The war at home: National targeting of noncitizens takes on new dimensions. (A New Era).(immigrants in U.S. after 9/11)

Within hours of the collapse of the World Trade Center, President Bush appeared on national television to offer his first promise to the American public: "We will smoke these barbarians out of their caves." A cleansing was in order. The world was to be decontaminated of every last trace of Islamic fundamentalism. Yes, a nation that is ruptured and speechless in the wake of terror can still find comfort in a trustworthy colonial logic: cleanse, decontaminate.

We braced ourselves for the very worst. Hundreds of reported incidents of brutal beatings of Arab, South Asian, and multinational Muslims flowed in. Before long, we learned of the first, second, and then third racist killings. Bush vaguely told the American public to "cut it out." But in reality the president was fast making good on his extraordinary promise of a permanent war at home linked to the war abroad.

In the name of fighting terrorism, Bush is expanding and redirecting the ongoing attacks on people of color. A qualitative shift has taken place wherein the prison industrial complex is being reorganized to fully serve the war program. Two changes stand out: positioning immigrants at the forefront of racist state violence and increased control of law enforcement by the federal government. These changes pose grave new dangers. But they also provide opportunities for deepening and unifying struggles for racial justice and immigrant rights.

Immigrant in the Crosshairs

Prior to September 11, stare violence was often viewed through the lens of the African American experience. Post-September 11, immigrants are the new face of racial profiling, racist laws, and deprivation of civil liberties. As the state and some of the public have quickly make Arabs and South Asians new targets of racism, can we incorporate these new racialized groups into a more inclusive vision of racial justice?

Today the language and imagery are "terrorist," "immigrant," and "Arab," but the infrastructure established in the process is a potent source of increased racism and repression against all peoples of color and indeed all who live in the U.S. The fight for immigrant rights must become a centerpiece of efforts to build a broad national front to reverse Bush's attempt to permanently deprive all people of color of civil and constitutional rights.

Police chiefs from around the country who, only a year ago, were being scrutinized by the Department of Justice for their "racial profiling" of African Americans are now being summoned by Attorney General Ashcroft to "interview" tens of thousands of immigrants merely because they are of Middle Eastern descent. Meanwhile, INS detention centers, many of them run by private prison corporations, function as today's internment camps.