SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 17: American Arabs and Muslims increasingly became targets of ethnic profiling following 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, says the US Commission on Civil Rights in a report that was finished in September but not publicly discussed until after this month's presidential election.

"Law enforcement officials' underlying prejudices and presumptions of guilt tainted routine security procedures. Profiling criteria came to include ethnicity, national origin and religion a heightened scrutiny and harassment at airports (and) selective enforcement of visa regulations," the report said.

"Arab Americans and Muslims complained that airline personnel and airport security denied them access to aircraft and subjected them to unwarranted searches and harassment. In some instances, airport security removed individuals from planes because members of the crew or passengers did not 'feel safe'," the Commission report said.

The civil rights commission is an independent agency of the federal government. Four of its eight commissioners are appointed by the president and four by Congress, and no more than four members can belong to the same political party.

After 9/11, "securing the nation's borders became the administration's most urgent job," the report pointed out. "Arab and Muslim immigrants and visitors were identified as a 'dangerous class'," according to the report, "signalling the government's intention to deny them entry into the country whenever possible. America's borders thus became more tightly controlled, and certain immigrants bore the burden of the administration's policies."

The civil rights commission found that within two months, by November 2001, "the Department Of Justice had detained more than 1,100 men of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent. DOJ did not reveal who it had detained, the reasons for detention nor where detainees were held, not even to their families."

Many detainees alleged mistreatment by prison guards, including being hosed down with cold water, strip-searched, forced to sleep upright in freezing conditions, denied food or legal representation, and kept in their cells for long periods, the report said.

Since 9/11, the FBI and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services have arrested and detained some 5,000 people on 'terror-related' charges. There have been no convictions. However, many detainees have been deported, most of them for minor visa violations.

The commission's report concludes that the administration's policy changes "have left immigrants unprotected and unfairly treated. New immigration policies have created a dual system of rights and protections based largely on national origin, race, and ethnicity."