In what looks like an obvious case of Islamophobia, the American Civil Liberties Union has discovered a covert American national security program used to profile innocent Muslims as "national security concerns."

The ALCU said the program began under former president George W. Bush and was used to identify people with links to terrorists. The program has continued over the years and is still in use today.

"USCIS has been blacklisting law-abiding applicants . . . based on lawful religious activity, national origin, and innocuous associations. Once blacklisted, these aspiring Americans are barred from obtaining immigration benefits to which they are legally entitled," said the report by the ALCU.

"Although the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids USCIS from creating its own rules of naturalization, it secretly has done precisely that under CARRP," the report also said.

This is a sad reflection of the Islamophobia that has permeated the United States since Sept. 11, 2001 and before. It has been proven that Islamophobia has even grown exponentially since the attacks of Sept. 11; a Guardian poll taken five years after 9/11 showed that the majority of Americans believed that Islam had the most violent followers.

But the reality is that there is an atmosphere of hysteria that has many people jumping to profile and generalize based on no reasonable factors.

A poll taken by the Pew Research Center this past May found that most people think that Muslims are discriminated against more than LGBT people, blacks, Hispanics, and women.

Christopher Bentley, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Services, was quoted in The Guardian saying that immigrants applying for benefits are routinely checked.

"We are vigilant in executing these responsibilities, and will not sacrifice national security or public safety in the interest of expediting the review of benefit applications," Bentley said in a statement.