Today is the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Our newspapers are filled with articles proposing that the U.S. take in refugees from various conflicts around the world. Yet our track record in handling newcomers from the places that generate most modern-day refugees seems to be poor. The 9/11 hijackers were all here in the U.S. legally, their visa applications having been scrutinized and approved by federal employees. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, recently sentenced to death for his role in the Boston Marathon bombings, had been granted fast-track U.S. citizenship. Our economy has probably shrunk by 5-10 percent due to fear of terrorism (money spent on TSA, time wasted in security lines at airports, public events, office buildings, etc.).
How would it ever be possible for Americans to take in refugees from a part of the world where (a) we don’t speak the language or understand the culture, (b) at least a portion of those refugees have a goal of killing Americans, and (c) we have a demonstrated track record of being unable to sort out those who want to kill Americans from those who do not?
Related:
- New York Times article on the Justice Department and FBI going after a Chinese professor for emailing schematics that they didn’t understand
a: These refugees are the tiny, ambitious segment that managed to flee to a rich country on the other side of the world, rather than to a poor neighbouring country. These people are ambitious, and not above using their current victimhood to their advantage. I argue that they will assimilate well enough.
b and c: Many native-born Americans kill other Americans, although I believe their principal weapons are cars, rather than bombs.
Seriously, however. The US accepts a tiny number of legal immigrants every year, and a minuscule number of refugees. It wouldn’t hurt to accept a few more.
Stop the madness. Vote for Trump.
Michael:
“These people are ambitious, and not above using their current victimhood to their advantage. I argue that they will assimilate well enough.”
Maybe they’ll continue to be good at using their victimhood to their advantage? Why do you believe they’ll assimilate?
“Seriously, however. The US accepts a tiny number of legal immigrants every year, and a minuscule number of refugees. It wouldn’t hurt to accept a few more.”
What do you consider a tiny number? The average number of immigrants accepted per year over the last 15 years has been over a million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#History
@philg: Yet our track record in handling newcomers from the places that generate most modern-day refugees seems to be poor.
No different from 1968 and Palestinian/Jordanian Sirhan Sirhan.
Michiel: “not above using their current victimhood to their advantage.” They’re practically American already! (My point in the original posting was not regarding the average immigrant, however. It was about our lack of any effective process to screen out those who will eventually attack their fellow Americans.)
See also… http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-charges-that-professor-shared-technology-with-china.html
I feel certain that our politicians are inept enough to implement policy that ensures we select only the most non-ambitious immigrants from that group.
A sane approach to refugee problems would be to eliminate (which usually means “kill”) the sources of the refugee problems. Much better to enable people to live peacefully in their own country. If something or someone comes along who makes that proposition untenable, they should be stopped with extreme prejudice. It seems to me that this would be a logical task for the U.N. to take care of, but we all know that will never happen. Where is Gort when you need him?
The Wikipedia article says that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev came to America when he was nine years old. It appears that he and the rest of his family were granted asylum within a couple of years. It would have been good if someone in the government would have had the prescience to know that he would eventually bomb the marathon, but I’ve never heard of anyone in the business world who had such talents.
Also, your estimate that fear of terror has shrunk the economy by five to ten percent sounds much too large. It’s probably less than one percent.
Vince: How much economy shrinkage is too much? Wouldn’t it have been better to simply reinforce the cockpit doors and left it at that and concentrated on image stabilization for the iPhone 6s?
The Tsarnaevs never had any plausible claim as being refugees. In fact Joker’s parents have returned to their native country now, even though the regime has not changed. They got in because the Joker had an uncle who was connected to the CIA who was able to help them manipulate the system and tell the right lies.
As far as using victimhood to advantage, this is spot on. These folks are from lawless countries and have no compunction or guilt about defrauding the welfare system, going on disability, etc. A few will turn out to be (legal, semi-legal or illegal) entrepreneurs who will employ a lot of Americans (or at least illegal aliens) but many will figure some scam whereby they can collect benefits. This is why they are so anxious to get into countries with strong welfare systems – Germany, Britain, etc. And a few will not only go on welfare but will then use the life of leisure that this permits to preach or practice jihad.
The evidence presented in the post does not support the conclusion that the US security apparatus has a “demonstrated track record of being unable to sort out those who want to kill Americans from those who do not”. The evidence presented only supports a conclusion that the track record is not perfect. The level of terrorism in the US since 9/11 suggests that either (a) the US security apparatus is pretty good, (b) the thread of terrorism is pretty small, or (c) both (a) and (b). I don’t see how the risk of terrorism from this group of refugees is large enough to be considered a factor in the decision to admit them to the US. Getting in to the US is not the hard part of committing a terrorist act here, and that is how it should be. We gain much more from being a free and open society than we lose from terrorism.
I think Phil was the only one who picked up on my irony; I believe that if refugees are opportunists, they are so because that’s a quality shared by people the world over, including Americans, and this is not a good reason to refuse them entry.
As for screening out terrorists, I think Anonymous poster twelve has the right idea. The USA has no problems growing its own domestic terrorists: John Allen Muhammad, Elton Simpson, Nadir Malik Hasan, and that’s just counting the Islamic ones.
The USA accepts 70.000 refugees every year. Hungary currently receives an estimated 23.000 refugees a day. Germany has accepted 450.000 refugees from the middle east so far, and the year isn’t over yet.
Michiel: Since the USA already has domestic Islamic terrorists, as you say, that is a good reason not to bring in any more!
Anonymous, maybe you are happy bringing in terrorist refugees, but I am not.
The only reason to accept refugees is if they have a legitimate fear of harm in their present country of residence. Most Syrian refugees are arriving in third countries from Turkey or other states bordering Syria. The moment they cross the frontier into Turkey, they are no longer in danger and by definition they are no longer in need of refuge. Rather, from that point on they are economic migrants – they know that their prospects for a job (and/or a lifetime of welfare benefits) are much better in Germany, the UK or the US. In fact it now appears that quite a few of the “Syrian” refugees are not ever from Syria. There are literally hundreds of millions of people from poorer third world countries who would like to move to the West. There is no way that the West can accept them all without destroying itself.
Syria is the first casualty of the new Cold War between Russia and the West. Without Russia propping him up, Assad would have fallen by now. Now the West was probably wrong about the “Arab Spring” thing and whoever came after him would have been even worse than he was, but the current stalemate is even worse than that.
All: ask yourself, why don’t those refugees seek asylum in one of the near by rich Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, etc.? After all, those countries offer the same native language, culture and religious freedom, no?
Hint answer to the above question: did you know that Arabs, who live in Israel, lawfully, experience far more freedom and quality of life over any other Arab country?
Sure, they are leaving because of current war, but notice how they are traveling all the way to Germany vs. seeking asylum in one of the countries they are crossing on their way. Their aim is not strictly “for a better life”, “start over”, or “integration”, it is which country with most tolerant prospect so they can continue their current life style. I.e.: very, few if any, of the migrant, and their children and children’s children for generations to come, will ever be German. Just look over at France and how the government is passing laws to “fix’ [1] this issue (to name one).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_France
I’m resident in an EU country that has taken a lot of economic migrants since former Warsaw-pact countries joined the EU; they have become notorious… for working really, really hard at all the jobs the locals don’t want. They are equally notorious among landlords for being excellent tenants, happily taking on maintenance tasks traditionally the responsibility of the landlord.
Here are some numbers I like to use to think about this: a new-born citizen costs at least €120,000 in schooling alone before they become a tax-payer (and there is a rather large time lag). Refugees may cost €12,000 or so in housing and language training etc. – and we can expect they’ll be working within a year.
Don’t think of them as dangerous foreigners; think of them as unusually cheap and fast-maturing citizens.
Arabs, who live in Israel, lawfully, experience far more freedom and quality of life over any other Arab country?
It’s highly unlikely that either Arabs in Israel or citizens of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, etc. would agree with such a statement. On the other hand, only 10 or 20 percent of the population of Kuwait and Qatar are citizens.
Edward,
Is it possible that a Pole whose family has lived under Christian traditions, marriage patterns, and culture for 1000 years might act differently than an Arab who descends from generations of tribal culture and marriages from close relatives?
To the bigger point:
I wish that the US government’s considerable investment in spying on its employees and foreigners would be turned fully onto foreigners who are here on potential citizenship-track visas. There ought to be laws passed that clearly distinguish between the rights of US citizens and the rights of non-citizens. The thread from ISIS in Syria is much less than the threat from an ISIS-sympathizer who is in the US citizenship pipeline.
Hi Dave; maybe! You might be right!
Still, I’m from an immigrant family myself, with more immigrants layers back in the family tree, itself a kind of mongrel combination of tribes who’ve spent the last few millennia jabbing each other with pointy sticks, when not otherwise engaged (cursing the weather, painting their faces blue, abducting saints, inventing capitalism, etc.) – which is to say, I’m probably not in a position to make any sweeping generalisations about other people’s cultural backgrounds.
Perhaps a few “sleeper agents” will get in; well, what of it? My grandfather used a whistle and a bucket of sand to defend his streets from fleets of regrettably well-engineered bombers; my grandmother strode her way through a revolution, a civil war, two world wars etc. without any greater concern than that a U-boat attack might damage her fur coat; my father treated bomb-blast victims where they fell, at the height of a terrorist insurgency where a favourite tactic involved secondary blasts to catch first responders, and my aunt carried a live bomb out of her shop rather than wait for the bomb squad.
Which is to say – I know little of the culture of these new migrants, but my own cultural background demands a non-wussy and at least vaguely Christian-ish approach to the whole mess. My own chocolate consumption is a more pressing danger than some damp Syrian.