Washington DC – On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security terminated its controversial NSEERS (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System) program. The NSEERS program mandated the registration of all young males from over 20 specially designated countries, including Iran, who came to the U.S. on temporary visas. Critics of the program, including NIAC, argued that the program discriminated against persons on the basis of their country of origin.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Matt Chandler, said the program had been replaced by “more robust, risk-based, and intelligence-driven targeting processes.”

NIAC welcomes the termination of NSEERS and its replacement with a system based on intelligence rather than ethnic profiling. In 2002, NIAC organized a campaign that helped thousands of Iranian Americans send letters expressing their concerns about the program to Members of Congress.

Implemented in the wake of 9/11, NSEERS required nonimmigrant visitors from the designated countries to be photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed at an immigration office upon arrival and departure from the U.S.