[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 178 (Thursday, December 20, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2363-E2364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 IMMIGRANTS AND THE NATIONAL INSECURITY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 19, 2001

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring the Congress's 
attention to a recent article in the Carib News entitled ``Immigrants 
and the National Insecurity'' by Dr. Basil Wilson. His opinion 
editorial cogently details our Nation's current struggle with ensuring 
our personal security while continuing to uphold the founding 
principles of this country. The article highlights some of our past 
reactions to times of strife and their dramatic impact on our immigrant 
community. Most notably, the passage of the 1996 Anti-Terrorist Act and 
the 1996 Immigration and Responsibilities Act, spurred in part by the 
World Trade Center attack in 1993 and the Oklahoma City federal 
building bombing in 1995, have conveyed the anti-immigrant sentiment in 
the United States and have sought to reduce the rights and benefits 
available to immigrants.
  Since 1996, many of us have worked to undo the damage done to this 
community. But our overreaction to September 11th's attack stand to 
prevent us from advancing our efforts. As Americans we pride ourselves 
in our historical knowledge in looking at the past and learning from 
our successes and failures. Immediately following the attacks we strove 
to respond in an unconventional manner, both here and abroad. Yet, just 
four months later, we sit by and allow the Attorney General to 
indefinitely detain aliens, the use of military tribunals to try those 
suspected of terrorism, and interviews by law enforcement agencies 
based on ethnic and religious identities. The echoes of Japanese 
internment camps and McCarthyism are ringing in the halls of Congress 
and I know I am not the only one who hears them.
  Dr. Wilson cautions, ``in a global society, there is a danger that 
America will project to the world that it only values the life of its 
own citizens. The constitution and life will be preserved for Americans 
but different standards will be used to measure those who are not 
citizens of Rome.''
  More critically than the projection to the world, we will tell our 
fellow countrymen and teach our children that the immigrant life should 
be valued less than the citizen's life that the immigrants who have 
been the building blocks of our pluralistic society generation after 
generation should stay at the bottom. Dr. Wilson warns that this 
treatment is a ``slippery slope that can readily lead to the 
dehumanization of others.'' More than ``can lead'', it does lead, 
perpetuating an environment of inequality.
  If we sacrifice the constitutional liberties that we are asking our 
armed services to defend, then I ask what are we fighting for? Each 
time we give up one of our precious freedoms, we open the door to 
surrender more.
  It does not matter if we give up these rights for our citizens versus 
our immigrants because one day these immigrants will be citizens. They 
will not forget that from the inception they were told they were less 
then the people their children will attend school with.
  Our enemy is not the immigrant. Do we honestly believe that if we 
harshly punish the immigrant community we are now secure, that we are 
now safe?
  By condoning a society that devalues the immigrants' contributions 
and vital role in our community, we degrade ourselves and our history 
and we condone the inequity that is present in the United States and in 
the world. If there is one history lesson we should all remember it is 
our treatment of the most vulnerable of our citizens that defines our 
national character. We are only as strong as our weakest link and if we 
truly want a country where all are equal and prosper, we must empower 
each part of it to succeed.

                 Immigrants and the National Insecurity

                [Carib News, Week Ending Dec. 11, 2001]

                         (By Dr. Basil Wilson)

       The planning and executing of the bombing of the Pentagon 
     in Washington, D.C., and the implosion of the twin towers led 
     us to believe that the United States was confronted with a 
     formidable foe. The henchmen of Osama bin Laden had 
     demonstrated their zealotry in 1993 in the initial attempt to 
     take down the symbol of world capitalism. They struck again 
     in Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, in Tanzania and Kenya before the 
     devastating blow on the mainland of the United States.
       Al Qaeda had managed to pull together jihad warriors from 
     Muslim countries in Bosnia, Algeria, Egypt and Pakistan. This 
     fierce band of warriors with the capacity to kill civilians 
     along with the Taliban in Afghanistan have manifested to the 
     world an incapacity to fight against the United States 
     military. The Al Qaeda and Taliban warriors have shown an 
     inability to wage modern warfare.
       That prompts the question, what is left of the Al Qaeda 
     international network? As bin Laden forces disintegrate in 
     Afghanistan, does Al Qaeda remain a formidable terrorist 
     network capable of threatening American national security? 
     The extra-constitutional measures that Attorney General 
     Ashcroft claims that is necessary to save American lives is 
     based on the assumption that the remnants of bin Laden are 
     still capable of additional savagery.
       The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and the 
     destruction of the Federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, 
     prompted the Clinton Administration and Congress to pass the 
     1996 Anti-Terrorist Act. That Act and the Immigration and 
     Responsibilities Act reduced measurably the rights of 
     permanent residents and foreigners living in the United 
     States. Even the Acts passed since September 11, 2001 
     respects the constitutional rights of citizens but run 
     roughshod over those who are domiciled in the United States 
     and are not citizens. The Patriot Act is similar to the 
     Walter/McCarran Act passed in 1952. Then the fear was 
     communist organizations and the law allowed the Immigration 
     and Naturalization Service to bar those who sought to enter 
     the United States who were members of communist or 
     organizations sympathetic to communism.
       With the Patriot Act, the attempt is to interdict or deport 
     non-citizens who are members of a terrorist organization or 
     who seek to raise or to give funds to any terrorist 
     organization. The Attorney General does not need to bring the 
     defendants to trial and the non-citizen can be immediately 
     deported.
       The Attorney General has now assumed powers to indefinitely 
     detain aliens. This amounts to a suspension of habeas corpus 
     and the Attorney General now has the power to supersede the 
     rights of INS judges to release a detainee providing that 
     detainee is suspected to be linked to terrorist activity. No 
     evidence has to be presented in court. Such powers exercised 
     by the state are troubling to constitutional scholars. The 
     rationale given is national security but there are no checks 
     or balances to ensure that the rights of the defendants are 
     duly protected.
       Officials at the Justice Department are insisting that the 
     investigation must cast an extensive net. Thus far the 
     Attorney General has indicated after prodding from Congress 
     that 93 persons have been charged with minor visa or criminal 
     violations unconnected to events of September 11, 2001. The 
     files of 11 have been sealed and 22 Middle Eastern men who 
     were engaged in obtaining licenses to transport hazardous 
     materials across state lines, all but one, have been 
     released. Approximately 548 are in custody, mostly comprised 
     of Middle Eastern males.
       To extend the dragnet, the Justice Department is asking 
     state and city policy to cooperate with them to interview 
     5,000 Middle Eastern men between the ages of 18 and 33 who 
     entered the United States from January 2000. They are not 
     necessarily suspected of any crime but the Justice Department 
     wants

[[Page E2364]]

     to conduct voluntary interviews with the expectation it might 
     produce leads to determine the state of the Al Qaeda network 
     in the United States.
       This amounts to a vulgar form of racial profiling. Racial 
     profiling as it was aimed at African Americans on the New 
     Jersey Turnpike or the unconstitutional search and seizures 
     conducted in Black and Latino neighborhoods in New York City 
     are examples of the might of state power being used against 
     the powerless to maximize domestic security. Events of 
     September 11, 2001 necessitate additional vigilance on the 
     part of law enforcement but it is dangerous to pass 
     legislation oblivious to the rights of non-citizens since 
     such legislation jeopardizes the rights of all American 
     citizens.
       President Bush announced on November 13, in his capacity as 
     Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces that the government 
     would reserve the right of trying foreigners during the 
     course of the war in military tribunals. Military tribunals 
     were used during the American Civil War and in World War II. 
     Military tribunals do not require the preponderance of 
     evidence necessary for conviction in a civilian court or in 
     military courts used for court martial cases. Conviction in 
     the Military Tribunal would not require the same rules of 
     evidence and a two-thirds vote of the commissioners could 
     lead to a conviction even in the case of a death penalty.
       As the New York Times editorial on Sunday, December 2, 2001 
     stated, it is very difficult to criticize a President when 
     the nation is at war but the editorial board felt compelled 
     to speak out against the extensive extra-judicial powers 
     assumed by the Bush administration. A conservative columnist 
     like William Safire, who writes for the New York Times has 
     condemned the Military Tribunals as kangaroo courts. Safire 
     is mindful of the spectacle of a bin Laden trial and the 
     security risks that would entail and suggests rather 
     dispassionately that the United States should ensure that 
     Osama bin Laden is bombed to smithereens.
       A liberal columnist like Thomas Freedman equivocates. He 
     recognizes the danger of the extra-constitutional decrees but 
     his position is that the nation is up against an enemy with 
     no love for life and cannot carry out business as usual.
       In a global society, there is a danger that America will 
     project to the world that it only values the life of its own 
     citizens. The constitution and life will be preserved for 
     Americans but different standards will be used to measure 
     those who are not citizens of Rome. It is a slippery slope 
     that can readily lead to the dehumanization of others.
       Treasuring the ewei and not the ethey is inextricably 
     linked to the present human condition. That is the troubling 
     issue in the Middle East. It is that thought process that led 
     to the bombings in Jerusalem. Saturday night that resulted in 
     the death of 25 Israelis and over 250 wounded. It is that 
     same mentality that has led to the unending grieving of the 
     3,000 lives lost in the World Trade Center.
       Some emergency measures are sorely necessary in light of 
     the holocaust of September 11, 2001. But one of the stranges 
     phenomenon of the latter twentieth and the beginning of the 
     twenty-first century is the increasing insecurity of human 
     life and the proposed solutions to enhance safety which seem 
     to augment the quasi-incarcerated nature of our lives. It has 
     prompted the expansion of the penal state with millions in 
     prison and hundreds of thousands leaving prison to be 
     reintegrated into an economy that is jettisoning those who 
     are presently employed.
       The military reserve now provides additional security on 
     our streets. Airport security has been federalized and new 
     legislation has been passed by Congress to counter terrorism. 
     The Attorney General is convinced that expanded powers will 
     make us more secure. This should be seen as a temporary 
     holding action. We fought a war in yesteryear to make the 
     world safe for democracy. We need to explore a new politics 
     and to construct a new global system to make the world safe 
     for Christians, Jews, Muslims and non-believers.

     

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