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IMMIGRATION

More Migrant Riots Hit France Flood of migration continues all over Western Europe despite rising dangers. July 18, 2017 Joseph Klein

The European migration experiment is failing miserably. Self-declared “refugees” and migrants from Africa and the Middle East are importing their violence, chaos and regressive norms of behavior into formerly harmonious countries all over Western Europe. As Seth J. Frantzman wrote in the Jerusalem Post last December, “They hate the very society they have often chosen to migrate to. Their new society tolerated their intolerance and taught them that this new country provided such unfettered freedom that it should be destroyed.”

For example, while many French people were busy celebrating Bastille Day – a year after the tragic Islamist massacre in Nice – riots and violence reportedly broke out on the nights of July 13 and 14 in suburbs of Paris heavily populated by migrants. A policeman was badly wounded and 897 cars were burned. Hundreds of individuals were placed in custody.

There was also a riot in the streets of Paris a few days ago by a mob of angry Congolese. They were infuriated by a scheduled concert at Paris’s Olympia music hall by a Congolese artist thought to be too close to the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo they detest. The concert was cancelled as a result of the clashes and threats of more violence. The Congolese living in Paris brought their tribal hatreds to the land that gave them the opportunity to leave such hatreds behind. They abused the freedoms they were afforded, turning on those freedoms by violently preventing an artistic performance from taking place.

These are far from isolated incidents of migrant violence in Western Europe this year. Indeed, all is not well for the Western traditions of pluralism and individual liberties in the multicultural sewer Europe is fast becoming. The number of vehicular killings, stabbings, shootings, sexual assaults, riots and car burnings has risen exponentially in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, as the tide of migration has intensified. No-go zones have multiplied. Free speech is becoming a casualty of hecklers’ veto and misplaced multicultural sensitivities. Yet Europe continues to admit even more migrants without any adequate vetting.

“When people lose hope, they risk crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean because it is worse to stay at home, where they run enormous risks,” Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament, said. “If we don’t confront this soon, we will find ourselves with millions of people on our doorstep within five years. Today we are trying to solve a problem of a few thousand people, but we need to have a strategy for millions of people.”

Trump’s Admirable but Unlikely Goals on Immigration His leaked policies would be an improvement, but he’s burning political capital every day. By Michael Brendan Dougherty

“Someday people will look back on this time of mass immigration into America, from the 1970s to now, and wonder how it was that the language of humanitarianism was so easily and cheaply deployed to subordinate the very concepts of political community, democratic checks, and even the rule of law itself to the demands of employers. They will find perverse the way that progressives and unscrupulous employers worked in tandem to create a class of millions of legally vulnerable people who are unable to stand up to employers and afraid to call the police when they are abused. The truth is that American policymakers valued low-wage labor more than they valued any of our professed political values.”

As Republicans in the Senate stumble and fumble with their long-promised but never seriously planned repeal of Obamacare, the Trump administration is starting to leak its plans for what counts as ambitious immigration reform.

And it’s not all bad. The bill that the White House has in mind is based on the RAISE Act, introduced by Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue earlier this year. The giant headline measure is that the bill would cut in half the number of legal immigrants. The detail buried in paragraph 18 of most reports on it is that the bill will do this only after a decade of slowly lowering it to that level.

The biggest and most welcome change is that the proposal would begin to shift American immigration policy away from family-based chain migration and toward a merit-based system, with increased numbers of green cards available for qualified workers. Trump’s proposal would also discourage sanctuary-city policies. I’d love to discuss this bill on the merits, but this isn’t the first or last time Trump will make us talk about a policy that is never likely to become law. This White House has never had a strong influence on Capitol Hill, and its sway is weakening almost every day. Republicans in the Senate are struggling to deliver on a seven-year promise to repeal Obamacare, and they made no such promise on passing restrictionist legislation. Trump’s insurgent-style campaign meant that many Republican lawmakers felt no particular loyalty to Trump’s signature policy ideas or issues. And every day that the president is making headline headaches with his tweets, or with new revelations about his campaign’s connection to the Russians, the passage of a bill like this becomes an even more remote possibility.

The Trump administration was always going to have a hard time selling a bill that reduced overall rates of immigration into America. Consider where Republican lawmakers were on “comprehensive reform” in 2013. Many Republican senators voted for a bill that would have tripled the rate of legal immigration into the U.S. in perpetuity. Although it was advertised as an “enforcement first” policy, the CBO estimated that the proposed 2013 measures would reduce the rate of illegal immigration into America by just 25 percent over the next two decades. The only consequence of “failing to secure the border” in the 2013 bill was the eventual creation of a committee of bureaucrats to make more recommendations. This was the political reality before Trump — and since his election we’ve seen a major legal, media, and political blowback against Trump’s temporary travel ban.

Someday people will look back on this time of mass immigration into America, from the 1970s to now, and wonder how it was that the language of humanitarianism was so easily and cheaply deployed to subordinate the very concepts of political community, democratic checks, and even the rule of law itself to the demands of employers. They will find perverse the way that progressives and unscrupulous employers worked in tandem to create a class of millions of legally vulnerable people who are unable to stand up to employers and afraid to call the police when they are abused. The truth is that American policymakers valued low-wage labor more than they valued any of our professed political values.

Germany: Infectious Diseases Spreading as Migrants Settle In by Soeren Kern

A new report by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal government’s central institution for monitoring and preventing diseases, confirms an across-the-board increase in disease since 2015, when Germany took in an unprecedented number of migrants.

Some doctors say the actual number of cases of tuberculosis is far higher than the official figures suggest and have accused the RKI of downplaying the threat in an effort to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

“Around 700,000 to 800,000 applications for asylum were submitted and 300,000 refugees have disappeared. Have they been checked? Do they come from the high-risk countries?” — Carsten Boos, orthopedic surgeon, interview with Focus magazine.

A failed asylum seeker from Yemen who was given sanctuary at a church in northern Germany to prevent him from being deported has potentially infected more than 50 German children with a highly contagious strain of tuberculosis.

The man, who was sheltered at a church in Bünsdorf between January and May 2017, was in frequent contact with the children, some as young as three, who were attending a day care center at the facility. He was admitted to a hospital in Rendsburg in June and subsequently diagnosed with tuberculosis — a disease which only recently has reentered the German consciousness.

Local health authorities say that in addition to the children, parents and teachers as well as parishioners are also being tested for the disease, which can develop months or even years after exposure. It remains unclear if the man received the required medical exams when he first arrived in Germany, or if he is one of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have slipped through the cracks.

The tuberculosis scare has cast a renewed spotlight on the increased risk of infectious diseases in Germany since Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed in around two million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

A new report by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal government’s central institution for monitoring and preventing diseases, confirms an across-the-board increase in disease since 2015, when Germany took in an unprecedented number of migrants.

The Infectious Disease Epidemiology Annual Report — which was published on July 12, 2017 and provides data on the status of more than 50 infectious diseases in Germany during 2016 — offers the first glimpse into the public health consequences of the massive influx of migrants in late 2015.

The report shows increased incidences in Germany of adenoviral conjunctivitis, botulism, chicken pox, cholera, cryptosporidiosis, dengue fever, echinococcosis, enterohemorrhagic E. coli, giardiasis, haemophilus influenza, Hantavirus, hepatitis, hemorrhagic fever, HIV/AIDS, leprosy, louse-borne relapsing fever, malaria, measles, meningococcal disease, meningoencephalitis, mumps, paratyphoid, rubella, shigellosis, syphilis, toxoplasmosis, trichinellosis, tuberculosis, tularemia, typhus and whooping cough.

Germany has — so far at least — escaped the worst-case scenario: most of the tropical and exotic diseases brought into the country by migrants have been contained; there have no mass outbreaks among the general population. More common diseases, however, many of which are directly or indirectly linked to mass migration, are on the rise, according to the report.

The incidence of Hepatitis B, for example, has increased by 300% during the last three years, according to the RKI. The number of reported cases in Germany was 3,006 in 2016, up from 755 cases in 2014. Most of the cases are said to involve unvaccinated migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The incidence of measles in Germany jumped by more than 450% between 2014 and 2015, while the number of cases of chicken pox, meningitis, mumps, rubella and whooping cough were also up. Migrants also accounted for at least 40% of the new cases of HIV/AIDS identified in Germany since 2015, according to a separate RKI report.

The RKI statistics may be just the tip of the iceberg. The number of reported cases of tuberculosis, for example, was 5,915 in 2016, up from 4,488 cases in 2014, an increase of more than 30% during that period. Some doctors, however, believe that the actual number of cases of tuberculosis is far higher and have accused the RKI of downplaying the threat in an effort to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

In an interview with Focus, Carsten Boos, an orthopedic surgeon, warned that German authorities have lost track of hundreds of thousands of migrants who may be infected. He added that 40% of all tuberculosis pathogens are multidrug-resistant and therefore inherently dangerous to the general population:

“When asylum seekers come from countries with a high risk for tuberculosis infections, the RKI, as the highest German body for infection protection, should not downplay the danger. Is a federal institute using political correctness to conceal the unpleasant reality?

“The media reports that in 2015, the federal police registered about 1.1 million refugees. Around 700,000 to 800,000 applications for asylum were submitted and 300,000 refugees have disappeared. Have they been checked? Do they come from the high risk countries?

“One has the impression that in the RKI the left hand does not know what the right one is doing.”

Joachim Gauck, then Germany’s president, speaks to doctors in the infirmary of a reception center for migrants on August 26, 2015 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Germany. (Photo by Jesco Denzel/Bundesregierung via Getty Images)

German newspapers have published a flurry of articles about the public health dimension of the migrant crisis. The articles often quote medical professionals with first-hand experience of treating migrants. Many admit that mass migration has increased the risk of infectious diseases in Germany. Headlines include:

“Refugees Often Bring Unknown Diseases to the Host Country”; “Refugees Bring Rare Diseases to Berlin”; Refugees in Hesse: Return of Rare Diseases”; “Refugees Often Bring Unknown Diseases to Germany”; “Experts: Refugees Bring ‘Forgotten’ Diseases”; “Three Times More Hepatitis-B Cases in Bavaria”; “Cases of Tapeworm in Germany Increased by More than 30%”; “Infectious Disease: Refugees Bring Tuberculosis”; “Tuberculosis in Germany is on the Rise Again, Especially in the Big Cities: Caused by Migration and Poverty”; “Refugees Are Bringing Tuberculosis”; More Diseases in Germany: Tuberculosis is Back”; “Medical Practitioner Fears Tuberculosis Risk due to Refugee Wave”; “Significantly More Tuberculosis in Baden-Württemberg: Migrants often Affected”; “Expert: Refugee Policy to Blame for Measles Outbreak”; “Scabies on the Rise in North Rhine-Westphalia”; “Almost Forgotten Diseases Like Scabies Return to Bielefeld”; “Do You Come into Contact with Refugees? You Should Pay Attention”; and “Refugees: A Wide Range of Disorders.”

At the height of the migrant crisis in October 2015, Michael Melter, the chief physician at the University Hospital Regensburg, reported that migrants were arriving at his hospital with illnesses that are hardly ever seen in Germany. “Some of the ailments I have not seen for 20 or 25 years,” he said, “and many of my younger colleagues have actually never seen them.”

Travel Ban, and Beyond Srdja Trifkovic

The Supreme Court decided on June 26 to allow key parts of the Trump administration’s “travel ban” to go into effect temporarily. This was an unexpected victory for the President—and for common sense. Until the Court hears the full case in October, the administration will be able to bar travelers from six majority-Muslim countries who cannot show a “bona fide” connection to a person or entity in the United States. The Court said the relationship must be “formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course, not for the purpose of evading” the travel ban.

Trump’s next task should be to make the 90-day ban permanent. Over the past two decades hundreds of Muslims born abroad have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in the United States. They have included persons who came to America legally on visas, as well as refugees. More than 300 persons who came to the U.S. as refugees are currently the subjects of counterterrorism investigations by the FBI.
In the long term, Trump should seek to reinstate the substance of his original executive order, which was issued on January 27 and revoked on March 6. Its stated “Purpose” declares that

the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law . . . who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Without naming it, Trump’s original order treated orthodox Islam as a violent ideology inimical to America’s “founding principles.” After all, for a Muslim to declare that he accepts the U.S. Constitution as the source of his highest loyalty is an act of apostasy punishable by death under Islamic law. To a Muslim, sharia is not an addition to the Constitution and laws of the United States, with which it may coexist; it is the only basis of obligation. To be legitimate, all political power must rest exclusively with those who enjoy Allah’s authority on the basis of his revealed will, and America is therefore illegitimate ab initio.

Trump’s original order effectively demanded that a Muslim give up this key tenet of his faith in order to be eligible for admission. In principle a Muslim’s naturalization is also problematic, as it includes the oath “that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . . ” To swear this would be sacrilegious for a Muslim, since it means he would be prepared to shoot a fellow Muslim, or denounce him to the authorities, in defense of his adopted homeland.

Obama DOJ Allowed Russian Lawyer to Enter U.S. Without Visa Before Trump Team Meeting By Debra Heine

The Obama Justice Department cleared Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya last year under “extraordinary circumstances,” allowing her to enter the United States without a visa before she penetrated then-candidate Donald Trump’s inner circle, The Hill reported Wednesday evening.

Veselnitskaya spent June of 2016 lobbying government officials and lawmakers to reverse the Magnitsky Act and restore the ability of Americans to adopt Russian orphans. She managed to finagle a meeting with the Trump team by promising that she had dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president.

That work was a far cry from the narrow reason the U.S. government initially gave for allowing Veselnitskaya into the U.S. in late 2015, according to federal court records.

The Moscow lawyer had been turned down for a visa to enter the U.S. lawfully but then was granted special immigration parole by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch for the limited purpose of helping a company owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, her client, defend itself against a Justice Department asset forfeiture case in federal court in New York City.

During a court hearing in early January 2016 as Veselnitskaya’s permission to stay in the country was about to expire, federal prosecutors described how rare the grant of parole immigration was as Veselnitskaya pleaded for more time to remain in the United States.

“In October the government bypassed the normal visa process and gave a type of extraordinary permission to enter the country called immigration parole,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni explained to the judge during a hearing Jan. 6, 2016.

“That’s a discretionary act that the statute allows the Attorney General to do in extraordinary circumstances. In this case, we did that so that Mr. Katsyv could testify. And we made the 
further accommodation of allowing his Russian lawyer into the country to assist,” he added.

The prosecutor said Justice was willing to allow the Russian lawyer to enter the United States again as the trial in the case approached so she could help prepare and attend the proceedings.

The court record indicates the presiding judge asked the Justice Department to extend Veselnitskaya’s immigration parole another week until he decided motions in the case. There are no other records in the court file indicating what happened with that request or how Veselnitskaya appeared in the country later that spring.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York confirmed Wednesday to The Hill that it let Veselnitskaya into the country on a grant of immigration parole from October 2015 to early January 2016.

Justice Department and State Department officials could not immediately explain how the Russian lawyer was still in the country in June for the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and the events in Washington D.C.

The lobbying effort to repeal the Magnitsky Act fizzled out fairly quickly in the summer of 2016, sources told The Hill.

They described Veselnitskaya, who does not speak English, as a mysterious and shadowy figure. They said they were confused as to whether she had an official role in the lobbying campaign, although she was present for several meetings.

The sources also described their interactions with Veselnitskaya in the same way that Trump Jr. did. They claimed not to know who she worked for or what her motives were.

“Natalia didn’t speak a word of English,” said one source. “Don’t let anyone tell you this was a sophisticated lobbying effort. It was the least professional campaign I’ve ever seen. If she’s the cream of the Moscow intelligence community then we have nothing to worry about.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly requesting all records on how Veselnitskaya was able to enter and remain in the U.S.

A Terrorist and Naturalization Fraud Why federal prosecutors failed to indict a terrorist for a serious crime. Michael Cutler

On June 29, 2017 the Department of Justice issued a press releases, Ohio Man Pleads Guilty to Providing Material Support to Terrorists.

Numerous politicians have proposed legislation that would strip an American of his/her citizenship if that American attended terror training overseas or fought on the side of terrorist organizations. This is entirely understandable and other countries have proposed similar laws be enacted.

Incredibly, in this case, this terrorist could have easily been stripped of his citizenship because he apparently acquired it by committing fraud in his naturalization application.

Yet, inexplicably, the federal prosecutors in this case failed to indict him for this crime even as they successfully charged him with other crimes relating to terrorism, for which he pleaded guilty. Adding this crime to his charges would have been a simple matter, indeed.

The “Ohio Man” was Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud a native of Somalia who, according to the information filed by federal prosecutors, entered the United States at the age of two.

The DOJ press release began with these two paragraphs:

Court records unsealed today reveal that Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, 25, of Columbus, Ohio, pleaded guilty to all counts alleged against him regarding a terrorist plot.

A federal grand jury charged Mohamud in April 2015 with one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to terrorists, one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization – namely, al-Nusrah Front – and one count of making false statements to the FBI involving international terrorism in an indictment returned in Columbus. Mohamud pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers on Aug. 14, 2015, and the plea was sealed because of an ongoing investigation.

Trump, Peña Nieto Discuss Mexican Guest-Worker Proposal Leaders also address Nafta renegotiation in one-on-one meeting at G-20 summit; ‘we’ve made very good progress By Robbie Whelan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-pena-nieto-discuss-mexican-guest-worker-proposal-1499460950?mod=nwsrl_politics_and_policy

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and U.S. President Donald Trump, at their first one-on-one meeting since Mr. Trump took office, agreed Friday to explore new ways of allowing Mexican workers to temporarily enter the U.S. to help the agriculture industry.

The proposal came at the end of a half-hour meeting between the two heads of state at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, where both sides also discussed the coming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Mexico’s government said it hoped to finish by the end of this year.

“We’re negotiating Nafta and some other things with Mexico and we’ll see how it all turns out, but I think that we’ve made very good progress,” Mr. Trump said after the meeting, according to Reuters.

Despite the upbeat message, the meeting could have gotten off on the wrong foot when a reporter asked Mr. Trump if he still wanted Mexico to pay for the proposed border wall. Mr. Trump answered, “Absolutely,” according to a video posted online by ABC News.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who was seated next to Mr. Peña Nieto during the exchange, said he didn’t hear what Mr. Trump said, but added that the subject of the wall wasn’t brought up during the meeting. Mexican officials have insisted they would walk out of any meeting between both sides if the U.S. team brought up Mexico paying for the wall.

In Mexico, Messrs. Peña Nieto and Videgaray were both criticized on social media for not canceling the meeting after Mr. Trump’s comment.

The idea for a guest-worker program comes as the Trump administration is deporting growing numbers of illegal immigrants in the U.S. It would reprise the so-called Bracero Program from 1942 to 1964 that saw hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmworkers come to the U.S. legally to help pick crops and return to Mexico.

Mr. Videgaray said the plan to study a possible guest-worker program, an idea floated amid labor shortages in parts of the U.S. economy like agriculture and construction, was a sign relations were improving between both sides amid strains over a host of issues, including the proposed wall.

“The fact that the presidents agreed to explore new mechanisms for agricultural workers shows that the relationship is entering in a more constructive phase,” he said in an interview with Mexico’s Radio Fórmula. CONTINUE AT SITE

Europe’s Mass Migration: The Leaders vs. the Public by Douglas Murray

“[T]he more generous you are, the more word gets around about this — which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa. Germany cannot possibly take in the huge number of people who are wanting to make their way to Europe.” — Bill Gates.

The annual survey of EU citizens, recently carried out by Project 28, found a unanimity on the issue of migration almost unequalled across an entire continent. The survey found that 76% of the public across the EU believe that the EU’s handling of the migration crisis of recent years has been “poor”. There is not one country in the EU in which the majority of the public differs from that consensus.

At the same time as the public has known that what the politicians are doing is unsustainable, there has been a vast effort to control what the European publics have been allowed to say. German Chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to urge Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to limit posts on social media that were critical of her policies.

Is Bill Gates a Nazi, racist, “Islamophobe” or fascist? As PG Wodehouse’s most famous butler would have said, “The eventuality would appear to be a remote one”. So far nobody in any position of influence has made such claims about the world’s largest philanthropist. Possibly — just possibly — something is changing in Europe.

In an interview published July 2 in the German paper Welt Am Sonntag, the co-founder of Microsoft addressed the ongoing European migration crisis. What he said was surprising:

“On the one hand you want to demonstrate generosity and take in refugees. But the more generous you are, the more word gets around about this — which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa. Germany cannot possibly take in the huge number of people who are wanting to make their way to Europe.”

These words would be uncontroversial to the average citizen of Europe. The annual survey of EU citizens recently carried out by Project 28 found a unanimity on the issue of migration almost unequalled across an entire continent. The survey found, for instance, that 76% of the public across the EU believe that the EU’s handling of the migration crisis of recent years has been “poor”. There is not one country in the EU in which the majority of the public differs from this consensus. In countries such as Italy and Greece, which have been on the frontline of the crisis of recent years, that figure rockets up. In these countries, nine out of ten citizens think that the EU has handled the migrant crisis poorly.

How could they think otherwise? The German government’s 2015 announcement that normal asylum and border procedures were no longer in operation exacerbated an already disastrous situation. The populations of Germany and Sweden increased by 2% in one year alone because of that influx of migrants. These are monumental changes to happen at such a speed to any society.

Real Legislation To Combat Terrorism Welcome to a bill that makes a crucial first step. Michael Cutler

The continuing threat of terror attacks committed by international terrorists in the United States requires meaningful, decisive and effective action that protects America and Americans.

Congressman Raul Labrador, a Republican from Idaho, has introduced legislation that would help address the issue of the lack of integrity to the refugee program. His bill is H.R. 2826 (Refugee Program Integrity Restoration Act of 2017) and addresses an area of critical importance, imbuing the refugee program with meaningful integrity to combat fraud in this program.

I am particularly gratified by Congressman Labrador’s efforts. I have repeatedly noted in my appearances before Congressional hearings and elsewhere that the lack of integrity of the immigration system created a national security vulnerability that international terrorists and transnational criminals and fugitives frequently exploited, often with deadly consequences.

I have also noted that the lack of integrity of the immigration system was attributable to the lack of integrity of all too many politicians from both political parties creating “Immigration Failure – By Design.”

These politicians hypocritically claim that “the immigration system is broken” while never providing the resources that would enable DHS to enforce and administer the immigration laws to prevent the entry and embedding of international terrorists and transnational criminals.

However while H.R.2826 would require DHS more carefully vet the applications for refugees and maintain awareness about their activities after they admitted into the United States this level of scrutiny and vigilance must not be limited to refugees but also must be applied to aliens who are granted political asylum.

There are many examples of aliens who, upon being granted political asylum, carried out or attempted to carry out terror attacks in the United States.

One of the most notorious examples of this involves the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the deadly terror attack at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.

Along with other members of their family they were lawfully admitted into the United States as nonimmigrants from their native Russia.

They subsequently applied for an were granted political asylum when they made a claim of “credible fear” that they could not return to their home country. However, shortly after being granted political asylum they voluntarily flew back to Russia.

Nevertheless, both brothers were granted lawful immigrant status along with other members of their family and one of the brothers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, currently incarcerated and awaiting his execution having been found guilty of his murderous terror attack, became a naturalized United States citizen, ironically on September 11, 2012.

His older brother, Tamerlan, was killed in a shootout with law enforcement officers during the attacks. He had applied for citizenship but that applications was never approved.

The adjudications of applications for lawful immigrant status require thorough background investigations. Under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act applicants for United States citizenship are supposed to undergo even more stringent “Good Moral Character” investigations.

Clearly this process failed abysmally and resulted in hundreds of casualties and Rep. Labrador’s bill, if enacted, would strip refugees of their refugee status under these circumstances. There is no justification for not expanding this scrutiny to aliens who apply for political asylum. The risks are no less significant.

I am a Muslim, and I support Trump’s travel restrictions By Mudar Zahran

The mainstream media and many others have been grilling President Trump since he signed the Executive Order temporally halting the population of seven predominantly Muslim states from entering the USA. As a result, he has been called everything from “racist” to “Islamophobic.”

As a Jordanian Muslim who also holds a British citizenship, I am not offended by the President’s actions, nor am I convinced that the Executive Orders in question were specifically written to target Muslims, for the following reasons:

First, the Executive Order singled out seven specific countries out of 56 Muslim states.

Second, the President did not pick these countries randomly, because six of the seven states have one thing in common: they are failed states, and they do not have a unified and recognized state system for processing of nationalities, passports, and state documents. In other words, the country’s citizens can receive any number of passports they like, complete with fake or multiple names. That means a terrorist can simply make up a name, obtain a passport and visa, and head to the U.S.

Third, there are numerous examples of terrorists using nefarious means to reach America’s shores – from the ISIS Passport Printing Press to clearly identified individuals. Take terrorist Anawr al-Awlaki, a dual national of both the U.S. and Yemen. It’s documented that in the early 90s, he was issued a passport using a different name, thus helping him establish a whole new, secret identity. He then used that identity to enter the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship for foreign students. After obtaining a college degree at taxpayers’ money as a “foreign student”, he went back to Yemen and actively supported, promoted, and financed terrorist acts against America.

Fourth, the President knows these facts, and this is a sign that he is listening to his advisors and is absorbing intelligence information accurately and quickly.

Next, its quite clear that the President did what his patriotic duty and position require him to do: protect Americans from harm

With that said, if the President did want to ban a specific group of people, what would it look like, especially in a Middle Eastern country?