July 28, 2004legalimmigrationcivil libertiesnational securityforeign policycivil libertiesimmigrationnational security

DHS revokes scholar Tariq Ramadan's visa under the PATRIOT Act ideological exclusion provision

The Department of Homeland Security revoked the visa of Swiss-born Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan on July 28, 2004, citing the USA PATRIOT Act Section 411 "ideological exclusion provision," days before he was to begin a tenured professorship at the University of Notre Dame. DHS later shifted its legal basis, claiming Ramadan had donated approximately $900 to a Swiss charity that also aided a Palestinian organization the U.S. designated as a terrorist entity, asserting this constituted material support for terrorism under INA § 212(a)(3)(B). The ACLU, PEN America, and the American Academy of Religion sued, and the Second Circuit ruled in 2009 that the government had failed to adequately justify the denial. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended Ramadan's exclusion in January 2010, a case that illustrated how ideological exclusion could be deployed without formal findings of wrongdoing.

Sources

American Academy of Religion et al. v. Napolitano et al.: Challenging Ideological Exclusion Under the Patriot Act Federal Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of U.S. Organizations That Challenged Exclusion Of Prominent Muslim Scholar