Department of Homeland Security will tear down Nseers, in an attempt to place a roadblock in front of Donald Trump’s declared intention to ban Muslims

The Obama administration is dismantling a discriminatory surveillance system that was used after 9/11 to keep tabs on Arabs and Muslims across the US, in a move that will make it more difficult for president-elect Donald Trump to achieve his goal of introducing a Muslim registry.



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Thursday’s announcement by the Department of Homeland Security that it is tearing down the remnants of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (Nseers) marks the most audacious attempt yet by Barack Obama to place roadblocks in the way of his successor’s declared intentions. A key element of Trump’s bid for the White House was his threat to prevent non-citizen Muslims from entering the US and to keep them under surveillance once inside the country.

The Nseers program was one of the most contentious – and widely hated – elements of the Bush administration’s anti-terror policies in the wake of 9/11. More than 80,000 people from 25 listed countries, 24 of which had majority Muslim or Arab populations, were forced onto the scheme in which they were required to provide fingerprints and a photograph and periodically present themselves for in-person interviews with DHS officers.

About 14,000 of those individuals were placed into deportation proceedings. Yet not a single individual was found to have any links to terrorist or violent activities.

Mohammad Jafar Alam, a member of South Asian social justice group Desis Rising Up and Moving (Drum) that was at the forefront of the campaign to dismantle Nseers, was one of those who endured Nseers surveillance. He said he knew from personal experience what it did to individuals and their families.

“The extreme mental, emotional distress, the financial problems, the pressures on a family and the isolation that happens is a punishment not just for one person, but everyone involved.”



Joanne Lin, legislative counsel with the ACLU, which was also at the front line of opposition to Nseers, said it was a “completely failed counterterrorism program. Out of 80,000 men who registered for it, there was not a single terrorism conviction, yet it alienated Muslim and South Asian communities across the country. So we are very pleased that the Obama administration has moved to end it.”

Obama has come under intense lobbying in recent days from human rights and Muslim American groups to do something about the Nseers system. Though the current president has generally acted cautiously in avoiding any impression that he wants to foil Trump’s policies, his move to unpick the surveillance scheme is a sign of how opposed he is to his successor’s threats to put Muslims under the governmental spotlight.

Nseers was allowed to fall into abeyance in 2011 after DHS and FBI officials concluded that it was discriminatory and ineffective. But the framework for the registry remained in place until this week, meaning that it could easily and quickly have been revived by the incoming Trump administration simply by putting majority Muslim countries back onto the list.

Now with the posting of the DHS order dismantling the final remnants of the scheme, it will be much more difficult for Trump to implement his avowed intent to place Muslims under renewed surveillance. The final order tearing down Nseers will be posted on Friday, with immediate effect.

Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights clinic at the Pennsylvania State University, said that the rescinding of the Nseers structure would put a break on Trump’s plans. “At the very least it is going to take time. At most it will take a whole lot of time, as it will force the Trump administration to introduce a rule change that could be open to public comment and legal challenge.”



Wadhia added: “This is the best Christmas present I could have asked for.”

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The contentious call for a ban on all Muslims entering the US became a cornerstone of Trump’s presidential campaign. He later changed that posture to proposing the introduction of “extreme vetting” of newcomers with a focus on a number of identified countries deemed a terrorism threat.

Kris Kobach, one of the original architects of Nseers who has been advising the Trump transition team on immigration and anti-terrorism, proposed last month as his no 1 priority for homeland security that he would “update and reintroduce” the surveillance program.

Gregory Chen, director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that Nseers had “upended the lives of tens of thousands of businessmen, scientists, families and other individuals lawfully present in our country. The Obama administration has publicly acknowledged that the program is obsolete and unnecessary as a counterterrorism tool.”

• This article was amended on 29 December 2016 to correct a quote from Joanne Lin. She said there had not been a single terrorism conviction - not prosecution - out of the 80,000 men who were registered on the Nseers program.