Muslim Immigrants

Muslim immigrants came to America from all different parts of the Middle East; Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, etc. They’ve been coming to America for centuries (voluntarily and involuntarily) for a number of reasons. First, they came as refugees due to tyranny, persecution, violent regime crimes, and poverty back in their home countries. There has been violence and civil strife in the Middle East involving religious and ethnic persecution. Also, there are problems involved with political ties involving the Shia and Shi’ite Muslims. Another reason for immigration to the U.S. has been because of education. By the 1990’s, U.S. colleges attracted over half a million foreign students. Most of these students decided to stay and get a job in America

A 1999 survey found that 52 percent of them have a graduate degree. Very often it is the best-educated who come to settle in the United States or Canada. Immigrant Muslims tend to concentrate in the professional and entrepreneurial vocations, and especially in engineering and medicine, which jointly employ about one-third of Muslims in the United States. With such high educational levels, it comes as no surprise that many members of this community have done well; average income for Muslims appears to be higher than the U.S. national average. Although new, the community boasts a significant number of millionaires as well as many other accomplished individuals (including one Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Ahmed H. Zewail, and such notables as the movie actor Omar Sharif, the professional basketball player Hakeem Olajuwon, and the model Iman). Muslim Americans proudly say that theirs is "the richest Muslim society on Earth," and they are right; more than that, it may be the most accomplished. In regards to income, twenty-eight percent of Muslim immigrants make approximately $75,000 or more on average

More than twelve hundred Muslim, Arab, and South Asian men were detained and held indefinitely, with no access to attorneys and not knowing why they were being held. The FBI interviewed thousands of Muslim immigrants over terrorist related activities and in October 2001 the Patriot Act was passed, giving the FBI more authority to monitor people suspected of suspicious activity. Later, the Department of Justice required noncitizen males ages sixteen and older to register with the government. The total number of registered men was 290,526 and of that number 13,799 were waiting for deportation and 2,870 were detained. There was also discrimination in housing and employment after 9/11. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, discrimination against immigrants more than doubled; by 2003 the EEOC received over eight hundred complaints of individuals that were fired or harassed due to their Muslim background. In Texas, the housing industry began asking applicants of citizenship status on applications and would charge higher rent to undocumented people, threatening to turn them into INS if they didn’t pay. In the finance industry, some major credit card companies such as American Express canceled cards for immigrants of Muslim decent if they couldn’t provide “appropriate documentation.” This