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  • 2014-12-10 (xsd:date)
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  • Fatima Noor Appointed to Homeland Security (en)
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  • On 3 July 2014, the University of Memphis announced three of their graduate students, including a woman named Fatima Noor, had landed full-time positions with the Obama administration: The announcement stirred up consternation in some circles because Noor appears Muslim in pictures: She does not identify her religious affiliation on her LinkedIn profile, but she was photographed wearing a hijab for her profile on the Muslim Media Network. This circumstance prompted the disreputable Before It's News web site to publish an article titled ALERT! Obama Appointment Fatima Noor Asst Director for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration! WHAT! on 31 August 2014. The article quoted directly from the University of Memphis announcement but incorrectly identified Noor's position at USCIS as assistant director. Fatima Noor was born in war-torn Somalia but was relocated to a refugee camp in Kenya early in childhood, grew up living in the care of a relative in Denmark, was eventually reunited with her parents and siblings in Memphis after her father settled in Tennessee as a refugee, and became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 2013: According to the Memphis Business Journal, the position landed by Noor (she was not appointed by President Obama himself, nor was she assigned a high-level position) was one typically filled by graduates of Ivy League schools. Rosie Phillips Bingham, vice president for Student Affairs at the University of Memphis, said of Noor's appointment: Of course, the heart of this item is an expression of mistrust that someone who is both foreign-born and a Muslim should be employed by the Department of Homeland Security, a position from which she could supposedly facilitate the admittance of fellow travelers (i.e., terrorists) into the U.S. — even though she has spent virtually all of her life living in Western democratic countries and is a U.S. citizen. We note that her description of her USCIS duties hardly lends credence to that notion, as she was not involved in reviewing or approving citizenship or passport applications: In a 29 June 2015 White House blog post, Fatima Noor is now described as a Policy Analyst for Immigration and Rural Affairs. (en)
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