The ‘anti-terrorism’ climate stirred up after the 1995 Oklahoma City federal-building bombing brought more changes, especially in 1996 with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, which significantly increased criminal repression and poverty for immigrants. 

With the events of September 2001, the October passage of the USA Patriot Act, and other changes since then from the INS, FBI, Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, the ‘war on terrorism’ abroad has been paired with racial profiling and attacks on civil liberties at home, with a new era of systematic detention, deportation, and ‘registration’ of immigrants, and a sharp increase in hate crimes and economic attacks on South and West Asians. 

The year 2001 might be the most important turning point since 1965 in the racialization of U.S. South Asians, whose ‘model minority’ status has been complicated by their demonization and repression in the post-Cold War era of the ‘war on terrorism.’  In 2006, immigrations laws continue to lay higher walls – from using the threat of terrorism to build fences along the U.S.-Mexico border, denying immigrants that cannot show proper documentation drivers licenses, and immigration bills that criminalize immigrants and workers. 

Related Links and Resources:

South Asian Journalists Association

Samar Magazine