A year after the deadliest attacks our nation has ever endured, our borders remain essentially unprotected against the stealth invaders of tomorrow. Neither Congress nor any presidential administration in living memory has provided the money or political support the INS needs to effectively patrol America's borders and monitor those foreign visitors who so easily "disappear" from our very midst.
Consequently, the population of immigrants living illegally in the US has reached stratospheric levels - somewhere between 6 and 8 million people - 60 percent of whom entered the country by sneaking across the border, and the rest of whom entered legally but overstayed their visas. The INS estimates that 150,000 of those illegals hail from the terrorist-laden Middle East - including 41,000 from Pakistan, 25,000 from Iran, 20,000 from Lebanon, 11,000 from Egypt, 3,300 from Syria, 3,000 from Sudan, and 1,000 from Iraq.
These numbers have enormous implications for our national security. "If a Mexican day laborer can sneak across the border," explains Center for Immigration Studies research director Steven Camarota, "so can an al-Qaeda terrorist. While the vast majority of illegals from the Middle East are not terrorists, the fact that tens of thousands of people from that region and millions more from the rest of the world can settle in the United States illegally means that terrorists who wish to do so face few obstacles. We can't protect ourselves from terrorism without dealing with illegal immigration."
But an even more unpleasant fact must be stated as well, though it flies in the face of both conventional lore and political correctness: The threat posed by Middle Eastern immigrants extends into the realm of legal immigration as well. According to Mr. Camarota, "Including the September 11 hijackers, 48 foreign-born militant Islamic terrorists have been charged, or convicted, or have admitted their involvement in terrorism within the United States between 1993 and 2001." At the time they committed their crimes, 16 of those 48 were on temporary visas, 17 were lawful permanent residents or naturalized U.S. citizens, 3 had pending applications for asylum, and only 12 were illegal aliens. In short, only a handful of these actual and aspiring mass murderers were here illegally.
People from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Turkey, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and Arab North Africa comprise one of the fastest-growing blocks of legal immigrants in America today. While overall immigration - legal and illegal - has tripled during the past three decades, immigration from the Middle East has grown seven-fold. In 1970, fewer than 200,000 Middle Easterners lived in the United States; today there are nearly 1.5 million - not including the 570,000 American-born children who have at least one parent of Middle Eastern origin. Just in the past dozen years, the Middle Eastern population in America has grown by 80 percent. If current trends continue, there will be nearly 2.5 million native Middle Easterners in the US by 2010 - plus an estimated 950,000 children to whom they will give birth in this country.
This trend is troubling mainly because of the changing nature of those immigrants. Thirty years ago, only 15 percent of Middle Eastern immigrants were Muslims; the rest were mostly Christians. By contrast, Muslims now comprise about three-fourths of our nation's immigrants from the Middle East.
Why should this, in itself, be deemed problematic? As Camarota explains, "There has been, and continues to be, a debate within the Muslim world about whether one can even be a good Muslim while living in the land of unbelievers. There is also a debate within the community about whether a good Muslim can give his political allegiance to a secular government, such as ours, that is comprised overwhelmingly of non-Muslims."
Most Muslims who immigrate to the US, of course, do so for valid reasons. Frequently they are seeking refuge from the tyranny, persecution, poverty, and violence that plague much of the Muslim world. Other immigrants wish to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered by America's colleges and universities.
But a smaller monumentally significant, albeit smaller, number immigrate to carry out their malevolent Islamist ambitions. As Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes explains, "Islamists arrive in the United States despising the country and all it represents, intending to make converts, exploit the freedoms and rights granted them, and build a movement that will effect basic changes in the country's way of life and its government....Islamists do not accept the United States as it is but want to change it into a majority Muslim country where the Koran replaces the Constitution." "Our plan," one Muslim missionary candidly acknowledged as early as the 1920s, "is...to conquer America."
Islamists view the United States as a hostile nation intent on plundering Muslims' resources and extinguishing their religion. In the words of Ayatollah Khomeini, "America plans to destroy us, all of us." The conclusion that logically grows out of this belief is that violence against Americans constitutes nothing more than justified self-defense. In the tradition of Nazi Germany, Muslim fundamentalist rhetoric methodically dehumanizes Americans - portraying them as worthless vermin or bacteria that must be exterminated for society's welfare. Along these lines, the noted Egyptian writer Adil Husayn depicts the Westerner as "nothing but an animal whose major concern is to fill his belly."
Such attitudes explain why much of the Muslim world responded with joy to the events of September 11. Upon viewing replays of the World Trade Center attack, many Egyptians described it as the happiest of moments, punctuating their glee with such phrases as "Bulls-eye" and "It's payback time." All over the Middle East, the reactions were much the same. Palestinians in Lebanon and the West Bank shot guns into the air in celebration. In Jordan, Palestinians expressed their glee by handing out candy. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, it was common to hear such quotes as, "Whatever destruction America is facing, as a Muslim I am happy."
The mood was similar among Muslims outside the Middle East. Nigeria's Islamic Youth Organization held a large-scale celebration of the attack. Variations of "Death to America" and "US, go to hell" were shouted by Muslims in Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Oman, Yemen, Egypt, and Sudan. According to Iraq's state-controlled media, "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity." It is nothing short of alarming that these sentiments are commonplace among the populations from which thousands of people now emigrate to the United States.
As for bin Laden, his already lofty reputation among Muslims reached utterly mythic proportions when it became clear that he had masterminded the September 11 attacks. The Washington Post reported that Muslims everywhere lauded bin Laden "with almost a single voice." Thousands of frenzied marchers chanting pro-bin Laden slogans flooded the streets of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and the Philippines. A member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah party called bin Laden "the most popular figure in the West Bank and Gaza, second only to Arafat."
During the weeks between September 11 and the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, anti-bin Laden demonstrations were almost nonexistent in the Middle East. Virtually no prominent Islamic scholars publicly condemned what bin Laden had done. Nor did a single Muslim government publicly support America's military response.
It is from such places and cultures that most Middle Eastern immigrants to the United States now come. If we are not far more careful about whom we permit to enter our country, we will someday pay a price so great that September 11 will seem, by comparison, like the good old days.