ACLU Files Suit Against DHS Alleging Secret Policy Denying Citizenship To Muslim Immigrants

Kevin Gosztola at FDL explains:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of five Muslims allegedly denied American citizenship because of a secretive policy a Homeland Security Department’s immigration agency operates. The program grants the government broad discretion to designate those applying for citizenship as “national security concerns.”

According to the ACLU’s filed complaint [PDF], the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has engaged in the “unlawful delay and denial of plaintiffs’ applications for citizenship and lawful permanent residence [LPR] under a secretive policy” known as the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CAARP) [sic - should be "CARRP" — SB]. The policy has allegedly barred USCIS from upgrading plaintiffs’ immigration status and violated the Immigration and Nationality Act.

USCIS has declined to voluntarily make public information related to its policy of designating people as “national security concerns.” In fact, if a person is designated a “national security concern”—and this can happen because of “innocuous activity and associations, and characteristics such as national origin,” there is no notice provided to applicants that they have been taken off an “adjudication track” and will not be approved.

Between 2008 and 2012, more than 19,000 people, who were from Muslim-majority countries or regions were subjected to CAARP.

...

[Bolds mine. - SB]

I guess the French gal in the harbor is no longer quite so ready to "lift [her] lamp beside the golden door" ...

I advocate for no religion. If I am anything, I am UU. But Americans should be able to choose their faith for themselves without interference from the government. And potential Americans should not be blackballed from immigration or citizenship merely for espousing any particular religion. This is classic guilt by association: "many terrorists are muslim, therefore all muslims are terrorists." This kind of faulty reasoning is an infringement on everyone's liberties, and it needs to stop... now.

Americans Battle For And Against Constitutional Rights: Not For The First Time

Today, the battle seems to contend over the protective value (or lack of same) of the Fourth Amendment (see my posts on the NSA, here). Goodness knows our rights are fragile enough, and our government sufficiently indifferent to them.

But ours is not the first era in which America's government, or one or another part of it, has governed as if parts of the rights-related amendments to the Constitution (chiefly I through VIII, XIII, XIV, XV, XIX, XXIV, XXVI) had never been ratified. One significant example is reconstruction after the Civil War, when not just one but many courts effectively refused to give the federal government the power to compel the state governments to extend the rights amendments to citizens of each state, resulting in a patchwork application, state-by-state, of rights granted and rights denied. In practical terms, the nation's newest citizens at the time... freed slaves... often found themselves back where they started as their citizens' rights were simply refused them. It was, in our perspective at least, a nightmarish time. But it was not the last such denial, and our own time has a "bad dream" quality about it when it comes to citizens' rights.

I am now reading a very rewarding book, The Amendment that Refused to Die: Equality and Justice Deferred: A History of the Fourteenth Amendment, by Howard N. Meyer (1973, 1978, 2000). (I picked up this book used or remaindered, probably a decade ago, intending to read it when I retired. Guess what: I did in fact live long enough to do that.) The book offers a passionate recounting of the history of abolition, then, almost skipping the war itself, hastens onward to the national dysfunction during reconstruction.

A Fool's Errand - cover

Among other things, Meyer points us to some original sources some of which are easy to find on the web today, e.g., the books of Albion W. Tourgée, introduced in the wiki as "an American soldier, Radical Republican, lawyer, writer, and diplomat" and a "pioneer civil rights activist." (Remember, "radical Republican" in those days meant something almost diametrically opposite to what the phrase connotes today.) Tourgée's book, A Fool's Errand: By One of the Fools is available online, partly in facsimile and partly in HTML text, by Documenting the American South at UNC... next on my historical reading list after Meyer's book (which itself is available literally cheaper than dirt at Amazon; I know for certain, because Stella bought some potting soil for tomato plants this week). Maybe the next time you order something else from Amazon you could drop a few cents (literally) on a copy of Meyer's book. Tourgée's book is available, the whole text, at the link above, for free. Isn't the web wonderful?

My American And Texan Citizenship Restored

Why does the eagle so seldom face left?

Both were suspended due to my failure to drive a motor vehicle or keep one in working condition for a period of over eight months. Yesterday, I got a new battery (no loss there; the old one was already marginal before I entered the hospital in December); today, I gave my car a much-needed oil change and had a burned-out brake light replaced. I drove from the repair place directly to an utterly institutional fast-food eatery (extra credit toward restored citizenship?) and treated myself to a foot-long veggies-and-cheese sandwich (I know; I'm pushing it with that one, but Stella doesn't like the food there) as a sort of welcome-home treat.

So now I'm once again American, at least until the first time I try to vote in a general election after my voter card is stamped "Voted Democratic Primary" and I cold-cock the mofo who tries to stop me...

Toeing The Line

Stella and I voted early today at the Fiesta Mart on Kirby just north of Reliant Stadium, which you may recognize if you follow pro football. (We don't.) Fiesta Mart caps one end of a gigantic shopping center. Fiesta alone is about the size of a typical Wal-Mart (but fortunately has no other characteristics of Mall-Wart); the rest of the center contains several useful and/or enjoyable places including Dimassi's Mediterranean Buffet.

Anyway, back to voting. Today was the second day of early voting. As we often do, we waited out the first day to avoid the worst of the crowds. It didn't work. When we arrived sometime after 1:00 PM, the voting line began at the large main door of the store, but it did not go straight to the alcove containing the polling place. Oh, no, nothing so easy. It led about 100' to the right along the food court, turned toward the back of the store beside the international frozen foods (Fiesta's specialty, if it can be said to have one), ran straight toward the back of the store to the deli, angled further right past the bakery, and finally turned at last toward the front of the store and the large alcove containing the poll. All in all, the line ran several hundred feet, and only slightly fewer people than feet. Never in my life have I seen so many people voting at one place and time!

It took us about 1¼ hours to traverse the whole line and vote. By the end, there was very little left of either of us; indeed, everyone in line seemed in high spirits but... pooped! I was happy to note no shortage of cripples among the voters... we do vote; take us seriously! My booted foot ached. Stella felt, as my dear departed mother would have said, that "my tired hurts." But the deed was done.

There's a lot of good news here.

First, the racial and socioeconomic diversity of the voters today was vast. Part of that may have been the location of this particular poll at a multicultural grocery store: even on a normal Tuesday, thousands of people buy groceries there drawn from cultures including Mexican from various regions, African of several countries, various South American cuisines, British Isles specialities [sic], Indian and Pakistani fast food, several varieties of Middle Eastern food, and of course mainstream black and white American foods from several parts of the country. As a food store, Fiesta Mart is diverse beyond belief. One would expect that as a polling place it would draw Americans equally diverse in ethnicity and culture. From this I take it that just about every American is coming out to vote this year. That can't be a bad thing!

Second, the polls were run in an orderly and trouble-free manner. I saw none of the self-appointed poll vultures who said they would invade every poll in Houston to make sure no one committed (gasp!) voter fraud! I don't know if they were there yesterday, or there today but had been run off, or simply realized that with the sheer quantity and variety of Americans intent on exercising their right to vote, there was no real hope of creating a stir as they were said to have done two years ago. In any case, the absence of poll-wreckers was welcome indeed.

I suspect I'll have to rest my booted foot for several days to recover from this one. But damn, was it ever worth it! America was meant to be like this... and for at least a day, it was precisely what it was meant to be. May all of us see many more such days! Put off the fights over counting; they will come, and you will fight them as necessary. For now, it's YOUR turn, if you haven't voted yet...

On History Repeating Itself With Scarcely A Mumble

Japanese Internees

I have been reading the late lamented Studs Terkel's "The Good War", his book about (as he spells it) World War Two. The quote marks, says Terkel, are part of the book's title, because that's what some people called it, but the phrase, of itself and without quote marks, is an oxymoron. Have I mentioned how much I miss the lively, vibrant Terkel in his long and well-lived life? Few people elicited my unreserved admiration as he did.

Horse Stables as Internee Residences

In an early chapter, Terkel interviews Japanese-Americans who in various ways and degrees experienced the internment. Japanese-Americans' businesses were seized; some were surveilled individually by FBI agents (not all willing agents, as it turns out) and many... far too many... American citizens were arrested and interned in camps of various sorts; one described in the book was a stables, complete with all the smells and utter lack of personal privacy. Families were broken up, men and older boys confined in one place and their wives and daughters in another. The resemblance to slavery, another historical practice of our "home of the free and the brave," was all too graphic and obvious. Some 110,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese legal residents on the American Pacific coast were interned; a much smaller number of those in the Hawaiian Islands, where a large fraction of the total population were of Japanese ancestry, were also interned. Internment took place in other states as well, applied "unequally" as described by the wiki. Military rule was instituted; civil liberties were largely squelched... both with the blessing of the Supreme Court. No American apology was forthcoming until October 1993, when President Bill Clinton at long last issued one.

Fast-forward to September 2001, and refocus on Houston, TX, on an apartment complex housing an odd blogger/musician/etc. and his mate. A family living near me were Muslim, scarcely a surprise in a city boasting one of the best and largest medical centers in the nation... we have all kinds of nationalities and religious affiliations among our residents, many of them students in advanced fields, and most Houstonians like it that way.

Guantánamo Detainees

I will call the couple "Mary and Joseph," mainly to annoy any jeebus-botherers who may be lurking about. They had two lovely, very young children. Both had good jobs in Houston. Within a few weeks of 9/11/2001, it became apparent to them that things were not going to return to normal in America for our Muslim residents. Fortunately for them, unfortunately for us, Joseph was Canadian by birth. When the handwriting was on the wall and John Ashcroft & Co. were at their most strident, even before Guantánamo was known for what it is today, the couple decided that life in America was about to become very difficult for Muslims, be they citizens or (especially) not, even basically apolitical Muslims like themselves. Rumors of possible internment, ultimately never realized in mass quantities, were all too plausible at the time. Nasty remarks were occasionally leveled at the children, who were probably just old enough to understand what was going on. So Joseph contacted his family in Canada, and the whole family packed up and moved home, rather than face what America had in store for Muslims. I don't blame them one bit. The whole incident was America's loss.

How many more times will America alienate... word chosen very deliberately... members of its population who do not suit the current majority's opinion? If, say, Rmoney were to become president, what would he order done to the 47% he spoke so ill of, and how far would his exclusionary policies reach, among Americans and generally desirable noncitizen aliens?

Our nation's ancestors surely turn in their graves every time an American government undertakes to divide, suppress and exclude some of us from the body politic. I believe we owe those ancestors a debt, payment of which means putting a stop to all the exclusion so popular in certain political circles. Either it stops, or America goes to ground, at least the America descended from those founders. Rmoney and crew may be prepared for that. I most emphatically am not.