Obama Moves To Thwart Trump On Terror Fight

Barack Obama has just made it much harder for Donald Trump to try to keep America safe.

For nine years, a version of Trump’s most important proposals was U.S. government policy: requiring certain people in the United States from Muslim-majority countries to register with the U.S.

Obama suspended the program in 2011, after many complaints from civil rights groups and complaints it wasn’t effective (it resulted in few if any prosecutions), but it was never fully dismantled. It sat on the shelf, ready to be restarted by Trump if he wanted.

Until now.

On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a regulation that would completely eliminate the “National Entry-Exit Registration System” or NSEERS, forcing Trump to either spend the time reviving it or creating another database, something civil rights groups might be able to stop.

The new rule goes into effect Friday, well before Trump’s inauguration, Vox is reporting. So on Jan. 20, if Trump wants to begin a database of Muslim-Americans, he’s going to have to find another way to do it.

At least one contender to lead the Department of Homeland Security under Trump, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, is recommending the Trump administration “update and reintroduce the NSEERS screening and tracking system” for men in the US on “nonimmigrant” visas (such as work or student visas) from particular countries.

The NSEERS program forced people from 25 countries to register with the federal government and check in for follow-ups. It resulted in the deportation of about 13,000 people. It did not result in any convictions for terrorism or related crimes.

Twenty-four of the 25 countries included were Muslim-majority countries — and the 25th was North Korea. The NSEERS program registered visa-holders of all faiths from affected countries. But most of those affected were Muslim — and in context (it was passed after 9/11), that certainly didn’t seem like a coincidence.

Kobach’s new plan doesn’t specify which countries they would cover – but Vox assumes it would be similar to the countries the current program covers.

Interestingly, while the Obama Administration spoke out heartily against any sort of Muslim discrimination, they never fully got rid of the NSEERS program.

The regulatory framework to screen and track visa-holders still existed, it was just screening and tracking immigrants from zero countries. It was dormant, but not defunct.

So when Kobach’s proposal leaked, all it would have taken to start NSEERS back up again would be for DHS to announce that they were re-adding countries to the list — something they could do with a simple notice in the Federal Register, without requiring any time for public comment or other regulatory delays. From there, it would just have been a matter of logistics to get the registry up and running again.

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