More than 1,200 immigrants were swept up after Sept. 11, and 762 were imprisoned. Agents came knocking in the middle of the night. If the person they were looking for wasn't there, they'd take any illegal immigrants who were. As an April 2003 report by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General makes clear, the vast majority had no connection to terrorism.

The Pakistani community was hit particularly hard -- 33 percent of Sept. 11 detainees came from Pakistan. Far worse, though, was special registration, a program instituted in November 2002, which required men from most Muslim countries to report to authorities to be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed. Of the roughly 85,000 who came forward, over 13,000 were put into deportation proceedings, often leaving their wives and American-born children behind.

Razvi estimates that COPO has helped about 100 families who were split up by post 9/11 deportations. Because Little Pakistan is a traditional neighborhood full of first-generation immigrants, women often don't work, and are thus left without income when their husbands are thrown out of the country. Razvi often visits them himself to see what they need. If the families have children who are American citizens, COPO helps the women get food stamps; if they're ineligible, Razvi gives them grocery money. For some, donations from COPO are their only lifeline.

The families of deportees aren't the only ones facing hardship. Singh says that many in the neighborhood were so shaken by the deportations that about 20,000 left, either returning to Pakistan or seeking asylum in Canada. The sudden decrease in population sank the local economy, leading around 30 local shops to close.

The pressure on the community has made learning English and understanding America's immigration laws all the more crucial. During special registration, COPO held 51 legal clinics, providing free legal help to 617 people. It also offers free English-as-a-second-language classes, free computer classes and free citizenship test preparation classes.

The English classes function as a subtle kind of female empowerment. Razvi says that Pakistani men are often wary of letting their wives and daughters take classes with strangers, but because he's well known in the community, women from strict families are allowed to go to COPO. "I know women who've lived 14 years within these two blocks, that's all they know," says Razvi. "So many ladies here used to take their kids with them to the hospital for translation. Can you imagine going to a gynecologist and bringing a child with you to translate?" Learning English frees them, he says. "Now women feel like they're back in power."

COPO's Marc Fallon also runs an all-girl photography club that exposes some of the area's sheltered young women to the riches of their city. Its 20 members get free cameras, film and developing, and are encouraged to photograph every corner of New York. "We tell them, before listening to the dogma and orthodoxies of others, try and experiment on your own," Singh says. "We take them to different neighborhoods -- Chinatown, Jackson Heights, Harlem. I say, 'Know your city. Know your neighborhood. Know where you are and try to find a space for yourself.'"

For boys, Singh has organized a basketball league -- with Midwood's Orthodox Jews. So far, there are about 50 kids who play together. Thus even while Muslims and Jews are shooting at each other in the Middle East, they're shooting hoops in Brooklyn. "There's a large Jewish community right next to us, and we've never had even one incident," Razvi says.

Even as they work to open minds in Midwood, Singh sees a growing religious radicalism in the neighborhood. "On Coney Island Avenue, the kids are dressing more traditionally. They're more inclined toward orthodoxy," he says. Conservative Islam has become a kind of rebellion against a society that marginalizes them. "They think, 'People are negating it, I'm going to do it more,'" Singh says.

He's not naive about people's potential for sectarian brutality. After all, he comes from India, where communities that had been intertwined for centuries slaughtered each other during the partition riots that followed Indian independence. Still, he maintains a defiant optimism that kids who play basketball together will have a harder time hating each other as they grow older. He believes that even though ethnic and religious nationalism seems to be ascendant worldwide, liberalism can prevail among the next generation.

"Young people, they want results that are positive and fast," he says. "They are truthful and they are radical. They want change for the better."

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