Dressed in a navy suit and red tie, his hair parted neatly on the side, Special Agent Charles E. Frahm sat with practiced calm as Muslims rose, one after another, to hurl raw complaints at him. Mr. Frahm, who heads the counterterrorism division of the F.B.I. in New York, was at a banquet hall in the Midwood section of Brooklyn on Thursday night to listen, he had told the hundreds of residents gathered there.
And they responded. They were tired of being held for hours at airports when their names resembled those of suspected terrorists, they said. They were tired of seeing Muslims arrested on immigration charges. They were tired of having their mosques watched, their businesses scrutinized.
“America is our land!” Faruq Wadud, a Bangledeshi man, hollered hoarsely into the microphone as the room broke into a thunderous applause. “We are not foreigners! Our children, this is their motherland!”