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U.S. Versus Them

The effects of the on migration policy in the and how this has influenced visa issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries in particular

Anke van Gils

Bachelor Thesis Geography, Planning and Environment (GPE)

Nijmegen School of I Management Radboud University Nijmegen

July 2020 U.S. Versus Them

The effects of the September 11 attacks on migration policy in the United States and how this has influenced visa issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries in particular

Author

Anke van Gils

Student Number

S1003915

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Henk van Houtum

Bachelor Thesis Geography, Planning and Environment (GPE)

Nijmegen School of Management

Radboud University Nijmegen

July 2020

II Summary This Bachelor’s thesis focusses on the impacts of the September 11 attacks on visa issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries, in comparison to those to migrants from other countries. Since post-9/11 political and media discourse have influenced the general view of toward a more negative image, one might expect that this has also had a restrictive influence on visa issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to find out whether migration policies have indeed become more restrictive for Muslim migrants in particular, and whether we see this impact in a larger decrease in issuances to migrants from this category, as compared to other migrants.

To answer this, various methods have been used. First, a general literature framework was established through examining existing literature on how foreign policies are being developed, how these have affected global mobility over the years, and on how framing and securitization processes can affect these policy developments. Then, an analysis was conducted on the migration policy of the US in the years before 9/11 until the time this thesis was written. Added to this are important background events that have influenced these policy changes. Lastly, data on both immigrant and non-immigrant visa issuances, or permanent and temporary permits, per country was retrieved from the website of the US Bureau of Consular Affairs. These were divided into the two categories by using data from the CIA World Factbook on religion. By a ‘Muslim-majority country’ a country is meant where at least 50% of the population is Muslim. Then, changes in the issuances in the period of 1991, ten years prior to 9/11, to present have been compared to provide an image on the impacts of post- 9/11 policy changes for different categories of migrants. In doing so, both absolute and relative changes were taken into regard.

In general, most entry migration policy has become more restrictive for all migrants. After 9/11, we saw a strong securitization of migration. Entry by foreign nationals has been more and more perceived as a threat to US national security. An example is provided by the establishment of the Homeland Security Act in 2002, which moved matters of migration to the watchful eye of the Department of Homeland Security. This securitization has led to several far-reaching measures that were adopted in acts like the USA of 2001, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Act of 2002, and the REAL ID Act of 2005. Border security became far more enhanced and strict, which was especially visible on the US-Mexico border. New conditions for entry were established that were more restrictive than the previous ones. Also, more data was collected on migrants that entered the country, including biometric data. For non-immigrants, visa overstays were more strictly monitored and sanctioned.

When we look at Muslim migrants in particular, we see that these were mostly the victim of more extreme security measures right after the September 11 attacks. These measures included an increase in arrests for minor visa violations for which they could be held longer, the provision of little information on the reason for their arrest, and in some cases even abuse while in jail. Also, in the ‘’ speech by President Bush, he pointed toward the countries of , and as countries with governments that supported (Bush, 2001-2008). This also affected issuances to migrants from the Muslim-majority countries of Iran and Iraq. In 2002 the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) was launched that started the more extensive registration of non-immigrants from Iran, Iraq, , and that wanted to enter the US for a temporary stay. Migrants from these countries now had to leave more biometric data, such as fingerprints and photographs, and undergo an interview upon arrival in the US. Next to this, NSEERS also obliged migrants from 25 countries to report to an office of the Department of

III Homeland Security for further background checks. Of these 25 countries, 24 were Muslim-majority ones. Years later, we see how Muslims are also the subject of the travel ban issued by President Trump in 2017. In general, both the Presidents Bush and Trump tended to apply a strong securitization of Islam. Obama on the contrary, attempted to get rid of this image. However, he only seems to have succeeded in changing political discourse, which in its turn was reversed again when Trump came into office.

If we look at the number of visa issuances over the years we see a general decline in the period after 9/11, which took place at the end of fiscal year 2001. The effects are most visible in the issuances of the fiscal years 2002 and 2003. The findings have been split up into the two categories of immigrant and non-immigrant issuances. For immigrant visas, we see a general decrease of 10.2% in issuances over the period of fiscal year 2001 until fiscal year 2003. Muslim-majority immigrants experienced the largest decline of 27.4%, and the other migrants saw a decrease of only 7%. In the non-immigrant category the changes after 9/11 were even larger. The overall amount of issuances decreased by 35.7%, with the Muslim-majority category again receiving the most grave impact with a decline in issuances of no less than 46.8%. For the other migrants the decrease was also severe with 34.4% less issuances in fiscal year 2003 in comparison to the number in fiscal year 2001.

We can conclude that migrants from Muslim-majority countries indeed seem to be the most gravely impacted category after the 9/11 attacks in terms of visa issuances. In both immigrant and non- immigrant issuances this group experienced the largest decline. It is likely that this was caused by more restrictive migration policies due to a more negative public and political perception of Muslim migrants.

However, some shortcomings of this research are worth mentioning. Firstly, the impacts of 9/11 on both unauthorized migrants and refugees were not examined, since these were not included in one of the categories by the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019). Also, the correlation between policy developments and the decrease in visa issuances does not rule out other possible influences on visa issuances. This research focusses on policy in the country of destination, which leaves out factors in the country of origin. Because no data has been found on visa applications and refusals, it is not possible to rule out the option that migrants simply applied for visas less after 9/11 due to various factors, such as a more negative image of the US, fear of getting on an airplane, or due to increased travel costs and efforts due to more security checks. Lastly, differences between individual Muslim- majority countries, or between visa types within the two broad categories were not examined.

IV Table of Contents Summary...... III List of Images...... 1 List of Tables...... 1 1. Introduction...... 2 1.1 Social and scientific relevance...... 2 1.2 Research aims and question...... 4 2. Theory...... 6 2.1 Literature review...... 6 2.1.1. Visa functions and the evolution of global mobility...... 6 2.1.2. What shapes foreign policy...... 7 2.1.3. The ‘terrorist’ frame...... 8 2.1.4. The purposes of terrorist attacks...... 9 2.2 Conceptual model...... 10 3. Methodology...... 12 4. Policy development in the years before and after 9/11...... 15 4.1 Immigration policy before 9/11...... 15 4.2 September 11 and the immediate political response...... 18 4.3 Policy changes under the Bush administration in the first years after 9/11...... 20 4.4 Discourse and drone strikes under the Obama administration...... 24 4.5 The Trump administration and its ‘Muslim ban’...... 26 5. Analysis of the annual visa issuances...... 30 5.1 Immigrant visas...... 30 5.2 Non-immigrant visas...... 36 6. Conclusion...... 43 7. Discussion...... 45 8. Literature...... 48 Appendix 1 – Classification of countries without a Muslim majority...... 57 Appendix 2 – Classification of Muslim-majority countries...... 59

V VI List of Images Figure 1: (cover page): UA Flight 175 hits WTC south tower 9-11 (Robert J. Fisch, 2001). Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11786300

Figure 2: Total immigrant visa issuances (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

Figure 3: Immigrant visa issuances to Muslim-majority countries (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991- 2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa- statistics.html

Figure 4: Immigrant visa issuances to countries without a Muslim majority (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

Figure 5: Total non-immigrant visa issuances (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

Figure 6: Non-immigrant visa issuances to Muslim-majority countries (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa- statistics.html

Figure 7: Non-immigrant visa issuances to countries without a Muslim majority (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

List of Tables Table 1: Immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

Table 2: Relative changes in immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority, as compared to the previous year (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

Table 3: Non-immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

Table 4: Relative changes in non-immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority, as compared to the previous year (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 1991-2019). Retrieved from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics.html

1 1. Introduction On September 11, 2001, only 17 minutes passed between the initial hijacking of American Airlines plane 11 and the moment it hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center, only 56 minutes went by between the crash and the collapse of the tower, and another 29 minutes before the North Tower came down too (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2004). This 102 minutes have now passed almost 20 years ago, but the events are still deeply engraved in the memories of many people around the world. In a matter of hours the attacks on the Twin Towers became the top one global news item, with dramatic visuals and heart-breaking stories of horror and heroes.

Then came the annual Address of , 2002, by President George W. Bush. In this emotional speech Bush announces the so-called ‘’ and blames the states of Iraq, Iran and South Korea for supporting terrorists and for possessing weapons of mass destruction (Bush, 2001-2008). He also stresses the importance of protecting rights for people from all nationalities, and he explicitly mentions Muslim people in doing so;

‘America will lead by defending liberty and justice because they are right and true and unchanging for all people everywhere... America will take the side of brave men and women who advocate these values around the world, including the Islamic world…’ (Bush, 2001-2008).

However, liberty and justice are also two values that can be applied to global mobility. In a world that is more and more bound together by globalisation, large differences seem to exist in the opportunities to become mobile between people with different nationalities due to various liberal and restrictive migration policies (Mau et al., 2015).

After 9/11, public and political discourse regarding Muslims changed in a more negative direction due to an increased linking of Islam with national security issues in Western countries (Fetzer & Soper, 2003), (Allen & Nielsen, 2002). Since the public is what elects governments and what makes up the constituency of political parties, it makes sense that public discourse influences the development of policies. Therefore, in this bachelor thesis an attempt will be made to elucidate the effects the September 11 attacks have had on the visa issuances in the United States.

1.1 Social and scientific relevance The social relevance this problem begins with global visa inequalities. The foundation of current differences in mobility levels is based on international visa regulations between countries, and the evolution of these relations over time. According to an analysis of different visa waivers by Mau et al. (2015), global mobility has increased in the last few years due to more visa-free travel regulations. This is said to be caused by globalisation, which Mau et al. define as ‘an increase and intensification of cross-border transactions’ (Mau et al., 2015, pp. 1193). Simultaneously, it has led to more inequality in visa regulations between people with different nationalities. This mobility divide shows a dichotomy between the more privileged OECD-countries and the disadvantaged non-OECD, with very asymmetrical visa relations between states (Mau et al., 2015). It is interesting to note that these OECD-countries involve no states with a Muslim-majority population, with the exception of (OECD, n.d.). Therefore, it is interesting to find out more about who these inequalities affect.

Bhattacharya (2010) discusses how 9/11 changed the public perceptions of Muslims in the United States. The general focus of foreign policy is shaped by national interests that have been the driving force behind it, such as national security. Bhattacharya also states that 9/11 has changed

2 the face of terror to that of radical Islamists, which leaves little room for other kinds of terrorists in the media and public discourse. She stresses that public discourse and foreign policy can’t be seen separated from each other; after all, in a democracy it is the public that is responsible for electing who is in power (Bhattacharya, 2010).

An important catalysator in shaping the public opinion is the mass media. Kidwai (2010) states that after 9/11 the US media tended to connect Islam and terrorism in many headlines. In these articles, Islam is often wrongly represented (Kidwai, 2010). Bhattacharya (2010) emphasizes that the US media tends to focus on a deviation of Islam, rather than to use an objective image of the religion. This deviation called ‘Muslim fundamentalism’ shapes foreign policy and security goals, while it contains is a very limited group of people (Kidwai, 2010). Kidwai explains how this group filled the gap of a main enemy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The mass media used many frames in articles that spoke of Islam. Kidwai (2010) provides the following examples: Islam as an enemy to the US, Islam as linked to terrorism, the Muslim as a potential suspect on US soil, all variations of Islam as the same religion, Islam as anti-democratic, the Middle East as ‘true’ Islamic region, and Islam as intolerant to other religions. These frames, of course didn’t have a very positive influence on the image of Islam in the US public (Kidwai, 2010).

Therefore, the 9/11 attacks seem to have influenced the general image of Muslims in the US in a negative way. Also, public opinion is something that shapes national policies. In the face of the global mobility inequalities, it would therefore be interesting to conduct research on the visible effects of the 9/11 attacks on US migration policy by comparing the mobility of Muslim-majority country citizens to other migrants. Since these people were framed as the largest risk to national security after September 11, it would make sense that the attacks have influenced the mobility for these migrants the most.

Not much previous research has been conducted on the influence of the 9/11 attacks on global mobility inequalities, which explains the scientific relevance of this paper. A research by Neiman & Swagel (2009) criticizes the general assumption that 9/11 has negatively influenced the amount of visitors to the US because of stricter visa policies. They argue that because the entry reduction has been the most significant for travellers that don’t need to require (because of the that will be discussed in Chapter 4), the decrease in travellers has not been caused by stricter visa policies. Their data includes both short-term business and leisure travel to the country, but leaves out students and work-based migration (Neiman & Swagel, 2009). This leaves out interesting categories, since one of the 9/11 hijackers entered the US on a student visa (Eldridge et al., 2004).

Research has also been conducted on the effects on public attitudes toward Muslims in both Europe and the US. An example of the impacts of the September 11 attacks on public opinions, in this case in Europe, can be seen in the research by Fetzer & Soper (2003). Their survey used interviews from right before 9/11 to compare these with interviews from right after the attacks. Their research showed that 9/11 partly affected public opinions in Europe; in Great Britain support significantly rose from 19.9 to 25.6 percent for cutting state funding of Islamic schools. In Germany and France similar effects were observed, but these did not prove to be statistically significant. Another interesting finding was that less respondents identified themselves as Muslim after 9/11 than before, which the survey explains to be caused by a rise in attention for Islamist movements in societies, and in hate crimes on Muslim inhabitants in Western Europe (Fetzer & Soper, 2003). In this research the focus lies on the attitude of European inhabitants toward Muslims. Allen & Nielson (2002), like Fetzer & Soper (2003), conclude that levels in Europe have risen since 9/11, but their research also involves national politics. Their

3 operationalisation of the effects of 9/11 on attitudes toward Muslims involves a few indicators; acts of violence and aggression against Muslims, practices for reducing these, and the reactions of political leaders. These are investigated within individual European countries. The research concludes that Islamophobic ideas already existed within society before the September 11 attacks, but after 9/11 public awareness of Muslim practices rose and made the Islamophobia more visible. In some European countries it is also backed by right-wing politicians, which makes it more legitimate. We see a reluctance of accepting visible expressions of Islam, such as the wearing of hijabs and facial hair (Allen & Nielsen, 2002). For the US, this same phenomenon is described by Shipoli (2018). He states that after the 9/11 attacks, a rise in Islamophobia could be seen in the public opinions in the United States, and that the events created more alienation from people with different cultures among Americans.

So it has been discussed that the media can impact policies and the legitimation of political interventions. Therefore, it is possible that the aftermath of the September 11 attacks has impacted visa regulations in the US. Not much research has been conducted on the effect on visa issuances in general, but Johnson (2018) focusses on the effects of 9/11 on student mobility in particular. This statistical research concludes that there was no significant drop in the total amount of international students to the US after the September 11 attacks. However, when looking at individual regions, a decline in visa issuances for Middle Eastern students does prove to be significant. Before the attacks an average of 1,476.70 visas were issued to the different Middle Eastern countries in 2000 and in the years after 9/11 this amount dropped drastically to 867.83 in 2002, 777.04 in 2003, 792.48 in 2004 and 919.43 in 2005 (Johnson, 2018).

The existing literature shows a lot of evidence for the impact 9/11 has had on public opinions regarding Muslims. A knowledge gap exists in to what extent these changes in discourse have had a significant impact on the visa issuances for both Muslim migrants and migrants to the US in general. A statistical analysis of changes in visa issuances over the years before and after 9/11 might provide interesting insights in the relationship between 9/11 and US visa issuances.

1.2 Research aims and question The goal of this thesis is to contribute to existing literature and fill the gap of knowledge about whether the 9/11 attacks have had an influence on the mobility opportunities of migrants from different origins. This will be examined for two groups; migrants from Muslim-majority countries, and migrants from countries without a Muslim majority. The main question that will be answered in this thesis is therefore:

‘To what extent can the impacts of the September 11 attacks be seen in US visa issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries, as compared to migrants from other countries?’

This research exists of two parts; a descriptive analysis of how national policies that affect migration matters have developed in the US, and a more statistical research on how trends in visa issuances have evolved over the years for migrants with different nationalities. Therefore, before focussing on the main question, the following sub-questions will be discussed first:

- How have migration and counterterrorism policies evolved in the US over the years previous to and after the September 11 attacks? - What trends are visible in the visa issuances of the US to migrants from both Muslim- majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority over the years previous to and after the September 11 attacks?

4 2. Theory Of course a lot of theory has already been established on the different concepts that will be discussed in this research and the various relations between them. Therefore, in this chapter some of the main sources will be summarized. From this, a conceptual model will be drawn.

2.1 Literature review Some existing literature will be discussed on the development of global visa policies, how events such as terrorist attacks can influence mobility patterns through media and discourse, and on the effects of the 9/11 attacks on US politics and society. 2.1.1. Visa functions and the evolution of global mobility Firstly, an overview will be provided of the uses of visa regulations and how they have changed in general over time. A paper by Czaika et al. (2017) discusses the two main tasks visa regulations fulfil. Firstly, visas are used as a government instrument to maintain a certain population size and to control migration flows. In this way certain types of migrants that are preferable can be attracted, while less valued migrants can be kept out. An example of this is the so-called ‘Muslim Ban’ by US President Trump on migrants from the certain Muslim-majority countries. This ban was based on the supposed security risks of accepting migrants from these countries. On the other hand, visas can also be used to make a statement about political relationships with other countries (Czaika et al., 2017). These instrumental uses for visa regulations are also discussed by Neumayer (2005). Like Czaika et al. (2017) he mentions the attraction of migrants of preference, not only because of political reasons but on economic grounds too. He stressed, like Mau et al. (2015), that the more privileged migrants are those from OECD-countries and the most restricted ones are those with a passport from a poor, authoritarian or (post-)conflict state. He also names concerns about national security as a reason for visa restrictions (Neumayer, 2005).

However, these visa restrictions are not static and constantly change over time. A research by de Haas, Natter & Vezzoli (2018) describes how we can see a global trend towards less restrictive migration policy since the end of the Second World War. In their analysis, migration policy has been split into two categories; restrictive and liberal policies. Of these categories, more developments can be seen toward the second one. In general, entry and integration policy has become less restrictive, where exit and policy has become more restrictive (de Haas, Natter & Vezzoli, 2018). When looking at the US in specific, different periods can be distinguished. Between 1945 and 1970 we see an accelerated liberalization of migration policy. This is mostly because migration policy moves away from a ‘whites only’-preference. In 1965, the national-origins quota is removed that used to favour migrants from Europe. After this we see a decelerating liberalization with a larger proportion of more restrictive policies until the mid- 1990s. This has to do with the Oil Crisis and economic recession that led to more unemployment in the US. Then we see a balance between restrictive and liberal policy developments until 9/11. The main reason for the relative increase in restrictive policies is the unauthorized migration across the Mexican border (de Haas, Natter & Vezzoli, 2018). Next to these changes, the research notes that migrant selection has increased in favour of workers (mostly the high-skilled ones) and students, and at the expense of irregular migrants, family-based migration and asylum seekers (de Haas, Natter & Vezzoli, 2018).

In Chapter 1.1 the research of Mau et al. (2015) has been discussed, which concludes that global mobility has increased over the years, but that inequalities in mobility levels between inhabitants of different countries have risen too. Czaika et al. (2017) criticize this conclusion by Mau et al.,

5 because it is said to be too simplistic. In reality, the division has a more multi-polar nature rather than a dichotomous one. According to their research, visa-free travel regulations are heavily influenced by the existence of regional blocs, like the or the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (Czaika et al., 2017). 2.1.2. What shapes foreign policy Such changes in visa restrictions are the effect of national policy changes. Like mentioned earlier, policy doesn’t evolve detached from public opinions, since political parties in democracies need to maintain their support (Bhattacharya, 2010). The next step is therefore to look at how these public opinions are shaped.

Firstly, there is the influence by political actors. According to a book by Shipoli (2018) on how US foreign policy is established, public discourse can be changed entirely over the course of one president’s mandate. He uses the notion of a foreign policy doctrine to describe this vision on foreign policy during one presidency. In his book a foreign policy doctrine is described as ‘a belief system and statement on foreign policy, made by nation’s chief executives, chief diplomats, or political thinkers.’ (Shipoli, 2018, pp. 18). These foreign policy doctrines can be recognized through analysing speeches and other types of discourse used by US presidents (Shipoli, 2018). He also explains how this works the other way around; public opinion has a lot of influence on decision-making by political actors. This is because of two reasons: first, politicians want to be re- elected, and second, because they need the support for pursuing their political agenda (Shipoli, 2018).

Another influential factor on public views is the mass media. A research by Smith (2013) has been conducted on the change of public opinions on Muslims after 9/11, and how these have been influenced by the media. On the short term his outcomes where quite counterintuitive; right after 9/11 public opinions on Muslims in the US were more positive than ever. He explains this by stating that in the beginning the media was actively protecting Muslims by contradicting these prejudices (Smith, 2013). This attitude can also be seen in the Address to the Joint Session of the 107th Congress by President Bush of September 20th, 2001, which was given shortly after the attacks. Here Bush states:

‘The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.’ (Bush, 2001-2008, pp. 68)

After 2002 the media put less effort in doing so, which has led to more fear of Islam in the US. This is partly caused by a lack of knowledge about Muslim culture. Islam is often linked to the idea that it favours violence. So after this relaxation, the general public started to question Bush’s statements about the peaceful character of Islam (Smith, 2013). As mentioned before in Chapter 1, Kidwai (2010) supports this stance and also explains how the US media tend to link Islam with terrorism in their headlines, which indirectly creates certain associations. Shipoli (2018) explains this media influence; the media is what provides the US inhabitants with information about threats that are not directly visible to themselves. Mass media is what prioritizes issues in general discourse, brings them to the political agenda, and challenges the policies of the government in office (Shipoli, 2018). Smith (2013) also concludes his article with a warning about the impacts of framing. Benford & Snow (2000) explain how this framing works and define it as ‘an active, processual phenomenon that implies agency and contention at the level of reality construction’ (Benford & Snow, 2000, pp. 614). So, a certain version of the truth is purposely shaped to serve a certain actor.

6 The September 11 attacks have been highly visualized in the media and therefore have had a large impact. The post-9/11 discourse on the ‘war on terror’ by President Bush (Bush, 2001-2008) that is mentioned in the introduction of this thesis, was used to create political support for the Iraq shortly after the 9/11 attacks (Powell, 2011). The article also states that the US mass media has created a general idea of a clash between East and West; the Oriental against the Occidental. This has led to a reduction of the diverse Muslim identity to just a few general aspects that are often associated with negative values, and a general fear of terrorism linked to this Muslim identity (Powell, 2011). Vultee (2011) also discusses the influence the media have on public opinions. He explains this through the concept of securitization, for which he uses the definition by Buzan et al. (1998) of securitization as:

‘the designation of an existential threat requiring emergency action or special measures and the acceptance of that designation by a significant audience’. (Buzan et al., 1998, pp. 27)

Vultee (2011) focusses on the media frame that links national security to the protection of the national identity, which can turn migration into a threat. After 9/11 three aspects have made the mass media to move away from objectivity about their reporting; the attacks were a great tragedy on a national level, discourse spoke of terrorism as a public danger, and the attacks were made into an issue of national security (Vultee, 2011). 2.1.3. The ‘terrorist’ frame A frame that is often used in the media is the one attached to the label of ‘terrorism’. But what is ‘terrorism’ exactly? Freedman & Kishan Thussu (2012) argue that this is a difficult question to answer, since there is no universal definition for the notion. The reason for this remarkable fact can be summarized in the saying ‘one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter’. This means that different actors have different interests in giving a definition of terrorism. Common elements that return in various definitions are ‘violence’, ‘politics’, ‘fear’, and ‘threat’. However, these aspects don’t give any mention of who the aggressors and victims are of terrorist attacks (Freedman & Kishan Thussu, 2012).

This lack of a generally accepted definition of the word, makes terrorism an easy target for framing processes. So, by creating a certain version of the truth about an event, the goals of the actor that is in control of the framing process can be served. Bhatia (2005) states that the use of the word ‘terrorist’ for the opponent implies the illegality of the other actor, which automatically makes him or her illegitimate. This also means that the state can justify more extreme measures against such an actor. When using the ‘terrorist’ frame, these measures can even include those that would normally be unacceptable, since terrorism is framed as a huge threat to national security. These extraordinary measures may involve air strikes, torture, or captivity without a trial. This is an example of the securitization as defined by Buzan et al. (1998) earlier in this chapter. The other function framing fulfils is the gathering of supporters for the actor that uses the frame. By framing the opponent as the ‘bad guy’, this implies that your own party consists of the ‘good guys’ (Bhatia, 2005). This process can be seen as the negative variation of the concept of ‘othering’, where ‘the other’ is conceptualized as being different than ‘the self’. This polarized idea is created through discourse, and the use of images and symbols. Othering by government officials can be used to legitimize policy decisions over alternatives (de Buitrago, 2012).

After the 9/11 attacks, framing has been visible in how Islam was defined as a problematic religion, and in the creation of public support for the invasion of Iraq. The research of Boyle & Mower (2018) further elaborates on how terrorism is framed by using the framing of terrorist group ISIS as case study. Their analysis confirms that the two Western newspapers, The

7 Times and the Daily Mail, provide much more attention to terrorism as a topic and use labels such as ‘terrorist’ more often than the Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat (Boyle & Mower, 2018). This shows that the frame is much more popular in the Western media.

However, without a universal definition for what terrorism exactly is, actors can still formulate their own definition of the word. In the United States Code, the US government uses the following definition for terrorism:

‘activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, and that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.’ (Office of the Law Revision Council, 1988, Chapter 113B, §2331)

This definition places the US in a central position. However, Freedman & Kishan Thussu (2012) argue that while terrorism remains a larger concern in countries in the West, most terrorist attacks in the past decade have occurred in the South. Therefore, it is remarkable to note that Western, and in particular American, media provides the dominant global perception on terrorism. Freedman & Kishan Thussu (2012) argue that this is partly because terrorism in the US has a much more visible character than terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Powell (2011) explains this effect by stating that people are drawn to sensational media coverage, which enlarges the effects on public discourse of visual drama. This also explains the symbiotic relationship between terrorism and media in general; media uses the dramatic images of terrorist attacks to attract audiences, whereas terrorists on the other hand use this media attention to spread their message (Powell, 2011). By spreading messages, the media create a general idea of terrorism (Freedman & Kishan Thussu, 2012). Therefore media can, sometimes unintentionally, set the public agenda (Powell, 2011). 2.1.4. The purposes of terrorist attacks So terrorists can use media intentionally to reach certain goals. Therefore, for the development of counterterrorism policies, it is important to know what terrorists are trying to achieve by attacking. This might prevent the actors that apply counterterrorist strategies from doing exactly what it is that terrorists want them to do. An article by Kydd and Walter (2006) discusses five categories of goals terrorist try to reach with their activities. Firstly, there is the goal of regime change, where the terrorists want to replace the current government. Secondly, there is territorial change, which means the terrorist organisation wants to establish a new independent state within a specific territory. Thirdly, there is policy change. This category includes lesser demands of the government in power and only wants to force the government into changing certain policies. A fourth goal is social control. Terrorist attacks are then used in order to constrain the behaviour of certain individuals, such as political leaders. The last category is status quo maintenance. Terrorist organizations with this goal strive to maintain the existing order against parties that mean to change it (Kydd & Walter, 2006).

With these different goals come different strategies that are also discussed within the same article. Kydd and Walter (2006) name five types. Attrition is the strategy used to persuade the enemy, often the government in place, of the damage that can be done by the terrorist organization in case the government refuses to meet their demands. Intimidation involves threatening the local population with violent attacks in order to gain social control. By provocation terrorists can attempt to use attacks in order to make the government respond in a harmful way. When the government decides to start air strikes on terrorist targets, this might also

8 involve civilian casualties. These can be used as an argument for the illegitimacy of that government, since it then fails to protect its own citizens. Spoiling is the strategy of using attacks to prevent the own organization of coming to a peace agreement with the enemy government. By attacking again, terrorists show they are untrustworthy and peace will be prevented. This makes that the terrorists can continue fighting for their goal. The last strategy mentioned is outbidding. This can happen when two parties compete for leadership within the same territory. By acting aggressively, an organization can try to show the local inhabitants that they are the most powerful actor (Kydd & Walter, 2006).

Kydd and Walter (2006) argue that the best counterstrategies in the case of attrition involve targeted retaliation against terrorist leaders, preventing further attacks by security measures, and minimizing the psychological costs by preventing overreaction to the attack. However, they also note that hunting down leaders might facilitate a favourable climate for provocation. To counter provocation, the best strategy is to prevent collateral damage when going after the attackers (Kydd & Walter, 2006). In Chapter 4 we will see whether these counter strategies have been used by the US government, in an analysis of the security enhancements, development of migration policy and military reactions after the 9/11 attacks.

2.2 Conceptual model The existing literature can be summarized in a conceptual model. It shows the idea that the September 11 attacks have changed the content of the US mass media. Smith (2013) explains how the media was very protective of Muslim inhabitants in the first year after the attacks, but relaxed these efforts after 2002. The 9/11 attacks also impacted political discourse, which can be seen in the various speeches Bush gives afterwards (Bush, 2001-2008). Through framing, an active construction of reality (Benford & Snow, 2000), and securitization, the portrayal of an issue as a threat to national security that requires extraordinary measures (Buzan et al., 1998), the media and politicians influence the public attitudes of US inhabitants; in this case the public’s tolerance of migrants. This can be seen in the research by Smith (2013), that shows how the relaxation of the mass media’s efforts to show Islam in a positive light has led to more Islamophobia in the US. The influence of politics on public opinions is discussed by Shipoli (2018), who states that the policy doctrine of a single US president can change public discourse. This influence also works the other way around. Bhattacharya (2010) points to the co-evolvement of public and political discourse, that exists because of the dependence of political parties on their constituencies in order to get re-elected. This political discourse is what in turn influences policy developments, including those in the field of migration politics. By the tightening or relaxation of migration policies, the total amount of visa issuances could be influenced.

9 In this research I will examine whether the changes in media portrayals of Muslims, public attitudes on migrants, and shifts in political discourse after 9/11, have indeed influenced both migration policy and the issuance of visas that is linked to it.

10 3. Methodology In this chapter the different steps are described that have been taken while conducting this research, consisting of a description of the research strategy that was applied, the data collection, the analysis, and the writing of this thesis.

As in every research, the first step was to provide a background sketch of already existing literature in Chapter 2 in order to draw a conceptual model. Since this thesis focusses on how visa regulations can be used in order to achieve certain goals, I first moved to the literature on the functions of visas and on the changes these visas have caused in mobility levels for different categories of countries. Also, visa regulations are a part of foreign policy, and therefore I have examined previous knowledge on factors that shape these foreign policies. Since a close relationship exists between foreign policy and public opinions, legitimation plays an important role in the process of policy development too. In order to be able to implement or adapt a certain policy, this has to be perceived as ‘right’ by the general public. Therefore, I examined legitimation processes, and the tools that both politicians and the mass media use to steer these. Lastly, I believe the 9/11-hijackers wanted to reach a certain political goal by their actions rather than using violence as an end in itself. Jackson et al. (2011) discuss two different approaches to terrorism studies. Where orthodox studies of terrorism focus on terrorism as an objective act by a group of irrational non-state actors, the critical perspective investigates the context in which the violence is used and how labelling an act as ‘terrorist’ can be used to legitimize certain measures taken by the state to combat these terrorists (Jackson et al., 2011). In this thesis I have tried to apply a critical perspective on terrorism. Therefore, in the literature review I also shed a light on the different goals terrorists attempt to achieve through their actions. This literature is retrieved by consulting both Scholar and the online library of the Radboud University of Nijmegen (RUQuest) for scientific articles. The retrieved literature has been used to provide definitions for the different concepts and to explain the relations between them. After doing so, a conceptual model was drawn from the findings.

After a theoretical foundation had been established, an analysis of the different US migration and security policies was conducted and processed into a timeline of policy amendments in Chapter 4, in order to answer the first sub-question: ‘How have migration and counterterrorism policies in the US evolved over the years previous to and after the September 11 attacks?’. Information on these policies was collected by consulting the website of the US Congress (www.congress.gov). This contains both summaries by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and full texts of all policies that are introduced, that passed the House or Senate and that are signed into law. I have focussed on the changes various acts brought about, and which types of migrants these particularly affected. Next to these policy assessments a general background of important events, societal developments, general political discourse, and foreign policy doctrines that have influenced these policies at the time of their development, was provided. This was done in order to provide a clearer image of public and political opinions and discourse over the years, because these are very influential in the process of policy developments. I also focussed on which categories of migrants have been affected by each specific policy, since this was important when the policy changes were used to explain issuances to migrants of the different categories we see in Chapter 5. The timeline was split into three main parts: the situation in the years before 9/11, the 9/11 attacks themselves and the immediate government response, and the developments that have taken place after the attacks. This was done because differences are visible in the types of policies during these three periods. The period after 9/11 has also been divided into the subsequent presidencies during this period of George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama and Donald J.

11 Trump, since these three Presidents have all applied quite a different approach on migration matters during their administration. Later on, this timeline was used as a basis to explain visa issuances to migrants from different categories of countries. While examining the political response to 9/11, I again attempt to take a critical perspective on (counter)terrorism. I agree with Jackson et al. (2011) that we should move away from a focus on how only non-state actors can engage in terrorist activities. Terrorism as a strategy used by government actors is often much more destructive, since state actors possess much more resources and legitimacy than non-state actors. Taking this into account, I have provided a critical perspective on the consequences of the ‘war on terror’-approach we see emerging right after the 9/11 attacks.

In Chapter 5 I move to the second sub-question: ‘What trends are visible in the visa issuances of the US to migrants from both Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority over the years previous to and after the September 11 attacks?’. This was done by collecting information on visa issuances from the US Department of State - Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991- 2019), which publishes an annual report on the amount of visa issuances per country. The reports are published every fiscal year, which runs from October 1st until September 30th (United States Senate, n.d.). Therefore, 9/11 has taken place right at the end of fiscal year 2001, which means that any possible impacts on visa issuances should be visible as from fiscal year 2002. In previous research by Johnson (2018) we saw that the effects of the 9/11 attacks on student visa issuances in the US were visible for Middle Eastern students in the period between fiscal year 2002 and 2005 (Johnson, 2018). In this paper the research period has been expanded to ten years before the attacks, so starting in 1991, and to the present, with the latest data being available on fiscal year 2019. This was done to see whether possible increases or decreases of visa issuances after 9/11 have been part of a more long-term trend, which might be expected because no evidence was found that public perceptions of Muslims in the US have fully recovered after the 9/11 attacks. The reports of the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019) were written per continent and per country. The data is also divided into two types of visa issuances; immigrant and non- immigrant categories. Since these are very different types of migration (one could mean permanent residency while the other is of a more temporary character) it is likely that we see differences in changes in issuances of visas from these two categories too. This made it worth to investigate shifts for these two categories separately.

The categorization of the countries into the two categories that was used can be seen in Appendix 1 and 2. These two groups were chosen, because the existing literature showed a very plausible impact of 9/11 on perceptions of Islam and Muslim people in the US. Therefore, one could expect to see a difference in the effects of the new policies developed after the attacks on migrants from Muslim-majority countries, in comparison to migrants from other countries. The category of Muslim-majority countries (Appendix 2) was established by using data from the CIA World Factbook (n.d.) on the various religions per country, and on the percentage of the population that is part of those religions. A majority of Muslims as it is used in this thesis means that at least 50% of the country’s population is known to be a Muslim according to the CIA World Factbook data. Some additional remarks on this category can be made. In the dataset of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, the Western Sahara is counted to be a part of Morocco, and Kosovo to be a part of Serbia. For the Western Sahara, this does not influence the research, since Morocco is included in the Muslim-majority category as well. Kosovo does have a Muslim-majority, but since Serbia has a much larger population without a Muslim-majority, Kosovo was not counted as part of the Muslim-majority category. Also, Palestine is not a separate category in the reports of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, and both the Gaza Strip and West Bank are counted as parts of Israel, which means that these migrants are also excluded from the Muslim-majority category. In the first year

12 of the dataset, we lack data on issuances to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, , Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, since this was the last year these countries were counted as part of the U.S.S.R. In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and as from fiscal year 1992 we can obtain data on issuances to the individual countries. The situation for Bosnia and Herzegovina is similar, since it became independent of Yugoslavia in the beginning of the second half of fiscal year 1992. Therefore, the data on issuances to this country might not be reliable for fiscal year 1992, but will be later on. As from fiscal year 1992, this category consists of 48 countries with a Muslim-majority. The other category of countries, the ones without a Muslim majority (Appendix 1), consists of all countries left in the data of the Bureau of Consular Affairs when extracting the Muslim-majority ones. It was not really possible to name the total number of countries this category consists of between 1991 and 2019, since many countries became independent or territories shifted to different states. However, since the territories of the Muslim-majority countries stayed mostly the same after fiscal year 1992, the total amount of issuances to the countries without a Muslim majority was still quite reliable as an indicator for possible decreases and increases.

Also, the quantitative data for these two categories was compared to see whether there is a significant difference between Muslim countries and non-Muslim countries in the amount of visas that were obtained every year. The total amount of issuances to all countries was used as a reference category. Again, this was done for both immigrant and non-immigrant visa categories. In order to calculate the issuances to Muslim-majority country migrants, a new table was drawn with the data on issuances to these different countries over the period of 1991-2019 together with the sum of these issuances per year. I did not only focus on the absolute changes, but I have also examined the relative changes. The Muslim-majority category consists of far less countries, which means that the overall amount of issuances to this category has been far lower. This caused the absolute amount to be of little help in comparing issuances for migrants of the two categories. To solve this issue, annual changes have also been calculated as relative numbers. This was done by using percentages of the issuances of the previous year. Any differences found have been described in a written comparison in this chapter. Also, graphs were drawn for the absolute data on the total amount of issuances to both visa categories, and for the issuances to migrants from the two categories of countries. This was done in order to create a clear visual image of the changes every year.

Then, a general conclusion was drawn in Chapter 6 on what we can learn from the comparison of the examined policy changes and visa issuance data analysis I wrote in Chapter 5. This was done in order to answer the main question of this thesis; ‘To what extent can the impacts of the September 11 attacks be seen in US visa issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries, as compared to migrants from other countries?’. In this chapter I explain whether or not my findings substantiate the hypothesis that 9/11 has had a different impact on migrants from Muslim- majority countries. Lastly, in Chapter 7 a discussion was written on the limitations of this research and on recommendations for further research possibilities and for the development of policies in the future.

13 4. Policy development in the years before and after 9/11 In this chapter a timeline is set up of the different policies on migration and counterterrorism in the years before and after the September 11 attacks. Also, a background was sketched of the most important events that shaped the political agenda at different time periods in the history of the United States.

4.1 Migration policy before 9/11 Before the 9/11 attacks policies on migration were already prevalent in the US. A significant amendment to earlier policies was made by an act introduced into the in 1965 with the name ‘an Act to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, and for other purposes’, or the Hart-Celler Act (Celler, 1965). The act removed previously existing discrimination of migrants that didn’t come from Northwest Europe and contained the statement:

‘No person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of his race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.’ (Celler, 1965, pp. 911)

It did contain restrictions on the number of immigrants, but these were no longer based on people’s nationalities. Priority was now given to relatives of US citizens or permanent residents, and to skilled migrants (Celler, 1965). The act has been approved and was signed into law that same year. This is still in the period that de Haas, Natter & Vezzoli (2018) describe as accelerating liberalization, in which US visa policies become less strict.

In 1973 the Oil Crisis strongly influenced migration discourse. The high unemployment rates in the US after the economic recession put an end to the active recruiting of new migrant workers by the government. The US even started assisting migrants in returning to their country of origin. This was the beginning of the decelerating liberalization of migration policy that would continue until the mid-1990s (de Haas, Natter & Vezzoli, 2018).

In 1980 the came with some amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act (National Archives Foundation, n.d.). The act changed the definition of a refugee to a person with a well-founded fear of persecution, so this would be in line with the UN-definition. It also raised the maximum number for refugee admissions from 17,400 to 50,000 per year. The underlying cause for this change was the end of the Vietnam War, when many refugees from Asia fled to the US. The act was signed into law by President Carter in March 1980 (National Archives Foundation, n.d.).

Another amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act came with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This act made it illegal for Americans to employ any migrant without a work permit. In doing so, it provided a legal basis for penalties against such employers. On the other hand, the act legalized some migrants that had entered the country in an unlawful way before 1982, that had not committed any crimes, and that had some knowledge of the US. Next to this, it legalized some undocumented migrants that came to the US for seasonal agricultural work (Congressional Research Service, 1986). Part of this act was the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which started as a pilot program in 1986. This initiative allowed migrants from certain countries that were on good terms with the US to travel to the US for a short vacation or business trip

14 without having to obtain a visa first. Of course both the country and the individual migrant had to meet certain requirements (Wasem, 2017). This program would include up to eight countries and was meant to last for three years. Visitors needed to have non-refundable roundtrip tickets and couldn’t stay within the US for more than 90 days (Congressional Research Service, 1986). While initially the program was meant to be only temporary, many amendments would be passed later on to extent it and to remove the limited number of countries that could participate in it. Also, new requirements were added (Siskin, 2011). These requirements nowadays include that the country must have a non-immigrant visa refusal rate of less than 3%, meet certain passport conditions like the use of biometric ways of identification, screen all travellers that mean to make use of the VWP, and accept all travellers back that are removed from the US (Kolker & Platzer, 2020).

Another important document prior to 9/11 was the (Congressional Research Service, 1990). At this time President George H.W. Bush was in office. This act contained the first amendments on migration policy in 25 years, after the establishment of the previously mentioned Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It removed the initial limit of eight countries that could participate in the Visa Waiver Program. By then the participants added since the initiation were: the UK, Japan, France, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands. Quickly after passing this act, more countries were added in 1991; Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino and Spain (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). It also provided a higher ceiling for the total number of visas per country that could be given to immigrants based on employment or (immediate) family- relations. This meant that from now on 7% of the total amount of visas for a country would be issued in these two categories (Congressional Research Service, 1990). For family-based immigration 465,000 visas are reserved each following fiscal year. As from 1995, this number would be raised to 480,000 visas on an annual basis (Leiden & Neal, 1990). It also provided so- called ‘diversity visas’ for immigrants from countries that were underrepresented in the US (by less than 50,000 immigrants over the last five years). In this amendment we can recognise the earlier mentioned visa function discussed in Czaika et al. (2017) of controlling migration flows for political or economic reasons. The Immigration Act also included new visa categories. The employment-based migrants were now divided into five categories instead of two (Congressional Research Service, 1990). These categories consist of: priority workers (high-skilled migrants such as professors or athletes), professionals with advanced degrees, skilled workers (like migrants with a bachelor’s degree), special immigrants (important political or religious figures) and investors (immigrants that have invested over a million US Dollar in companies that provide US citizens with employment). For each of the first three categories 40,000 visas were reserved on an annual basis. For the last two groups this number held 10,000 visas (Leiden & Neal, 1990). The act also mentioned legal grounds for the exclusion of migrants that (were suspected to) take part in terrorist activities. These activities include hijacking, killing or threatening to kill a person in order to persuade another of your opinion, assassinations, membership of a terrorist organization, helping to support terrorists, and preparing terrorist attacks (Congressional Research Service, 1990). This is an example of using visa restrictions in order to enhance national security, as mentioned in Neumayer (2005).

In January 1993, succeeded George H.W. Bush as the President of the US. At this time, the had ended two years ago with the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, but as a leftover fear of foreign ideas, like communism, was still dominant in the public rhetoric (Shipoli, 2018). Clinton would largely keep Islam out of his discourse during his years in office. His leading foreign policy doctrine was that of interventionism, determined by the idea that the US had a duty to put

15 an end to foreign rights violations by actors abroad. This could be seen in his interventions in both Yugoslavia and the Horn of Africa (Shipoli, 2018).

In 1993, a bombing of the World Trade Center by Islamic fundamentalists took place when President Clinton had just started in office about a month ago. On February 26th, explosives went off in a parking garage, which resulted in an enormous crater at the ground floor of the complex. Many people got trapped within the elevators of the buildings. The attack resulted in six deaths and over a thousand injured people. Luckily, it failed to make the building collapse. The rebuilding of the World Trade Center took almost two years after that (9/11 Memorial & Museum, n.d.). Seven men were arrested and convicted to a long prison sentence. Only one suspect has never been arrested (CNN, 2020). According to Kidwai (2010) these attacks delivered a shock big enough to be the beginning of a shift in the public perceptions of Muslims in the country. The media often connected the attacks with Islam in their headlines, which created a strong association of Islam with the bombing (Kidwai, 2010). Two years later, a larger terrorist attack took place on US soil. On April 19th 1995, a man named Timothy McVeigh parked a truck next to a federal building in Oklahoma that contained a bomb which would kill 168 people. The perpetrator this time was no foreign migrant, but an American man that acted out of a right-extremist, anti-government ideology. After being convicted for his crime he received a lethal injection in 2001, only a few months before the September 11 attacks. One other person was identified as an accomplice and sentenced to life in prison. A third man knew about the attack beforehand and didn’t do anything to prevent it. He ended up serving more than ten years in prison (MacFarquhar, 2020). These two terrorist attacks provided a foundation for new laws to combat terrorism. As a result, only eight days after the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (Congressional Research Service, 1996) was introduced to the Senate and it got signed into law almost a year later in April 1996. The act contained new penalties for material support to terrorist organizations, imposed the death penalty on anybody who killed someone by the use of a weapon of mass destruction, provided support and compensation to victims of terrorism, made more severe penalties for the use of explosive materials, provided better methods for the registration and detection of explosive materials, and drafted a legal basis for the refusal of terrorist suspects that were seeking asylum in the US (Congressional Research Service, 1996).

Around the same period another issue became the centre of the public debates. According to a report by the Department of Homeland Security (1996) the total number of unauthorized migrants within the United States had risen to about five million in October 1996. Estimates showed that this number was growing with about 275,000 people every year. Most of these, about 54 percent of all undocumented migrants or about 2.7 million people, came from Mexico, followed by El Salvador (335,000 migrants) and Guatemala (165,000 migrants). The three most popular states of residence were California (2,000,000 migrants), Texas (700,000 migrants) and New York (540,000 migrants) (Department of Homeland Security, 1996). That same year the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (House of Representatives, 1996) was introduced and signed into law to address the problem. It contained amendments to improve border security through new technologies, ID cards, and the use of physical barriers. It also raised the penalties against illegal entry, document fraud, and human smuggling. It provided new rules to remove inadmissible or deportable migrants. The act prohibits public higher education institutions from educating undocumented migrants (House of Representatives, 1996).

In January 2001, President Clinton was also succeeded. This time by the son of his predecessor: George W. Bush. Initially, his focus was mostly on domestic issues. However, after his initial months his presidency and stance on foreign policy issues would be largely influenced by the

16 September 11 attacks (Shipoli, 2018). One migration policy proposal was introduced in the Senate during this first period of his presidency: the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (Congressional Research Service, 2001a). This happened shortly before the 9/11 attacks, in August 2001, by two Senators: Dick Durbin and . This so-called DREAM Act contained new rules for foreign students below the age of 21 that took residence in the US. When an undocumented migrant entered the country as a minor, he or she would be granted temporary residence to finish education. After meeting certain conditions this temporary permit could later be turned into permanent residency (Congressional Research Service, 2001a). However, the proposal never made it through the Senate, but became a foundation for the introduction of several amended DREAM Acts in the years to follow, and for the DACA Act that would be implemented by Obama in 2012. Part of it has also been used in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (Congressional Research Service, 2007).

By this time the Visa Waiver Program had endured some more expansions, and now included Brunei, Ireland, Argentine, Australia, Slovenia, Portugal, Singapore and Uruguay. This brought the total number of VWP countries to 29 (Kolker & Platzer, 2020).

4.2 September 11 and the immediate political response Then the 9/11 attacks took place on September 11th 2001. Four airplanes were hijacked, of which two crashed into the North and South tower of the World Trade Center, one into , and the fourth was brought down into a field in Pennsylvania by its hijackers after passengers tried to recapture the plane. A total of 2,977 people died in the attacks, of which 2,606 were present in the World Trade Center at the time (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004).

Some discussion persists on the motives for these brutal attacks. Malejacq (2020) mentions three possibilities. Firstly, the attacks could be a way of retaliation for the US military involvement in Middle Eastern countries; Al-Qaeda wanted the United States as foreign invader out of their region. Secondly, Al-Qaeda could have meant to attempt to grasp the leadership position in the global jihad by showing off their might. And lastly, a motive could be that the organization wanted to make the US react by invading in order to get its military stuck (Malejacq, 2020). If we look at the different goals behind terrorist attacks in the earlier mentioned article by Kydd and Walter (2006), we can see that these three motives fall into the categories of policy change (US retreatment from the Middle East) and social control (leadership in the global jihad). The article also states that the probable strategy used by Al-Qaeda consists of two parts: attrition and provocation. The attrition means that Al-Qaeda meant to persuade the US government that the organisation could inflict serious damage on US soil, which was meant to make the United States meet Al-Qaeda’s demands, for example by the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East. By provocation Al-Qaeda attempted to make the US respond to the attacks in a harmful way which might also cause civilian casualties, in this case during the invasion of Afghanistan. In the international context, this could depict the US in a bad light and would take away its legitimacy as actor in the Middle East (Kydd & Walter, 2006).

According to Shipoli (2018) the main question about the response of the government after the attacks was whether or not the US government would retreat its military forces abroad in order to decrease the domestic threat. As mentioned by Malejacq (2020) this could be part of what the 9/11 hijackers had tried to reach with their attacks. The answer came later that same day when US President George W. Bush first addressed the nation about the attacks on the evening of

17 September 11th (Bush, 2001-2008). From the Oval Office in DC he gave a speech that would prove to be crucial for the future course of his foreign policy strategy. One section of his September 11 speech would mark his foreign policy doctrine he would later be known for in particular (Shipoli, 2018):

‘I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.’ (Bush, 2001-2008, pp. 58)

Here Bush stated that not only the terrorists that had been directly involved in planning or executing the attacks would be persecuted, but also every actor that harboured or supported terrorists, whether this meant an individual or an entire state (Bush, 2001-2008). After this speech Bush had committed himself to the use of force against terrorism. At first it was uncertain whether he meant to invade Afghanistan and fight the in order to get to , or whether he meant to attack Al-Qaeda in Iraq too (Kirk, 2003). Also, as we saw in Bhatia (2005) in Chapter 2, the use of the label ‘terrorist’ was used frequently in his speech in order to delegitimize the 9/11 attackers and to justify extreme measures taken by the US government to combat them. These measures can for example be seen in the of both Afghanistan and Iraq later on.

Just a few days after the September 11 attacks Bush tackles the question of who is to blame for the attacks, when he addresses the Congress on September 20th (Bush, 2001-2008). He points to the terrorist organization of Al-Qaeda and to Muslim extremists as the perpetrators. He also names the leader of this group, Osama Bin Laden, and demands the Afghan Taliban regime to hand him over to the US, and to close all terrorist camps inside the country. Moreover, he threatens to attack Afghanistan if the Taliban fails to complete these requests. Bush also stresses that Muslims are not the enemy and that terrorism is not rooted within the essence of Islam. In this address, he already announced the establishment of an Office of Homeland Security (later known as the Department of Homeland Security), which will be discussed along with the Homeland Security Act later on. When Osama Bin Laden was not handed over by the Taliban on October 7th, President Bush announced that the US Army would begin air strikes against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan (Bush, 2001-2008). Another aspect of his Address to the Joint Session of the 107th Congress would make up an influential aspect of his foreign policy doctrine from now on:

‘Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.’ (Bush, 2001-2008, pp. 69)

Here Bush clearly uses a form of othering as described by de Buitrago (2012); the two parties consist of the US and their allies, against the terrorists and their supporters (including the states or other actors who harbour terrorists).

If we look at the article by Kydd and Walter (2006) again, we can indeed recognise counterstrategies against the terrorist strategies of attrition and provocation in the US government’s response. To counter attrition, the leadership of the terrorist organisation can be targeted, which the US did with the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Also, in the following section we see an increase in security measures in order to prevent further attacks. The last counter-attrition strategy, preventing overreaction, can’t be distinguished. The US government responded big by invading Afghanistan and declaring a war on terror. We can also recognise less counterstrategies that combat provocation, since there has been a lot of collateral damage in the air strikes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A report of Crawford (2016) speaks of 111,000 deaths in Afghanistan over

18 the period of 2001 until August 2016, of which 31,000 were civilian casualties. After the first few months of the invasion this number had risen to 2,375 at the end of 2001 already. In 2007, the Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported that 41% of the civilian deaths of that year could be attributed to pro-government forces, which included international forces, rather than to the Taliban (Crawford, 2016). When applying the perspective on counterterrorism by Jackson et al. (2011), this reaction seems highly disproportional in comparison to the 2,977 people that passed away in the September 11 attacks. One could even wonder why 9/11 is seen as a terrorist attack, while US missiles killing Afghan civilians aren’t. From a critical perspective, the counterterrorist strikes by the Afghan government and its allies might be seen as state terrorism.

The US government didn’t only face an external issue. On the day of the attacks itself, the FBI launched operation PENTTBOM in order to identify the hijackers and those who helped plan the attacks. The FBI found their identities within 72 hours (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). A staff report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Eldridge et al., 2004) stated that the 27 hijackers and conspirators that played a role in the 9/11 attacks together applied 35 times for a visa to travel to the US, and their requests were granted 25 times. All 19 hijackers entered the US with a temporary visa; mostly business/tourist visas, and one student visa. A large part of the attackers had a Saudi passport and applied for their visa in . Only five of the conspirators didn’t get their temporary business/tourist visa on grounds of suspicions they were attempting to immigrate to the US in an illegal way, or because they lacked the documents needed for application. None of them were refused because of terrorist backgrounds (Eldridge et al., 2004). In the search for other conspirators who played a part in the attacks, the FBI arrested many so-called ‘special interest’ detainees. According to Mathur (2006) these were Muslim or Arab men that for the biggest part had committed only minor migration violations, such as overstaying their visa. These arrests often happened at night, in the states of New York and New Jersey. The time period in which these men could be held without pressing any charges was raised from 24 to 48 hours (Mathur, 2006). A total of 762 men were arrested between September 11th 2001 and August 6th 2002 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). Chishti & Bergeron (2011) explain this immediate focus on Muslim men, by stressing that all of the hijackers were Muslim men too. The arrests immediately raised human rights concerns, when reports came of mistreatments of these special interest detainees. Mathur (2006) conducted interviews that pointed to beatings of detainees by both guards and other prisoners. The U.S. Department of Justice (2003) opened an investigation based on these rumours and found that many detainees were not provided information on why they were being held. The department also found evidence of abuse by officers and cases where access to legal counselling for detainees was provided too late (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). Heyman (2009) explains how, after the 9/11 attacks, migration laws were used as a means to legitimize the questioning of almost a thousand men from Islamic countries, and in some cases to keep them in custody or have them deported.

4.3 Policy changes under the Bush administration in the first years after 9/11 After the attacks we can see some clear examples of the securitization of migration issues. Heyman (2009) discusses how not only terrorism, but also migration is now treated as an issue of national security. Heavy surveillance is implemented at all ports of entry into the US. References and metaphors of war are used in discourse in order to securitize problems. This can be seen in the use of the concept of a ‘war on terror’ (Heyman, 2009). This strengthens the US government

19 and legitimizes all kinds of measures taken after the attacks, such as policies and military operations, that will be discussed in the following section. This is also emphasized by de Haas, Natter & Vezzoli (2018) who describe a turn toward more restrictive migration policies after the 9/11 attacks, which we see in the USA PATRIOT Act, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, and the REAL ID Act that will be discussed later on in this section.

Shortly after the September 11 attacks the USA PATRIOT Act (Congressional Research Service, 2001b) was signed into law on October 26th. The main goal of this act was to make it easier for the US government to collect information in order to prevent more terrorist attacks. This meant enhancing security and surveillance measures. It authorized the government to intercept phone calls or electronic corresponding to collect evidence of so-called ‘terrorist activities’, and provided the interceptor of the right to share this information. It also defined what is included in these ‘terrorist activities’; anybody who uses, supports or plans violence with the goal to kill someone or cause serious physical damage (Congressional Research Service, 2001b). This definition is very broad and seems to include all armed force, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation about what acts can be named terrorist activities.

After that, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act (Congressional Research Service, 2002a) was introduced to the House of Representatives and passed it in December 2001. To start with, the act involved the increase of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) personnel and funding. Secondly, it discussed the gathering of all admissibility- and deportation- related information and the collection of these in the so-called Chimera-database. This would include the tracking of foreign students and the registration of their visas and enrolment. The reason for this measure is the use of the student visa to enter the US by one of the 9/11 plane hijackers (, 2002). Multiple of the attackers had overstayed their temporary visa without being deported and this put the problem of tracking overstayers within the US on the political agenda. This database was therefore meant to contain biometric information on individuals, but this has still not been put into operation. The main reason was that the available technologies were simply not up to the task yet. (Schultheis, 2016). Also, the act involved that before entering the United States, the (biometric) data of each migrant had to be entered into the INS-database. It also prohibited admission of non-immigrants (this involved students, temporary workers and foreign government officials) from countries that are said to have governments that support terrorist parties, unless the Secretary of State confirmed that the individual was not a security threat. Additionally, it encouraged the president to establish a cross-border security program featuring Canada and Mexico in order to harmonize border inspection. Regarding international student admissions it increased data requirements about enrolment in institutions, documentation and visa issuance. The Senate passed the act in April 2002 and it was signed into law in May (Congressional Research Service, 2002a). However, because the Chimera database has not been established yet, much of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act is still to be implemented.

A month after the introduction of this act, the US started another counterterrorism strategy. Cuban naval base Guantanamo Bay was first used as a detention centre for suspects in the war on terror (CNN, 2019). Since this base was not situated on US soil, US law didn’t apply here, including laws that protected the human rights of prisoners. This provided possibilities for the use of different interrogation methods (CNN, 2019). Al Jazeera English (2011) describes how Guantanamo Bay was used after 9/11 to house prisoners without giving them access to the US legal system. Detainees were held without the support of lawyers, despite rejections from the US Supreme Court (Al Jazeera English, 2011). This is an example of the extreme measures that can be

20 legitimized by using the ‘terrorist’ frame as a threat to national security. From a critical perspective on counterterrorism, I think we should question whether these methods have been proportional when compared to the actual threat terrorism posed to the US.

In January 2002, Bush held his first State of the Union Address (Bush, 2001-2008). In this speech he introduced the concept of the ‘axis of evil’ to describe a group of countries that harbour or support terrorists, are suspected of the possession of weapons of mass destruction, and that repress their citizens. The three countries he named as part of this axis of evil are North Korea, Iran and Iraq (Bush, 2001-2008). The use of the word ‘evil’ is an excellent example of the framing described by Benford and Snow (2000), since it completely delegitimizes the other party.

Around the same period of time the Homeland Security Act (Congressional Research Service, 2002b) was introduced into the House of Representatives in June 2002. This act brought into life several new establishments. Firstly, there is the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was meant to prevent future terrorist attacks and to assist in recovery in the aftermath of past terrorist attacks. This department also includes agencies such as customs, border control and migration. Moreover, the act established the Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection within the DHS to access and analyse all kinds of security information to help fulfil the task of preventing future attacks. Thirdly, the Homeland Security Council was set up as an advisory council for the president on matters of terrorism and other security risks. Next to these new institutions, the Homeland Security Act included revisions of existing policies on aircraft security to protect passengers more effectively against criminal acts and terrorism. The act passed the House about a month after its introduction and the Senate, after an amendment, in November 2002. A few days after that, it was signed into law by President Bush (Congressional Research Service, 2002b). In 2003, the US government determined that the DHS would receive large increases in both staffing and budget in the years to follow, and the department went from 181,875 staff members in fiscal year 2004 to 230,000 staff members in fiscal year 2010 (Chishti & Bergeron, 2011).

Also in 2002, President Bush issued a new National Security Strategy (Bush, 2002) in September to identify the core problems the US security would face in the years to come. He emphasizes the shift from the Cold War doctrine to a new threat: terrorism, which is dangerous because of the combination of radicalism and new technologies. Unlike the Soviet Union, terrorists would now use weapons of mass destruction as weapons of choice rather than as a last resort. Negotiation with terrorists wasn’t deemed possible, since the only goal these people have is to harm innocents. This makes the terrorist an irrational, cruel actor. To combat terrorism one should fight on many fronts, attack the leadership of terrorist organizations to destabilize them, block all kinds of funding and diminish underlying conditions like poverty that contribute to a favourable climate to breed terrorism. Therefore, the key values the US would seek to enforce on a global level were political and economic freedom, human dignity and international cooperation. Through the formation of coalitions, and the expansion of the NATO, one should combat both terrorists and ‘rogue states’; states that support terrorism, brutalize their own people without regard to international legislation, own weapons of mass destruction, and that hate the US and the right to freedom in particular (Bush, 2002). The implementation of this strategy started shortly after 9/11, when the operation in Afghanistan began with sending CIA officers to the ground in order to establish links with the , a coalition of warlords in the north of Afghanistan, and to provide them with financial support to prove the sincerity of helping to solve the conflict. In October 2002, with Donald Rumsfeld as US Secretary of Defense, the US sent its Special Forces to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. It launched air strikes against terrorist targets and recaptured

21 Kabul in November. Osama Bin Laden, who is said to be behind the 9/11 attacks was suspected to be residing in the mountains in the north-eastern part of the country, but after the US invaded the area he escaped to (Kirk & Gilmore, 2008). In this strategy we can clearly recognise an orthodox perspective on terrorism, as described by Jackson et al. (2011).

Around the same time as the issuing of the National Security Strategy, the US government launched the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) in September 2002 (Jachimowicz & McKay, 2003). This program was meant to provide a better registration of migrants from certain countries. It consisted of two types of registration; port-of-entry registration, and special registration. The first type was launched in October and meant the taking of photographs, fingerprints and interviewing of migrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan at all ports of entry into the US, such as airports and border posts. It could also be expanded when a specific individual from any other country was seen as a potential national security risk. The second type of registration, special registration, involved all men above the age of 16 years from designated countries to report to an immigration office of the Department of Homeland Security within a specific period of time of about a month. These 25 countries were divided into four categories of different call-in moments. First came Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. The second group consisted of Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, , Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, , Tunisia, the and . Third were Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and last came Bangladesh, , Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait. All of these registrations took place in the period between November 15th 2002, and April 25th 2003. Remarkable is that all of the countries named are Muslim-majority countries, with the exception of North Korea (Jachimowicz & McKay, 2003).

In this same year Argentina was removed from the list of Visa Waiver Program countries. Due to the poor economic situation in the country at the time, many migrants travelled to the US and overstayed their permit meant for 90 days. About a year later in 2003, the same happened for Uruguay after an increase in migrants from this country that lived and worked within the US without the proper documents. The number of VWP countries was now reduced to 27 in total (Kolker & Platzer, 2020).

In January 2005 the Real ID Act (Congressional Research Service, 2005a) was introduced. This act set a few new conditions for asylum applicants to the US; applicants now had to proof plausible persecution in the country of origin because of certain ethnic, social, cultural or religious characteristics. The storyline the applicant provided would be judged on credibility and factuality. Also, from now on applications could be examined by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Regarding deportation, this act expanded grounds on which a person could be refused or deported because of acts of terrorism. Added were persons that were part of an organization that was labelled as terrorist, and people that encouraged others to engage in any kind of terrorist activity. Previously, only people that engaged in terrorist activities themselves could be refused access or get deported. The Real ID Act (hence the name) also provided new standards that ID cards and driver’s licenses should meet in order to be valid as identification for all migrants and US citizens. This included certain features within the cards to prevent ID fraud. The act passed the House of Representatives in February 2005, the Senate in April and was signed into law in May (Congressional Research Service, 2005a).

In the same year the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act (Congressional Research Service, 2005b) was proposed to the Senate by Senators McCain and Kennedy. This reform act provided a national strategy for US border security that included a reformation of border infrastructure and security technologies, and involved several new laws for migrant workers in the

22 US. The Senate never voted on the reforms, but parts of it have later been used in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.

Also in 2005, the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (Congressional Research Service, 2005c) was introduced and passed the House in December. The bill was mostly focussed on unauthorized migration into the US. It pleaded for an increase in security operations at the US-Mexico border, together with new monitoring technologies such as sensors, satellites, radars and camera footage. The new act would turn illegal residence in the United States into a criminal offence, and raised penalties for both undocumented residents and for assisting them to remain in the US. It also contained a section that stated that a two-layered fence had to be established at the southern border. The main goal of the act was to combat illegal entry and the smuggling of people into the country. It also included a part on terrorism, which stated that a migrant that is being deported for reasons of terrorist activity is no longer able to be granted withdrawal of deportation by the Secretary of State. Also, like in the Real ID Act a few months earlier, it pleaded for further expansion of the grounds of deportation due to terrorist activity. However, the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act never made it through the Senate (Congressional Research Service, 2005c).

The Visa Waiver Program was updated in January, according to the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act (Congressional Research Service, 2007a) that was signed into law on March 8th. The most significant change was the addition of the Electronic Travel Authorization (ESTA) to the Visa Waiver Program. This system could be used by VWP-visitors that meant to travel overseas on tourist or business grounds and it contained data on conditions on eligibility of migrants. In order to make tracking and monitoring of these VWP-travellers easier, biographic information on the individual would be collected (Congressional Research Service, 2007a).

In May 2007, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (Congressional Research Service, 2007b) was introduced in the Senate by Senator Reid. The bill contained amendments on several previously failed proposals, including the earlier mentioned Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, and other reform acts in the two years before. Again the act attempted to introduce a national strategy for US border security with the use of a biometric database to register migrants. It also included a reform in visa categories, but the act didn’t make it through the Senate (Congressional Research Service, 2007b).

In 2008, new countries were added to the Visa Waiver Program for the first time since 1999. This time, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and South Korea joined the list, raising the number of countries to 35 (Kolker & Platzer, 2020).

By 2009, Bush’s presidency was marked by a securitization of Islam through his war on terror. This didn’t happen directly, but had been the consequence of a regular association of Islam with national security issues (Shipoli, 2018). Many measures have been taken in the policy areas of both migration and security in the years after the 9/11 attacks. Chishti & Bergeron (2011) argue however, that most of these measures have been used to combat unauthorized migration rather than terrorism.

4.4 Discourse and drone strikes under the Obama administration On January 20th 2009, Bush was replaced by President , whose foreign policy doctrine would favour a strong desecuritization of Islam (Shipoli, 2018). One of the

23 Obama did during his presidency was attempting to close Guantanamo Bay (Verkoren, 2019). However, he never succeeded in doing this. Obama did turn back some extreme measures that had been legitimized by Bush’s ‘war on terror’-discourse, like the use of certain interrogation techniques. Obama also attempted a shift to a more critical view on terrorism, and started to raise more attention for the underlying causes of terrorist acts. An example of his intention to reconcile with the Muslim community can be seen in the speech he delivered in Cairo on June 4 th, 2009. In this speech Obama mentioned the tensions between Western and Muslim countries, Islamophobia in the US after 9/11, the intentions the US had with their involvement in various Middle Eastern countries, and the similarities between Muslims, and Jews, like their shared history (, 2009). For example Obama stated in his speech:

‘I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.’ (the New York Times, 2009)

This showed his intention to desecuritize Islam and to end Muslim discrimination in the US. That same year, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation. According to the Norwegian Nobel Institute (2020), Obama can be seen as an advocate for democracy and human rights. On the other hand, he did continue the increase of electronical surveillance and telephone tapping as security measures, which are also examples of extraordinary measures legitimized by perceived national security threats, that are often said to be in conflict with human rights (Verkoren, 2019). In the Middle East, his foreign policy doctrine has been marked by his withdrawal from Iraq and by the use of drone attacks. This frequent use of drone strikes during the Obama administration raised a juridical discussion (Verkoren, 2019). These attacks had not only taken place in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in countries the US was not directly involved with at the time, such as Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen. This was justified with the excuse of self-defense against a ‘second 9/11’. However, the drones have also caused a lot of collateral damage, including the deaths of many civilians. The attacks show a lack of transparency for the decided targets, and a lack of accountability for the damage caused (Verkoren, 2019).

On November 30th 2010, a new version of the earlier mentioned DREAM Act (Congressional Research Service, 2010) was introduced in the Senate. This bill contained new conditions for temporary residence for migrants that had arrived in the country before the age of 16 years. These included that they had to have resided within the country for five years, be migrants of ‘a good moral character’, weren’t deportable or inadmissible because of certain conditions in the Immigration and Nationality Act, hadn’t persecuted another person based on this person’s background and identity, had not committed any crimes, were enrolled in a higher education institution or in possession of a US high school diploma, and that they had to have been under the age of 30 when this DREAM Act was enacted. Next to this, the act provided the option to change the temporary permit into a permanent one, if the individual met the following conditions: he or she had completed some type of higher education, had endured multiple extra background checks, and was still considered to be of a good moral character. However, despite several attempts and amendments this act was again repeatedly refused by the Senate (Congressional Research Service, 2010).

The withdrawal from Iraq was announced in October 2011 (BBC, 2011). Obama stated that after several meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki the US would let the Iraqi people decide for

24 their own future, and that the US would withdraw its remaining 40,000 troops by the end of 2011. This has meant the end of 9 years involvement within the country. For the remaining months the US would help to rebuild and strengthen Iraqi institutions and infrastructure before their exit (BBC, 2011).

Over a year after the DREAM Act failed to pass the Senate, the Obama administration came up with a new policy proposition in June 2012; the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) (Federis, 2020). This act was very similar to the DREAM Act, but didn’t include the option for permanent residency. It meant that children of undocumented migrants that had entered the US before the age of 16 and that had been within the country for at least five years in June 2012, could apply for temporary residence when they were either enrolled in high school or had finished it, and if they were still considered to be of good moral behaviour. These migrants could also obtain a work permit, which would remain valid for a two year period (Federis, 2020).

Another reform of migration policy came in 2013, when the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (Congressional Research Service, 2013) was introduced into Congress in April. The act increased security levels at the US-Mexico border by raising the number of security personnel and by improving the security facilities near the border, such as patrol stations and border crossings. It also meant that undocumented migrants would now get a possibility to change their status to that of a Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI), which could be turned into a permanent residence status after ten years. Migrants were eligible who had been within the country since the end of 2011, who hadn’t committed any felony, and who weren’t considered a risk for health reasons or national security. They also had to pay for a fee once, and they had to start paying taxes after registration. Next to this, the act contained some reforms on visa categories, like residence permits for some agricultural workers. However, it didn’t pass the House of Representatives (Congressional Research Service, 2013).

In 2014, a proposal came to expand the DACA with the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) (Federis, 2020). This would mean that the undocumented parents of US citizens or permanent residents could remain in the country for a larger period of time. This policy received a lot of objections from various Republicans after it was established by President Obama, and didn’t pass Congress. After a lawsuit against the US government, the DAPA was prevented from going into effect (Federis, 2020).

During Obama’s presidency, Greece (2010), Taiwan (2012) and Chile (2014) were added to the VWP, which now included 38 countries (Kolker & Platzer, 2020).

In 2015, some amendments were made to the Visa Waiver Program, in the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act. This meant that travellers from VWP countries could no longer enter the US without a visa when they had travelled to either North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen after March 1st 2011, or when they had a dual nationality of a VWP country combined with one of North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria (Bureau of Consular Affairs, n.d.).

Earlier, in Chapter 2, we saw a statement by Shipoli (2018) that it’s possible for a president to significantly influence public discourse during one administration. In the combat against Islamophobia, Obama tried to form a new link of Islam with democracy. However, his attempts have only succeeded in changing dominant discourse. In practice the securitized character of Islam never really improved (Shipoli, 2018).

25 4.5 The Trump administration and its ‘Muslim ban’ Then, in 2016, the presidential elections were won by Donald J. Trump, and in January 2017 he became the new President of the US. During these elections, Trump was already known for his anti-Muslim discourse. A critical discourse analysis by Khan et al. (2019) describes how Trump portrayed Islam as a negative phenomenon, and how he included prejudices in his speeches, like how Islam is anti-women, anti-American and a security threat to the US. Muslims are said to hate Americans. Trump used the self-other binary to blame Muslims in order to avert public attention from other economic and political issues. During the elections, Trump had already mentioned his plans for a Muslim ban, and for closing mosques in the US (Khan et al., 2019).

In January 2017, Trump issued various executive orders to reform migration policy. These orders are an example of the use of visa restrictions in order to enhance national security, like we saw in Neumayer (2005). On the 25th Trump started with 13768 - Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States (Trump, 2017a). This executive order was meant to enhance the safety of the American people and to ensure the proper execution of existing migration policy. It increased the number of migrants that could be removed from the country based on criminal grounds. Before the order, it was only possible to deport a migrant when he or she had committed a serious felony. Now, any criminal offense or accusation of one provided enough legal basis to do so (Trump, 2017a). On January 27th 2017, Trump launched an executive order called Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States (Trump, 2017b). In this order he mentions the importance of visa issuances in detecting terrorists and preventing attacks, and he uses the September 11 attacks as an example to stress this point. Therefore, the US had to prevent terrorists from entering the US by using visas as a means of border control. The purpose of this ‘’ was to protect the nation from terrorist acts by foreign nationals. These measures included the 90 days travel ban for all migrants from the following countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, because they were perceived as countries with a large risk of migrants entering the US with terrorist motives. In order to keep the process transparent for the residents of the US, Homeland Security would make more information on terrorist activity available; this included the number of foreign people in the country that were proven to have taken part in terrorist activities, and the number of radicalized foreigners in the US. The order also suspended the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for a period of 120 days in order to review and adjust the procedures of application (Trump, 2017b). This executive order was succeeded by another one on March 6th that was also titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States (Trump, 2017c). contained largely the same measures as Executive Order 13769, but this document was more comprehensive and provided reasoning and legal support for the decision made. This more ‘correct’ version of the order explained the so-called travel ban by stating that the countries involved were known to have governments that sponsor terrorism, and whose territories harbour powerful factions of Al-Qaeda or ISIS. Trump also made clear that the order was not meant as discrimination against Muslim migrants (Trump, 2017c). Both of these travel bans are great examples of how visas can be used to keep out less preferable migrants and admit those that are favourable, as we saw in Czaika et al. (2017) in Chapter 2.

Another controversial action of Trump started in April 2017, when the notorious family separations at the US-Mexico border started. In a memo, Trump called for a stricter approach toward undocumented migration, which meant the beginning of the separation of children from their parents after attempting to cross the border without authorization (Wiley & Hendricks, 2020).

26 In September 2017, Trump expressed that he opposes the DACA Act, since his predecessor established the act without having it pass Congress (Federis, 2020). Trump withdrew the DACA, which meant the beginning of more lawsuits against the US government. In 2018 the rescinding was blocked by a judge and DACA migrants could still get their renewal after two years, but new applications were still getting rejected. In both January 2018 and January 2019, the discussions in Congress led to a shut-down of the government. Up to today, it remains unclear whether the government will put an end to the DACA (Federis, 2020).

Also in September 2017, the earlier mentioned travel bans of January and March were revised, and Proclamation 9645 was issued with amendments (Trump, 2017d). After a review of 200 countries, the US government concluded that some countries could not be relied upon to provide good intelligence and monitoring of outgoing migrants. New entry restrictions were imposed for migrants from , Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Yemen. This meant that restrictions were no longer in place for the earlier mentioned countries of Somalia and Sudan, and that Chad, North Korea and Venezuela were added to the list. Iraqi migrants were still perceived as a security risk, but while taking into regard the close cooperation between the US and Iraq, the travel ban was lifted for migrants from this country. However, security checks were more elaborate for these nationals. In order to keep the list up-to-date, it would be revised every 180 days from now on (Trump, 2017d).

In November 2017, Trump ended another program; the Temporary Protected Status program (Acevedo, 2019). This program had been in place for about 20 years and provided a temporary residence status to migrants that entered the country both in a legal or illegal way, whenever it was perceived to be dangerous for them to return to their home country due to war, natural disasters or other similar phenomena. The program would be phased out, which endangered the residence status of the 400,000 migrants that were enrolled in the program. Initially, the decision was blocked by various courts, but this blockage was lifted shortly after. The migrants in this group came from the countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti. The first two countries know extremely high rates of criminal activity, violence, and murder. Haiti is struggling with environmental issues, inflation, and a lack of food and clean drinking water, which has led to various protests by the inhabitants. These protests have had some deadly endings (Acevedo, 2019).

In April 2018, another revision of the travel ban was issued. In Proclamation 9723 the entry restrictions for migrants from Chad were lifted, since the government of this country was believed to have improved its intelligence and data-sharing on migration matters (Trump, 2020).

At the same time, about a year after the initiating of the family separations, Trump started the active persecution of unauthorized migrants (Wiley & Hendricks, 2020). As from April 2018, adult migrants could be arrested and sent to jails as a part of the new ‘zero tolerance’ approach. Their children couldn’t join them there, so they were sent off to shelters or foster homes. This caused a strong increase in the amount of children that were separated from their parents. In June 2018, this was ended by a judge, after various human rights protests. The children would be reunited with their families, but up until today many families have still not been brought back together. Also, in some cases new separations are still allowed if a parent is deemed unfit to take care of his or her child, or on national security grounds (Wiley & Hendricks, 2020).

The Mexican border remained a primary concern to the US government. In October 2018, this led to the launching of Operation Faithful Patriot in order to enforce border security there (Garamone, 2018). About 5,200 troops would be sent to the southwest border to assist the

27 personnel in place. This would be only the beginning of the enforcement, since more increases of border security personnel in the years to follow were announced (Garamone, 2018) .

On January 24th 2019, the Department of Homeland Security released the Migrant Protection Protocols (Department of Homeland Security, 2019). These provided a legal basis to send migrants that entered the country without documents back across the Mexican border to await their hearings from there. The reason for this was to relieve the migration and border security of some pressure, and to prevent unauthorized migrants from disappearing into the country without documents. The Department of Homeland Security (2019) also stated that these migrants would receive humanitarian aid from Mexico, once they had been returned across the border.

In 2019 the most recent, and only addition under the Trump administration to the Visa Waiver Program took place, when Poland finally joined after years of trying. Up until today, the total number of countries has been 39 (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). It is interesting to note that most of the VWP countries are Western countries. With the exception of Brunei and Singapore, none of the countries know a large Muslim population. This confirms the statement by Mau et al. (2015) that has been discussed in Chapter 2; again, non-Muslim states seem to be privileged in their mobility to the US.

In January 2020, the most recent update of the travel ban was issued with Proclamation 9983. The restrictions for the countries that were already on the list, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, would remain in place. Also, six countries were added; , Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, , Sudan and . However, these new countries were believed to have good intentions of improving their intelligence, and therefore only received restrictions on immigration visas. Migrants from these countries could still obtain non-immigrant visas, so that less aliens would be hindered by the travel ban. Also, those who could apply as special immigrants according to the Immigration Act of 1990 could still obtain an immigrant visa (Trump, 2020).

Trump hasn’t made any efforts to continue the desecuritization of Islam that was initiated by his predecessor (Verkoren, 2019). His own discourse on Muslims has varied a lot and he is known to contradict himself from time to time. This is partly because his advisors have very diverse opinions on Muslim migration. During Trump’s presidency, ISIS has become a larger threat than Al-Qaeda, and Trump accuses his predecessors of causing the rise of this terrorist organization. Trump has also sent more troops to Afghanistan, and continued to use drone strikes against presumed terrorist targets. He doesn’t emphasize the underlying causes of terrorism like Obama did before him (Verkoren, 2019). Like with his ‘Muslim ban’, it seems that Trump has made little efforts to combat Islamophobia during his presidency.

28 5. Analysis of the annual visa issuances In this chapter the effects of the September 11 attacks and the following policy amendments on visa issuances to potential migrants to the US will be examined. The issued visas are divided into two groups: immigrant visas and non-immigrant visas. Immigrant visas include those that are for an immigrant’s direct family, employment-based immigrants and diversity immigrants. These are meant for those that take permanent residence in the country. Non-immigrant visas are a more diverse category that focusses on temporary visits. Among others, it comprises foreign government officials, tourists, seasonal workers, temporary business visas, and international students. Refugees are excluded from both categories (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 2001). This second category is the one the 9/11-hijackers made use of in order to enter the United States. The issuance of these visa types is split into two categories of countries; Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority. It is important to note that the years mentioned in this data analysis are not calendar years, but US fiscal years. These run from the 1st of October the previous year until the 30th of September of the year mentioned. For example, fiscal year 2001 is the period from October 1st, 2000, until September 30th, 2001 (United States Senate, n.d.). Therefore, the effects of 9/11 on the visa issuances can only be visible when taking into regard the issuance in fiscal year 2002 and later on, since the attacks took place at the very end of fiscal year 2001.

5.1 Immigrant visas In table 1, the total number of immigrant visa issuances over the fiscal years 1991-2019 is given, and this number is also split into the two categories of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority. These numbers are the issuances according to the annual reports by the US Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019). In figure 2 the total number of issued immigrant visas is visualized.

29 Figure 2: Total immigrant visa issuances (1991-2019)

600000

550000

500000

450000

400000

350000 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 5 7 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 1 13 1 1 1 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019).

World total Muslim-majority Countries without a countries Muslim majority 1991 447,229 39,573 407,656 1992 526,770 41,528 485,242 1993 539,539 42,419 497,120 1994 503,544 37,838 465,706 1995 407,035 51,562 355,473 1996 423,440 57,556 365,884 1997 416,919 60,767 356,152 1998 375,684 58,494 317,190 1999 413,662 59,308 354,354 2000 413,521 60,637 352,884 2001 406,080 62,596 343,484 2002 389,157 48,146 341,011 2003 364,768 45,447 319,321 2004 379,340 51,664 327,676 2005 394,890 61,071 333,819 2006 449,103 66,614 382,489 2007 434,411 66,634 367,777 2008 470,099 77,687 392,412 2009 468,770 89,387 379,383 2010 482,052 83,432 398,620 2011 476,249 80,777 395,472 2012 482,300 83,872 398,428 2013 473,115 83,171 389,944 2014 467,370 94,504 372,866 2015 531,463 94,503 436,960

30 2016 617,752 126,415 491,337 2017 559,536 110,345 449,191 2018 533,557 97,183 436,374 2019 462,422 97,073 365,349 Between 1991 and 1993 we see a large overall increase in the number of immigrant visas that are issued. This can be explained by the implementation of the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased the total amount of work- and family-based visas that could be issued to foreign nationals starting from this year. It also meant the start of issuances of the so-called diversity immigrant visas to nationals that were underrepresented in the US (Congressional Research Service, 1991). In 1993 the attack on the World Trade Center took place, which could be part of the explanation for a more restrictive stance toward immigration after this year. De Haas, Natter & Vezzoli (2018) explain this through mentioning an increased association in both political discourse and the US mass media of immigration with socioeconomic and security threats. In 1995 we see a subtle rise again, which could be the product of the further elevation of the ceiling of visas for family- and employment-related immigrants as from this year, as was mentioned in the Immigration Act of 1990 (Congressional Research Service, 1991). The existence of a declining trend prior to fiscal year 2001 could possibly be explained as the effect of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, that tightened border security in order to combat the large flow of unauthorized migrants on the Mexican border, and that increased refusals and deportations on grounds of criminal activities. It didn’t impose direct immigrant visa restrictions, but it may have provided a basis for a more restrictive stance on admissions (House of Representatives, 1996).

Between fiscal year 2001 and 2003, we see a slight acceleration of this already existing trend, which could be explained by the political reaction after the September 11 attacks. Various new policies have been developed shortly after 9/11. In 2002, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act increased resources for border security and raised the monitoring of conditions for visa issuances. Also, it provided a legal basis for the refusal of admissions of migrants from countries with governments that were suspected to support terrorists on their soil (Congressional Research Service, 2002a). This might refer to the ‘axis of evil’ Bush named in his State of the Union Address of January 2002, and by these ‘countries that support terrorism’ the act might mean North Korea, Iran and Iraq (Bush, 2001-2008). When looking at the number of issuances after the act, we see that immigrant visas have still been obtained by migrants from these countries. However, a decline is visible. Since the act was established half way through fiscal year 2002, we should see a drop in this year already, and perhaps a larger drop as from fiscal year 2003. If we look at the data of the Bureau of Consular Affairs for the years 2001 – 2003, we find the following. For North Korea the 123 visas in fiscal year 2001 turned into 113 in 2002, and into 91 issuances in Table 1: Immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority. Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019).

2003. For Iran this meant 5,982 visas in fiscal year 2001, 5,128 in 2002, and 3,556 in 2003. Iraqi nationals were granted 1,497 immigrant visas in fiscal year 2001, 1,284 in 2002, and 1,019 in 2003. While all three experienced drops after the enforcement of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, the decline for North Korea seems very small. The ones for Iran and Iraq might also not be of a very large influence on the total amount of issuances, but the three combined could be a partial explanation for the drop in the total amount of immigrant visa issuances between 2001 and 2003. In the same year the Homeland Security Act was established that moved immigration, customs and border control to the Department of Homeland Security. This act also increased security measures and the monitoring of immigrants by implying more

31 data collection and sharing. Like the act mentioned before this one, it raised the amount of resources for border security (Congressional Research Service, 2002b).

After 2003, more immigrant visas have been issued, and the total amount has known a somewhat slow, decelerating increase until 2012, followed by a slight drop until 2014. This could mean a careful relaxation of the more restrictive stance in the first two years after 9/11. In this period many acts were introduced to either the House of Representatives of the Senate that would again increase restrictiveness, such as the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act (Congressional Research Service, 2005b), the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (Congressional Research Service, 2005c), the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (Congressional Research Service, 2007), and the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (Congressional Research Service, 2013). However, none of the acts on immigration policy of this period were passed. An act that did got signed into law during this period was the Real ID Act of 2005, that contained conditions that could increase the amount of immigrants that could be refused based on terrorist grounds (Congressional Research Service, 2005a). However, no impact of this act can be perceived in the issuances after 2005. Between 2014 and 2016 we see a sharp increase in immigrant visa issuances again under the last two years of the Obama administration, but no policy explaining this increase was found in the analysis of migration policies in the previous chapter. After 2016, when Trump succeeded Obama, we see a sharp decline in issuances until 2019. This might be explained by his two Executive Orders called Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Entry into the United States, and the revisions up until the present that prolonged these travel bans. Up until today, travel restrictions have been in place for various countries. Starting with seven countries in 2017 (Trump, 2017b), this list now includes immigration restrictions for aliens from twelve different nationalities (Trump, 2020).

To test the hypothesis that the drop in visa issuances has mostly affected immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, the same data is visualized for the two different categories of countries separately. In figure 3 we see the issuances to Muslim-majority countries, and in figure 4 these can be seen for immigrants from countries without a Muslim majority. There are a lot more countries in the second category (countries without a Muslim majority), which causes the total amount of issuances to the two groups to differ a lot. Also, this partly explains why figure 4 resembles the total amount of immigrant visa issuances more than the graph for immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.

32 Figure 3: Immigrant visa issuances to Muslim-majority countries

120000

100000

80000

60000

40000

20000 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

Muslim-majority countries

Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019)

Figure 4: Immigrant visa issuances to countries without a Muslim majority 500000 480000 460000 440000 420000 400000 380000 360000 340000 320000 300000 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 5 7 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 1 13 1 1 1 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

Countries without Muslim majority

Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019)

In figure 4 we see a large decline in issuances for the non-Muslim majority category prior to fiscal year 2001. This could be caused by the stricter policy on immigration across the US-Mexico border. Most migrants that cross the southern border into the US are not from Muslim-majority countries, which could explain why the drop is not visible for the Muslim-majority countries in figure 3. After fiscal year 2001 the trend of issuances to immigrants from countries without a Muslim majority initially shows only a small decline in 2002, followed by an accelerated one in fiscal year 2003. This is still in line with the restrictive policy turn. Up until fiscal year 2019, the graph shows similar decreases and increases to the ones in figure 2, and therefore it is very plausible that these are caused by the same policy amendments as the ones mentioned before. The drop after 2016 might be a consequence of a more restrictive view on immigration from the start of Trump’s presidency. Increased measures and checks made it more difficult to obtain an immigrant visa for immigrants that meant to enter the country on the Mexican border; in fiscal

33 year 2018, family-separations were at its peak level (Wiley & Hendricks, 2020), and Operation Faithful Patriot was launched for enhanced border security (Garamone, 2018). The Migrant Protection Protocols started in the second half of fiscal year 2019 (Department of Homeland Security, 2019). Therefore, the category of countries without a Muslim majority seems much more affected by restrictions on the southern border than the ones in the Muslim-majority category.

For the Muslim-majority countries, the number of issuances seems to increase most of the time until fiscal year 2001. We see small drops in 1994 and 1998, of which the first one might be the outcome of the shift in the perception of Muslims after the World Trade Center attack (Kidwai, 2010). After 9/11, we immediately see a sharp decline in issuances until fiscal year 2003. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Act of May 2002 included restrictions on immigrant visa issuances to migrants from countries that were believed to have a government supportive of terrorists on its soil (Congressional Research Service, 2002a), which could explain the drops for immigrants for the Muslim-majority countries of Iran and Iraq. After 2003 the trend turns into an increase again that peaks in 2016, with only some small drops between 2009 and 2011, and in 2013. After 2016, we see a sharp decline until 2018, after which year the trend becomes somewhat neutral. A plausible influence is the so-called ‘Muslim ban’ issued by President Trump in the middle of fiscal year 2017; between January and September 2017 no more visas could be issued to immigrants from the Muslim-majority countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (Trump, 2017b). After September 2017 the ban included immigrants from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen (Trump, 2017d), of which five out of seven countries are still Muslim-majority ones. In April 2018, the ban was lifted for Chad, but remained in place for the other four Muslim countries, North Korea and Venezuela. In January 2020, the immigrant travel restrictions were extended by the addition of the countries of Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania (Trump, 2020). Now, seven out of twelve countries belong to the Muslim-majority category. However, no data is available yet for fiscal year 2020, so the impact of this amendment on immigrant visa issuances couldn’t be examined.

The direct decline after 9/11 is visible for fiscal years 2002 and 2003. However, since the absolute numbers of issuances to both categories lie so far apart, we will now move to the relative changes over time that can be perceived in the immigrant visa issuances. In table 2, we see the relative change in percentages of decrease or increase in comparison to the amount of issuances in the previous year. If we look at the world total we see that between fiscal years 1999 and 2000, the amount of issuances stayed somewhat the same. Right before 9/11 a slight drop is visible. After 9/11 this drop becomes slightly larger until 2003, but the decrease remains relatively small. The total decrease between 2001 and 2003 is one of 10.2%. For immigrants from Muslim-majority countries the amount of issuances has increased in the period of fiscal year 1999 until 2001. After 9/11 we see a large relative decline of 23.1%, when we compare issuances in 2002 and 2001. In 2003 the decrease has continued, but only with 5.6% in comparison to 2002. The total decrease in the period right after 9/11, between 2001 and 2003, is 27.4%. For the category of countries without a Muslim majority, the relative decline between fiscal years 2001 and 2003 remains far smaller. The travel bans of 2017 also included immigrant visa restrictions for certain countries (Trump, 2017b, 2020). Since most of these countries were Muslim-majority ones, a larger relative decrease can be expected in the number of issuances to immigrants from this category. This is indeed visible in table 2 with a decline of 12.7% for Muslim-majority immigrants, compared to one of 8.6% for immigrants from the other category.

World total Muslim-majority Countries without a

34 countries Muslim majority 1992 17.8% 4.9% 19.0% 1993 2.4% 2.1% 2.4% 1994 -6,7% -10.8% -6.3% 1995 -19.2% 36.3% -23.7% 1996 4.0% 11.6% 2.9% 1997 -1.5% 5.6% -2.7% 1998 -9.9% -3.7% -10.9% 1999 10.1% 1.4% 11.7% 2000 0.0% 2.2% -0.4% 2001 -1.8% 3.2% -2.7% 2002 -4.2% -23.1% -0.7% 2003 -6.3% -5.6% -6.4% 2004 4.0% 13.7% 2.6% 2005 4.1% 18.2% 1.9% 2006 13.7% 9.1% 14.6% 2007 -3.3% 0.0% -3.8% 2008 8.2% 16.6% 6.7% 2009 -0.3% 15.1% -3.3% 2010 2.8% -6.7% 5.1% 2011 -1.2% -3.2% -0.8% 2012 1.3% 3.8% 0.7% 2013 -1.9% -0.8% -2.1% 2014 -1.2% 13.6% -4.4% 2015 13.7% 0.0% 17.2% 2016 16.2% 33.8% 12.4% 2017 -9.4% -12.7% -8.6% 2018 -4.6% -11.9% -2.9% 2019 -13.3% -0.1% -16.3% Table 2: Relative changes in immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority, as compared to the previous year. Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019)

5.2 Non-immigrant visas Another category consists of the non-immigrant visas. The total number of issuances as registered by the Bureau of Consular Affairs over the period of 1991-2019 can be seen in table 3. In comparison to the previous visa category, far more non-immigrants than immigrants enter the US every year, which makes the absolute number of issuances a lot higher. The data is visualized in various graphs again. In figure 5, we see the total amount of non-immigrant visa issuances over the years.

35 Figure 5: Total non-immigrant visa issuances

10500000

9500000

8500000

7500000

6500000

5500000

4500000 1 5 9 3 5 9 3 7 9 9 93 9 97 9 01 0 0 07 0 11 1 15 1 1 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019).

After 1991 we see a drop in the total number of non-immigrant visa issuances. This might be a consequence of the establishment of the Visa Waiver Program in 1986, which meant that migrants from the selected countries no longer needed a visa in order to travel to the US for up to 90 days (Congressional Research Service, 1986). After the Immigration Act of 1990 expanded this program by lifting the cap on the number of countries that could participate (Congressional Research Service, 1990), various countries were added. By 1999, the total amount was brought to 27 participants (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). Most of the additions took place in October 1991, which could explain the drop in issuances in fiscal year 1992. After this year, the numbers start to rise again, until a decrease after 1996. This is also in line with the increased concern about unauthorized migration on the southern border in that year. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 didn’t contain the increase of direct visa restrictions, but it did enhance the monitoring of admissibility of migrants (Congressional Research Service, 1996), which might have decreased the number of non-immigrant visa issuances too. After 1998, the graph starts to rise again up until fiscal year 2001.

Then, like in the immigrant visa category, we see a grave drop in issuances. This could also be explained by the tightening of migration policy after the 9/11 attacks. Temporary migrants experienced much more tracking and registration procedures, and non-immigrants that overstayed their visa were more strictly persecuted. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 increased background checks of international students, who now had to meet more requirements in order to receive admission. Also, the boycott on visa issuances to nationals of countries with governments that were said to harbour terrorists also affected the non- immigrant category (Congressional Research Service, 2002a). This was also the case for the increase of resources to the monitoring of migration for the newly established Department of Homeland Security in the Homeland Security Act of the same year (Congressional Research Service, 2002b). Moreover, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System was established in 2002, which applied stricter conditions for admissions of non-immigrants from five countries (Jachimowicz & McKay, 2003). Like in the immigrant visas, we see an increase after 2003, which again might be explained by a relaxation of security measures two years after the attacks. Also, during fiscal years 2002 and 2003, Argentina and Uruguay were removed from the list of Visa

36 Waiver Program countries, but this is unlikely to have caused a large increase in non-immigrant visa issuances.

World total Muslim majority Countries without a countries Muslim majority 1991 5,977,961 541,942 5,436,019 1992 5,368,437 550,632 4,817,805 1993 5,359,620 572,116 4,787,504 1994 5,610,953 615,401 4,995,552 1995 6,181,822 650,269 5,531,553 1996 6,237,870 669,278 5,568,592 1997 5,942,061 682,979 5,259,082 1998 5,814,153 634,245 5,179,908 1999 6,192,478 691,727 5,500,751 2000 7,141,636 820,112 6,321,524 2001 7,588,778 800,783 6,787,995 2002 5,769,437 466,328 5,303,109 2003 4,881,634 425,644 4,455,990 2004 5,049,099 465,439 4,583,660 2005 5,388,951 528,836 4,860,115 2006 5,836,730 567,949 5,268,781 2007 6,444,285 640,575 5,803,710 2008 6,603,076 703,011 5,900,065 2009 5,804,178 665,500 5,138,678 2010 6,422,751 708,761 5,713,990 2011 7,507,939 806,285 6,701,654 2012 8,927,090 903,762 8,023,328 2013 9,164,349 975,253 8,189,096 2014 9,932,480 1,132,590 8,799,890 2015 10,891,745 1,164,022 9,727,723 2016 10,381,491 1,204,996 9,176,495 2017 9,681,913 1,060,422 8,621,491 2018 9,028,026 1,019,652 8,008,374 2019 8,742,068 986,704 7,755,364 Table 3: Relative changes in non-immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority, as compared to the previous year. Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991- 2019).

Except for a drop in fiscal year 2009, the increase of issuances keeps going until 2015. In the meantime some small changes in non-immigrant visa policies have taken place. In 2005, the Real ID Act increased the conditions on which migrants could be refused admissibility on terrorist grounds (Congressional Research Service, 2005a). The Visa Waiver Program also received some updates; in 2005 the implementation of the ESTA increased the monitoring of tourist and business entries (Congressional Research Service, 2007a), eight countries were added to the program in 2008, and three more between 2010 and 2014 (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). The addition of a large amount of countries at the start of fiscal year 2009 could explain the drop we see in this year. The other changes aren’t really visible in the graph in figure 5. Then, the DACA was established by Obama in the second half of 2012, which meant that children of undocumented migrants could

37 now obtain a temporary residence status if they entered the country before the age of 16 and before June 2007 (Federis, 2020). However, this is also not really visible in figure 5.

Then, a sharp drop is visible again after fiscal year 2015, over a year before succeeds Obama. This contradicts the Visa Waiver Program update of this year, that meant a decrease of VWP access for migrants that had visited eight specific countries after February 2011, or that had a dual nationality of five specific countries (Bureau of Consular Affairs, n.d.). While this would mean that these travellers again had to obtain a non-immigrant visa to enter the US, this can’t be seen in the data. At the start of 2017, Trump begins his Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. This ban doesn’t only include immigrants from the countries listed, but also the non-immigrant categories (Trump, 2017b). The September revision prolonged these bans, while also changing the countries for which they were in place (Trump, 2017d). Then, at the end of fiscal year 2017, Trump starts blocking the DACA-program, and no new applications are approved after September (Federis, 2020). As described by Acevedo (2019) this also happens to the Temporary Protected Status migrants as from November 2017, which could at least partly explain the ongoing drop. In April 2018, Chad was removed from the list of countries with restricted visa entry (Trump, 2020), which might be part of the reason we see a deceleration of the decrease in issuances in fiscal year 2019. The expansion of the ban in 2020 did not include non-immigrant visas (Trump, 2020), and therefore it won’t be of influence on the issuances in this category.

As with the immigrant visa category, the data is now split into non-immigrant issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries and those from other countries. The adequate graphs can be seen in figure 6 (Muslim-majority countries) and figure 7 (countries without a Muslim majority).

Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019)

Figure 7: Non-immigrant visa issuances to countries without a Muslim majority 10000000

9000000

8000000

7000000

6000000

5000000

4000000 1 5 7 1 7 1 7 9 9 93 9 9 99 0 03 05 0 09 1 13 15 1 1 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

Countries without Muslim majority

Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991-2019)

38 As mentioned before, 27 countries were added to the Visa Waiver Program between 1988 and 1999. Most of these additions were European countries without a Muslim majority, with the exception of Brunei in 1993 and Singapore in 1999. The largest addition happened in 2001 (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). When we look at figure 7, this could explain the slight drop in non-immigrant issuances in fiscal year 1992 for countries without a Muslim majority. This decrease is not visible for Muslim-majority countries, which is supportive of this idea. At the same time we could expect an increase of issuances of non-immigrant visas to temporary workers as an effect of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (Congressional Research Service, 1986). Since these two opposite effects could be noticed around the same period of time, they may have balanced each other out somewhat in the category of countries without a Muslim majority. The drop around fiscal year 1996 is also visible for both categories. This means that either the decrease wasn’t an effect of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act as mentioned earlier, or that the act didn’t only affect non-immigrants on the southern border, but increased monitoring of conditions for admissibility of non-immigrants in general.

After fiscal year 2001 we see a drop for both categories of countries until fiscal year 2003. This could be explained by the harsher measures on the southern border. By increasing the strictness of checking visa admissions, less migrants might be granted a temporary residence permit. As mentioned before, in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act that was signed into law in May 2002, granting non-immigrant visas to migrants from countries that supported terrorism became forbidden (Congressional Research Service, 2002a). Assuming by this the act meant the countries of North Korea, Iran and Iraq, its influence might be visible in the amount of issuances of non-immigrant visas too. Since the act was established half way through fiscal year 2002, we should see a drop in this year already, and perhaps a larger drop as from fiscal year 2003. When looking at the number of non-immigrant visa issuances after the act, we see that non-immigrant visas have still been obtained by migrants from these countries. However, a decline is visible. If we look at the data of the Bureau of Consular Affairs for the years 2001 – 2003, we find the following for the non-Muslim country of North Korea. The 1,489 visas in fiscal year 2001 turned into 761 in 2002, and into just 296 issuances in 2003.

After 2003, the number of issuances to non-immigrants in the category of countries without a Muslim majority keeps increasing until 2015, with the exception of fiscal year 2009. Both countries that were removed from the Visa Waiver Program, Argentina in 2002 and Uruguay in 2003 (Kolker & Platzer, 2020), were countries without a Muslim majority. While we do see a drop in issuances in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, it is unlikely that these large decreases were solely caused by the removal of two countries. In 2008, we saw a new amendment of the Visa Waiver Program. In this year, eight new countries were added, of which all belong to the category of countries without a Muslim majority (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). This does correlate with the slight drop in the amount of non-immigrant visas to non-Muslim majority countries in fiscal year 2009, but an increase is visible in 2010 again. The additions of the non-Muslim countries of Greece, Taiwan and Chile in 2010, 2012 and 2014 (Kolker & Platzer, 2020) are not visible in the data. While the original travel ban of January 2017 included only Muslim countries, the revision of September imposed entry restrictions on migrants from countries without a Muslim majority too; North Korea and Venezuela were also added. This could be a partial explanation for the ongoing drop in fiscal years 2018 and 2019. The phasing out of the Temporary Protected Status program could also be of influence. This started after November 2017 and meant that migrants from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras could no longer obtain a temporary residence permit because of the circumstances in their home countries (Acevedo, 2019). These three countries all belong to the category of countries without a Muslim majority and might also be a partial explanation for the

39 ongoing drop in issuances in fiscal years 2018 and 2019. However, the decrease had already started a year earlier in fiscal year 2016, which it therefore doesn’t explain. At the beginning of fiscal year 2020, Poland was included in the visa waiver program (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). However, since there is no data available yet on the issuances in fiscal year 2020, this was not examined in the dataset. This is also the case for the revision of the travel ban in January 2020, when some more non-Muslim countries were added to the list; Myanmar and Tanzania (Trump, 2020).

For the Muslim-majority countries we also see a severe decline in non-immigrant visa issuances between 2001 and 2003. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Act of 2002 may have also been the cause for the drop in issuances to the Muslim-majority countries of Iran and Iraq, since these were also included in the ‘axis of evil’ (Bush, 2001-2008). When looking at the data of the Bureau of Consular Affairs (2001-2003), we indeed see a decline in visas to these non-immigrants. For Iran this meant 22,749 visas in fiscal year 2001, 13,071 in 2002, and 7,486 in 2003. Iraqi nationals were granted 3,546 non-immigrant visas in fiscal year 2001, 2,086 in 2002, and only 1,355 in 2003. Therefore, all of these countries experienced significant drops after the establishment of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act. Iran and Iraq suffered the largest absolute declines. Also, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System of 2002 imposed stricter conditions for admission on non-immigrants from the Muslim-majority countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan (Jachimowicz & McKay, 2003).

After 2003, we see an increase in issuances until fiscal year 2016, with only a small drop in fiscal year 2009. This contradicts the idea that the decrease in the total amount of non-immigrant issuances in this year was caused by the Visa Waiver Program expansion of 2008, since this didn’t include any Muslim-majority countries (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). The drop of fiscal years 2017- 2019 can be explained by the travel bans. The original ban included non-immigrants from the Muslim-countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (Trump, 2017b). However, this doesn’t explain why the drop was also visible in the other category during fiscal year 2017, since the non-Muslim countries were only included at the end of the fiscal year. This revision of the list in September 2017 still included many Muslim-majority countries; Chad, Iran, Libya, Syria and Yemen (Trump, 2017d). The result of the removal of Chad from the ban in 2018 (Trump, 2020) is not visible in figure 6.

To look at the relative change in non-immigrant visa issuances per category, the percentual increases and decreases as compared to those in the previous year are displayed in table 4. Here we see that both categories show saw sharp declines in issuances after the 9/11 attacks. The overall decrease in fiscal year 2002 has been one of 24.0%. In 2003 this is an additional decline of 15.4%, which brings us to a total decline of 35.7% between fiscal years 2001 and 2003. The largest difference seems to be for migrants from Muslim-majority countries. In fiscal year 2002 we see a drop of 41.8%, followed by a decline of 8.7% in the year after. The total change between 2001 and 2003 is a decline of 46.8%, which is quite a larger change than the one we saw in the total amount of issuances. For the other countries the decline was one of 21.9% in 2002, 16.0% in 2003, and 34.4% between 2001 and 2003. While still a significant decrease, the relative change is smaller than for the Muslim-majority category. This seems to correspond with the literature on the treatment of temporary US residents of Arab/Muslim origin after 9/11 and travel restrictions for migrants from certain Middle Eastern countries. Also, since the travel bans that were issued by Trump in 2017 included mostly Muslim countries (Trump, 2017b, 2020), we could expect a drop in this year and the years after too. When we look at the numbers in table 4, we indeed see a larger decline for Muslim-majority countries in the issuances of non-immigrant visas. For this category

40 the numbers dropped with 12%, while the same happened with only 6% for travellers from other countries.

Compared to the issuance of immigrant visas, we can conclude that the relative changes between fiscal years 2001 and 2003 have been even larger for the non-immigrant visa category. This is the case for both migrants from Muslim-majority countries and migrants from countries without a Muslim majority. For the Muslim-majority countries we saw a decrease of 27.4% in immigrant visa issuances between 2001 and 2003, while for non-immigrant visas this decrease has been one of 46.8%. For the other category the immigrant visa change in this period saw a 7.0% decline, compared to a 34.4% decline for non-immigrant visa issuances.

World total Muslim-majority Countries without a countries Muslim majority 1992 -10.2% 1.6% -11.4% 1993 -0.2% 3.9% -0.6% 1994 4.7% 7.6% 4.3% 1995 10.2% 5.7% 10.7% 1996 0.9% 2.9% 0.7% 1997 -4.7% 2.0% -5.6% 1998 -2.2% -7.1% -1.5% 1999 6.5% 9.1% 6.2% 2000 15.3% 18.6% 14.9% 2001 6.3% -2.4% 7.4% 2002 -24.0% -41.8% -21.9% 2003 -15.4% -8.7% -16.0% 2004 3.4% 9.3% 2.9% 2005 6.7% 13.6% 6.0% 2006 8.3% 7.4% 8.4% 2007 10.4% 12.8% 10.2%

41 2008 2.5% 9.7% 1.7% 2009 -12.1% -5.3% -12.9% 2010 10.7% 6.5% 11.2% 2011 16.9% 13.8% 17.3% 2012 18.9% 12.1% 19.7% 2013 2.7% 7.9% 2.1% 2014 8.4% 16.1% 7.5% 2015 9.7% 2.8% 10.5% 2016 -4.7% 3.5% -5.7% 2017 -6.7% -12.0% -6.0% 2018 -6.8% -3.8% -7.1% 2019 -3.2% -3.2% -3.2% Table 4: Relative changes in non-immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Muslim-majority countries and countries without a Muslim majority, as compared to the previous year. Data retrieved from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (1991- 2019)

6. Conclusion All of the hijackers behind the September 11 attacks entered the United States by the use of non- immigrant visas, for which most had applied in the Muslim-majority country of Saudi Arabia (Eldridge et al., 2004). These men were all Muslim fundamentalists, and the theoretical background has led me to believe that it is very plausible that the events of 9/11 have caused a deterioration of public perceptions of Muslims in the US (Shipoli, 2018). This was heavily influenced by the negative portrayal of both Islam in dominant discourses in the mass media and in the political field (Smith, 2013). This phenomenon is described by Benford & Snow (2000) as framing. Smith (2013) also states that at first, the media was highly protective of Islam in its framing, and relaxed this stance after 2002. Vultee (2011) names an increasingly high risk perception as the perpetrator for the shift in media portrayals of Islam to a less objective image.

Not only media framing, but also political discourse can be of influence on public perceptions. Shipoli (2018) mentioned that public discourse can be changed completely during a single presidency. Large differences can indeed be distinguished between the presidencies of Bush, Obama and Trump. The concept of securitization that was introduced by Buzan et al. (1998) can be recognized in the treatment of Islam by Presidents Bush and Trump. According to Shipoli (2018), Bush started off with a strong securitization of Islam, Obama tried to dissolve this link of Islam with national security as from 2009, and Trump’s travel ban of 2017 seems to directly recognize migrants from certain Muslim countries as security risks again. The question that

42 remains is whether these stances have been influenced by the 9/11 attacks. For Bush, I would definitely argue that this is the case. His initial focus was mostly on domestic issues, rather than matters of foreign policy like immigration. After the September 11 attacks, this focus changed direction rather drastically and shifted towards US national security (Shipoli, 2018). In the first two years after the attacks many policy developments that linked migration to security threats were made by the Bush administration. Bush’s labelling of the 9/11 events by the use of words like ‘terror’, ‘war’, and ‘evil’ has been used in order to legitimize extreme measures against the perceived national security risks, like Bhatia (2005) explained. This included the invasion of two Muslim-majority countries; Iraq and Afghanistan. Under the Obama administration, no more migration restrictions were implemented. The opposite even happened with the creation of the DACA (Federis, 2020). When Trump took office in 2017, an even stronger securitization of Islam started than initiated by Bush. Specific Muslim-majority countries were linked to national security threats and terrorism (Shipoli, 2018). These ideas are very likely to have been influenced by the events on September 11, 2001. Bhattacharya (2010) explains how public discourse and foreign policy developments shape each other. This means that an increasingly negative perception of migrants due to framing and securitization are likely to push new policy developments into a more restrictive direction.

The analysis of newly developed policy documents after 9/11 does support the theory by Czaika et al. (2017) that explains the two main functions of visas; control of certain migration flows, and as a political statement on foreign relationships. Concerning the control of migration flows, the analysis shows growing concerns on two types of migrants; undocumented ones, and the ones that are perceived as a higher security risk on terrorist grounds. The frontline of the battle against the first type of migrant entries was primarily situated at the US-Mexico border. Under the rule of the Bush administration, the second type included almost exclusively migrants from Muslim- majority countries, with the exception of North Korea. Travel restrictions started for migrants from Iran, Iraq and North Korea in both immigrant and non-immigrant entries after the implementation of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Act. The National Security Entry- Exit Registration System (Jachimowicz & McKay, 2003) sharpened the conditions for the admission of non-immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan. The travel bans of 2017 by President Trump initially included the Muslim-countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (Trump, 2017b), but later also the non-Muslim countries of North Korea, Venezuela, Myanmar and Tanzania. While Chad, Iraq and Somalia were removed from the list, other Muslim- majority countries replaced them; Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria (Trump, 2020). This meant that most of the disadvantaged countries are still Muslim-majority ones. Another remarkable fact is that while most of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visa in Saudi Arabia, no visa restrictions were imposed for migrants from this country. Also, Iraq was removed from the list despite being perceived as a security risk. These are examples of the second function of visa policies that is described by Czaika et al. (2017); their use for making statements about the relationship with foreign governments. The lack of restrictions for these two countries show that the US had the intention to maintain close cooperation with both countries. Also, the measures involved only a small number of the total amount of Muslim-majority countries, and therefore it didn’t seem to target this category in general. At the same time, the Visa Waiver Program has mostly been advantageous to countries without a Muslim majority. The program has increased the mobility for migrants from these countries, that otherwise would need a non-immigrant visa in order to enter the US (Kolker & Platzer, 2020). The effect of the program on issuances seems paradoxical; when mobility increases due to the VWP, less non-immigrant visas are issued. This is also in line with the research of Mau et al. (2015) that states that OECD-countries, which solely include countries

43 without a Muslim majority except for Turkey, are generally more privileged in their mobility levels. This theory is also supported by Neumayer (2005).

The negative influence of 9/11 on mobility of migrants from Muslim-majority countries is also visible in the number of visa issuances. For the immigrant visas, a drop in issuances to Muslim countries of 23.1% is visible in fiscal year 2002, compared to a decrease of only 0.7% for the other countries (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 2001-2002). These effects have been even more noticeable for the issuance of non-immigrant visas. For Muslim-majority countries, we saw a drop of 41.8% between 2001 and 2002. For the other countries, this decrease was one of 21.9% (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 2010b). Therefore, the category that was most affected by the restrictive policy turn after 9/11 is the non-immigrant, Muslim-majority one. Second come the categories of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, and the remaining non-immigrants. Immigrants from countries without a Muslim majority seem to have experienced almost no negative effects from the newly introduced policies in fiscal year 2002. The effects of the 2017 travel bans are also visible in the number of visa issuances for all categories. However, in both immigrant and non- immigrant visas, the decrease was largest for migrants from Muslim-majority countries. This does correspond with the large share of Muslim countries that were targeted by these travel bans. Also, the drops in issuances directly after fiscal year 2001 and after fiscal year 2016 do support the idea of an increased securitization of migration during the Bush and Trump administrations.

This means that the findings of Smith (2013) can’t be recognised in the results of the data analysis; if the media relaxed its deliberate protection of Muslims after 2002 and this has indeed led to higher levels of Islamophobia in the US, according to Bhattacharya (2010), we should see the effects of this shift in public perceptions in the political domain too, since public and political discourse tend to co-evolve. However, when we look at policy developments after 9/11, we see that the changes that had the most impact on visa issuances originate from immediately after the attacks; the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, the Homeland Security Act (Congressional Research Service, 2002a, 2002b) and the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (Jachimowicz & McKay, 2003) were all signed into law in 2002.

When looking at the main question of this thesis: ‘To what extent can the impacts of the September 11 attacks be seen in US visa issuances to migrants from Muslim-majority countries, as compared to migrants from countries without a Muslim majority?’, I want to argue that these impacts have indeed been relatively large for migrants from Muslim-majority countries in both immigrant and non-immigrant categories. This is part of the disproportional reaction of the US government to the actual threat of terrorism, which legitimized far-reaching security measures. It shows an orthodox perspective on counterterrorism, as described by Jackson et al. (2011). However, if we compare the policy changes and visa issuances over the years with each other, we see that these two don’t always co-evolve. Therefore, I would like to emphasize that policy changes are not the only factors that have influenced these issuances.

44 7. Discussion As with all research, some critical points can be addressed that might undermine the findings in Chapter 6. A few of the shortcomings of this thesis are listed below.

Firstly, this research does not include other possible explanations for the drop in visa issuances after the 9/11 attacks, rather than the policy changes mentioned in Chapter 4. The article by Neiman & Swagel (2009), as mentioned in Chapter 1, explains how the decrease in travellers to the US after the 9/11 attacks wasn’t necessarily caused by more restrictive visa policy developments. Because the decline was most visible in migrants that made use of the Visa Waiver Program, the visa policies didn’t seem to be of an important influence. Other possible explanations provided by Neiman & Swagel (2009) are higher travel costs, more inconvenience due to increased security, and psychological effects. Firstly, the general visa fee before 9/11 was 45 US dollars, compared to 65 dollars in June 2002, and 100 dollars in November 2002. This meant that migrants needed to possess more financial means in order to reach the US after the attacks. Also, for migrants from some countries, an in-person interview was necessary before a visa would be issued. This made that getting a visa took more effort, which could raise the threshold that had to be overcome in order to become mobile. Next to that, security efforts sharpened, which made travelling less comfortable. This could also explain why the decrease was larger for immigrants from VWP countries, since the relative change in comfort was larger for this group because non- VWP immigrants had to endure multiple checks before the attacks already. Lastly, psychological

45 effects could be an explanation. After the attacks became news item number one all over the world, people were reluctant to get on a plane in order to fly to the US. This could explain why a drop also occurred in domestic flights (Neiman & Swagel, 2009).

Also, this research lacked data on both applications and application refusals per country of origin. By only focussing on issued visas, we don’t rule out the possibility that a drop is simply caused by a similar drop in the number of applications. This way, we solely focus on the US as an actor that can influence the amount of travel, and not on the various countries of origin of migrants. For example, migrants could simply hold a less favourable view of the US, which makes that they don’t want to travel to the country. Next to this, no data was found on both refugees and undocumented migrants. These groups are also likely to have felt the consequences of the 9/11 attacks. A part of the travel ban by Trump for example also included the suspension of the US Refugee Admissions Program in order to fight terrorism (Trump, 2017b). Also, as we saw in Chishti & Bergeron (2011), many of the more restrictive border security policies seem to have affected mostly unauthorized migration.

Another shortcoming of this research is the use of broad categories. The data analysis was performed on two types of visas; immigrant and non-immigrant visas. These were not split into different groups within those categories. Therefore within the non-immigrant visa category for example no distinction was made between student, business, work, or leisure visas. In order to get a better view on differences in visa issuances between various countries, therefore it would be wise for future research to also include the differences between the issuances of those visa categories. The same goes for the classification of countries. By dividing all countries into just two categories, no differences in issuances between different Muslim-majority countries have been analysed. It is possible that the effects of 9/11 have been far more severe for individual countries than the general findings. For example, this could mean that the most affected countries are all situated in the Middle East, or that only a handful of Muslim-majority countries really experienced travel limitations. As we saw, some Muslim-majority countries, such as Singapore and Brunei, have been included in the Visa Waiver Program, which might mean very different issuances in non-immigrant visas for this category.

Next to this there is a minor problem with the conceptualization of ‘Muslim-majority’ countries. This thesis describes such as countries with a population of which more than 50% is Muslim. This makes that a country with a Muslim share of 49% of the population is excluded from the category, while one with only a percent more Muslims isn’t. Also, the data on the religions in various countries in the CIA World Factbook (n.d.) doesn’t all derive from the same year, which might mean that the categories would be different if we researched the share of Muslims in each country today. Furthermore, the data is mostly just an estimate, since it’s really difficult to determine who is really a Muslim and who isn’t, while religion can be a very private matter to people. Moreover, when 50% of a population is Muslim, the other 50% isn’t. Therefore, travel restrictions for a ‘Muslim-majority country’ also affect possible migrants who aren’t Muslim.

Now, I will list some possibilities for further research. Firstly, this includes a more in-depth analysis of possible explanations for the decrease in visa issuances after 9/11. In order to be sure about what caused the decline in travellers, interviews could be conducted with people that did or did not travel to the US after the 9/11 attacks. However, reaching out to people that decided against becoming mobile would be difficult since it’s hard to find people that didn’t get on a plane because of one of the reasons mentioned. This is also the case for applying the same analysis to undocumented migrants. This type of migration is very difficult to monitor, which makes the available data on entries pretty unreliable. Therefore, I think that examining the consequences of

46 9/11 on the allowance of refugees into the US might be an easier option. Another recommendation for further research could be an analysis of changes in issuances to individual countries. This might provide a more clear image on which countries are most affected and which aren’t. The method used in this thesis could be reversed; instead of starting from different categories first, one could also begin by looking at the changes in issuances to individual countries and then start searching for common characteristics between those that are most affected.

Some recommendations can also be made for the development and amendment of new policies. As discussed in Jackson et al. (2011) the Western media and politics tend to overreact to terrorist attacks, which causes governments to implement disproportional policy amendments, and the public to be far more fearful for terror than the actual risk should cause them to be. As we saw in Kydd & Walter (2006), this is often exactly what terrorists want to achieve. In this critical view, I think it would be better to limit media attention for terrorism to a more proportional share and to end exaggerated security measures. A harsh reaction often affects other parties (undocumented migrants and Afghan civilians for example) rather than the target group (terrorists), and it might even facilitate further attacks because of successes in reaching previous goals. I would like to recommend politicians to raise awareness for these overreactions or even end them, like Obama tried to do with the securitization of Islam. Also, by taking into account the concept of terrorism as a strategy of state actors, I think we should be highly critical of both the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, and of any invasion in the future. We should not forget that the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan alone since the US invasion has been much higher than the number of American civilians that passed away as a consequence of the 9/11 attacks. In the case of visa issuances, no proof was found that this has really protected the US against terrorist attacks after 9/11. In fact, I think that many mass shootings have been executed by American citizens rather than by migrants from Muslim-majority countries. For example, the WTC attack of 1993 that was executed by Islamic fundamentalists caused a shift in the public perceptions of Muslims after killing 6 people, but the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 by US citizen Timothy McVeigh that killed 168 people did not cause the US public to become more fearful of right-wing politicians. Apparently, a right-wing extremist does not represent right-wing politicians in general, so why should a single Islamic fundamentalist influence our views of Muslims in general?

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56 Appendix 1 – Classification of countries without a Muslim majority Andorra Ecuador Latvia Angola El Salvador Lesotho Antigua and Barbuda Equatorial Guinea Liberia Argentina Eritrea Liechtenstein Armenia Estonia Lithuania Australia (incl. Christmas Eswatini Island, Cocos Islands, Norfolk Island) Luxembourg Austria Madagascar Bahamas, The Fiji Malawi Barbados Finland Malta Belarus France (incl. overseas territories) Marshall Islands Belgium Gabon Mauritius Belize Gambia, The Mexico Benin Georgia Micronesia, Federal States of Bhutan Germany Moldova Bolivia Ghana Monaco Botswana Great Britain and Northern Ireland (incl. overseas territories) Mongolia Brazil Greece Montenegro Bulgaria Grenada Mozambique Burundi Guatemala Myanmar Cabo Verde Guinea Namibia

57 Cambodia Guinea-Bissau Nauru Cameroon Guyana Nepal Canada Netherlands (incl. overseas Haiti territories) Central African Republic New Zealand (incl. Cook Honduras Islands, Niue and Tokelau) Chile Hong Kong S.A.R. China (incl. Taiwan) Hungary North Macedonia Colombia Iceland Northern Ireland (DV only) Congo, Dem. Rep. of the Norway (incl. Svalbard) Congo, Rep. of the Ireland Palau Costa Rica Italy Panama Cote d'Ivoire Jamaica Papua New Guinea Croatia Japan Paraguay Kenya Peru Cyprus Kiribati Phillippines Czech Republic Korea, North Poland Denmark (incl. Faroe Islands and Greenland) Korea, South Portugal (incl. Macau) Dominica Kosovo Romania Dominican Republic Laos Russia

Rwanda

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Samoa

San Marino

Sao Tome and Principe

Serbia

Seychelles

Singapore

Slovakia

Slovenia

Solomon Islands

South Africa

South Sudan

Spain

Sri Lanka

58 Suriname

Sweden

Switzerland

Tanzania

Thailand

Timor-Leste

Togo

Tonga

Trinidad and Tobago

Tuvalu

Uganda

Ukraine

Uruguay

Vanuatu

Vatican City

Venezuela

Vietnam

Zambia

Zimbabwe Data retrieved from CIA World Factbook (n.d.)

Appendix 2 – Classification of Muslim-majority countries Afghanistan Libya Albania Malaysia Algeria Maldives Azerbaijan Mali Bahrain Mauritania Bangladesh Morocco

59 Bosnia and Herzegovina Niger Brunei Nigeria Burkina Faso Oman Chad Pakistan Comoros Qatar Djibouti Saudi Arabia Egypt Senegal The Gambia Sierra Leone Guinea Somalia Indonesia Sudan Iran Syria Iraq Tajikistan Israel Tunisia Jordan Turkey Kazakhstan Turkmenistan Kuwait United Arab Emirates Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Lebanon Yemen Data retrieved from the CIA World Factbook (n.d.)

60