05/17/2011 - 

The United States has quietly discontinued a post-9-11 program that required men who came to the U.S. from Muslim countries to register with federal authorities,according to the Montreal Gazette.

The reportedly controversial program was called NSEERS, which stands for National Security Entry-Exit Registering System. It required "registration, fingerprinting and interviews of male visitors 16 or older from Muslim nations or North Korea." The program targeted visitors and people living in the country already.

Per the Gazette:

But not a single case resulted in anyone being charged with terrorism—a fact that experts say proves the program was a failure that unfairly harassed thousands.

NSEERS did "not catch terrorists," said Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, a law professor at Penn State University who has extensively researched the program. "It was ineffective and alienating."

The Department of Homeland Security quietly ended the program through a notice buried on its website on April 28.

The article reports that many felt that the program was "ethnic harassment." About 80,000 men were eventually registered with the program, and it resulted in more than 2,000 deportations.

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