ABSTRACT
In September 2001, almost immediately following the tragic plane attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon on 9/11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated a massive investigation, called PENTTBOM,1 to “identify the terrorists who hijacked the airplanes and anyone who aided their efforts.” In the days following 9/11, Michael Chertoff, then Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, led an ungrounded campaign of racial and religious profiling against Muslim, Arab, and South Asian immigrants across the country. In the two months following 9/11 about 1,200 persons were detained and questioned. The names of 762 of those immigrants were added to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Custody List (OIG, 2003).2
