In 2003, another thousand people were arrested as part of a program to catch “absconders” from Middle Eastern nations who had overstayed their visas and who might have knowledge of “terrorist activity.” Many of these people were put “on planes to destinations where they knew no one. They left behind jobs, homes, and families, including American-born children.” Such actions are nothing if not the wholesale demonization of Muslims, who are now “guilty until proven innocent.” Their consequences reach far beyond the Arab and South Asian Muslim communities. Non-Muslim peace activists and antiwar organizers soon became targets of surveillance and interrogation as well.

XREF: Connects to surveillance-state critiques and civil liberties discourse post-9/11.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 448