From DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving: Over 200 people marched from the Department of Justice to the White House yesterday to demand that Obama dismantle the NSEERS program, the program created by the Bush administration after 9/11 and used to “register” thousands of men with non-citizen visas, resulting in 13,000 deportations and families and communities torn apart.
DRUM member Mohammad Jafar Alam, a survivor of Special Registrations, the first “Muslim Registry” spoke: “I know exactly what a program like NSEERS does to a person and their family. The extreme mental, emotional distress, the financial problems, the pressures on a family and the isolation that happens is a punishment not just for one person, but everyone involved. We are prepared to organize against the policies of the next administration. But we need President Obama to give us a fighting chance! Dismantle the regulations! We must prevent a repeat of Special Registrations!”