(San Francisco, CA) — The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) reflects on the impact of the September 11th attacks for the last 25 years. We continue to mourn the senseless and tragic loss of thousands of lives that day, including many immigrants who were part of the fabric that made the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center function in the first place. We continue to be saddened by the horrific and tragic attack of 9/11.
Following the tragic loss, the federal government unfortunately chose to weaponize safety and security, overreaching in our personal lives–especially for immigrant and Muslim communities.
The shadow of the attack has loomed over our political discourse and private lives for a quarter century now. Entire generations are now entering the workforce not having known any other reality, incorrectly being fed the tale that racial profiling and surveillance is the price to pay for public safety.
The impact of the ensuing so-called “Global War on Terror” has had dire consequences – not only resulting in countless deaths overseas and in displacing hundreds of thousands of people from targeted countries – but in the way it dwindled the immigrant community’s ability to secure immigration relief and status domestically. Using newly acquired legal tools after the passage of cruel immigration laws following the deadly and horrific attacks by domestic terrorists in Oklahoma City in 1995, the government was quickly able to cement a new enforcement regime based on suspicion and criminalization. At the ILRC, we understand the consequences of this distortion of the word “safety” to have led to the atrocities being committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today.
Immediately riding the wave of rising Islamophobic hysteria across the nation, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) implemented in 2002 would create a blueprint for tracking and surveilling immigrants after the attacks. Later absorbed by the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the impact of asking immigrants to self-disclose via registration can be traced to this program.
Though the current reach of ICE might feel like it was embedded in immigration policy from the start, the agency and its governing cabinet department was not created until 2003. The legal tools now used to criminalize immigrant communities had been just embedded after the passage of the 1996 immigration laws. Together, these tools have allowed for the use of Islamophobic and racist narratives around safety to grow and expand to ICE’s abusive force we are witnessing terrorize American cities today.
Experts trace the current spread of conspiracies and disinformation to Americans' distrust of their systems of government following the 9/11 attacks. Discourse online shifted dramatically in the decades following the attacks, and from that distrust rose online fringe groups like the Q-Anon cult, which would play a role in uplifting the current administration’s nativist agenda and normalize mass conspiracy thinking in mainstream discourse.
The ILRC believes safety exists when everyone’s basic needs are met, and we cultivate a culture of acceptance and belonging for our neighbors, no matter where they come from or who they pray to. The distortion of the word since the attacks on 9/11 in 2001 has only created a dystopic state of surveillance and violence that dishonors the lives lost that day.
To learn more about how the ILRC proposes we address the needs of immigrant communities and build safety in communities across the country, please see A Platform for Immigrant Justice and Building a New Way Forward.