, that deploying it would be inefficient and divert personnel and resources from alternative effective measures, and that the regulation authorizing NSEERS is unnecessary," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says in the notice.
"DHS now engages in security and law enforcement efforts that were not possible when NSEERS was established in 2002, and the Department continues to make significant progress in its abilities to identify, screen, and vet all travelers arriving to the United States; to collect and analyze biometric and biographic data; to target high-risk travelers for additional examination; and to track nonimmigrants’ entry, stay, and exit from the country." DHS also said that aspects of the NSEERS program, including fingerprinting and photographing at points of entry, are now carried out broadly for foreigners visiting the U.S. And the agency noted that since February of this year foreigners seeking to enter the U.S. without a visa have been asked about dual nationality in, or travel to, high-risk countries like Iran, Syria and Sudan. "The regulations behind special registration and the manual collection of information from nonimmigrants date back more than two decades. They have long been replaced by automated systems that are far better equipped to face the evolving landscape of international terrorism," DHS spokesman Neema Hakim said. Since his victory in the presidential race last month, Trump has not laid out a detailed plan for implementing his campaign promises to crack down on immigration from countries that are fonts of terrorism. However, when immigration hardliner and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach met with Trump last month, Kobach was carrying a memo that proposed reinstating the NSEERS program as well as questioning Muslim immigrants about their support for Islamic law, known as Sharia. Kobach has been mentioned as a candidate for an administration job, although no announcement has been made. Asked by reporters Wednesday about his reaction to terrorist attacks in Germany and Turkey earlier in the week and whether he plans to move forward with his calls for a Muslim registry, Trump said he was not wavering. "You know my plans. All along, I’ve been proven to be right. 100 percent correct. What’s happening is disgraceful," the president-elect said between meetings at his West Palm Beach, Fla. resort, Mar-a-Lago. “It’s an attack on humanity. That’s what it is. An attack on humanity and it’s got to be stopped.”
Trump transition officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Obama administration's action. Civil rights groups hailed the move and warned that Trump will face a battle if he tries to restore or expand the Bush-era registration program, which critics faulted for having no discernible impact on terrorism but causing many immigrants to be arrested, detained and even deported over immigration violations they were generally unaware of before reporting for registration. "This is the right decision by Secretary Johnson. We commend him, and the Obama administration, for letting it be known that such registry programs are futile and have no place in our country," said Abed Ayoub of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "However the community cannot be at ease; the next administration has indicated that they will consider implementing similar programs. We will work twice as hard to protect our community and ensure such programs do not come to fruition.”
The Department of Homeland Security filed an official notice Thursday that it is deleting the published rules for the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, a program the Bush administration used in 2002 and 2003 to require male foreigners over 16 from 25 largely Muslim-majority countries to register with U.S. immigration authorities.
واشنگٹن: امریکا کے محکمہ ہوم لینڈ سیکیورٹی کا کہنا ہے کہ وہ دہشت گردی کے شکار ممالک سے امریکا آنے والے لوگوں کے غیر فعال رجسٹری پروگرام کو ختم کر رہا ہے۔ غیر ملکی خبر رساں ایجنسی رائٹرز کے مطابق محکمہ ہوم لینڈ سیکیورٹی نے جس پروگرام کی منسوخی کا اعلان کیا یہ اُسی طرز کا پروگرام ہے جس پر نومنتخب امریکی صدر ڈونلڈ ٹرمپ غور کر رہے ہیں۔ ہوم لینڈ سیکیورٹی کے ترجمان نیما حکیم نے کہا کہ نیشنل سیکیورٹی انٹری ۔ ایگزٹ رجسٹریشن سسٹم پروگرام جو این ایس ای ای آر ایس بھی کہلاتا ہے، 2011 میں معطل کردیا گیا تھا۔http://www.dawnnews.tv/news/1049180
ان کا کہنا تھا کہ پروگرام غیر موثر اور بے کار ثابت ہوا اور اس سے سیکیورٹی میں بھی بہتری نہیں آئی، جس کے باعث ڈیپارٹمنٹ اسے باضابطہ طور پر ختم کر رہا ہے۔ دوسری جانب ڈونلڈ ٹرمپ سے بھی سوال کیا گیا کہ کیا وہ ہوم لینڈ سیکیورٹی کی طرح مسلمانوں کی رجسٹری کے پروگرام کی حمایت کریں گے، جس کا انہوں نے کوئی واضح جواب نہیں دیا۔ ڈونلڈ ٹرمپ کی ٹیم کے کئی ساتھیوں نے رائٹرز کو بتایا کہ ٹرمپ انتظامیہ اس مردہ پروگرام میں دوبارہ جان نہیں ڈالے گی، حالانکہ ڈونلڈ ٹرمپ کے ایک مشیر نے ہی اس پروگرام کا خیال پیش کیا تھا۔
[h=6][/h] یہ اعلان اس وقت سامنے آیا جب فیس بُک، ٹوئٹر اور ایپل سمیت کئی ٹیکنالوجی کمپنیاں مختلف نیوز تنظیموں کو یہ بتاچکی ہیں کہ وہ مسلم رجسٹری قائم کرنے کے حوالے سے ٹرمپ انتظامیہ کی مدد نہیں کریں گی۔ رواں ماہ کے اوائل میں کئی ٹیکنالوجی کمپنیوں کے ملازمین نے اس آن لائن عہد پر دستخط کیے تھے، جس میں لوگوں کو ان کے مذہب کی بنیاد پر نگرانی اور بڑے پیمانے پر بے دخلی میں معاونت کے لیے ڈونلڈ ٹرمپ کی ڈیٹا رجسٹری کے لیے مدد فراہم نہ کرنے کے عزم کا اظہار کیا گیا تھا۔
اس پروگرام کو ختم کرنے کے اوباما انتظامیہ کے فیصلے کی ناقدین بھی تعریف کر رہے ہیں، جنہوں نے اس پروگرام کو امتیازی قرار دیتے ہوئے اس پر تنقید کی تھی۔
Obama just made it harder for Trump to create a Muslim registry
Obama just made it harder for Trump to create a Muslim registry
Rob Garver,
Outgoing President Barack Obama has made no secret of the fact that he thinks Donald Trumps on-again-off-again plan to create a database of Muslims in the United States is a bad idea, but once the president-elect takes office, there wont be anything he can do to stop him. On his way out the door, however, Obama did put an obstacle in Trumps way.
The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday officially shut down the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, a leftover program put in place in 2002 following the 9/11 terror attacks a year earlier. The controversial program required males aged 16 and older who enter the U.S. from specified countries to be fingerprinted, photographed, and interviewed about their plans. The program is also extended to people already living legally in the U.S. if they came from countries on the list.
Of the 25 countries named in the regulation, all but one, North Korea, were majority Muslim nations, leading to charges that the rule was discriminatory. However, the systems own flaws were its downfall. The program turned out to be expensive to implement, unwieldy in operation, and worst of all, redundant.
In 2011, after agencies had already effectively stopped enforcing some of the provisions of the system, the Obama administration officially mothballed the program, saying that modernized information systems monitoring travelers moving in and out of the country were already providing the information that the NSEERS program collected.
Even though the program was no longer operational, the regulations that implemented it were still on the books in the Code of Federal Regulations. As of Friday, that will change, when a final rule by DHS is announced in the Federal Register.
A draft version of the rule, already available on the Federal Registers website, says, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is removing outdated regulations relating to an obsolete special registration program for certain nonimmigrants. DHS ceased use of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration system (NSEERS) program in 2011 after finding that the program was redundant, captured data manually that was already captured through automated systems, and no longer provided an increase in security in light of DHSs evolving assessment of the threat posed to the United States by international terrorism. The regulatory structure pertaining to NSEERS no longer provides a discernible public benefit as the program has been rendered obsolete. Accordingly, DHS is removing the special registration program regulations.
In a statement, a DHS official added, The intervening years have shown that NSEERS is not only obsolete but that its use would divert limited personnel and resources from more effective measures.
While eliminating the implementing regulations of a non-operational program may seem like a pointless exercise, it isnt. By taking the NSEERS system completely off the books, the Obama administration is foreclosing the possibility that the Trump administration could quickly resurrect the program.
New regulations would be subject to the time-consuming notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act, which could delay the implementation of a new Muslim registry indefinitely.
The notice came just a day after President-elect Trump seemed to suggest that a recent terror attack on a Christmas market in the German capital of Berlin vindicated his call, early in the campaign, for a ban on Muslims entering the country and the suggestion that creating a registry of Muslims was also possible.
You know my plans, Mr. Trump said after a reporter asked him if the Berlin attack made him consider pressing ahead with a Muslim ban or registry. All along, Ive been proven to be right. One hundred percent correct.
A spokesperson later said that Trump was simply restating his plan to suspend admission of those from countries with high terrorism rates and apply a strict vetting procedure for those seeking entry in order to protect American lives.
The Obama administration, though, doesnt appear to be taking any chances.
Re: Obama just made it harder for Trump to create a Muslim registry
This whole thing was to get the votes ------- nothing is going to happen registration or wall for Maxican ( Latinos ) ------ but it is sad that people who voted for this hatred
