Refugees and asylees belong to a protected class several times over. Not only are they immigrants of a specific type, they are also official Victims as certified by the United Nations. In addition, most are racially diverse and non-Christian, so unkind words are disallowed lest the PC Thought Police punish cultural realists who don’t worship the secular religion of diversity. No matter how non-assimilating, criminal or jihad-inclined a tribe may be, America recklessly continues to accept thousands yearly as part of a liberal First World penance for prosperity. Left wingers assume the United States became successful via oppression (even though we have no history of colonies), not through superior principles like free markets, political equality, and the rule of law.
As an example of Washington’s ill-considered rescue projects, take the Somalis—please! They are arguably the most troublesome mega-clan ever to arrive in this country, with their affinity for violent crime, polygamy, sharia, and rip-offs of every sort. They number at least 32,000 in Minnesota, with many located in Minneapolis. Somalis’ violent street gangs have grown into vast criminal enterprises, as shown by the arrests of dozens of Somalis in three states in November 2010 for child prostitution, safe cracking, and car theft. Other evidence points to an international reach of crime that includes credit card fraud, burglary, and witness tampering.
In May, a brave filmmaker named Ami Horo-
witz visited a Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis and asked a number of young
men what they thought about the American system compared with Islamic sharia
law. The video was widely posted on anti-jihad websites and even got some play
on TV because of the rather shocking number who openly rejected this country.
HOROWITZ: Do you feel more comfortable living under American law or do you feel more comfortable living under sharia law?
SOMALI MAN: Uh, sharia.
ANOTHER SOMALI: I’m a Muslim. I prefer sharia law.
A THIRD SOMALI: Sharia law, yes.
HOROWITZ: Do you prefer Sharia law over American law?
A FOURTH SOMALI: Of course, yes.
HOROWITZ: Do you find most of your friends feel the same way?
FOURTH SOMALI: Yeah, of course, if you’re a Muslim, yeah.
When did immigration become an exercise in masochism? Worse, admitting persons who adhere to an enemy ideology—jihadist Islam that wants to rule the planet—is a serious national security threat. Dozens of Somalis have returned to their homeland to pursue war for Allah and learn soldier skills. In fact, Shirwa Ahmed, a seemingly assimilated Minneapolis high school graduate who shot hoops and attended the prom, was an early suicide bomber from the U.S. when he blew up 30 persons in Mogadishu in 2008.
Unsurprisingly, U.S.-residing Somalis who don’t care for long-distance travel have been urged by their jihadist homeland brethren in Al Shabaab to blow stuff up in America. A big target is the enormous Mall of America, where 100,000 people shop daily and which is located near diverse Minneapolis. Security precautions at the shopping center were increased after the 2013 Nairobi, Kenya mall massacre, in which over 60 shoppers were killed by Shabaab shooters.
In February of 2015, Shabaab jihadists created a video calling for Muslims in Minnesota to attack the Mall of America. Nobody knows how many viewers regarded the video with approval, but the excellent Refugee Resettlement Watch blog has reported that 100,000 Somalis have been admitted to the U.S. and immigration continues to this day at a rate of 800 per month. A number we don’t have is the dollar cost that the Mall of America spends to protect its patrons from government-mandated diversity in the region, but the expense is surely substantial.
Somalis in Minnesota have been convicted of funding terrorism also, indicating that financial support for jihad was pursued locally. Hawo Mohamed Hassan and Amina Farah Ali got 10- and 20-year prison sentences respectively in 2013 for creating a “deadly pipeline” of cash to Shabaab fighters in Somalia. The women went door to door in Somali enclaves asking for donations for the “poor” (or so they claimed), but the cash was headed for Shabaab soldiers.
The latest Islamic enemies to be welcomed into America are the Syrians, millions of whom have been displaced by the current war. The population of Syria is 90 percent Muslim, and curiously few non-Muslim Syrians have been considered by Washington for resettlement. In May, 14 Senate Democrats, including Minority Whip Dick Durbin, called on Obama to resettle at least 65,000 Syrian refugees as directed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who apparently calls the shots on such things, and not for the benefit of Americans.
There is no way to verify the Syrians are not jihad enthusiasts because as refugees they are separated from their communities, and therefore their normal identifying associations are missing. America should have learned this lesson from the would-be mass murderers Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hamadi, Iraqis who were resettled as refugees in Kentucky. Alwan was a soldier in the Iraqi army who fought against Americans as a sniper and bomb maker whose fingerprint was found on an IED. The case prompted rescreening of the 58,000 other Iraqi refugees at considerable cost and effort, which turned up dozens of other likely enemies.
Another concerning policy is the Obama administration’s decision last year to loosen the standards by which asylum seekers are admitted, specifically for the purpose of getting more Syrians: a Reuters headline (2/5/14) read “U.S. eases rules to admit more Syrian refugees.”
In a February 6, 2014, press release, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) observed “at least 70 percent of asylum applications contained warning signs of fraud,” and further commented:
In light of these and other facts, it is thus deeply alarming that the Obama Administration would move unilaterally to relax admissions standards for asylum-seekers and potentially numerous other applicants for admission who have possible connections to insurgent or terrorist groups. This includes terror groups not yet designated: Al Qaeda was not designated by the Department of State as a foreign terrorist organization until 1999—long after the first attack on the World Trade Center. The 2011 case of suspected terror operatives from Iraq being admitted to the U.S. only further underscores that our immigration system lacks the safeguards necessary to protect our country. We need to tighten security standards for asylum, not relax them even further.
In a February hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Chairman Mike McCaul expressed doubt about the policy of admitting potentially dangerous Syrian refugees to America. The hearing was titled, “Countering Violent Islamist Extremism: The Urgent Threat of Foreign Fighters and Homegrown Terror.” Chairman McCaul concluded his opening statement with the following paragraph:
I am very disappointed that the State Department chose not to send a witness here today. The threats we are discussing are serious, and the State Department plays a key role in combating them. I recently sent a letter to the White House expressing my concerns over the Department’s desire to resettle tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in the United States. I am worried ISIS could exploit this effort in order to deploy operatives to America via a federally funded jihadi pipeline.
As it happens, war is a rather common situation in nations populated by followers of the so-called Religion of Peace. On World Refugee Day in June 2014, the New York Times headlined “Refugees at Levels Not Seen Since World War II,” to point out the extreme numbers of displaced persons. An Associated Press article at the time listed nations generating the most refugees, with the top three being Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria, which all have Muslim-on-Muslim wars, either tribal or religious.
Hostile Islam is the major refugee generator on the planet, yet we in the West are supposed to clean up the mess and not even expect the refugees to disavow the ideology that created their difficulty as a prerequisite for admission. Islamic refugees should remain within the worldwide Muslim community (called the “ummah”), and not be rescued by the West. The dysfunction that Islam creates should fall on Islam, not us. Allah’s loyal subjects do not rescue Christians, Jews or Buddhists; Muslims instead kill infidels.
Furthermore, why would we trust the government to even try to investigate Syrian refugees? The process certainly failed with the Tsarnaev family, even after Russian intelligence warned counterpart U.S. agencies that they were dangerous characters. The 2013 Boston Marathon terror bombing was an intelligence failure that should have been preventable if refugees weren’t treated with kid gloves. The two bombs killed three and seriously injured 264, including at least 14 persons losing limbs. The same government bureaucrats that allowed the Tsarnaev brothers to commit jihad in downtown Boston during an iconic event wants us to trust them again with the Syrians.
Chairman McCaul investigated whether any lessons were learned from the attack during a hearing one year later, noting in his opening statement:
We found that several red flags and warnings were missed. We found that Tamerlan was on the radar of the FBI and somehow dropped off. We found that Tamerlan travelled to Dagestan, known for its Chechen terrorists. This is precisely what the Russian letter warned our Intelligence Community and FBI about. He came back even more radicalized. We also found that unfortunately Customs, FBI, and the IC somehow missed it. Arrogantly, some U.S. officials said “It would not have made a difference” if they had known about his overseas travel. We now know that a check of his public social media would have shown indicators such as Jihadists video postings. His Mosque had seen escalating behavior as well. It likely would have been clear that he was becoming more and more of a threat to the community.
So a family of likely hostile Muslims was admitted to the U.S. even after several warning signs. America’s permissive immigration system is understood by our enemies as an easy way to infiltrate. In January, California Senator Dianne Feinstein remarked to CNN, “I think there are sleeper cells not only in France but certainly in other countries and, yes, in our own.” Even so, the former Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence remains an open-borders Democrat who apparently believes immigration diversity is more important than national safety.
Such is the strength of diversity ideology
that almost no one has spoken in favor of ending Muslim immigration for the
safety of the nation and the American people. Fox News host Tucker Carlson and
Rev. Franklin Graham are two rare examples.
Islam is an ideology of violent supremacy, a virus that is highly damaging when injected into naive countries via Muslim immigration. We should resist the do-gooder rescue impulse trumpeted by unrealistic liberals. Islam is at war with us, even if Washington hasn’t noticed, and the first rule of national security is don’t let the enemy inside the gates.