In September 2002, the Justice Department launched a program called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, which required immigrants from twenty-five countries—selected, with the exception of North Korea, based on the size of their Muslim populations—to submit their names to a government database that vetted them for involvement with terrorism. By the following May, with 138,000 immigrants registered, the program hadn’t led to a single successful terrorism prosecution, but twelve thousand people had been placed in deportation proceedings.
