Islamic Center of America, Dearborn, Michigan
Why should Americans feel obligated to open our borders for Muslims to move here en masse? Foreign nationals in foreign countries do not have U.S. Constitutional rights. As the Supreme Court has held, an unadmitted and nonresident alien “had no constitutional right of entry to this country as a nonimmigrant or otherwise.” (Mandel, 408 U.S. at 762; see Plasencia, 459 U.S. at 32.) Beyond this fact, the president has plenary power over foreign affairs and this includes, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the power to suspend or impose restrictions on the entry of foreign nationals if he determines their entry “would be detrimental to the interest of the United States.” The president as commander-in-chief is given this power, not New York Times columnists, not wailing Democrats, not the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the many activists groups calling for massive increases in Muslim immigration.
Remarkably many supporters of enhanced vetting to protect Americans have gone into a protective crouch and have not articulated reasons why we should be very careful about admitting more and more Muslims into America.
But we should be concerned.
There are claims that not one Muslim from the seven nations named in Trump’s executive order has been implicated in terrorism. The New York Times in a lead editorial stated that not one person from those nations has engaged in terrorism, despite a Somalian refugee going on a rampage at Ohio State University last year. Seattle-based District Court Judge James Robart asked a federal prosecutor how many citizens of those seven countries were arrested for terrorism since September 11. “Let me tell you, the answer to that is none, as best as I can tell.”
Then he issued an injunction freezing Trump’s executive order. More significantly, even the San Francisco appeals court that upheld that injunction turned a blind eye (justice is supposed to be blind but not this type of blind) to the fact that 72 persons from the seven mostly Muslim nations covered by Trump’s extreme vetting order have been convicted of terrorism — not arrested, not indicted but convicted. Deroy Murdock of National Review provides a few thumbnail sketches of some of those immigrants who have terrorized or planned to terrorize Americans and is correct to conclude that Trump’s executive order is meant to protect us from real-life mayhem
Scott Johnson, one of the founders of Powerline, has one superb work in uncovering the terrorism epicenter that the Somalian community of his hometown of Minneapolis has become over the years. Many Syrian refugees (and many other refugees from other Muslim majority nations) support ISIS, according to a poll by the Arab Center for Policy and Research Studies; they harbor anti-Semitic and anti-Western ideologies and are primed to turn those views into action,
What has also been pronounced is the media blackout and amnesia over the litany of Muslim terror attacks over the years in America. Here is a sampling: the first World Trade Center bombing, 9/11, Boston Marathon massacre, San Bernardino, the Orlando nightclub massacre, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, the aforementioned Ohio State attack, and on and on and more to come (for a much longer list see, “A Complete List of Radical Islamic Terror Attacks on U.S. Soil Under Obama”). There have also been planned attacks that were not successfully completed, among them the Underwear Bomber and the plot to blow up Times Square.
Apologists are wont to say some of these attacks were done by U.S. citizens. That is true, but they are often the sons of Muslim immigrants, and members of the second generation of Muslim immigrants too often become alienated from America and radicalized by mosques in America or by online campaigns to stoke terrorism against America. The conclusion can be made that but for their parents moving to America there would be fewer murdered Americans.
Terror groups have openly boasted of their efforts to slip terrorists into the stream of immigrants coming into America from Muslim nations. James Comey, head of the FBI, and James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, warned that vetting procedures were inadequate to protect us from the threats of terrorists coming to America .
Sometimes the future is visible in the present, and this is one of those times, since we can see how the European experiment with open borders and welcoming of Muslim refugees has turned out for them: mass terror attacks that have become so routine that even James Taylor has given up trying to bring solace to the beleaguered and endangered Europeans. Crime waves have followed refugee waves. Too many Europeans have paid a price for the generosity they have shown to Muslims, who have reciprocated by upping their demands, truck attacks, nightclub attacks, stadium attacks, Louvre attacks, attacks on women, beheading of priests, desecration of churches, torture of Jews, London subway and bus bombings, and beheading a British soldier. Are there any safe zones for Europeans?
Is it any wonder most Europeans are opposed to further migration (a bar on further Muslim migration has wide majority support in Europe? A leaked German Intelligence report stated:
“We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population.”
According to the Federal Labor Office, the educational level of newly arrived migrants in Germany is far lower than expected: only a quarter have a high school diploma, while three quarters have no vocational training at all. Only 4% of new arrivals to Germany are highly qualified.
For now, the vast majority of migrants who entered Germany in 2015 and 2016 are wards of the German state. German taxpayers payed around €21.7 billion ($23.4 billion) on aid for refugees and asylum seekers in 2016, and will pay a similar amount in 2017.
A Finance Ministry document revealed that the migrant crisis could end up costing German taxpayers €93.6 billion ($101 billion) between now and 2020. About €25.7 billion would be for social spending, such as unemployment benefits and housing support. About €5.7 billion would be destined for language courses and €4.6 billion for integrating refugees into the workforce.
Mass migration has also increased the demand for housing and has pushed up rental costs for ordinary Germans. Some 350,000 new apartments are required each year to meet demand, but only 245,000 apartments were built in 2014, and another 248,000 in 2015, according to the Rheinische Post.
Meanwhile, migrants committed 208,344 crimes in 2015, according to a police report. This figure represented an 80% increase over 2014 and worked out to around 570 crimes committed by migrants every day, or 23 crimes each hour, between January and December 2015.
Mass migration is fast-tracking the rise of Islam in Germany, as evidenced by the proliferation of no-go zones, Sharia courts, polygamy, child marriages and honor violence. Mass migration has also been responsible for social chaos, including jihadist attacks, a migrant rape epidemic, a public health crisis, rising crime and a rush by German citizens to purchase weapons for self-defense — and even to abandon Germany altogether.
Rolling out a welcome mat for Muslim immigrants and purported refugees has wrought havoc in Europe.
Is this what we want in America?
President Trump’s executive order has been attacked on other specious grounds. One of them is that it mars America’s image. Yet, other nations sell residencies if migrants have enough money –and these nations include Canada and New Zealand. Six of the seven nations of Trump’s list bar entrance into their countries based on nationality. A number of Arab nations agree with Trump on the need for such an executive order. Contrary to claims from activists, the executive order is not recruiting more terrorists.
One might ask where is the gratitude from Muslims around the world for what America has done for them: America liberated Kuwait and Iraq from the murderous Saddam Hussein regime, established no fly and protected zones for them in Bosnia and Iraq, toppled the murderous Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, provided untold billions of dollars in aid over the years to Muslims throughout the world and allowed over 1.6 million Muslims to settle in America since 9/11, when we were attacked by Muslims in the name of Islam.
What have we received in return? Oil embargos, oil price gouging, terrorism and mass murder.
Emma Lazarus’s poem on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is not a law; nor is it a suicide note. The promise to open our doors to the needy has been met over America’s history. The poem was written for another age and another world. Activists might ignore facts and manipulate emotions to achieve their goals, but America should not be fooled and let down its shield. Concerns about safety is not a paranoid delusion but even if it were, sometimes it is true that only the paranoid survive. And as Joseph Heller put it, just because a person is paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t after you
