Examples of Government Anti-Muslim Racism in the U.S.: 1950s to 9/11

Government-backed Islamophobia existed well before 9/11—having taken various forms during earlier periods in U.S. history. As the examples below illustrate, numerous “anti-terrorism” laws, policies, and actions targeted Muslims and Arabs (commonly conflated with Muslims) in the half-century before 9/11. Then, as now, they both invigorated and reflected private hate and discrimination.

This handout includes the following examples:

For more information, see “War on Terror/War on Muslims: Post-9/11 State-Sponsored Islamophobia.”

 

COINTELPRO, 1956-1971

Though COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram) was originally intended to disrupt the U.S. Communist Party, the FBI used it to target various domestic organizations (almost all on the left) that it considered “subversive.”  Among the alleged threats in the Black community were the Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam (NOI), and Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  COINTELPRO’S stated purpose was “to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder.”  The FBI engaged in such activities as wiretapping, paid informants, smear campaigns, burglaries, planting false information, grand jury subpoenas, and violence. 

  •  “For much of the twentieth century, it was not Muslim immigrants, but rather indigenous African American Muslims who were, from the point of view of federal authorities, the public and potentially dangerous face of American Islam. The parallels between earlier and later periods of state surveillance are striking. We seem to be living in a new age of consensus in which, like the late 1940s and 1950s, a vital center has identified Islamic radicalism, and by extension Muslim American dissent, as an existential problem, a dangerous expression of extremism.

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 “Though the FBI had long run surveillance on the Nation, COINTELPRO represented an escalation of government interference, a high water mark of pre-9/11 fears about the Muslim threat to the United States.” (Edward E. Curtis IV, “For American Muslims, Everything Did Not Change After 9/11”)

●   “Profiling Black Muslim groups is absolutely nothing new.  Black Muslims have been monitored by the United States government since the 1930s. The Nation of Islam was a particular target of J. Edgar Hoover’s counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO, established in the 1950s during the height of the Cold War. Driven by political ideology rather than fact, COINTELPRO cast a wide net that included not only communist groups—the explicit enemy of the period—but also other social movements and leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., who were deemed a ‘threat’ to national security by the FBI. COINTELPRO collected intelligence on domestic terrorism as a preemptive move. Its goals included the eradication of ‘black nationalist hate groups,’ making the Nation of Islam an imminent threat despite its proclamations of nonviolence and corroborating reports by government informants. The NOI was considered a threat because the Islam it preached was ‘un-American.’ Moreover, the NOI was feared for its potential to organize a marginalized black community with transnational ties. One of its most prominent members, who was also a COINTELPRO target, was Muhammad Ali.”  (Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, “Islam on Trial”)

 Operation Boulder, 1972-1975

 Operation Boulder involved visa screening of people from Arab countries and domestic monitoring of Arab Americans (citizens and non-citizens), especially students.  Created in the context of the conflict in Palestine and Israel and the expansion of the PLO, Operation Boulder has been described as “the first US government policy carrying the implication that all Arabs were potential terrorists.”  “It is important to note,” Susan Akram writes, “that at that period of time, the only terrorist acts in the U.S. related to the Arab-Israeli conflict had been committed by the JDL [Jewish Defense League].”

  •  “Following the infamous incident at the 1972 Munich Olympics in which a group of Palestinians took Israeli athletes hostage and murdered them, the Nixon administration launched ‘Operation Boulder,’ giving law enforcement agencies carte blanche to investigate Arab immigrants and Arab American citizens in search of connections to ‘terrorist’ activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, a violent act committed in Munich by a handful of Palestinians became the basis on which all Arabs were designated as ‘suspicious’; the process of racial profiling had begun in earnest.” (Deepa Kumar, “Islamophobia: A Bipartisan Project”)
  • “The Nixon Administration’s ‘Operation Boulder’ was an early effort of the U.S. government to target Arabs in the United States for special investigation and discourage their political activism on Middle Eastern issues. Ostensibly designed to confront the threat posed by terrorists who took hostages and murdered athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the President’s directives authorized the FBI to investigate people of ‘Arabic background’ to determine their potential relationship with ‘terrorist’ activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The FBI admittedly wiretapped prominent Detroit lawyer Abdeen Jabara.” (Susan M. Akram & Kevin R. Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001: the Targeting of Arabs and Muslims”)
  • “January 8, 1973 A Los Angeles Times article reports over 14,000 visa applicants screened under Operation Boulder since its inception. The article also reports that ‘several hundred’ of 9000 Arab American university students have been interrogated by federal agents.” (“Declassified: Operation Boulder, Timeline”)

“Alien Terrorists and Undesirables: A Contingency Plan,” 1986-1987

During the Reagan Administration, a secret federal interagency committee, the Alien Border Control (ABC) Committee, created a plan, including a detention camp, designed for the “expulsion from the United States of alien activists” from Arab countries and Iran. The INS quickly backed away from this proposal and disbanded the ABC Committee when news about the plan was leaked in 1987 to the lawyers for the Los Angeles Eight (described below) and the New York Times. Since 9/11, the government has used Guantanamo Bay as an indefinite detention camp for foreign nationals it deemed national security threats.

  •  “The Alien Border Control Committee . . . considered an INS-created strategy called ‘Alien Terrorists and Undesirables: A Contingency Plan,’ which called for mass arrests and detentions of noncitizens from Arab nations and Iran and suggested using ideological exclusion grounds in the immigration laws to remove noncitizens from Arab countries and Iran already in the United States. . . . Nationals of Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, and Lebanon were targeted under the plan, which had three phases, culminating in a proposal for apprehending over one thousand persons and detaining them in Louisiana.” (Susan M. Akram & Kevin R. Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001: the Targeting of Arabs and Muslims”)
  • “The INS’ multi-pronged proposals left little to the imagination, offering two options: a ‘general registry’ and ‘limited targeting.’ In its general registry scenario, the State Department would ‘invalidate the visas of all nonimmigrants’ of the targeted nationalities, ‘using that as the first step to initiate a wholesale registry and processing procedure.’ In its limited targeting scenario, the Investigations Division imagined a series of eight steps to expedite the deportation of the targeted nationalities. One was an executive order, requiring the FBI and CIA to share data with INS to locate alien undesirables and suspected terrorists. Another expanded the legal definition of international terrorism as a deportable offense; to speed the process, the measure would circumvent ‘proposed rule-making procedures, as a matter of national security.’ The INS recommended holding aliens without bond, excluding the public from the deportation proceedings and convincing immigration judges to agree to those terms by referencing classified evidence.

“A final note detailed ‘other program recommendations.’ They included ‘summary exclusion’ in the form of an executive order, imagining a president who suspended entry to ‘any class of aliens whose presence … was deemed detrimental to the public safety.’ And it recommended a holding facility in Oakdale, Louisiana, a camp that could ‘house and isolate’ up to 5,000 aliens.” (Ben Wofford, “The Forgotten Government Plan to Round Up Muslims”)

Los Angeles Eight, 1987-2007

 The Los Angeles Eight were seven Palestinians and one Kenyan whom the government prosecuted for their alleged support of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).  The government focused on attempting to deport two of the defendants, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, the only ones with permanent resident status.  The government failed repeatedly to establish a legal precedent that would justify deportation of these (and potentially future) defendants: charging them “under the McCarran-Walter Act, then under the 1990 Immigration Act, then under the 1996 Antiterrorism Act, then under the PATRIOT Act, and also under the Real ID Act”—in some instances, charging them “retroactively . . . for things allegedly that were done way before the law was established.” After two decades and numerous appeals, including one heard by the Supreme Court, an immigration judge threw the case out.

  •  “. . . [I]n none of the ‘terrorist’ immigration cases [in which I represented the plaintiffs] has the government alleged the intent to further illegal ends required by the First and Fifth Amendments. In a longstanding case against seven Palestinians and a Kenyan in Los Angeles accused of being associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), for example, the FBI Director testified in Congress that an FBI investigation had found no evidence of criminal or terrorist activity, that plaintiffs ‘were arrested because they are alleged to be members of a world-wide Communist organization which under the McCarran Act makes them eligible for deportation,’ and that ‘if these individuals had been United States citizens, there would not have been a basis for their arrest.’

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 “Contemporaneous FBI memoranda that were prepared to urge the INS to deport the eight aliens also confirm that the aliens were targeted solely for lawful political associations and advocacy. The documents consist entirely of accounts of lawful political activity, and they include detailed reports on political demonstrations, meetings, and dinners, and extensive quotations from political speeches and leaflets. Over 300 pages are devoted to tracking plaintiffs’ distribution of PFLP newspapers that are available in public libraries throughout the United States. The memos repeatedly criticize plaintiffs’ political views as “anti-US, anti-Israel, anti-Jordan, and even anti-REAGAN and anti-MABARAK [sic].” (David Cole, “Secrecy, Guilt by Association, and the Terrorist Profile”)

  • “Judge Einhorn [who ordered an end to deportation proceedings in 2007] held that the government had violated Hamide and Shehadeh’s right to due process by subjecting them to a twenty year deportation proceeding, while at the same time being unprepared to prosecute the case. Judge Einhorn stated that ‘the attenuation of these proceedings is a festering wound on the body of respondents and an embarrassment to the rule of law.’

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 “Marc Van Der Hout . . ., who has been representing the LA 8 on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild since the case began in 1987, stated, ‘Judge Einhorn’s decision is important not only for Hamide and Shehadeh but for all immigrants in this country who want to be able to express their political views. The decision makes clear that the government cannot blatantly refuse to comply with an immigration judge’s orders and that the government cannot continue to try to deport these permanent residents who did nothing but try to advocate for Palestinians right to a homeland—hardly a revolutionary belief in the 21st century.’” (Center for Constitutional Rights, “Judge Throws Out Charges in ‘Los Angeles Eight’ Case”)

Application of the “Terrorist” Exclusion Provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) during the First Gulf War, 1990-1991

The First Gulf War took place shortly after the 1989 fall of the Soviet Union, leaving the United States in need of “a new geopolitical villain to facilitate its foreign policy objectives and carry forward political interests on the home front.”  In the 1990-1991 period, while hate crimes against Arab Americans, or those assumed to be Arab, reached (then) record highs, the federal government began to use the numerous “anti-terrorism” provisions of the Cold War era Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)/McCarran-Walter Act, which, among other things, legalized the deportation of non-citizens on the basis of their political beliefs.

  •  “In the 1990s, after the U.S. invasion of Kuwait, the U.S. government’s ‘war on terrorism’ shifted focus [from Libya] to Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein. The [George H.W. ] Bush administration accused Iraqi forces of atrocities against Kuwaitis. The administration then launched a surveillance program directed at Arab Americans. The FBI interrogated Arab and Muslim leaders, activists, and anti-war demonstrators across the country. The Department of Justice instituted fingerprinting of all residents and immigrants in the United States of Arab origin; the Federal Aviation Administration commenced a system of airline profiling of persons from the Arab world.”

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 “Critics long have pointed out that the United States has discriminated against Arabs and Muslims in applying the terrorist exclusion provisions of the [1952] Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the comprehensive U.S. immigration law. Arabs, particularly Palestinians, are the primary groups subject to many of the terrorism provisions. During the Gulf War crisis, for example, government officials fingerprinted and photographed all entrants with Iraqi or Kuwaiti passports without regard to evidence of past terrorist activities or sympathies.

“Related to the terrorist provisions in the immigration laws are those permitting exclusion of noncitizens based on political beliefs or associations, passed during the anti-communist fervor of the McCarthy era. The courts generally upheld application of the ideological exclusions, which provoked sharp academic criticism.” (Susan M. Akram & Kevin R. Johnson, “Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law after September 11, 2001: the Targeting of Arabs and Muslims”)

Government Support for Anti-Arab/Anti-Muslim Hollywood Movies, 1994 and after

 While understandings of government-sponsored anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism focus largely on laws, government policies, and the actions of officials who carry them out, the U.S. government has also played a significant behind-the-scenes role in perpetuating racist stereotypes in Hollywood movies.  The government has provided essential military personnel and technical support for popular movies that demonize Muslims and Arabs as inherently “scary terrorists” and transmit this hateful and distorted message to mainstream audiences. 

  • “[This article] shows how moviegoers are led to believe that all Arabs are Muslims and all Muslims are Arabs. The moviemakers’ distorted lenses have shown Arabs as heartless, brutal, uncivilized, religious fanatics through common depictions of Arabs kidnapping or raping a fair maiden; expressing hatred against the Jews and Christians; and demonstrating a love for wealth and power.” (Jack G. Shaheen, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People”)
  •  “In fact, [Shaheen] pointed out, the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as the Army, the Marines, the Navy and the National Guard, have provided technical assistance to Hollywood producers to ensure that films like ‘The Rules of Engagement’ (2000), ‘True Lies’ (1994), ‘Executive Decision’ (1996) and ‘Freedom Strike’ (1998) accurately portray U.S. Armed Forces mowing down Arabs. The FBI aided producers of ‘The Siege’ (1998), a movie showing Americans of Arab heritage and Muslim Arabs attacking Manhattan.” (Dr. Jack Shaheen Discusses Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People)
  • “Rules of Engagement not only reinforces historically damaging stereotypes, but promotes a dangerously generalized portrayal of Arabs as rabidly anti-American. Equally troubling to this honorably discharged US Army veteran is that Rules of Engagement‘s credits thank for their assistance the Department of Defense (DOD) and the US Marine Corps. More than fourteen feature films, all of which show Americans killing Arabs, credit the DOD for providing needed equipment, personnel, and technical assistance. Sadly, the Pentagon seems to condone these Arab-bashing ventures . . . .” (Jack G. Shaheen, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People”)

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 1996

Illegal Immigration Reform and Individual Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) 1996

Under the Clinton Administration, Congress passed two bills whose provisions go hand in hand with post-9/11 legislation, policies, and programs.  A forerunner of the 2001 Patriot Act, the “Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) was the beginning of policing of Muslim subjects and communities. One part of this legislation led to the disparate investigation of Muslim American political and social activity, while another led to the deportation of Muslims with links—real or fictitious—to terrorist activity.”  Similarly, various post-9/11 policies echo provisions of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), such as the deputizing of local and state law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws—partnerships that can lead to profiling and ”increased arrests in targeted communities.”

  • “The fear generated by the attempted bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 ensured that in 1995, when white right-wing Christian terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, Arabs and Muslims were immediately blamed. Congress passed AEDPA [‘a precursor of the PATRIOT Act’] in 1996. In short, even before the events of 9/11, the groundwork had been laid for the legalized targeting of Muslims and Arabs.” (Deepa Kumar, “Islamophobia: A Bipartisan Project”)
  • “President Bill Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, known as AEDPA, on April 24, 1996. The legislation, passed in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, greatly expanded the grounds for detaining and deporting immigrants, including long-term legal residents. It was the first US law to authorize certain now-widely-used fast-track deportation procedures.

“The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), signed in September 1996, made further sweeping changes to immigration laws. It eliminated key defenses against deportation and subjected many more immigrants, including legal permanent residents, to detention and deportation. IIRIRA defined a greatly expanded range of criminal convictions–including relatively minor, nonviolent ones–for which legal permanent residents could be automatically deported. IIRIRA also made it much more difficult for people fleeing persecution to apply for asylum.” (Human Rights Watch, “US: 20 Years of Immigrant Abuses”)

  • “. . . U.S. immigration authorities continue to assert the authority to use secret evidence to lock up immigrants in deportation proceedings, to exclude aliens at the border, and to oppose applications for ‘relief from deportation,’ including asylum. In most such cases, the charges against the alien are not that he engaged in any terrorist or criminal activity, but merely that he is associated with terrorists or a terrorist group. The practice of relying on secret evidence and guilt by association in immigration proceedings is not new; but the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) used these tactics more aggressively in the late 1990s, in part because in 1996 Congress expanded its authority to do so in two statutes—the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

“For the last decade, virtually all of the INS’s targets for these tactics–secret evidence and guilt by association–have been Arabs or Muslims. While there is no hard evidence that this targeting is motivated by animus against Arabs and Muslims, it does appear likely that it is driven at least in part by ignorance about the Arab and Muslim world, and by the prevalence of stereotypes linking terrorism and an Arab or Muslim face. The stereotypes make it less costly for the government to invoke these tactics, because the general public is less likely to object when the ‘victim’ is one whom they already associate with terrorism. The stereotype may also make government agents more suspicious of political activism by Arabs and Muslims than of others’ activism. Most troubling, the tactics of guilt by association and secret procedures reinforce and perpetuate the very stereotypes and ignorance about Arabs and Muslims that appear to underlie many of these cases. Secret procedures permit assertions and assumptions to go untested and unexamined, while guilt by association indulges the very kind of group-based thinking that is the essence of prejudice.

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  “In 1998, the Justice Department said that of 24 pending secret evidence cases at that time, all but one or two were against Arabs or Muslims.” (David Cole, “Secrecy, Guilt by Association, and the Terrorist Profile”)