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When the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection agency, part of the Homeland
Security Department, demanded fingerprints from about three
dozen Muslim-Americans returning from Toronto, photographing
some as well, it set off alarm bells throughout the Muslim
community. Officials said the additional screening was
intended to prevent terrorists from entering the country. Dr.
Sawsan Tabbaa of Amherst, N.Y., says she felt humiliated at
being fingerprinted by force. |
WASHINGTON,
JAN 24 -- Software salesman Shadab Aziz of Houston was preparing
recently to catch the first flight on his long journey to Saudi
Arabia for the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca expected at least
once in a lifetime of all able Muslims. But his mind was partly on
what could happen when he returned to the United States.
A U.S. citizen, Aziz wondered if American border officials would
make him provide his fingerprints before allowing him to re-enter
the country. That had been the case weeks earlier for a group of
Muslim-Americans returning from an Islamic conference in Toronto.
"My concern is that I be treated like any other citizen of this
country and that I'm not discriminated unfairly against because of
my religion," said Aziz, 27. "If an Anglo-Saxon male or female
who's coming back into the country doesn't have to be
fingerprinted, I see no reason why I have to be treated any
differently."
U.S. citizens typically are not fingerprinted on their return from
abroad. That usually is reserved for visiting foreigners as part
of the US-VISIT program that went into full effect last year.
But when the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, part of
the Homeland Security Department, demanded fingerprints from about
three dozen Muslim-Americans returning from Toronto, photographing
some as well, it set off alarm bells throughout the Muslim
community. Officials said the additional screening was intended to
prevent terrorists from entering the country.
With an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 American Muslims having gone on
the hajj this year, and with many returning this week, a lot of
the pilgrims fear they will face the same treatment before being
allowed to re-enter the United States.
Muslim-Americans say it would be another case of their rights
being trampled on, more collateral damage in the war on terrorism.
Specifically, many contend that their constitutional rights to
free exercise of religion and assembly, due process and security
from unreasonable searches and seizures have been violated.
Different rules at border
Constitutional law experts, however, say courts have held
repeatedly that citizens at U.S. border crossings should have a
lower expectation of privacy than they would in their homes.
"When you're at the border, things like this happen: People are
strip-searched and body-cavity-searched," said John Burkoff, a law
professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
"The Supreme Court has said, well, the rules are different" at the
border because the government's interest in protecting the nation
is greatest at the borders, Burkoff said. Inside the country, the
balance shifts toward the individual.
"For you to be strip-searched inside the country, they're going to
need probable cause, not that you committed a crime, but that you
have something on your person," Burkoff said. But at the border,
"all the prior justification requirements are lessened."
That's no comfort to Muslim-Americans and their advocates, who
worry that the hajj will give U.S. border control officials yet
another chance to practice what Muslims see as discrimination.
"We're obviously concerned that American citizens on hajj, which
is sort of the Mecca of all Islamic conferences, might garner more
of this scrutiny upon their return," said Arsalan Iftikhar, the
national legal director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, a Washington-based advocacy group.
The council has written to the Homeland Security Department and
the Customs and Border Protection agency, Iftikhar said, to ask
what permitted them--in the case of the Muslims returning from
Canada--to "detain and fingerprint American citizens with threats
of arrest for non-compliance."
"Does mere attendance at an Islamic conference or religious acts
of worship constitute probable cause for a criminal act that
justifies this sort of attention?" he asked.
The federal government has yet to officially respond, Iftikhar
said.
A Customs and Border Protection official denied that the agency
was targeting Muslims.
"Their religious belief had nothing to do with why they were asked
to verify their U.S. citizenship," said Kristi Clemens, an
assistant commissioner for public affairs at the agency. "It's
definitely not profiling, absolutely not."
Instead, it was their attendance at the "Reviving the Islamic
Spirit" conference over Christmas weekend that invited scrutiny,
she said.
"We are aware that the vast majority of participants at this
conference and others are legitimate, going for the right
reasons," Clemens said. "But we have credible, ongoing information
that these types of conferences have been used and are being used
by terrorist organizations to not only transport fraudulent
documents but to mask travel by terrorists.
"They think that in a large group we're going to be less
restrictive and try to expedite the processing," she said.
If that was the government's rationale, Muslim-Americans say, it
would make even more sense for border agents to demand
fingerprints from U.S. citizens returning from Saudi Arabia
because there will be thousands of them.
Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, as is Osama
bin Laden. Al Qaeda has many sympathizers there among the
fundamentalist Wahhabi sect, and American Muslims will be mixing
with Muslims from across the globe.
However, Clemens said it would be wrong to assume that the
returning pilgrims would be fingerprinted like those Americans who
returned from Canada.
"The ongoing information we had [regarding the Canadian
conference] ... was specific," she said. "That same information is
not applying to the hajj. They are separate instances."
Fingerprints taken
The fingerprints taken at the U.S.-Canada border were compared
with criminal and terrorist watch list databases, then disposed
of, Clemens said. None of the prints matched those of known
criminals or terrorists, she said.
Muslims are skeptical about the government's position that it was
the event, not religion, that prompted the scrutiny.
"It's like saying we're only stopping people coming from the hajj,
not the Muslims," said Omar Ahmad, a California software industry
executive and chairman of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations. "But only Muslims go to hajj. Yes, that's profiling."
Ahmad is among those making the pilgrimage and is concerned about
being asked for fingerprints on his return.
At least he knows what could happen. Dr. Sawsan Tabbaa says she
was caught completely by surprise. An orthodontist from Amherst,
N.Y., near Buffalo and the Canadian border, she was one of about
40 Muslim-Americans stopped as they returned to the U.S. from
Toronto, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
(Clemens put the number at 34.)
Tabbaa attended the conference with her four children, ages 3 to
18. On their return to the U.S border about 2 a.m., an officer
said Tabbaa was randomly selected for more scrutiny.
When she entered the U.S. border station, she was stunned. Dozens
of other Muslim-Americans from the Buffalo-area who also had
attended the conference had been pulled aside for greater
scrutiny. There was no one in the room who hadn't been at the
conference.
The orthodontist recalls angrily and repeatedly asking the
officers why she and the others had been selected. It became a
standoff. The agents refused to answer. She refused to give her
fingerprints. Eventually she was taken, accompanied by her toddler
daughter, to a rear room.
Several armed guards were there. One grabbed her hand and
fingerprinted her as she cried from humiliation, Tabbaa said. She
protested that they were taking her fingerprints without her
consent.
"Is this the land of the free?" Tabbaa, a U.S. citizen from Syria,
recalls asking the guards.
"I could never imagine in my whole life that there would ever be a
day that I'd be fingerprinted," she said. "This was something I
thought was only for criminals. All my life I had good moral
character, a hard worker, an honest person, and here I am standing
in a government building with my fingerprints being taken against
my will."
(Source: Chicago tribune) |
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