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Last month, as another Orange Alert was declared, Nasrat Youssef Kafal, apparently denounced as a suspicious person, was dragged off an Amtrak train, causing a partial evacuation of Penn Station in New York. Even though, the hazardous material that this Liberian man was accused of transporting turned out to be cooking oil, he was questioned by the FBI and turned over to the Federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to face deportation back to his war-torn country of origin.

The Bush Administration continues its campaign of terror against the Muslim community. I am sorry to put it is these terms, but the current politics of fear certainly do scapegoat Muslims, casting a wide net of suspicion and surveillance under the NSEERS Special Registration program. 

Immigrants, who have lived here many years, find that old misdemeanors are suddenly turned into “aggravated felonies,” a basis for deportation, if they are picked up in dragnets. Led by official policies that criminalize many classes of immigrants and the hate speech of talk radio that is motivated by racial and religious intolerance, others take it upon themselves to beat, vandalize and oppress us. Typically, it is the most vulnerable of us, Muslims, who suffer.

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June/July 2003