NSEERS was set up after the 9/11 terror attacks by the Bush Administration. It required non-immigrant men and boys from predominantly Muslim countries to report to an immigration office to be photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed. Those impacted were citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
A DHS notice published late last month stated: “Over the past six years, the Department of Homeland Security has implemented several new automated systems that capture arrival and exit information on nonimmigrant travelers to the United States, and DHS has determined that recapturing this data manually when a nonimmigrant is seeking admission to the United States is redundant and no longer provides any increase in security.”
Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said he was pleased.
“We welcome the decision by DHS officials to drop an ineffective and burdensome program that was perceived as a massive profiling campaign targeting individuals based on their religion and ethnicity. We support our government’s efforts to secure America while remaining an open society that is true to the Constitution.”