Conducting Congressional Hearings Around Post 9-11 Abuses and Profiling

It has been thirteen years since the tragic events of 9/11. And unfortunately, Arab Americans, South Asians, Muslim Americans, and those perceived to be Muslim continue to be impacted by post 9/11 policies and profiling, including racial and religious profiling, unwarranted surveillance of communities based on religion and national origin and an alarming spike in bias incidents and hate crimes.

While groups across the country have held dozens of congressional briefings organized by impacted communities to educate lawmakers on the impact of post 9/11 policies on the aforementioned communities, Congress has held very few official hearings focusing on these issues. Unfortunately, we have seen multiple misguided hearings that have focused on radicalization in Muslim communities that overgeneralized and gave platform to pseudo experts who spewed misinformation about Arab and Muslim Americans.

The Campaign to Take on Hate will work to hold official congressional briefings that create a formal record of post 9/11 abuses and profiling. We will give platform to directly impacted communities to share their stories, policy experts to provide recommendations, and elected officials who have been champions on addressing the disparate impact of post 9/11 policies in the name of national security that have created fear and paranoia in Arab, South Asian, Muslim and Sikh American communities and widened the gap of mistrust between communities and law
enforcement.