As most of you probably know, a federal judge has blocked portions of President Trump’s executive order pertaining to refugees from 7 Muslim majority nations. Josh Blackman has published a good summary of what this injunction accomplishes, as well as a copy of the temporary restraining order itself. According to reports, it applies to a few hundred foreigners who were either on American soil or on their way to the United States before the EO was issued. Although these individuals have temporary avoided the fate of the character portrayed by Tom Hanks in The Terminal, it’s worth noting that there are much bigger issues at stake in this debate.

The open borders know nothings have deftly exploited the ignorance of large swathes of the American public to score a public relations victory against a man whom they’ve impotently warred against for over a year. Ironically, one of the refugees Democratic partisans claimed to be rescuing was able to succinctly explain why our new President’s immigration policies were in fact pretty reasonable. Beyond the simple observation that this executive order is not a ban on Muslim refugees, we have to confront the truly bizarre notion that our current refugee resettlement policy is somehow beneficial to American citizens. While some armchair analysts on social media have made the assertion that this is not the point of refugee resettlement-a point on which we agree-others have claimed that not importing tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from abroad poses a risk of future terrorism. By this token, Japan-which has a de facto ban on Muslim immigration-should be as unlivable as Afghanistan or Pakistan. Or, at the very least, have as many terrorist attacks as Turkey.

It’s a patently absurd suggestion, yet one which is repeated without shame by open borders apologists who have no rational justification for our country’s bizarre refugee resettlement program. Just as the beliefs of Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande-two European leaders who have presided over an unprecedented spree of Muslim terror within their countries-is a laughable excuse to invite in potential security risks, so to is the misguided notion that we’re creating terrorists by not letting potential terrorists onto American soil. Nearly half of the refugees admitted to the United States, and over 30% of those admitted since the 9/11 attacks, are Muslim. To comprehend why this is such a problem you need only scroll through a week’s worth of posts on Refugee Resettlement Watch.

Leaving aside the potential for terrorism-both domestically and abroad-exploitation of the welfare system, and crime, there’s the fundamental incompatibility of cultures. As the economist Nassim Taleb has pointed out, Americans expect foreigners who come here to accept American values and customs-and at a bare minimum, not to impose their values upon us. Whether or not this is a realistic expectation is another matter, but the idea that every person coming here does so because they want to become part of American society-a notion regurgitated endlessly by open borders advocates-is simply preposterous.

Even those who don’t pose a direct threat to the health and safety of American citizens-who don’t engage in honor killings, as dozens of Muslims families in the United States do each year-hold beliefs that are fundamentally at odds with those which shaped this nation. While those views are normal in Iraq, Somalia, or Syria, they are not in the United States, and we should not attempt to normalize them-to borrow a phrase from the unhinged left. President Trump’s order, however crudely executed, was the right thing to do. Hopefully, it’s just the beginning of a completely new approach to this vital issue.

Although the law which fundamentally transformed this nation does not bear his name, the late Senator Edward Kennedy was one of the chief architects of legislation which unleashed the tsunami of unfettered immigration, the effects of which we will be dealing with for many generations to come. Like almost every bill or momentous policy supported by a member of the Kennedy clan, this drastic alteration of America’s traditional system of immigration was predicated upon lies. 

First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same … Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset … Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia … In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.

A cursory examination of reports and press releases from the Census Bureau or Bureau of Labor Statistics, or simply a stroll through Little Mogadishu , demonstrates the sophistry used so skillfully by the supporters of the ’65 Immigration and Nationality Act. Journalist Julia Hahn has dissected some of the most baleful effects of this law over at Breitbart, which has distinguished itself for its insightful, unvarnished and fact-based analysis of this subject in recent years. If only the rest of the Fourth Estate acted as responsibly, perhaps we’d have a much different country.

If you needed another reason why endowing Iran with nuclear weapons is a colossally bad idea, look no further than the latest manifestation of the Religion of Peace. The massacre at Garissa University in Kenya has taken the lives of nearly 150 Christians. Less than half a dozen well-trained Muslim terrorists armed with semi-automatic weapons and improvised explosive devices were able to murder the civilian equivalent of a company of soldiers with ease. And yet the notion of a genocidal Islamic state with ballistic missile capability being accepted into the nuclear club is something the global community greets with a shrug, at best.

How many more slayings of helpless infidels are necessary before we collectively abandon this increasingly macabre version of Groundhog Day? Only time will tell, but I’m not looking forward to the answer.

Kudos to our good friends at Urban Infidel and The Silent Majority No More for doing the job our nation’s gatekeepers have so conspicuously forsaken, as well as Glenn Beck for highlighting a story that’s been kept hidden from the American public. Even as a  white English convert to Islam wreaks havoc across international borders, the moral degeneracy of an elite class which has planted a culture completely alien, and resolutely hostile, to the fundamental precepts of western civilization firmly in our soil. It’s time we started to listen to the Cassandras of our culture, instead of allowing politically correct, morally and intellectually bankrupt solons in the media, academe and popular culture to dictate how we discuss matters of life and death.

We need to wake up

It should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention that among the jihadists responsible for perpetrating this massacre, several hail from the community of Somali Muslim refugees resettled in the United States. A community whose troubles have been amply documented on this site, among others. Rather than belabor a point which we’ve explored on numerous occasions, I ask you to listen to the profoundly moving words of a man who, controversial past aside, embodies the resolve of a nation determined to withstand the unholy war waged by civilization’s foes. 

The latest information on the massacre by al Shabaab jihadists, as well as the continuing hostage crisis inside of Westgate, courtesy of BBC News.

In addition to compounding the government’s fiscal insolvency and further marginalizing the most economically disadvantaged segments of American society, the newest amnesty proposal-should it be enacted-will create even more national security nightmares. Michael Cutler-himself responsible for safeguarding national security in his many decades working for the Immigration and Naturalization Service-explores some of the disastrous implications of “earned” legalization in an examination of this issue for Accuracy in Media.

As infuriating as it is to watch elderly foreigners exploit a welfare state that is already functionally bankrupt, the danger posed by the imminent wave of naturalized illegal aliens is even greater. Whether it’s Al Qaeda field marshals or Somalian suicide bombers, the record of the federal immigration bureaucracy for discernment in this regard is poor, at best. What new horrors await after 15-20 million more illegal aliens are green-lighted for American citizenship-with all the invaluable documents such status confers?

Much like Obamacare, I suppose we’ll just have to wait for it to be forced upon us to find out.

One of the themes we’ve emphasized on American Rattlesnake this year is the damage inflicted upon American society by ill-conceived policies of refugee resettlement carried out by the federal government. Unlike past generations of refugees who came here from nations behind the Iron Curtain, Cuba, or other Communist states, the ones transplanted to the United States now are not educated, white collar elites or aspiring middle class professionals who have been dispossessed of their property and wealth by tyrannical despots. Unlike the much-maligned Polish plumbers who have migrated to the United Kingdom in order to increase their earnings before returning home, they are also not temporary visitors. To the contrary, many of them have little-and some have no-formal education, and thus are encouraged to exploit our generous welfare programs by self-interested parties known as VOLAGs. Like the Kurdish refugees in Tennessee described by Don Barnett in his speech to the Penn Club earlier this year, immigrants from Somalia have had extreme difficulty adapting to life in the United States. Although some have prospered and contributed to the enrichment of American culture, more often than not we associate them with undesirable activities such as inspiring or carrying out suicide bomb attacks against their native countrymen.

Although that horrific act is anomalous, it is by no means unique. As the testimony of Abdirizak Bihi before the House of Representatives made clear, the divided identity experienced by many Somali Americans serves as a fertile recruiting ground for pan-Islamic jihadist organizations like Al Qaeda and its affiliates. What’s more, the much more widespread problems of drug abuse, violence-especially the type linked to organized crime-and welfare exploitation are endemic to large swathes of these communities. The dichotomous nature of this group of refugees and their children is epitomized by Fathia Absie, a freelance writer, journalist, and filmmaker born in Somalia who has lived nearly her entire adult life in the United States.

Although her American experience is the type of success story advocates of mass immigration love to cite on behalf of this country’s questionable refugee resettlement policies, the new lives of her immediate family and distant relatives is of a completely different hue. In fact, their stories are prime illustrations of why the sort of chain migration facilitated by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act has been such a monumental public policy error. The story of Fathia’s  sister-very similar to that of Haweya, the emotionally disturbed sister of iconoclastic writer, dissident and women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose tragic life ended prematurely-is of particular interest, because it illustrates the problem with the prevailing misconception that every refugee will adjust to life in his or her adopted country swimmingly.

I urge you all to listen to this touching story, told during the Moth Radio Hour, which raises a number of troubling questions about the wisdom of this country’s policy of resettling entire families of refugees from strife-ridden, pre-industrial third world nations into the American heartland. My Sister’s Keeper is worth hearing not only because it is a riveting human interest story, but because it demonstrates in a concrete way the problem with assuming that every refugee who arrives on our shores is going to become the model immigrant extolled by advocates of open borders.

Video of Frank Gaffney’s speech can be found on Urban Infidel.

One of the unofficial mottos of the United States, this phrase-which is minted on this country’s coins and emblazoned upon our paper bills-embodies the common heritage of the American nation, which was created from the union of thirteen distinct, unique former British colonies. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it came to symbolize the melting pot forged from a collection of people who came to the United States from various European nations in order to reconstitute their lives.

It is a concept that, like many of its inhabitants, has become alien to contemporary America. We now live in a country comprised from a polyglot agglomeration of foreign tribes, individuals and extended families, many of whom would be unable to assimilate to American culture even if a coherent one still existed and they were encouraged to do so, both dubious propositions.

One of the most persistent questions raised by the September 11th attacks, and recurring periodically since, e.g. during the debate over the construction of Park 51, the debacle that the trial of Ft. Hood jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan has occasioned, and other terrorist attacks conceived by native or naturalized American citizens, has  revolved around whether Islam as it’s practiced today can be reconciled with traditional American values embodied in documents like the United States Constitution.

This question is what brought Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, to the Women’s National Republican Club last week, where he addressed the “civilizational jihad” he asserts Islamists are waging against the United States, as well as the West more broadly conceived. While the sight of Mr. Gaffney delivering a policy address is far from unusual, the fact that the event was hosted by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies reflects a growing recognition among some conservatives-albeit, not all-that our nation’s immigration policy has a deep and profound influence upon national security and foreign policy concerns.

While some believe that the growing diminution of the traditional demographic profile of America will lead to a more pacific, non-interventionist foreign policy-analogizing it to the anti-war sentiment which prevailed in this country before its entry into World War I-it can be argued that the government’s embrace of heretofore foreign ethnic and religious groups will foster an even more aggressive, and in many ways detrimental, foreign policy, which might well endanger American diplomats, servicemen and civilians in the future-as it has in the recent past. What’s more, the union of multinational jihadist platforms with digital technology has given an entire generation of Arab, Asian and African Muslim young men who are essentially unmoored-having been transplanted to a foreign land at a young age-a distinct cultural and political identity; one which involves the replacement of Western norms and mores with a muscular, revanchist interpretation of Islam. The fact that the dominant legal, cultural, and political class have spent the past five decades attempting to minimize or nullify these very same values speeds their mission.

A perfect illustration of this dilemma was discussed by Frank Gaffney in relation to the Somali community within Minnesota, which now numbers in the tens of thousands. Resettled in previously homogeneous, tranquil parts of the United States at the urging of a United Nations bureaucracy and with the assistance of the U.S. State Department, these refugees have children who are now returning to the homeland of their parents and enlisting in battle against the Transitional Federal Government which our government helped to establish and killing African Union peacekeepers whose mission it ostensibly supports. Beyond the validity of their refugee claims-many of which are wholly fraudulent-there is the inescapable conclusion one must draw that the wealth confiscated from American citizens in the form of taxes-and lavished upon social welfare programs necessitated by the Somalis inability to support themselves or their families legally-is being used in some small measure to defray the cost of living of those who intend on blowing other people up.

In addition to the expense-born in our pocketbooks and  in the gradual erosion of American community-of this experiment, there is the the genuine threat posed by a large segment of migrants who dislike this country both because of specific foreign policy decisions and concrete Koranic injunctions. It beggars belief that the federal government would seek to import scores of foreigners from third world nations whose populations harbor significant hostility towards America while at the same time another branch of the state engages in nation-building experiments and military operations in those very same lands. The fact that this process is facilitated by the United Nations, a world body whose values are diametrically opposed to those cherished by most Americans, strains credulity.

One of the points emphasized throughout Gaffney’s lecture was the global, multidimensional nature of the jihadist threat. He focused extensively on the case of a particular individual who was detained while he and his hijab-clad wife filmed the support structure of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, an incident which would ultimately lead to one of the most critical pieces of evidence introduced during the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, at the time the largest Islamic charity in the United States. The HLF was eventually revealed to be not only a financial conduit for Hamas but also part of a network of institutions within the United States which were created under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to achieve their ideological goals on American soil.

Although it might seem absurd to believe that bedrock American institutions can be undermined by a small coterie of Islamic ideologues, you have to consider the havoc the institutional left has already inflicted upon our society. An Iraqi refugee-with prior criminal offenses-has been charged with maliciously damaging federal property for attempting to destroy a Social Security Administration office with an improvised explosive device! The systematic execution of over a dozen soldiers by Nidal Malik Hasan is deemed a case of  ‘workplace violence’ by our federal government. A premeditated jihadist assault on LAX’s El Al terminal is not even considered a hate crime, and the head of the Justice Department cannot even utter the name of the religion whose doctrines inspired the man who attempted to obliterate Times Square with an explosive device which dwarfed that used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

In this context, it’s not difficult to see how a machiavellian political apparatchik with an outsized influence over the conservative movement, or an influential Democratic congressmen popular among both leftists and militant Muslims, or a presidential advisor with dubious ties to apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood can do permanent harm, especially when constitutional rights like freedom of speech are being used as bargaining chips in relations with the Muslim world.

The fact that a would-be facilitator of regicide and terrorist financier was able to enter the good graces of a sitting president and establish a program for Muslim chaplains, which still exists, because of the oleaginous influence of someone who purports to represent American Muslims illustrates the toxic combination of  identity politics and K street lobbying. And while some maintain that establishing a pro-Arab/Muslim political infrastructure in this country is necessary to balance the existing pro-Israel bias among American lawmakers, it’s hard to imagine Israelis-regardless of the wisdom of their specific policy views-enacting violent revenge upon Americans for their government’s policy regarding the West Bank or votes on the UN Security Council.

Glenn Greenwald raises the question of whether Nidal Malik was engaged in an act of terrorism, since-from his perspective, at least-he was fighting those who had enlisted in an army which had attacked his coreligionists in the nation of Yemen. But a more pertinent question is why someone who places allegiance to a foreign religion or a terrorist group in the Persian Gulf above his oath to the U.S. Army, or even his  obligation not to slaughter unarmed Americans, is in the United States to begin with. Why must the cult of diversity take precedence over the lives of ordinary American citizens?

And the answer is not comforting. It’s because our immigration policy is not designed with the interests of Americans in mind. Our laws are built to satisfy the demand of  colleges and universities that need the tuition paid by tens of thousands of Saudi students. Of private and public institutions that demand the addition of Muslim chaplains, regardless of ideology. Of parasitical federal contractors which make a killing by resettling scores of refugees who are a drain on state coffers in towns and cities throughout the country.

The customary response from advocates of changing the cultural landscape of America is that we need to do these things in order to change the hearts and minds of those living in the Islamic world. We need to project an image of openness in order to change the negative image of the United States overseas. The problem is that it has not worked, and in all likelihood, will never work. Globalization, insofar as it facilitates the exchange of goods and services according to the law of supply and demand, is a good thing. However, importing the maladies, cultural neuroses and obscurantist religious dogmas of foreign cultures for the sake of appeasing the gods of diversity and multiculturalism, even as we engage in questionable foreign interventions urged on by figures whose interests are inimical to those of the United States, is madness.

The rotten fruit of the Arab Spring, like that from the most recent war in Iraq, is being brought to our shores, so this is as good a time as any to begin having a conversation about what we want our country’s future to look like. Like Frank Gaffney, I believe it’s time to discontinue the diversity lottery, stop issuing visas to imams for whom there is no demand, and begin to look out for the interests of Americans, first and foremost.

Notorious Islamic terrorists have not only been educated in American colleges and universities, but have held prominent positions in academe, and  been feted by incumbent presidents. That’s why we’re looking forward to attending a talk by Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, later this evening at the Women’s National Republican Club. He’ll be speaking to this issue, as well as the proliferation of sharia financing-and its troubling legal and ethical aspects. Although we won’t be live-tweeting the proceedings, you can expect an analysis of his speech in the coming days.