Arabs: The Weak Link in the US Civil Liberties Chain
Washington Watch
April 21st, 2025
Dr. James J. Zogby ©
President
Arab American Institute
For decades now, Arabs, in particular Palestinians, and supporters of Palestinian rights have been the weak link in the civil liberties chain. During this period, when a US president or Congress has sought to take measures curtailing a range of civil liberties, they would exploit the perception of the danger posed by Arabs to justify their actions. They feel comfortable in doing this because they understand that the negative stereotypes associated with Arabs make the measures more acceptable and opposition to their efforts less likely to occur. Examples abound:
On three separate occasions in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration sought to roll back civil liberties, they began their assault with an attack on Arabs’ rights. Having established the identity of Arab/Palestinian with terrorist, they assumed no public support would be forthcoming in defense of Arab civil liberties. On the other hand, if their targets had been persons of another ethnicity, opposition would have been more likely.
In 1981, the Reagan administration issued an executive order that dismantled all earlier reforms by the Carter administration to outlaw domestic surveillance by the CIA and FBI, using Arabs as the scapegoats to justify this measure. As a result, for five years, the FBI infiltrated and disrupted Palestinian student groups nationwide—finally disbanding the effort with nothing to show but agents’ hours wasted and millions of dollars spent.
Reagan’s Department of Justice was also able to rewrite US extradition law, making it easier to fulfill the requests of foreign countries to extradite individuals without due process protections. They did so using the case of a Palestinian visa holder whose extradition had been requested by Israel. Based on this case, Congress rewrote the laws affecting all extradition requests.
It was also under Reagan that the Immigration and Naturalization Service released its “Alien Terrorist and Undesirables Contingency Plan,” detailing steps under provisions of the McCarren Walter Act to imprison, try in secret, and deport large numbers of aliens based solely on their ethnicity or their political beliefs or associations. Consistent with the approach taken, the “Plan” makes several references to Arab immigrants. In fact, the test case used to lay the groundwork for this “Plan” was the arrest of seven Palestinians and the Kenyan wife of one of them, charging them with nothing more than their political beliefs and association.
In 1995, President Clinton issued an executive order “Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threatened to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process” and followed by the Omnibus Anti-Terrorism Act of 1995. Both efforts introduced draconian measures that would seriously erode civil and political rights guaranteed to US citizens and residents under the Constitution and international law. The law, for example, gave far-reaching powers to law-enforcement agencies, removed the presumption of innocence for those under investigation, made it easier for the government to conduct surveillance against persons suspected of violating conspiracy laws, allowed for prohibition of “material support deemed by the president to benefit terrorist organizations,” established procedures allowing the government to detain and deport individuals based on secret evidence with no opportunity for the detainees to defend themselves, and allowed law-enforcement agencies to conduct surveillance on individuals or groups, based purely on their beliefs and associations. Using the executive order and new legislation the Clinton administration unleashed a nationwide profiling program at airports, which harassed and questioned hundreds of Arab and Arab American airline passengers, even before checking in for their flights, based solely on their dress, appearance, or Arabic names.
After 9/11, the Bush administration and Congress upped the ante. While intelligence failures and lax airline safety requirements were at fault in allowing terrorists to be trained in the US and carry out their horrific attacks, Bush issued a series of orders that resulted in the roundup and deportation of thousands of innocent Arab students, workers, and visitors. They also ordered tens of thousands of Arab and Muslim visa holders to report to immigration offices where many more were held for deportation. The anti-terrorism legislation that passed through Congress allowed expanded surveillance by law enforcement, including warrantless wiretapping, searching library records, and an expanded use of profiling. Using the expanded powers given to them by the administration, law enforcement agents infiltrated mosques and Arab social clubs, entrapping a few gullible individuals in plots that were often organized by the law enforcement agencies themselves.
This is only a partial history, but it lays the predicate for the actions being taken by the Trump administration: threats to civil liberties like freedom of speech, assembly, and academic freedom; expanded authority given to law enforcement agencies to use unconstitutional measures to detain and deport individuals based on their ethnicity or political beliefs; and an expanded interpretation of the “material support” argument used by the Reagan and Clinton administrations to violate the protected rights of citizens and residents.
There are differences to be sure. While the measures taken during the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations were based on exaggerated fears of terrorism in the US, it’s important to note that a review of the profiling, surveillance, and immigration programs established during these administrations did little to uncover or prosecute actual cases of terrorism. At the end of the day, despite billions of dollars spent and precious law enforcement resources expended, these programs did nothing more than contribute to an expansion of law enforcement powers and erosion of rights. In the case of the Trump orders, there’s not even the pretense of fighting terrorism—rather, an exercise in the brutal use of power to create fear and force institutions and individuals to cower and submit.
What Trump’s administration policies share in common with his predecessors is the use of Arabs, in particular Palestinians, and their supporters, as convenient scapegoats to justify the erosion of rights and liberties. What Trump knows is that in the midst of Israel’s war on Gaza, his support base will enthusiastically back his efforts. He also knows that liberals in Congress, who might otherwise oppose his policies, will be hesitant to offer full-throated support to the victims of his policies if it appears they are defending Palestinians or critics of Israel. For Trump, it’s the perfect storm. For those who care about defending rights and liberties, it’s just another example of Arabs, Palestinians, and those who defend them being the weak link in the civil liberties chain.
