On June 29, 1998, then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, along with other Clinton Administration officials, met with representatives of several Arab-American groups including the Arab American Institute. Holder told the group that of 24 pending secret evidence trials — where an individual was accused of plotting terrorism or supporting terrorism, in circumstances where much of the evidence gathered to indict and convict the person is classified — all but one or two were against Arabs or Muslims.
[What? Oh, you thought the Bush administration invented using “secret evidence” to justify detaining immigrants suspected of terrorism or ties to terrorists? Oh, heck no – about 50 individuals were detained on the basis of secret evidence just from 1992 to 1998.]
It would be interesting to know if Holder felt that having 22 or 23 out of 24 individuals of the same race or ethnicity facing the same charges constitutes racial profiling, and if not, how that differs from other situations which he has deemed “racial profiling.” If it is possible that one ethnic or religious group may be overrepresented in the perpetrators of one type of crime, why isn’t it possible that another ethnic or religious group may be overrepresented in the perpetrators of another type of crime?