{"id":245322,"date":"2016-05-23T05:47:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T05:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/secret-bush-era-blacklist-delays-muslim-citizenship-applications-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2016-05-23T14:27:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T14:27:47","slug":"secret-bush-era-blacklist-delays-muslim-citizenship-applications-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/secret-bush-era-blacklist-delays-muslim-citizenship-applications-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Bush-era blacklist delays Muslim citizenship applications &#8211; lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.com\/files\/2016.05\/thumbnail\/573f23a8c46188fc508b45e9.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Thirteen Muslims living in the US have filed a lawsuit against the US government for delaying their citizenship applications, which they believe is part of a discriminatory screening process started during the George W Bush administration.&#13;<\/p>\n<div readability=\"104.11746601693\">\n<p>The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Charles Johnson have been accused of screening out the Missouri residents under a secret initiative called the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CARRP), which flags applicants as national security threats through racial profiling, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2016\/05\/missouri-muslims-lawsuit-immigration-terrorism-security-carrp\">Mother Jones report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Receiving a large money transfer or traveling to a country with terrorist activity, like Pakistan for example, are among some of the reasons for flagging.<\/p>\n<p>The program was initially uncovered in 2013 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and was also being used to screen Syrian refugees entering the US, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/alimwatkins\/the-us-is-using-a-secret-program-to-vet-refugees\">Buzzfeed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which filed the federal lawsuit, also warns that CARRP illegally discriminates against citizenship applicants from Muslim-majority countries.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IFNaVZJzD0I\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe CARRP definition illegally brands innocent, law-abiding residents like [the] plaintiffs, none of whom pose a security threat, as \u2018national security concerns\u2019 on account of innocuous activity and associations, innuendo, suppositions and characteristics such as national origin,\u201d<\/em> reads the lawsuit, which was filed with a local immigration litigation law firm representing the Missouri Muslims in the case.<\/p>\n<p>Lead attorney Jim Hacking said a similar case in 2014 was quickly dealt with by the government after being filed.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/177340-us-muslims-immigration-lawsuit\/\">READ MORE: \u200bMuslims sue federal govt for stonewalling citizenship requests<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhen I filed for the 36 clients in [previous] cases that had been delayed for three, four, five years all of a sudden [they] became a priority,\u201d<\/em> he told Mother Jones. <em>\u201cThis is because the government tries to root out the case. They don\u2019t want a federal judge ruling on whether CARRP is legal or illegal, so they try to get rid of all the plaintiffs by either approving or denying their case.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>USCIS should process naturalization applications within six months, but in the cases of Muslim immigrants, this hasn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n<p>Wafaa Alwan, a 49-year-old Iraqi woman highlighted in the lawsuit, applied for citizenship in late 2014, but wasn\u2019t interviewed for eight months and is still waiting for a final decision.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistani Syed Asghar Ali has been in limbo for more than two years.<\/p>\n<p>The vetting process can also be delayed if the applicant\u2019s name is one of the million on the FBI\u2019s \u2018Terror Watch List,\u2019 even though\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2014\/08\/05\/watch-commander\/\">the Intercept<\/a> reported that more than 40 percent of those on the list have <em>\u201cno recognized terrorist group affiliation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/338575-american-muslims-sue-terror-watch-list\/\">READ MORE: \u2018Bigoted and misguided\u2019: American Muslims file twin lawsuits over terror watch list<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While this policy started under President Bush, it flourished with Obama in the White House, including when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.<\/p>\n<p>Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a ban of Muslims entering the country, while hate crimes against those of the Islamic faith are on the rise.<\/p>\n<p>Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for unity in reaction to Trump\u2019s anti-Muslim stance.<\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\"><center readability=\"1.3659217877095\"><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\" readability=\"5.463687150838\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The United States is a great nation when we stand together. We are a weak nation when we allow racism and xenophobia to divide us.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SenSanders\/status\/673995477587742720\">December 7, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/center><\/div>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fGb_R5hv2bc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>US Citizenship and Immigration Services did not respond directly to the latest allegations, but a spokesperson told Mother Jones that the agency requires <em>\u201cadditional time to thoroughly vet each immigrant\u201d<\/em> in order to ensure citizenship is not issued to people who could pose a threat to public safety.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/343801-muslim-citizenship-blacklist-lawsuit\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirteen Muslims living in the US have filed a lawsuit against the US government for delaying their citizenship applications, which they believe is part of a discriminatory screening process started during the George W Bush administration.&#13; The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Charles Johnson have been accused of screening [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-245322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}