WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- An advocacy group is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alleging that they engaged in pre-election profiling of Arab-Americans and Muslims.
The American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee has brought a Freedom of Information Act case against the department to force disclosure of the nationalities of more than 230 people detained by federal immigration authorities in the days leading up to the 2004 presidential election.
The detentions were part of a pre-election counter-terror push launched in October 2004, dubbed by the media the "October Plan," and called by officials the "Interagency Security Plan."
In the complaint, the groups says it wants to allay fears in the Arab-American and Muslim communities that the detentions were a "round-up" resulting from "national-origin" profiling using information collected from nationals of "special interest" nations (25 countries) as part of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS.
NSEERS required any non-citizens in the country from one of the 25 "special interest" nations to register with Homeland Security and be fingerprinted and photographed.
The American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee said it had been trying for almost two years to get the data through FOIA requests and meetings. The department's claim that revealing "generalized data on the nationalities of the October plan detainees ... 'would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement'" -- as the department claimed -- "all but conceded that defendants have been ... engaged in national-origin profiling."
