President Obama dismantling Bush's controversial Nseers Muslim registry program

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.

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The Nseers program was one of the most contentious – and widely hated – elements of the Bush administration’s 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.

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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.”

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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 The Obama administration has publicly acknowledged that the program is obsolete and unnecessary as a counterterrorism tool.”

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Captcha said:

I wonder why he didn't do it earlier - he's had eight years to get rid of that program, so why is it only happening now?

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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.

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