“Your Client has a Profile:” Race and National Security in Canada After 9/11

Pages3-40
Date10 April 2007
Published date10 April 2007
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(06)40001-6
AuthorSherene H. Razack
‘‘YOUR CLIENT HAS A PROFILE:’’
RACE AND NATIONAL SECURITY
IN CANADA AFTER 9/11
Sherene H. Razack
ABSTRACT
I discuss the case of Hassan Almrei, one of the five Arab men detained as
suspects who have the potential to engage in terrorism. Hassan Almrei’s
detention arises out of a section of the Immigration and Refugee Pro-
tection Act of Canada that authorizes security certificates. A security
certificate permits the detention and expulsion of non-citizens who are
considered to be a threat to national security. Detainees have no oppor-
tunity to be heard before a certificate is issued and a designated judge of
the Federal Court reviews most of the government’s case against the
detainee in a secret hearing at which neither the detainee nor his counsel is
present. The detainee receives only a summary of the evidence against
him. I discuss this legal situation as a state of exception that is part of a
legal structure in which non-citizens have fewer rights than do citizens.
Two conceptual tools shape my understanding of security certificates and
their use in the ‘‘war on terror’’: race thinking and the state of exception.
The five detainees are more than simply victims of racial profiling. Their
Arab origins, and the life history that mostly Arab Muslim men have had,
operate to mark them as individuals likely to commit terrorist acts, people
whose propensity for violence is indicated by their origins. When race
Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 40, 3–40
Copyright r2007 by Elsevier Ltd.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1016/S1059-4337(06)40001-6
3
thinking, the belief in the division of humanity into those prone to violence
and those who are not according to racial descent, is accompanied by the
idea that there must be two different, hierarchical legal regimes for each,
and when we begin to grow accustomed to places without law and to
people to whom the rule of law does not apply, we enter the terrifying
world of the colonies and the concentration camp. This article examines
how a space where law is suspended operates in the ‘‘war on terror’’ and
it attends to the work that ideas about race do in the environment of
the exception.
Whoever entered the camp moved in a zone of indistinction between outside and inside,
exception and rule, licit and illicit, in which the very concepts of subjective right and
judicial protections no longer made any sense. (Agamben, 1998, p. 170)
34 (1) A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on security grounds for
(f) being a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe
engages, has engaged, or will engage in acts referred to in paragraphs (a) [espionage
or subversion], (b) [subversion by force] or (c) [terrorism]. (Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act, Emphasis added)
INTRODUCTION
At a hearing on November 19, 2001 to determine the validity of the security
certificate that declared Hassan Almrei inadmissible to Canada on the
grounds that he will engage in acts of terrorism, an agent from Canada’s
Security and Intelligence Services (CSIS) confidently clarified for Almrei’s
counsel the heart of the Service’s case against Hassan Almrei:
What I am saying today is that your client has a profile which makes him of use to Al
Qaeda and his connections to the organization through various individuals is what leads
us to conclude that he is a threat to the security of Canada. I am afraid that I can’t get
into any more detail than that.
We are not hanging our case on this notion that he was among the cream-of-the-crop
recruits in the early 1980s. I never said that. (Applicant’s Application Record, Vol. III,
727–728. Emphasis added.)
Not the cream of the crop of recruits, and possibly not even recruited to
Al Qaeda, it is Almrei’s profile as someone of possible use to Al Qaeda
that seals his fate. Almrei’s profile is that of an Arab man who went to
Afghanistan as a teenager to fight the Soviets in the 1980s and early 1990s.
When combined with the fact that he seems to know other Arab men, some
SHERENE H. RAZACK4
of whom have similar histories, the profile is enough for CSIS, and ulti-
mately the Court, to believe that he is someone who will engage in terrorism.
In the post 9/11 environment, few are surprised that individuals with life
histories such as Almrei’s should come to the attention of security services,
and perhaps for many, this life history suffices to make the case that Almrei
is a terrorist or will become one. At his hearing, the profile served both to
bring Almrei to the state’s attention and to finally indict him. No longer
simply about ‘‘targeting individuals who possess identifiable attributes
that is [sic] believed to bear positive statistical correlations to particular
kinds of misconduct’’ (Legomsky, 2005, p. 161), in the post 9/11 period the
profile performs an additional function. It both targets and condemns,
launching Hassan Almrei into a state of exception, a place in law where he
has limited due process rights. At the hearing, there is no need for evidence
of Almrei’s involvement in Al Qaeda. In any event, how does one prove
what someone will do?
Hassan Almrei’s situation arises out of a section of the Immigration Act of
Canada that authorizes security certificates and as such, the state of excep-
tion into which he is plunged is a part of the legal structure in which non-
citizens have fewer rights than do citizens. Security certificates did not begin
with the ‘‘war on terror’’ but they have become the ‘‘front line tools’’ used
by Canada to fight terrorism and their usage is now primarily directed at
Arabs and Muslims (Jackman, 2005). A security certificate, issued by the
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and the Solicitor General, and
authorized under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, permits the
detention and expulsion of non-citizens who are considered to be a threat to
national security. Detainees have no opportunity to be heard before a cer-
tificate is issued and a designated judge of the Federal Court reviews most of
the government’s case against the detainee in a secret hearing at which
neither the detainee nor his counsel is present. The detainee receives only a
summary of the evidence against him. Detention is mandatory for non-
permanent residents held under a security certificate and there is no pos-
sibility of release unless a person leaves Canada, the certificate is struck
down, or if 120 days have elapsed and deportation has still not taken place.
At this point, an application for release can be made. In contrast to non-
residents, permanent residents are entitled to a review of the detention order
after the first 48 hours and subsequently at six month intervals until a final
decision is made by a Federal Court judge concerning the security certifi-
cate. For ‘‘foreign nationals’’ and permanent residents alike, however, there
is no appeal with respect to the judge’s decision on the security certificate
and the test for the finding of the reasonableness of the certificate is a low
Race and National Security in Canada after 9/11 5

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