The Obama administration on Thursday submitted a rule change to be published in the federal registry Friday to shut down the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), the post-9/11 registry of visitors to the United States from 25 nations with terrorist activity. All but one of the 25 nations were majority-Muslim. The move comes after the outgoing president was urged to eliminate NSEERS before President-elect Donald Trump could use it as a basis for the "Muslim registry" he and his surrogates have proposed in varying iterations.
Previously suspended in 2011, NSEERS registered some 85,000 people and removed about 13,000 immigrants, most of them Muslim, from the United States. Despite that volume of surveillance, the defunct program never produced a single terrorism-related prosecution.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The mounting tensions between Thailand and CambodiaThe Explainer Long-running border disputes are at a decade high, as protesters in Thailand demand the prime minister's resignation
-
The unravelling of 'trolls' paradise' Tattle LifeIn the Spotlight Unmasking of founder sends shockwaves through toxic gossip forum
-
Codeword: June 30, 2025The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
Canadian man dies in ICE custodySpeed Read A Canadian citizen with permanent US residency died at a federal detention center in Miami
-
GOP races to revise megabill after Senate rulingsSpeed Read A Senate parliamentarian ruled that several changes to Medicaid included in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" were not permissible
-
Supreme Court lets states ax Planned Parenthood fundsSpeed Read The court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot sue South Carolina over the state's effort to deny it funding
-
Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat goneSpeed Read 'The war is done' and 'we destroyed the nuclear,' said President Trump
-
Trump embraces NATO after budget vow, charm offensiveSpeed Read The president reversed course on his longstanding skepticism of the trans-Atlantic military alliance
-
Trump judge pick told DOJ to defy courts, lawyer saysSpeed Read Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat, stands accused of encouraging government lawyers to mislead the courts and defy judicial orders
-
Mamdani upsets Cuomo in NYC mayoral primarySpeed Read Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani beat out Andrew Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary
-
Supreme Court clears third-country deportationsSpeed Read The court allowed Trump to temporarily resume deporting migrants to countries they aren't from
