September 11 ushered in a new period of immigration initiatives and policies harking back to the Cold War era of political witch-hunts, racial segregation, guest workers, and mass deportations. The Bush Administration’s “permanent war against terrorism” has spawned an escalating war on the constitutional rights of immigrants and refugees, undermining progress on immigration reforms and jeopardizing the stability of entire communities. While the racist pogrom triggered by 9/11 is subsiding, immigrant and non-immigrant communities of color face new forms of intensified racial discrimination in housing, services, and jobs solely for their immigration status, race, national origin, or religious beliefs. Despite government denunciations of the 9/11 anti-immigrant backlash, immigration and immigrants in particular are framed as threats to U.S. national security.

With the new anti-terrorist law, the USA Patriot Act, and the Homeland Security Office leading the way, draconian national security measures have fueled a new and deadly round of border militarization. Federal immigration policing is being extended through new laws and previously illegal practices to state and local authorities. Florida and potentially other states will soon be detaining immigrants for the INS.

Racial profiling, compounded by religious and ethnic intolerance, is being propelled by official policies and strategies and has spiraled out of control. Since 9/11, the FBI and INS began illegally detaining Arabs, South Asians, Muslims, and Sikhs, rounding up over 1,200 in the first weeks of the crackdown. Of these detainees, over 300 still remain in detention; only one has been charged in connection to 9/11. The rest have either been released, deported, or await deportation. The government has yet to disclose the detainees’ names, where they are being held, and on what charges. Those released report many more Arabs in detention, leading experts to believe that another 2,000 are being detained. Some 5,000 Arab male recent immigrants had to “voluntarily” submit to questioning by the FBI; an unknown number of these were detained. The FBI is now calling in an additional 3,000 Arabs for “voluntary” interviews. The INS and FBI are also going after 6,000 Middle Easterners and South Asians, among 314,000 immigrants with deportation orders. Thousands more have been terrorized by hate violence (see box page 5). Mosques, Muslim and Arab businesses and service agencies have been harassed, firebombed, and vandalized.

The economic recession made worse by the 9/11 attacks has hit hard on immigrant workers. Many immigrant workers, including some undocumented, perished in the World Trade Center towers. Thousands more lost jobs as the tourist and service industries were devastated. The overwhelming majority of these workers were ineligible for 9/11 relief or unemployment compensation. Federal authorities also went after hundreds of undocumented airport service workers, resulting in arrests and deportations. Thousands of legal residents are losing their jobs because airport security screeners need U.S. citizenship.

From Virtual Raids to New Borders

After 9/11, the U.S. stepped up efforts to make Mexico and Canada its security perimeters for trade, anti-terrorism, and immigration control. The “Americanization” of borders will ease “free” trade, ensuring more freedom for capital and goods to cross borders, imposing severe restrictions on labor mobility and multiplying human rights abuses.

With the growing push for a biometric and computerized national ID system, increasing the high-tech monitoring of immigrants, the threat of “virtual” and actual raids looms. Persons without state or federal ID are being subjected to immediate detention or deportation. Immigrants, especially women, are more vulnerable to rights violations and less likely to report crimes to police for fear of deportation.

Border-type enforcement is becoming prevalent in the U.S. interior. Now, in non-border areas, you have to carry proof of authorization to be in the U.S. – preferably a U.S.-issued driver’s license, ID, or passport – or risk being detained by the National Guard, Border Patrol, the police, or even private citizens. As Tom Ridge, head of the new Homeland Security Office, led a delegation to Mexico to negotiate trade and immigration deals – underscoring the extraterritorial parameters of the new national security and the push for apartheid-like immigration policies – efforts are being made to centralize Customs, the INS and Border Patrol under Ridge.

What have been the results of pre-9/11 immigration policies and border militarization? Since 1994, when the INS implemented Operation Gate Keeper at the California-Mexico border, some 2,000 migrant deaths have been documented. The Mexican government reports an average of two migrants dying per day on the border. Crossing the border has been compared to the preparation needed to climb Mount Everest, except at Mount Everest there is no Border Patrol forcing you to take more dangerous routes. How many more migrants have to die before these policies are declared bankrupt?

The Challenges Before Us

What are immigrant rights in the post-9/11 era? Do our communities, which are under incredible political stress, socially stigmatized, and collectively condemned for 9/11, acquiesce to the status of invisible but productive workers with no rights? Or do we reassert that indeed immigrant rights are none other than civil and constitutional rights?

Current and proposed U.S. immigration policies, driven by the anti-terrorist hysteria scapegoating immigrants, are incapable of solving the causes of undocumented immigration and severely restrict the rights of immigrants and non-immigrants. All immigrants, regardless of their status or productivity, should have constitutional and civil rights. In this period, our immigrant right agenda has little to gain by identifying our issues—such as legalization—with national security interests. Nor should national security invalidate the just demand for legalization and permanent access to legal residency with equal rights.

The failure of security intelligence for 9/11 cannot be blamed on immigration. Making immigrants, especially the undocumented, a national security “problem” endangers our safety and civil liberties. No nation of immigrants would treat immigrants this way – as pariahs, disposable or deportable, without rights.

Money for enforcement and militarization

The 2002 INS budget is overwhelmingly for enforcement and border control. In 2002, INS immigration services will receive some $88 million; over $3.2 billion for enforcement,. Border enforcement will receive $2.95 billion, up from $2.38 billion in 2001, helping double the number of Border Patrol agents on the Canadian border and continuing the build-up on the Mexican border, where there already some 10,000 agents. Also, 1,600 National Guard troops have been stationed on the borders since 9/11.