Tag Archives: Stasi

“I Feel Like a Despised Insect”: Coming of Age Under Surveillance in New York

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This kind of policing toward Muslim Americans exists because the public has countenanced it. Our tax dollars fund it. In many ways, Americans have acquiesced to the idea that “our safety” requires vigilance, which means more monitoring, more investigations, more preemptive prosecution. While many people have decried the indiscriminate surveillance of Muslim communities, there remains a widespread willingness to see certain kinds of ideas as dangerous. Armed with our fears, we allow this aggressive law enforcement, rarely having to look the consequences or these young people in the eye when we do.

“I Feel Like a Despised Insect”: Coming of Age Under Surveillance in New York

If you are a Muslim immigrant seeking US citizenship, the FBI is the Stasi.

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This is just one example.

A software programmer who went to college in the US happens to be a Muslim Immigrant from Pakistan. He applies for a green card. The FBI gets hold of the application and holds it hostage, asking him to provide names of people he thinks are terrorists, without any evidence of his knowledge of suspicious/terrorist activity. With his green card application on hold for 5 years and his work visa about to expire, he sues the DHS, USCIS & FBI. Soon after, his work visa is revoked.

A.M. got in touch with [Charles] Swift, the lawyer who had fought against military tribunals [and won], who arranged a meeting at the Department of Homeland Security offices in Dallas.

It was there, tucked away in a room in a long, low-slung office building, that the officers pushed A.M. to become a secret informant. “They would want me to wear a wire,” he recalled, “go to my friends in the masjid, the mosque, talk about jihad, encourage them to fight or something, and then ask me to witness against them for provoking them. I can’t do that.”

He said he pleaded with the agents. “Is there something that you know about me? Then tell me. If there is something you think I have done wrong then tell me.” They didn’t answer. Instead, they told him that if he did not agree to their offer, he and his family would no longer be welcome in America.

Swift ended the meeting. Within hours, one of the agents called him and asked which flight his client would be on.

A.M. and his family sold what possessions they could, and two weeks later, they left the country that for 17 years he had called home.

If you are a Muslim immigrant seeking US citizenship, the FBI is the Stasi.