OPINION:
You think you may know what the big news has been for the past few days, and in part, you’d be right. President Trump signed an executive order strengthening our national security by establishing a limited moratorium on travel to the United States from seven failed and/or state sponsors of terrorism.
We’re doing this to figure out how to genuinely vet people coming to the United States from those countries that are failed states and consequently lack the infrastructure and leadership which we depend on to get thorough vetting done. In the cases of Iran and Sudan, the central governments are state sponsors of terror and have an interest in facilitating access of terrorists into the United States.
In an effort to undermine the intent of Mr. Trump, many in legacy media and the liberal bureaucracy began to whine about why countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, etc., were not on the list, considering their histories. This, they argued, was proof that the president didn’t know what he was doing.
The liberal bureaucracy knows the answer despite its attempt to sow discontent and confusion. The nations not on the list in the region have central governments and systems with which we work, allowing acceptable vetting to occur. That may not have been the case in 2001, but it’s the case now.
The other story is the Democrats’ and legacy media’s hysteria displayed with overwrought pearl-clutching, which apparently allows fake news, outright lies and efforts to spin grass-roots liberals into mob action.
So here are a few actual facts:
The order isn’t a ban on Muslims despite the liberal machine’s effort to falsely cast it as that; it’s an effort to establish a mechanism to make sure individuals traveling from those states are who they say they are and that their intentions for the U.S. are not hostile.
With the Trump administration’s commitment to destroying the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS, this is especially important, as any remnants of that regime will then be determined to disperse even more aggressively into western nations. Taking our national security seriously after eight years of neglect is now the priority.
To this point, then-President Barack Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, testified to Congress in June 2016 about the danger we face, “Brennan warned that ISIS still has a large fighting force and is sending operatives to launch attacks in the West. Brennan said ISIS is likely to use more ’guerrilla tactics’ and launch attacks outside the Middle East, including in the U.S., to compensate for a loss of territory in Iraq and Syria. … And he warned that ISIS is using ’refugee streams, traditional smuggling routes and legitimate travel’ to move its operatives into place,” Fox News’ Catherine Herridge reported.
In addition to Mr. Brennan’s startling admission, we were also alerted last year to the mechanisms that terrorist machines might use to access those refugee and travel streams into the United States.
ABC reported last year, ” ’It appears that thousands of green cards have simply gone missing. In the wrong hands, green cards may enable terrorists, criminals and undocumented aliens to remain in the United States,’ said DHS Inspector General John Roth. The report follows up on the watchdog’s March finding that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) possibly sent hundreds of green cards to the wrong addresses. The problem was ’far worse than originally thought,’ according to Roth,” the network noted.
If that’s not enough to make you think green card holders need to be revetted, consider the fact that ISIS is in possession of tens of thousands of blank passports for three of the countries on the executive order list — Syria, Libya and Iraq. Through their possession of important areas in those three countries, the terror group gained a whole host of official state-based material and machinery allowing them to create fake “real” identity papers, including passports.
“The intelligence community is concerned that [ISIS] have the ability, the capability to manufacture fraudulent passports, which is a concern in any setting,” FBI Director James B. Comey said, ABC News reported.
“French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that through ISIS’ operations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, the group has acquired blank passports and has now set up a ’real fake document industry,’ ” ABC continued.
Mr. Trump campaigned on making America safe again. He was elected based on his campaign promises, which he has been implementing in rapid fashion. And while the usual suspects in the bureaucracy aren’t happy, the American people approve. The polling firm Rasmussen found “57 percent of likely U.S. voters favor a temporary ban on refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen until the federal government approves its ability to screen out potential terrorists from coming here.”
Dissent is an important aspect of the American ideal, but the argument moved by the Democrats that American leadership is “cruel” and “like Hitler” is more than wrong and embarrassing — it invites contempt and emboldens the very terrorist groups who make the same argument to their craven army of murderers.
• Tammy Bruce, author and Fox News contributor, is a radio talk show host.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.