The Department of Homeland Security Suspends NSEERS Program

April 29, 2011, Washington, D.C. – The Department of Homeland Security announced the end of the controversial National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) program on Thursday, April the 28th.        

 

The Department of Homeland Security explained, in a Federal Register Notice, that the program was abolished because new automated technology renders the NSEERS unnecessary and no longer cost-effective. 

 

NSEERS, which was created in 2002, required non-immigrant nationals or citizens from twenty-five countries, Including Iran, to undergo “special registration procedures” during entry into and exit from the United States.  In an attempt to register all non-immigrant aliens who were permitted to enter the United States prior to September of 2002, the Department of Justice implemented the controversial Domestic Call-in Registration portion of the program.  

 

In 2004, The Iranian American Bar Association (IABA) with assistance from the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC), the connected Political Action Committee of PAAIA, held a bipartisan congressional briefing detailing their published investigative report concerning the detention and treatment of Iranian nationals under the NSEERS.  The report, prepared with assistance from the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, provided a comprehensive, independent analysis of the manner in which the NSEERS special registration program had been implemented.

 

The decision to “indefinitely suspend” NSEERS was welcomed by civil liberty organizations who viewed the program as ineffective and an example of federal policies that encourage racial profiling.