OPINION:
Will what happened in Paris last week happen here in the United States? What can we do to prevent that?
Those are the two questions being asked all over America in the wake of ISIS’s deadly assault on the City of Lights.
One of the terrorist attackers in Paris used a Syrian passport to get into Europe. The Greek government has confirmed that someone using that passport was registered in Greece just last month as a refugee, seeking asylum.
And according to the latest reports from officials, another attacker may have claimed refugee status in Greece two months ago.
Earlier this year, under German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s guidance, the European Union began an experiment in open borders. Since this experiment began, more than 800,000 people from the Middle East have arrived in Europe. The experience in Paris last week reminds us of the very real threat that radical Islam poses, and exposes the foolishness of open borders policies.
The foolish pursuit of open borders is not limited to European countries, of course. In the United States, there is bipartisan support for initiatives that would weaken national security through open borders.
Take, for example, the failed 2013 Senate “comprehensive immigration reform” (read: amnesty) bill. In 2013, a group of eight Senators (known commonly as the “Gang of 8”) put forward an immigration overhaul bill that would have created a new avenue for refugees to come to the United States. In fact, according to Daniel Horowitz, the Gang of Eight amnesty bill would have created an “immediate legal permanent resident status for any person in the world who declares himself ’stateless.’”
Tea Party Patriots opposed that bill in 2013, and ultimately prevailed in defeating it. Immigration policy is at the nexus of economic policy and national security and, therefore, is too important not to get right.
In September, President Obama announced his intention to relocate 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States, despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security is unable to adequately vet those 10,000 people.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, thirty governors across the country, and scores of Members of Congress have called for a pause with President Obama’s Syrian relocation plan. This is the prudent course of action, of course, and Americans overwhelmingly support this commonsense measure. Tea Party Patriots launched an online petition at https://stoprefugees.act.teapartypatriots.org/ so we can send a message, loud and clear, to Congress that our national security must be the top consideration in any immigration or refugee resettlement policy.
Our nation’s long-standing immigration policy has been to vet everyone entering the United States. Current law bars those who present a public health threat, have a criminal history, or have terrorist ties from entering the country. Individuals seeking entry into the U.S. bear the responsibility of demonstrating that they are not a threat. We should not deviate from the standard of law when considering the admission of any asylum seeker from Syria – or any other country, for that matter.
The tragedy in Paris brought into sharp focus the naïveté of President Obama’s proposal to bring 10,000 Syrians to this country: there simply is no effective way for the United States to vet those individuals, or to determine whether they pose a threat. The onus, at this point, is on the President and his administration to explain the safeguards they will put in place to ensure there are no repeats of the Paris terrorist attacks here. And it’s up to us, the American people, to make clear our objections to reckless open-borders policies.
Jenny Beth Martin is the President and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.
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