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More Muslims Arrive in U.S., After 9/11 Dip

Sep 9, 2006 7:58 pm By Robert Spencer

And no attempt — no attempt — is being made to determine whether or not these Muslims adhere to the jihad ideology. Neither by immigration officials or by the New Duranty Times (from which this comes, with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck). No one quoted in the article gives any hint of being anything but entranced by Western values, and that’s all to the good, of course, but nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact that aspects of the jihad ideology do not come up in the immigration process.

America’s newest Muslims arrive in the afternoon crunch at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Their planes land from Dubai, Casablanca and Karachi. They stand in line, clasping documents. They emerge, sometimes hours later, steering their carts toward a flock of relatives, a stream of cabs, a new life.

This was the path for Nur Fatima, a Pakistani woman who moved to Brooklyn six months ago and promptly shed her hijab. Through the same doors walked Nora Elhainy, a Moroccan who sells electronics in Queens, and Ahmed Youssef, an Egyptian who settled in Jersey City, where he gives the call to prayer at a palatial mosque.

“I got freedom in this country,” said Ms. Fatima, 25. “Freedom of everything. Freedom of thought.”

The events of Sept. 11 transformed life for Muslims in the United States, and the flow of immigrants from countries like Egypt, Pakistan and Morocco thinned dramatically.

But five years later, as the United States wrestles with questions of terrorism, civil liberties and immigration control, Muslims appear to be moving here again in surprising numbers, according to statistics compiled by the Department of Homeland Security and the Census Bureau.

Immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia are planting new roots in states from Virginia to Texas to California.

In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents “” nearly 96,000 “” than in any year in the previous two decades. More than 40,000 of them were admitted last year, the highest annual number since the terrorist attacks, according to data on 22 countries provided by the Department of Homeland Security….

“America has always been the promised land for Muslims and non-Muslims,” said Behzad Yaghmaian, an Iranian exile and author of “Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West.” “Despite Muslims” opposition to America’s foreign policy, they still come here because the United States offers what they”re missing at home.”

For Ms. Fatima, it was the freedom to dress as she chose and work as a security guard. For Mr. Youssef, it was the chance to earn a master’s degree.

He came in spite of the deep misgivings that he and many other Egyptians have about the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. In America, he said, one needs to distinguish between the government and the people.

“Who am I dealing with, Bush or the American public?” he said. “Am I dealing with my future in Egypt or my future here?”…

But Sept. 11 altered the course of Muslim life in America. Mosques were vandalized. Hate crimes rose. Deportation proceedings were begun against thousands of men, and others were arrested in an array of terrorism cases.

Some Muslims changed their names to avoid job discrimination, making Mohammed “Moe,” and Osama “Sam.” Scores of families left for Canada or returned to their native countries.

Yet this period also produced something strikingly positive, in the eyes of many Muslims: they began to mobilize politically and socially. Across the country, grass-roots organizations expanded to educate Muslims on civil rights, register them to vote and lobby against new federal policies such as the Patriot Act.

“There was the option of becoming introverted or extroverted,” said Agha Saeed, national chairman of the American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections, an umbrella organization in Newark, Calif., created in 2003. “We became extroverted.”

In some ways, new Muslim immigrants may be better off in the post-9/11 America they encounter today, say Muslim leaders and academics: Islamic centers are more organized, and resources like English instruction and free legal assistance are more accessible.

But outside these newly organized mosques, life remains strained for many Muslims.

To avoid taunts, women are often warned not to wear head scarves in public, as was Rubab Razvi, 21, a Pakistani who arrived in Brooklyn nine months ago. (She ignored the advice, even though people stare at her on the bus, she said.) Muslims continue to endure long waits at airports, where they are often tagged for questioning because of their names or dress.

To some longtime immigrants, the life embraced by newcomers will never compare to the peaceful era that came before.

“They haven’t seen the America pre-9/11,” said Khwaja Mizan Hassan, 42, who left Bangladesh 30 years ago. He rose to become the president of Jamaica Muslim Center, a mosque in Queens, and has a comfortable job with the New York City Department of Probation.

But after Sept. 11, he was stopped at Kennedy Airport because his name matched another on a watch list.

So what? That’s an example of some kind of discrimination? That has happened to me too.

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