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In the News Immigration 101 September 11 and Immigration

By Patrick Young, Esq. CARECEN Program Director May 19, 2008 9:27 AM

Immigration 101 tracks my course in Immigration Law at Hofstra Law School.

There has been much discussion of what actually happened on September 11, 2001, and who was behind the attacks in Washington and New York. Misunderstandings and purposeful lies have abounded. These range from the claim that Jews received a pre-warning of the impending disaster, a canard widely circulated in the Middle East to the history changing charge that Iraq was involved. Through all of the distortions, the Report of The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, popularly known as the 9-11 Commission, as well as the Commission's staff reports on selected topics, remains the first source anyone should consult on the attacks.

The work of the 9-11 Commission has been accurately criticized in Philip Shenon's new book The Commission, and elsewhere. In particular, the Commission's executive director, a close friend of Secretary Rice, may have delayed some aspects of the investigation into the Bush administration's behavior in the months before September 11. But, for my purposes, to look at the immigration-related aspects of the terrorist acts, the Commission provides a fine source.

The 9-11 attacks have been used ceaselessly by anti-immigrant groups to promote their restrictionist cause. Early in 2008 I did a debate with a representative from one of the best-funded anti-immigrant goups, a fellow who regualrly appears on FOX on immigration issues. The debate topic was "How communities can deal with immigrant day laborers". In his fifteen minute opening statement he must have talked about terrorism and the World Trade Center a dozen times. I joked that if he thought that Osama was going to infiltrate terrorists into the United States and then have them stand on a street corner to get jobs mowing lawns, we may have to rethink the whole notion of terrorist funding.

One thing that anti-immigrant groups learned from President Bush is that constantly invoking the phrases" terrorism" and "9-11" can make a certain percentage of the American people abandon their critical faculties.

In the next installment of Immigration 101, I'll look at how the terrorists came to the United States and what the immigration implications are.

Here are some other installments in the Immigration 101 series

Immigration 101 Overview of the Immigration System

Immigration 101 Employment Based

Immigration 101 Family Based Immigration

Immigration 101 So what makes up a family

Immigration 101 History We need a new Ellis Island

Immigration 101 NonImmigrants

Immigration 101 Coming to the U.S.

Immigration 101 Stopping 'em at the border

Immigration 101 Don't Give Me Your Poor

Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 1

Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 2

Immigration 101 Keeping the Chinese Out Part 1

Immigration 101 The Chinese Exclusion Act Cases Part 2

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 1 Introduction

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 2 How employers evade the law

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 3 The impact of sanctions on immigrants

Immigration 101 Deportation

Immigration 101 Raids!

Immigration 101 ICE Storm-An on the ground look at raids

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