Posted by Bible Probe on September 10, 2006 at 10:36:13:
Sept. 10, 2006, 12:24AM
5 years after 9/11, Muslims moving to U.S. in droves
Statistics show almost 96,000 became citizens in 2005, the most in two decades
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
New York Times
NEW YORK — America's newest Muslims arrive in the afternoon crunch at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Their planes land from Dubai, Casablanca and Karachi. They stand in line, clasping documents. They emerge, sometimes hours later, steering their carts toward a flock of relatives, a stream of cabs, a new life.
This was the path for Nur Fatima, a Pakistani woman who moved to Brooklyn six months ago and promptly shed her hijab.
Through the same doors walked Nora Elhainy, a Moroccan who now sells electronics in Queens, and Ahmed Youssef, an Egyptian who settled in Jersey City, where he gives the call to prayer at a palatial mosque.
"I got freedom in this country," said Fatima, 25. "Freedom of everything. Freedom of thought."
The events of Sept. 11, 2001, transformed life for Muslims in the United States, and the flow of immigrants from countries like Egypt, Pakistan and Morocco thinned drastically.
40,000 admitted last year
But five years later, as the U.S. wrestles with questions of terrorism, civil liberties and immigration control, Muslims appear to be moving here again in surprising numbers, according to statistics compiled by the Department of Homeland Security and the Census Bureau.
Immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia are planting new roots in states from Virginia to Texas to California.
•In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent U.S. residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades.
•More than 40,000 more were admitted last year, the highest annual number since the terrorist attacks, according to data on 22 countries provided by the Department of Homeland Security.
Many have made the journey unbowed by tales of immigrant hardship, and despite their own opposition to U.S. policy in the Middle East.
According to a range of experts and immigrants, Muslims come seeking the same promise that has continued to draw foreigners to the United States: economic opportunity and political freedom.
'The promised land'
"America has always been the promised land for Muslims and non-Muslims," said Behzad Yaghmaian, an Iranian exile and author of Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West.
"Despite Muslims' opposition to America's foreign policy, they still come here, because the United States offers what they're missing at home."
For Fatima, it was the freedom to dress as she chose and work as a security guard.
For Youssef, it was the chance to earn a master's degree.
He came in spite of the deep misgivings that he and many other Egyptians have about the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. In America, he said, one needs to distinguish between the government and the people.
"Who am I dealing with, Bush or the American public?" Youssef said .
"Am I dealing with my future in Egypt or my future here?"
Reference: here
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