A Threat to Everyone’s Rights : Fears in the Arab community of mass deportations or internment

The FBI has now questioned hundreds of Arab-American political, business and civic leaders in its campaign to “interdict terrorists,” deepening anxieties in that community and spreading concerns elsewhere. Increasingly, from accounts given by those who have been questioned, the FBI’s aims seem more like political intimidation than effective intelligence gathering. In effect, even if not necessarily in intent, an entire group feels it is under suspicion because of its ethnic heritage. If so, that would be harassment and it must end right now.

The apprehensions raised by the FBI’s activities have spread fears among some in the Arab community that mass deportations or internment could be the next steps on the agenda. There is, of course, a shameful precedent in the United States for placing an entire ethnic group behind barbed wire in wartime. But what happened to Japanese-Americans in 1942 will not--must not--be permitted to happen again. Recent immigrants from Arab countries, where civil rights are largely nonexistent and the state’s powers are supreme, can be pardoned for worrying about becoming victims of oppression. Calmer and more experienced members of the Arab community should join with others in giving reassurances that U.S. laws protect the rights of citizens and aliens alike.

Opposition to the FBI’s tactics is being heard in Congress and from non-Arab-American organizations. Among those protesting are the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the Japanese American Citizens League. These groups as well as many others know only too well, as Rabbi Laura Geller wrote in a letter to The Times on Wednesday, that every American’s constitutional rights are threatened when Arab-Americans as a group are subjected to official political scrutiny. Wars always provoke some degree of hysteria and xenophobia. It is unequivocally wrong for any government agency to appear to contribute to this mood, however inadvertently.