Former pizza deliveryman Ansar Mahmood, deported by the United States to Pakistan after becoming one of many Muslim men to face increased surveillance following the 9/11 attacks, says he has no bitterness toward America. Mahmood painfully recalls his three years in prison before his April 2005 expulsion from the United States, his adopted country, but prefers to remember the people who rallied to help him in Hudson, New York, the rural town he had called home.
“They are people with a clean and nice heart; this is the real USA,” Mahmood, 34, said from his village in northeastern Pakistan, where he drives a van taking people to and from their jobs and schools in the nearby city of Gujrat. “When people call from the USA I feel good in my heart. There are a lot of good people there,” Mahmood said.
Muslim men like Mahmood faced heightened scrutiny in the United States following the 9/11 attacks carried out by 19 hijackers aligned with the Islamic militant network al Qaeda.
