RACIAL PROFILING: Muslims and Arab Americans see their civil rights eroded
October 24, 2001
by Nirah Warikoo
The morning of Sept. 11, Yahya Basha was in his room at Hotel Washington, preparing for a 3 p.m. talk in the White House with President George W. Bush. The meeting, previously scheduled, was to discuss racial profiling of Arab Americans and Muslims.
Basha was eager: During the past year, the president had indicated he might limit government practices that targeted Arab Muslims.
But when Basha looked out his hotel window that day and saw black plumes rising from the Pentagon, he knew the meeting would be canceled -- and that years of battling for the civil rights of Arab Americans may have also gone up in smoke.
"We dropped the issue," said Basha, a doctor from West Bloomfield who is president of the American Muslim Council. "We knew our country had more pressing concerns."
That realization hit other Arab Americans nationwide soon after the terrorist attack. They privately worried that progress they had made in the past few years may have suddenly ended.
But in recent days, they've expressed concern about the antiterrorism bill being hashed out between the House and Senate. And they're miffed, though not surprised, about cases where ArabAmericans, or those who appeared to be, were asked to leave airplanes.
Still, Arab-American leaders have been relatively quiet on the issue, allowing the American Civil Liberties Union to take the lead in fighting parts of the bill.
"I understand that civil liberties may be off the agenda for now, until we all feel safe and secure; we don't want to stand in the way of national security," said Basha, a U.S. citizen born in Syria. "But we ask for a reasonable balance between protecting our country and civil liberties."
President Bush, as well as Senate leaders and the head of the FBI, have repeatedly said that no one should be targeted because of their ethnicity or religion.
Those comments have encouraged advocates like Basha, who was able to meet Bush two weeks later.
But some civil rights advocates say they fear that new laws may be used almost exclusively against Arab Americans or Muslims. History tells the advocates they may have reason to worry.
After the Oklahoma City bombing, the U.S. Congress passed an antiterrorism bill that allowed the government to use secret evidence -- evidence that the defendant is unaware of -- to detain and deport immigrants suspected of terrorism. The law has been used almost exclusively against Arab and Muslim immigrants, prompting strong objections from local and national civil rights groups.
But that practice might now be used more often under the new anti-terrorism bill, which is expected to be signed by President Bush this week.The Immigration and Naturalization Service would have to show less secretevidence in order to justify detaining somebody.
This comes as the U.S. government has locked up hundreds of Arab Muslim men in connection with the terrorism investigation; some who have been held don't know the charges against them.
"When you think of a country that uses secret evidence, you think of Iraq, Libya; you don't think of the U.S." said Kary Moss, executive director of the Michigan branch of the ACLU, speaking at a profiling conference in Dearborn last week.
Otherparts of the antiterrorism bill were criticized by U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, on the House floor last week. His district includes one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the country.
The bill would make it easier for the government to wiretap and search homes without the owner knowing about it, allow the CIA to spy on citizens, and broaden the definition of a terrorist. The other form of profiling that concerns Arab Americans is the targeting of Middle Eastern people at airports.
"Driving while black" is a term coined by civil rights advocates to indicate racial profiling of African Americans. But in recent years, "flying while Arab" has entered the vocabulary.
Just as African Americans and Latinos were often unfairly targeted during the war on drugs, say civil rights advocates, ArabAmericans may become victims of the new war on terrorism.
In response to complaints, the Federal Aviation Administration created in 1998 a system known as Computer Assisted Passenger Screening System (CAPS), which screens passengers based on where they're flying and how they purchase their tickets -- not on how they look.
Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, is compiling a list of complaints from people who say they have been harassed.
"Sept. 11 was a major setback, no question," said Hamad, a Dearborn resident who once was almost deported based on secret evidence.
"I realize that dealing with this won't be popular," he said. "You need the proper time to address it. For now, we just hope the dialogue continues."
Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 734-432-6501 or warikoo@freepress.com.