Daily Wire Editor Emeritus <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ben-shapiro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ben Shapiro</a> said that multiculturalism might lead to the breakdown of Western civilization in the latest episode of his YouTube series “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/facts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facts</a>.”
In the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ffByO07NcM">episode</a>, which was released on Saturday, Shapiro details the three main problems that can come with a society being built on multiculturalism. He said that many people who have come into the West in recent years did not share many of the values that built the West, such as recognizing a political system based on ordered liberty and rule of law.
“Political multiculturalists have long suggested that all cultures are equally worthy of respect and inclusion, and the best society is the most diverse society. This point of view is disastrous,” Shapiro said. “It&#8217;s disastrous because not all cultures are morally equivalent. Some cultures, for example, prized truth as a value above others. Other cultures value death over life.”
The first major problem Shapiro outlined was that multiculturalism contributed to the breakdown of civic bonds.
“Every society has baseline propositions to which all members must pledge fealty. In the West, for example, most countries rely on social agreement to the rule of law and equal justice before the law,” Shapiro said. “Importing large numbers of people who disagree with these propositions results not in a richer and more wonderful life for Western countries, but in societal breakdown.”
Shapiro then discussed the mass migration of mostly males from the Middle East and Africa into Europe over the last 20 years and the impact it had on society there. In the wake of this migration, rates of sexual assault increased across Europe and some authorities were even worried to investigate over concerns that they would be accused of racism.
The second key problem with multiculturalism is the taxing effect it has on public resources. Shapiro pointed to statistics showing that immigrants were more likely to be on welfare in the U.S. than native-born citizens.
Third, Shapiro said that mass immigration broadened the Overton window, pointing to examples of the high amount of immigrants in France who expressed sympathy for the motives behind the terrorist attack on French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. He also pointed to a recent poll showing that over half of Muslim Americans had sympathy for Hamas following the Hamas terrorist attacks that left over 1,400 Israelis dead.
“Diversity can, in fact, be a strength, but only when that diversity serves a common purpose and a societal goal,” Shapiro said. “The West must rediscover its shared values and stand in pursuit of them or allow itself to be torn apart from the inside.”
WATCH:
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Facts Intro Still

Ben Shapiro Says Multiculturalism May Bring About ‘Downfall Of Western Civilization’ In Latest ‘Facts’ Episode

Ben Shapiro Says Multiculturalism May Bring About 'Downfall Of Western Civilization' In Latest 'Facts' Episode

Ben Shapiro

Europe

General

Hamas

Immigration

Muslim Immigration

U.S.

Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) made false claims about the six new countries that the Trump administration announced on Friday were going to have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-admin-adds-new-travel-restrictions-for-six-countries">new travel restrictions imposed upon them</a>, suggesting that the countries were selected due to &#8220;anti-Muslim hate&#8221; despite the fact the majority of those impacted with the new ban are non-Muslim.
In a statement, the Trump administration said [emphasis added to highlight the newly added countries]:
<blockquote>Today, following the recommendations provided by Members of his Cabinet and his advisors, President Donald J. Trump has issued a proclamation maintaining entry restrictions on certain nationals of Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia; suspending the overseas issuance of immigrant visas for certain nationals of Burma (Myanmar), Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, and Nigeria; and suspending participation in the “Visa Lottery” for certain nationals of Sudan and Tanzania. The new restrictions will not apply to tourist, business, or other nonimmigrant travel.</blockquote>
Omar, who has a well-documented history of anti-Semitic comments, responded by writing: &#8220;This is a monument to anti-Muslim hate. This president does not believe in freedom of religion. He does not believe in the rule of law. And he does not believe in our Constitution. We will fight this with all we have.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is a monument to anti-Muslim hate. 
This president does not believe in freedom of religion. He does not believe in the rule of law. And he does not believe in our Constitution.
We will fight this with all we have. <a href="https://t.co/oT0WD3FcLN">https://t.co/oT0WD3FcLN</a>
&mdash; Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ilhan/status/1223353489750941699?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
However, a review of the six countries added to the list shows that half of them have more Christians than Muslims and that the majority, 53.33%, of those impacted by the ban are non-Muslim, according to <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projection-table/2020/number/all/">estimates</a> from the Pew Research Center on the religious demographics for each country.
<ul>
<li>Eritrea:
<ul>
<li>Christians: 4,230,000</li>
<li>Muslims: 2,460,000</li>
<li>Total population: 6,730,000</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Kyrgyzstan:
<ul>
<li>Christians: 620,000</li>
<li>Muslims: 5,540,000</li>
<li>Total population: 6,190,000</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Burma (Myanmar):
<ul>
<li>Christians: 4,040,000</li>
<li>Muslims: 2,200,000</li>
<li>Buddhists: 41,440,000</li>
<li>Total population: 51,910,000</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Nigeria:
<ul>
<li>Christians: 96,080,000</li>
<li>Muslims: 104,650,000</li>
<li>Total population: 204,690,000</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Sudan:
<ul>
<li>Christians: 2,280,000</li>
<li>Muslims: 38,430,000</li>
<li>Total population: 42,360,000</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Tanzania:
<ul>
<li>Christians: 38,740,000</li>
<li>Muslims: 20,950,000</li>
<li>Total population: 61,440,000</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
This is not the first time that Omar has made false statements about the administration&#8217;s travel ban list, as she has falsely claimed on numerous occasions that the original ban is a &#8220;Muslim ban,&#8221; despite the fact that over 80% of the Muslim-majority nations worldwide are not impacted by the ban.
Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf said, “The top responsibility of the President and the Department of Homeland Security is the safety and security of the American people, and these new vetting criteria accomplish that goal and are raising the bar for global security. It is logical and essential to thoroughly screen and vet everyone seeking to travel or immigrate to the United States. However, there are some countries from whom the U.S. does not receive the necessary information about its travelers and, as a result, pose a national security or public safety risk that warrants tailored travel restrictions.”
Wolf continued, “DHS has refined its robust security standards, including enhanced screening and vetting capabilities, that allow us to better identify terrorists and criminals attempting to enter the United States. These screening and vetting capabilities are most effective when foreign governments contribute to our ability to verify a traveler’s identity and assess whether they pose a national security or public safety risk. For a small number of countries that lack either the will or the capability to adhere to these criteria, certain travel restrictions have become necessary to mitigate potential threats. The new, additional restrictions are not blanket restrictions. These tailored restrictions will make the U.S. safer and more secure. And countries that make the necessary improvements will have their restrictions removed accordingly, as was done in 2018.”
In a statement, DHS outlined why the six countries were added to the list:
<blockquote>Burma: Burma has begun to engage with the United States on a variety of identity-management and information-sharing issues, but it does not comply with the established identity-management and information-sharing criteria assessed by the performance metrics.
Suspension of entry for Immigrants, except as Special Immigrants whose eligibility is based on having provided assistance to the U.S. Government.
Eritrea: Eritrea does not comply with the established identity-management and information-sharing criteria assessed by the performance metrics.
Suspension of entry for Immigrants, except as Special Immigrants whose eligibility is based on having provided assistance to the U.S. Government.
Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyzstan does not comply with the established identity-management and information-sharing criteria assessed by the performance metrics.
Suspension of entry for Immigrants, except as Special Immigrants whose eligibility is based on having provided assistance to the U.S. Government.
Nigeria: Nigeria does not comply with the established identity-management and information-sharing criteria assessed by the performance metrics.
Suspension of entry for Immigrants, except as Special Immigrants whose eligibility is based on having provided assistance to the U.S. Government.
Sudan: Sudan generally does not comply with our identity management performance metrics and presents a high risk, relative to other countries in the world, of terrorist travel to the United States.
Suspension of entry for Diversity Immigrants, as described in section 203(c) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1153(c).
Tanzania: Tanzania does not comply with the established identity-management and information-sharing criteria assessed by the performance metrics.
Suspension of entry for Diversity Immigrants, as described in section 203(c) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1153(c).</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Today <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> signed a proclamation issuing tailored travel restrictions on 6 countries that currently fail to meet the minimum US security standards set by this Administration. Through this action, we are raising the baseline of security around the world. <a href="https://t.co/lrlXZDvqB2">https://t.co/lrlXZDvqB2</a>
&mdash; Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf/status/1223375563328577549?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Ilhan Omar

Omar Makes False Claims About New Countries Added To Travel Ban List

Fake News

Illegal Immigration

Travel Ban

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-considering-dramatic-expansion-of-terrorist-nations-added-to-travel-ban-list">previewed weeks ago</a> and as has also been rumored for much of this current week, the Trump administration on Friday imposed travel restrictions on six new countries.
&#8220;President Donald Trump is expected to reveal an expansion of his controversial travel ban on Friday, the same day he could be acquitted in his impeachment trial and just days ahead of the president’s annual State of the Union address,&#8221; Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/30/trump-travel-ban-expansion-109659">reported</a> yesterday. &#8220;The expected announcement — confirmed by two people familiar with the matter — had initially been planned for this past Monday to coincide with the three-year anniversary of the original order, which restricted travel from several majority-Muslim nations.&#8221;
On Friday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-imposes-new-travel-restrictions-on-six-countries-11580500874?emailToken=ee9c4d96fd7222587f6a95ea5366a1faJTb2EUg+d0M9bUrQCrIOQzQ91WSepUbYHQgY9Wk%2F8tABR%2F6914m7UCcOGLZysxL+RosZfgYd3Lb8J2OSgyyjyduSEnQYimX%2FldifLfWwadKmtNJ7tcwwfsnO5mS8469GWPrBhircuAoxdsFvkggkYQ%3D%3D&amp;reflink=article_whatsapp_share&amp;fbclid=IwAR03FzpEH7xWpUAx8Zyh0wkm5hGE__rlQ_gQW9NIAzsU5wuLbIvKnm8_tAc">confirmed the news</a>. The six new countries to have various types of travel restrictions imposed upon them are Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan, and Tanzania.
&#8220;Citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan won’t be allowed to apply for visas to immigrate to the U.S. under the policy, which the Trump administration said was designed to tighten security for countries that don’t comply with the U.S. minimum security standards or cooperate to prevent illegal immigration,&#8221; the Journal reports. &#8220;Two other countries, Sudan and Tanzania, will be barred from participating in the diversity visa lottery, which randomly awards green cards to 50,000 immigrants from underrepresented countries annually. Many of the recipients are from African countries.&#8221;
Specifically, Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan will have the issuance suspended of all visas that might lead to permanent residency, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ban/trump-to-expand-travel-ban-to-six-additional-countries-u-s-official-idUSKBN1ZU2WD">Reuters</a>.
Overall, &#8220;[t]he six countries [added today] will join a list of seven nations, most of them Muslim-majority, that faced significant travel restrictions under President Trump’s original travel ban, issued in 2017,&#8221; the Journal continues. Those original seven nations were Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and North Korea.
That original travel ban was ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the attention-grabbing 2018 case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf">Trump v. Hawaii</a>.
&#8220;By its plain language, [8 U.S.C.] §1182(f) grants the president broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States,&#8221; Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a bare 5–4 Court majority. &#8220;The president lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings — following a worldwide, multi-agency review — that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest. And plaintiffs’ attempts to identify a conflict with other provisions in the [Immigration and Nationality Act], and their appeal to the statute’s purposes and legislative history, fail to overcome the clear statutory language.&#8221;
The addition of countries with Trump administration-imposed travel restrictions placed upon them surely has a political element, and can likely be viewed as an attempt by the president to help shore up his base in the lead-up to November&#8217;s election. But the primary rationale seems to be a more emotionally detached attempt to buttress homeland security.
“These countries for the most part want to be helpful, want to do the right thing,” said Chad Wolf, acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, according to the Journal. “But for a variety of reasons, they failed to meet those requirements we laid out.”

Passport on the desk of an American businessman

BREAKING: Trump Admin Adds New Travel Restrictions For Six Countries

Department of Homeland Security

Immigrants

John Roberts

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Lawsuit

Supreme Court

In its latest annual <a href="http://www.islamophobia.org/reports/228-2018-civil-rights-report-bias-incident-data.html">hate crimes report</a>, the <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/profiles/the-council-on-american-islamic-relations-cair">Council on American-Islamic Relations</a> (CAIR) vilified U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials as the nation’s greatest perpetrators of anti-Muslim discrimination. So, when as many as 60 Iranian and Iranian-American travelers were delayed for hours earlier this month at the U.S.-Canada border, CAIR was quick to accuse the federal agency of living up to its purported reputation. Has the U.S. government decided to make life difficult for Iranians living in America, as CAIR contends? Or are the nonprofit’s actions part of an enduring campaign to subvert U.S. border security?
In response to a January 2 air strike which <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/opinion/soleimani-iran-tom-cotton.amp.html">killed</a> Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/ntas/alerts/20_0104_ntas_bulletin.pdf">published</a> a bulletin warning that Hezbollah and other Iranian loyalists could carry out homeland-based plots by targeting “critical infrastructure.” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo deployed the national guard to protect public transportation, while <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-03/us-cities-on-alert-after-killing-of-iran-leader-qassem-suleiman">government officials</a> in California, Washington, and Massachusetts ordered increased police patrols or warned citizens to remain extra vigilant.
Meanwhile, the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Washington became congested on January 4 after as many as 60 Iranian natives were allegedly selected for additional screening and detained, in some cases, for several hours. The travelers, who were returning from a pop concert in Vancouver, put a <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article238985213.html">strain</a> on CBP resources as customs agents struggled to keep up with the sudden increase in cross-border traffic. However, CAIR officials explicitly alleged that delays and mistreatment were premised solely on national heritage.
Soon after, CAIR’s Washington chapter issued a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cair-wa-assisting-iranian-americans-detained-at-us-border-300981286.html">press release</a> accusing CBP officials of treating Iranians and Iranian-Americans to prolonged interrogations at the U.S.–Canada border. “A source at CBP reported that the [DHS] has issued a national order to CBP to ‘report’ and detain anyone with Iranian heritage entering the country who is deemed potentially suspicious or ‘adversarial,’ regardless of citizenship status,” CAIR wrote.
CBP <a href="https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/us-border-protection-denies-reports-that-iranian-americans-were-detained-at-washington-canada-border/281-e276b43b-21a1-46d3-8de7-f1e700b0016a">rejected</a> these allegations. &#8220;Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. because of their country of origin are false. Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false,” said CBP spokesperson Michael Friel.
So far, CAIR has failed to produce any evidence supporting its discrimination claims. Instead, the nonprofit denigrated CBP personnel based on the testimony of frustrated tourists who experienced delays while crossing an international border during a period of heightened geopolitical tension.
What can’t be known about the recent cross-border controversy, because it falls beyond the public purview, is whether there was specific intelligence from the Terrorist Screening Center that indicated a need to conduct a more robust screening operation at the Peace Arch crossing. It is telling that <a href="https://www.thenorthernlight.com/stories/order-to-detain-iranian-american-travelers-likely-originated-in-blaine-say-lawyers,9173">no other enhanced security measures</a> were enforced at other U.S. entry points around the same time.
Even public knowledge of the threats posed by Shi’ite Islamism suggests that it was credible national security risks, and not uninformed profiling, that guided CBP’s actions. The agency must contend with Hezbollah’s elite external operations unit, known as the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), whose members have been <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/07/iran-has-terrorists-embedded-inside-the-united-states-and-across-our-border/">trained</a> to &#8220;maintain ostensibly normal lives” until they are activated to serve the Iranian regime&#8217;s interests.
<a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/07/iran-has-terrorists-embedded-inside-the-united-states-and-across-our-border/">FBI reports</a> indicate that Canada serves as a staging area for future homeland attacks. Ali Kourani, a Hezbollah sleeper agent <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hizballah-operative-sentenced-40-years-prison-covert-terrorist-activities-behalf-hizballah-s">convicted</a> in 2019 of planning attacks in the U.S., <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/14/hezbollah-isnt-just-in-beirut-its-in-new-york-too-canada-united-states-jfk-toronto-pearson-airports-ali-kourani-iran/">told </a>FBI agents that IJO is “even more active in Canada than they were in the United States.” Kourani’s Iranian handlers discussed the strategic advantages of cultivating familial ties to Canada, so that “it wouldn’t appear suspicious or odd if he were to make travel to Canada with some regularity or frequency.”
Iran is a country that is regularly <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-state-department-iran-remains-world-s-worst-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-/30248755.html">cited</a> as a state sponsor of terrorism, with a track <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/14/hezbollah-isnt-just-in-beirut-its-in-new-york-too-canada-united-states-jfk-toronto-pearson-airports-ali-kourani-iran/">record</a> of penetrating U.S. borders. For instance, between 1995 and 2000, Lebanese immigrant Mohammed Youssef Hammoud oversaw a vast “<a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/mohamad-youssef-hammoud-sentenced-30-years-terrorism-financing-case">criminal enterprise</a>” in Charlotte, North Carolina, which accumulated millions of dollars in capital intended for Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon.
In 2011, Soleimani’s Quds Force was implicated in a clandestine <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/">plot</a> to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and bomb the Saudi embassy in Washington D.C. Then there is Alexei Saab, a New Jersey resident charged in September with a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-indictment-new-jersey-man-terrorist-activities-behalf">nine-count indictment</a> for surveilling targets on behalf of IJO, probing for “soft spots” throughout New York City.
CAIR’s position on screening for terrorists, however, has been to <a href="https://www.cair.com/cair_to_announce_complete_victory_in_constitutional_challenge_to_federal_terror_watchlist">undermine</a> the process wherever possible. Indeed, the organization exerts a great deal of <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cair-asks-federal-court-in-mich-to-prohibit-fbi-border-agents-from-interrogating-muslim-travelers-about-religious-beliefs-and-practices-300858541.html">effort</a> challenging the government’s immigration and border security policies.
In September, CAIR proclaimed “complete victory” in a <a href="https://www.cair.com/cair_to_announce_complete_victory_in_constitutional_challenge_to_federal_terror_watchlist">lawsuit</a> that challenged the constitutionality of the <a href="https://apnews.com/f8abc66af1a64cc7a5f4fba0420cfc54">terrorist watch list</a>, a security protocol that subjects implicated airline passengers and border transients to additional screening. (Fewer than 0.5% of watch list suspects are U.S. citizens or legal residents.) For more than a year, CAIR filed lawsuits and amicus briefs that <a href="https://www.cair.com/fighting_the_unconstitutional_muslim_ban">stalled</a> Trump administration efforts to implement a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-enhancing-vetting-capabilities-processes-detecting-attempted-entry-united-states-terrorists-public-safety-threats/">travel ban</a> affecting visitors from select high-risk countries
CAIR has even directed Muslim Americans who are detained by customs officials to <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wtsp.com/amp/article/news/politics/muslim-rights-groups-urge-passengers-to-refuse-secondary-questioning/67-395025140">obstruct</a> the screening process whenever possible, perhaps explaining the delays experienced at the Peace Arch Border Crossing. “Whether you wait an hour or four hours, remain silent until they let you out,” advised CAIR-Florida executive director Hassan Shibly.
National-level law enforcement efforts must be led by consulting relevant intelligence <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/law-enforcement-guard-iran-retaliation-u-s-after-commander-killed-n1109826">sources</a>. Given the geopolitical context, the enhanced security posture at the U.S.-Canada border can be attributed to due diligence, and not some nefarious desire to pester Iranian-Americans. Yet, CAIR is far too eager to paint American security personnel as aggressors. CBP was merely taking reasonable precautions in the face of escalating hostility from a rogue nation that has spent decades building powerful Islamist infrastructure across North America.
&nbsp;
David Firester is a writer for Islamism in Politics, a project of the <a href="https://www.meforum.org">Middle East Forum</a>. He is the founder and CEO of TRAC Intelligence, LLC, an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College, and a former U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst.

Border Wall As House Investigates $400 Million Contract

FIRESTER: CAIR’s Fight To Undermine U.S. Border Security Continues

Border Wall

CAIR

Canada

Iran

Islam

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

National Security

The news that the deceased suspect of this morning&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-active-shooter-at-pensacola-naval-air-base-at-least-5-rushed-to-hospital-shooter-confirmed-dead">horrific shooting spree</a> at Naval Air Station Pensacola was a Saudi aviation student here to <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/authorities-identify-pensacola-naval-base-shooter-as-saudi-national">train with the Saudi military</a> ought to serve as a wakeup call for American elected officials.
The suspect appears to have been a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-attacker-at-florida-military-base-was-member-of-saudi-military-was-an-act-of-terrorism-congressman-says">student officer</a> with the Saudi Air Force and, while it is unclear right now which U.S. visa he obtained to arrive here, an <a href="https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1203012127952449541">A-2 visa</a> — <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/other-visa-categories/visas-diplomats.html">described</a> by the U.S. State Department as appropriate for those &#8220;traveling to the United States on behalf of [his/her] national government to engage solely in official activities for that government&#8221; — is perhaps likely . As The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-active-shooter-at-pensacola-naval-air-base-at-least-5-rushed-to-hospital-shooter-confirmed-dead">reported</a>, there are at least ten victims injured, including three dead.
There is a lot to unpack and unravel here — especially for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-us-must-side-saudi-arabia-against-iranian-josh-hammer">those of us</a> who have generally encouraged closer U.S.-Saudi military ties in order to help deter the far greater Middle East terrorism threat, Iran. This developing story has many moving parts, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ought to be prepared for a Jamal Khashoggi-level public relations blowback when even a stalwart pro-Israel/anti-Iran conservative such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has an <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/1203029174753153025">immediate reaction</a> that the Saudi government &#8220;needs to [financially] make things better for these victims.&#8221; Indeed, it is hard to disagree with the governor.
But the focus here must be on immigration policy. As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra already <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-attacker-at-florida-military-base-was-member-of-saudi-military-was-an-act-of-terrorism-congressman-says">reported</a>, hardline conservative Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has opined that today&#8217;s naval base tragedy &#8220;represents a serious failure in the vetting process and in the way in which we invite &#8230; people into our community.&#8221; Gaetz vowed to help &#8220;ensure that we have extreme vetting for the people that come into our country on our bases and in our communities.&#8221;
This is obviously correct. And it is important that this, and not a short-sighted hard diplomatic pivot away from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman at a time when the uniquely evil Iranian regime is yet again on the proverbial ropes and facing an increasingly restive population, become the preeminent takeaway from today&#8217;s horrific incident.
Why, as I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-never-forget-911-we-need-rethink-how-we-josh-hammer">lamented</a> on the most recent anniversary of the 9/11 jihadist attacks, has the U.S. continued to implement an exceedingly generous and lax immigration policy for prospective immigrants from the broader Islamic world? While there will always be dispensations for legal immigration from the Islamic world, why are we not starting from a default baseline level of effectively zero? Our much-ballyhooed &#8220;vetting&#8221; procedures are oftentimes, as was tragically the case today, revealed to be exceedingly inadequate. But hey, in fairness, <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1203010783958982657">how would we ever have known</a> to keep a close eye on Saudi aviation students? It&#8217;s not like we&#8217;ve had <a href="https://twitter.com/Sultanknish/status/1203014470525542400">previous noteworthy incidents</a>, right?
Policymakers ought to heed the unassailable wisdom of the <a href="https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1213676/m1/6/?q=cornerstone">9/11 Commission Report</a>: &#8220;It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country.&#8221; Heck, does anyone even remember that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, according to former CIA contractor James Mitchell, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/307362-9-11-mastermind-al-qaeda-to-use-immigration-to-end-us">allegedly believes</a> that &#8220;the &#8216;practical&#8217; way to defeat America [is] through immigration?&#8221;
Immigration policy is national security policy. And that extends to both illegal immigration and legal immigration. Our policymakers ought to not forget that.

US visa, vintage map and passport background

HAMMER: REMINDER: Immigration Policy IS National Security Policy

Florida

Matt Gaetz

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

Ron DeSantis

Saudi Arabia

Shooting

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said on Friday that the individual who opened fire at Naval Air Station Pensacola was a member of the Saudi military and that the attack &#8220;was an act of terrorism.&#8221;
The foreign national attacker killed at least <a href="https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2019/12/06/breaking-active-shooter-reported-base-nas-pensacola/4351773002/">three</a> people and injured several others who were sent to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Gaetz responded to the attack by calling for &#8220;extreme vetting&#8221; of those who are allowed into the United States and who train at U.S. military bases.
&#8220;Major news organizations are now reporting the information that we began to learn earlier this morning that it was a Saudi Arabian military official in Pensacola, in our community for training, who committed these murderous acts and this terrible, terrible violence at NAS Pensacola,&#8221; Gaetz said. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s important for us to know a little bit about why Saudi Arabian officials are in our community.&#8221;
&#8220;Training is a critical part of the mission that we engage in in NAS Pensacola,&#8221; Gaetz continued. &#8220;One way that we leverage that training is to ensure that our allies around the world are capable and familiar with U.S. systems, that they&#8217;re comfortable working with U.S. officers, and that we have an interoperability in our lexicon and in the way we engage in battle.&#8221;
&#8220;This event represents a serious failure in the vetting process and in the way in which we invite these people into our community,&#8221; Gaetz continued. &#8220;So today, as we learn more as the investigation continues to unfold &#8230; I&#8217;m going to be very active in working with the Department of Defense and the Department of State to ensure that we have extreme vetting for the people that come into our country on our bases and in our communities.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
We&#39;re learning a Saudi Arabian military member in Pensacola committed these murders.
I&#39;m working with the <a href="https://twitter.com/DeptofDefense?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DeptofDefense</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/StateDept?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@StateDept</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DHSgov</a> to ensure there&#39;s extreme vetting for people who come to our country and train on our bases. <a href="https://t.co/LUhSE6UAHO">pic.twitter.com/LUhSE6UAHO</a>
&mdash; Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1203019241626185730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 6, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In a subsequent tweet that featured a video of Gaetz appearing on CNN, Gaetz wrote: &#8220;This was not a murder. This was an act of terrorism.&#8221;
&#8220;If this were a murder, it would typically be investigated by NCIS &#8230; but this was not a murder,&#8221; Gaetz said. &#8220;This was an act of terrorism and as we speak the investigation is being handed over from the NCIS to the FBI, that is the signal that this will now be treated by our government as an act of terrorism, not a murder.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This was not a murder. This was an act of terrorism. <a href="https://t.co/AJfTQOOE68">pic.twitter.com/AJfTQOOE68</a>
&mdash; Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1203025382632546305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 6, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The U.S. Navy confirmed on Twitter that the attacker, who was an aviation student, is dead.
Heavy.com <a href="https://heavy.com/news/2019/12/mohammed-saeed-alshamrani/">noted</a> some of the history surrounding the military base, with respect to past incidents involving terrorism:
<blockquote>In the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11, Newsweek reported that three of the hijackers had the addresses on their driver’s licenses listed as being at NAS Pensacola. The article notes that Naval Air Station Pensacola is known as the “Cradle of U.S. Navy Aviation.”
The Navy Times reported in February 2016 that NAS Pensacola officials had increased security measures at the base, after the base had been known was “unusually open” for years.
The Pensacola News Journal reported in September 2019 the “new, top-secret classrooms” had been built on the base to counteract the threat caused by cyber terrorism.</blockquote>
UPDATE: This report has been updated to accurately state that the alleged attacker killed three individuals, not four. The fourth person who was killed was the alleged attacker.

Shooting On Naval Air Station Pensacola Leaves Multiple Dead And Injured

Attacker At Florida Military Base Was Member Of Saudi Military, ‘Was An Act Of Terrorism,’ Congressman Says

U.S. Navy

Eighteen years ago today, in what would be the deadliest assault by a geopolitical foe on U.S. soil since the War of 1812, the global jihad struck the most lethal blow in the history of its wretched movement. The 9/11 airline hijackers were largely trained and funded by Wahhabist/Salafist Sunni zealots based in <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/19/911-report-details-saudi-arabia-funding-of-muslim-/">Saudi Arabia</a>, were substantially aided by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist</a> <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-10/iran-told-to-pay-10-5-billion-to-sept-11-kin-insurers">Iranian</a> regime, and were protected and mollycoddled by Taliban Islamists.
It was not amorphous &#8220;terrorism&#8221; — an easily <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51440/hammer-san-francisco-has-beclowned-itself-labeling-josh-hammer">malleable</a> linguistic concept — in the abstract that killed those <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/09/11/remember-2/">three thousand people</a> on 9/11. It was a much more clearly identifiable and unmistakable foe: genocidal Islamic jihadism.
It is astonishing to ponder that those born now will be eligible to serve in the U.S. military despite being born after 9/11. For those fresh new military recruits, 9/11 will be ingrained in their consciences as but one of many distant historical events — akin to the Vietnam War, the Pearl Harbor attacks, or perhaps even the Battle of Gettysburg. That is a downright harrowing thought for those of us for whom 9/11 was a seminal — perhaps life-changing or career trajectory-altering — event.
Crucially, these impressionable 18-year-old military recruits have grown up thinking of 9/11 and the corresponding bipartisan military adventurism overseas as inextricably linked. It is, of course, true that the Taliban in Afghanistan harbored the al-Qaeda militants who took down the Twin Towers. But it is also true that Afghanistan has already become this generation&#8217;s Vietnam: A seemingly interminable struggle in a faraway land for which there seems no way out.
While there is a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">prudent and responsible &#8220;third way,&#8221;</a> far too often our foreign policy and national security discourse in the post-9/11 era has been oversimplified to a most regrettable dichotomy: That between George W. Bush-era moralistic interventionist neoconservatism and a fanatical isolationism that has never seen a foreign threat worth seriously engaging. For the young generation that has intellectually matured in the proverbial shadow of this oversimplified discourse, 9/11 and our subsequent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are solidified in the mind as part and parcel of Bush-era military interventionism.
As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/us/politics/us-soldier-killed-afghanistan.html">Americans continue to die</a>, eighteen years later, fighting in third-world sharia hellholes to try to quixotically impose Madisonian democracies upon Islamists who effectively live in the seventh century, the public will to fiscally fund and morally support our campaigns naturally wanes. While that support wanes, the isolationist <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/fox-news-tucker-carlson-reportedly-at-center-of-trump-s-decision-not-to-bomb-iran-1.7403783">Tucker Carlson wing</a> of the foreign policy Right <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51610/hammer-bad-trump-presidents-dismissal-john-bolton-josh-hammer">markedly ascends</a>. But Tucker Carlson-esque thinking on foreign policy is exceedingly dangerous. If 9/11 taught us anything, it taught us that real evil exists in this earthly realm — and that evil must be soberly assessed and unambiguously thwarted, lest we succumb to its tyranny. Evil loves a geopolitical vacuum, and there is no greater vacuum than when the post-World War II United States entirely withdraws itself from the world.
The problem is that, no matter its flaws, Carlson&#8217;s isolationism will continue to gain momentum so long as it is juxtaposed with the overly sanguine Pollyannaism of those who would moralistically intervene and seek to build Enlightenment-style Western nation-states in <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2019-02-18/obamas-libya-debacle">sharia-governed desert backwaters</a>. The onus, therefore, falls on those of us <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">true, non-neoconservative counter-jihadi hawks</a> to articulate and advocate for a compelling foreign policy vision that both soberly reflects upon the excesses of bipartisan moralistic interventionism gone awry and rejects the unyielding demands of the &#8220;bring America home&#8221; isolationists.
There is much to be said about what this vision looks like, and my hope is that future columns will help further contribute to the development of this &#8220;third way.&#8221; But instead of deploying U.S. military assets for dictator-toppling and nation-building purposes, a &#8220;third way&#8221; hawkish foreign policy would focus upon utilizing the tools of soft power, &#8220;draw and strike&#8221;-style lesser hard power maneuvering, hard deterrence (e.g., strategic naval asset deployment), statecraft, and sanctions/finances to achieve its goals: To thwart jihadism and deter the hegemonic ambitions of other non-jihadist geopolitical foes, such as Russia and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47057/hammer-china-americas-greatest-21st-century-threat-josh-hammer">China</a>.
The U.S. should label the leading Mexican cartels as State Department-recognized <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/time-designate-mexican-cartels-terrorist-organizations/">foreign terrorist organizations</a>. The U.S. must label the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46714/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, which is the intellectual progenitor of all contemporary Sunni jihad, as a terrorist group. The U.S. must <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/07/01/cutting-us-aid-to-the-lebanese-army-would-increase-pressure-on-the-iran-hezbollah-axis/">defund the Lebanese Armed Forces</a>, given that the entire Lebanese military apparatus has been overrun by Hezbollah. The U.S. must amp up pressure on Qatar and Turkey, which have both long surpassed Saudi Arabia as the leading global bankrollers of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Sunni madrasas alike.
In terms of immigration, the U.S. must focus not just on a border wall but also on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42539/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">interior enforcement</a>: After all, two of the 9/11 hijackers — who should, of course, have never received visas in the first instance — were present in the country on that fateful day due to overstaying their visas. Two of the 9/11 hijackers, in other words, were illegal aliens still presently in the country due to a lack of robust interior enforcement.
Why on Earth, for that matter, has the U.S. continued to implement a lax immigration policy that continues to voluntarily <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/aimless-fighting-in-afghanistan-while-we-bring-afghanistan-to-our-shores/">bring the very problem we claim to be fighting overseas</a> to our own shores? Has the development of Rep. Ilhan Omar&#8217;s (D-MN) large Somali immigrant community into the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/how-rep-ilhan-omars-minnesota-district-became-the-terrorist-recruitment-capital-of-the-us-officials-highly-concerned">nation&#8217;s largest terrorist recruitment hub</a> taught us nothing? Why are we not implementing an immigration policy for the Islamic world that, while allowing for dispensations, starts from a default baseline level of effectively zero? None of the 9/11 hijackers should have been in the United States and, distressingly, our inadequate immigration &#8220;vetting&#8221; procedures are oftentimes hopeless in attempting to prevent the next importations of jihadist evil.
But a true &#8220;third way&#8221; foreign policy approach — a common-sense approach that can repel the nostrums of Tucker Carlson&#8217;s isolationism and moralistic interventionism alike — must begin with a sober assessment of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. There is no reason whatsoever for the U.S. to <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/now-pull-the-plug-on-afghanistan/">still deploy large swaths of troops</a> to Afghanistan. Our fanciful efforts to democratize a seventh century-dwelling bastion of Islamism has manifestly failed, and will never succeed. But even more germanely, there is no present security threat from Afghanistan itself. Unlike Iran, the world&#8217;s most dangerous Islamist nation and number one global funder of jihad, Afghanistan has no nuclear weapon program or expressed desire to develop intercontinental ballistic missile technology, does not fund jihadist outfits or targeted assassinations overseas, and poses no genuine threat to American interests other than the radicalization of Afghans themselves.
It turns out that there is a much simpler and more cost-effective method of dealing with the Afghanistan problem than a seemingly endless military presence — with the concomitant constant risk of <a href="https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/03/21/green-on-blue_attacks_in_afghanistan_the_data_111015.html">&#8220;green-on-blue&#8221; violence</a>. Instead, U.S. policymakers ought to simply amp up border security, interior enforcement, and set Afghan visas to zero. A meaningful withdrawal from Afghanistan, furthermore, would allow genuine counter-jihadi hawks to demonstrate to isolationists that they have no interest in occupying or democratizing every sharia hellhole the world over. And it would save much-needed intellectual, moral, financial, and military capital that must be conserved for a potential showdown with genuine jihadi state actor threats, such as Iran.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">My argument has always been that hawks themselves should support getting out of Afghanistan. We waste intellectual, moral, fiscal, physical, and human capital that we’d be better off saving for fighting adversaries that are actually strategically necessary. <a href="https://t.co/Q6fcyK9HmW">https://t.co/Q6fcyK9HmW</a>
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1160333751118913536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">You want to know how to solve the Afghanistan issue?
Set Afghan visas to zero. Maybe leave a few drones for easy aerial operations.
Done.
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1160352043191717888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
By recalibrating our post-9/11 counterterrorism strategy to focus less on nation-building and more on genuine deterrence, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48120/hammer-d-day-was-good-versus-pure-evil-our-josh-hammer">clearly defining military missions for our men and women in uniform</a>, amping up border security at home, cutting immigration from the Islamic world, and conserving financial and military capital for future showdowns with the Iran-Muslim Brotherhood-Qatar-Turkey axis of Islamism, hawks will go a long way toward showing that they have learned the lessons of moralistic interventionism gone awry. In so doing, they will also begin the process of repelling the noxious rise within the conservative movement of those pernicious isolationists whose discredited ideas risk such profound harm.

9/11 Twin Towers

HAMMER: Never Forget 9/11. But We Need To Rethink How We Fight Radical Islamic Jihad.

Afghanistan

Al Qaeda

Conservatism

Foreign Policy

George W. Bush

We are now in the 33rd day of a Southern border fight-induced federal government shutdown. With Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42407/breaking-trump-announces-plan-end-government-ryan-saavedra">recalcitrant</a> as ever in their open-borders zealotry, it is unclear when this standoff might ever end.
Construction of a wall along the Southern border was, of course, President Trump&#8217;s singularly iconic campaign promise. The man who famously descended that Trump Tower escalator in June 2015 made the illegal immigration issue the unambiguous centerpiece of his presidential campaign. And within the context of Trump&#8217;s campaigning on the illegal immigration issue, nothing was more identifiably and palpably #MAGA than Trump&#8217;s promise to build a wall along the Southern border and (somehow) make Mexico pay for it.
To be sure, border walls work. In fact, they work quite well. Just ask the folks thousands of years ago who built the Great Wall of China &#8212; or perhaps the post-Second Intifada Israelis whose daily lives were made infinitely more peaceful afer the security fence was constructed around Judea and Samaria. In 2017, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/the-places-where-walls-work/">surveyed</a> a myriad of border walls the world over. Rubin recently <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/where-walls-work-part-ii/">revisited</a> the issue in the context of the present government shutdown and concluded that politically motivated opposition to the historical efficacy of border walls represents a &#8220;willful subordination of facts&#8221;:
<blockquote>
Since my last compilation, the list has only grown. Iraq has now built a fence along its border with Syria, and France has also joined the club, specifically to control illegal immigration. Lithuania has built a barrier along one of its borders with Russia. Estonia, too, is joining the club. Norway, too, has built a border barrier along its frontier with Russia in order to stem illegal immigration&#8230;
Whether the cost of an enhanced border wall for the US-Mexican border would provide the most bang for the buck is a political decision. But, as argued in my 2017 post, it is simply counterfactual to suggest walls don&#8217;t work, a willful subordination of facts to the politics of the day. Put another way: Take Trump out of the equation, and a growing number of countries (and, in the case of Cyprus, even the United Nations) are weighing evidence and facts and concluding that border walls very much serve their stated purpose.
</blockquote>
But as iconic as the border wall is for Trump, as irrefutable as the historical successes of border walls may be, and as <a href="https://www.themaven.net/theresurgent/erick-erickson/president-trump-is-right-the-border-wall-is-worth-the-shutdown-axucxo04n0-gF_IP7ypdgg/">important</a> as the present standoff is for Trump&#8217;s political standing with his base, it would be a mistake for immigration hawks to become too subsumed with the border wall over the mid- to long-term. Yes, a physical barrier would help thwart the transnational cartels and human traffickers who smuggle in young drug mules and (gasp, yes!) <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/01/02/central-american-countries-helping-middle-easterners-illegally-enter-united-states/">dangerous Middle Easterners</a> alike.
At the same time, it is also now <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/visa-overstays-outnumber-illegal-border-crossings-trend-expected-continue-n730216">well-established</a> that a <a href="https://apnews.com/48d0ad46f143478d9384410f5ae3d38b">higher percentage</a> of illegal aliens in the U.S. are due to visa overstays than they are due to border crossings. We need a full-spectrum strategy to remove all incentives for the cartels and traffickers to commit their humanitarian injustices upon trafficked <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/lets-stop-managing-this-invasion-and-start-blocking-it/">sex victims</a> &#8212; as well as the inner-city American youth victims upon whom the cartels commit their <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/12/health/drugs-overdose-fentanyl-study/index.html">fentanyl-induced</a> de facto <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/12/12/fentanyl-drug-overdoses-cdc-report/">drug chemical warfare</a>.
A border wall is not only insufficient for the gravity of the task at hand, but it does not even address the crux of the illegal imimgration problem. Instead, after the present shutdown fight is over &#8212; no matter how it ends &#8212; the onus is on immigration hawks to begin to shift the conversation away from treating the border wall as some sort of panacea and toward treating it as one small component of a broader enforcement strategy. Most specifically, it is incumbent upon hawks to tout the importance of an all-encompassing interior enforcement strategy.
There are any number of concrete policies conservatives can promote, in the sphere of interior enforcement. Biometric entry-exit visas have been mandated under U.S. law <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/border-biometrics.html">since 2002</a> &#8212; and it is time that we actually enforce them. We could require certain classes of visas who have been historically prone to commit overstays to post bond upon entering the country. We could mandate incarceration for certain categories of visa overstays and bar overstayers from reapplying for visas for a certain number of years. We should deport all violent criminal aliens, once and for all &#8212; period. We should deport all aliens who find themselves on the &#8220;terror watch list&#8221; &#8212; aliens, unlike U.S. citizens, do not have full due process rights vis-à-vis the watch list, and deportation is in any event legally considered to be an extension of sovereignty rather than a crime with which a concomitant bundle of due process rights necessarily attach. We should incentivize cooperative, non-coercive opportunities for state and local law enforcement to assist ICE with apprehending illegal aliens. We should finally pass the comprehensive <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/335933-davis-oliver-act-would-make-trumps-immigration-agenda-law-of">Davis-Oliver Act</a>. We should defund all law enforcement grant programs for sanctuary jurisdicitons. We should crack down on perhaps the most under-appreciated aspect of the illegal immigration problem, which is <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/heres-how-congress-must-start-fighting-identity-theft-now/">identity theft</a>.
And so on.
Perhaps above all else, conservatives should remember that, while countless factors contributed to the events of September 11, 2001, one proximate cause was a visa overstay problem &#8212; a lack of solidifed interior enforcement. Two of the 9/11 hijackers &#8212; who should, of course, have never received visas in the first instance &#8212; were present in the country on that fateful day due to overstaying their visas. Two of the 9/11 hijackers, in other words, were illegal aliens still presently in the country due to a lack of robust interior enforcement. As Conservative Review&#8217;s Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/16-years-after-911-do-our-policies-honor-those-who-sacrificed/">wrote</a> on the 16th anniversary of 9/11, in 2017:
<blockquote>
Consider how astounding this is: Congress passed an exit-entry visa tracking system in 1996. Its implementation was recommended by the 9/11 Commission. We still have not implemented such a verification system. Two of the hijackers, Satam al Suqami and Nawaf al Hazmi, overstayed their visas. Visa overstays remains the biggest gaping hole in our security. More than 600,000 people who overstayed their visas in 2016 alone still remain in the country.
Furthermore, instead of making visa applications from terror-prone countries a red flag, we now admit over 155,000 foreign students from the Middle East and have more immigrants from these countries than ever before. One of the 9/11 hijackers came here on a student visa from Saudi Arabia. We have responded to the threat by increasing the number of foreign students from Saudi Arabia from a few thousand a year to over 70,000. In 2014, ABC news discovered that 58,000 foreign nationals had overstayed their student visas in particular, of which 6,000 represented a &#8220;heightened concern.&#8221;
</blockquote>
I am the very, very last person who would ever downplay the unspeakable atrocity of 9/11 or seek to aggrandize it for political gain. As I <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2016/09/11/we-must-never-ever-forget-september-11-2001/">wrote</a> on the 15th anniversary of the attacks, &#8220;the jihadist attacks of September 11, 2001 served as the seminal moment in my nascent political development&#8230;[9/11] was for me the first time I developed a Manichean understanding of the world. It was the first time I came to viscerally understand that evil truly does exist in this realm &#8212; and that the only way to combat existential evil is with large doses of unapologetic, relentless good.&#8221;
But the facts are, of course, the facts. And it is an uncontestable fact that 9/11 was, in no small part, a self-inflicted crisis of immigration non-enforcement.
So yes, conservatives ought to push full-throttle for the border wall. President Trump is right to prolong this shutdown fight until Schumer and Pelosi come to the negotiating table and give him the relatively paltry sum of funding that he is seeking. Walls, after all, emphatically do work.
But in the mid- to long-term, interior enforcement is even more important. And conservatives must not forget that.

HAMMER: A Border Wall Is Nice, But Interior Enforcement Is Nicer. Remember 9/11.

Donald Trump

Trump Administration

Germans are reportedly asking their government to reconsider its lax immigration policies in light of the brutal rape and murder of a 14 year old girl named Susanna Maria Feldman, according to <a href="http://WATCH: Here's the Video President Trump Showed Kim Jong-un of N. Korea's Two Futures">The New York Times</a>.
Feldman disappeared in May without a trace; the only clue to where she might have gone was a text message sent to her parents that read, &#8220;Don&#8217;t look for me. I come in 2 or 3 weeks.&#8221; Susanna&#8217;s body was found a short time later, &#8220;buried in brushwood, in a secluded area, near the railroad tracks,&#8221; not far from a refugee camp, with signs that she&#8217;d been raped and then strangled.
&#8220;The murder suspect, identified as Ali Bashar, a 20-year-old Iraqi, arrived in Germany in October 2015, shortly after Ms. Merkel opened the borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants,&#8221; the NYT reports. &#8220;He was rejected in late 2016, but was allowed to stay in the country while his appeal was pending.&#8221;
After the young girl disappeared, he and his family left the country. He was recently found in northern Iraq and extradited to face murder charges back in Germany.
Angela Merkel&#8217;s government has been shockingly tolerant of the migrant wave, even after a rash of sexual assaults rocked the capital city of Berlin during New Years celebrations, and even after media revealed that Germany had accepted thousands of migrants who had a record of terrorist sympathies and criminal backgrounds, and who had been &#8220;dismissed by other states.&#8221;
&#8220;People feel that the state has lost control,&#8221; the head of one of Germany&#8217;s police unions told the NYT. &#8220;There are thousands of people in the country and we don&#8217;t know who they are. That is an enormous security risk.&#8221;
And this isn&#8217;t even the first murder. The German government admits at least one other teenager, a 17-year-old, was killed by a migrant who should have been deported.
Now German police are turning on Merkel&#8217;s government over the policy and even mainstream media sources in Germany have proclaimed that the murders could have been prevented had Germany simply checked before admitting thousands of &#8220;refugees&#8221; from Middle Eastern countries.
Der Spiegel ran with the headline, &#8220;If he had been deported, she would still be alive.&#8221;

Germans Are Rethinking Their Immigration Policies After The Murder Of A 14-Year-Old Girl

Germany

On Tuesday, Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told German Jews to avoid wearing yarmulkes on the streets after an Arab Israeli was assaulted for wearing a kippa just days ago in a social experiment. The suspect beat the Arab Israeli with his belt while shouting &#8220;Yahudi&#8221; &#8211; &#8220;Jew&#8221; in Arabic. The suspect in the assault is a 19-year-old Syrian refugee &#8220;of Palestinian origin.&#8221; Schuster explained that people should stop &#8220;showing themselves openly with a kippah in a big-city setting in Germany, and wear a baseball cap or something else to cover their head instead.&#8221; According to the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-jewish-leader-advises-against-wearing-yarmulkes-in-cities/">Associated Press</a>:
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Schuster suggested three years ago that Jews shouldn&#8217;t wear skullcaps in areas with large Muslim populations. But he stressed there&#8217;s increasing anti-Semitic sentiment among non-migrants.
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The rise of anti-Semitic attacks throughout Europe in line with a massive increase in Muslim immigration has been obvious for years. According to a June 2017 study from Johannes Due Enstand of the <a href="https://www.hlsenteret.no/publikasjoner/digitale-hefter/antisemittisk-vold-i-europa_engelsk_endelig-versjon.pdf">University of Oslo</a>, &#8220;Available data on perpetrators suggest that individuals of Muslim background stand out among perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence in Western Europe. &#8230; Attitude surveys corroborate this picture in so far as anti-Semitic attitudes are far more widespread among Muslims than among the general population in Western Europe.&#8221;
This is one of those politically incorrect facts that gets ignored so often in the European Left&#8217;s desire to speak glowingly of &#8220;diversity&#8221; thanks to mass immigration from the Middle East &#8212; the selection of Muslim populations over Jewish ones. The city of Malmo, Sweden has become essentially a no-go zone for Jews &#8212; as Paulina Neuding <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/opinion/sweden-antisemitism-jews.html">wrote in The New York Times</a> last year:
<blockquote>
Today, entering a synagogue anywhere in Sweden usually requires going through security checks, including airport-like questioning. At times of high alert, police officers with machine guns guard Jewish schools. Children at the Jewish kindergarten in Malmo <a href="https://www.expressen.se/ledare/naomi-abramowicz/judiskt-liv-i-malmo-sker-bakom-skyddsglas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">play behind bulletproof glass</a>. Not even <a href="https://www.expressen.se/kvallsposten/judisk-man-fick-skydd-av-polis-vid-sorgevaka/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">funerals</a> are safe from harassment. &#8230; A spokesman for Malmo&#8217;s Jewish community put the situation starkly. You &#8220;don&#8217;t want to display the Star of David around your neck,&#8221; he said. Or as spokesman for the Goteborg synagogue put it, &#8220;It&#8217;s a constant battle to live a normal life, and not to give in to the threats, but still be able to feel safe.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Fully 51% of all anti-Semitic attacks in Sweden were perpetrated by Muslims, as opposed to 5% perpetrated by right-wing extremists and 25% perpetrated by Left-wing extremists.
The European press are determined to ignore this problem, even as it grows radically &#8212; even as elderly Holocaust survivors are thrown from windows or stabbed to death, even as Jewish supermarkets are targeted, even as non-Jews are attacked for wearing yarmulkes. Political correctness trumps public safety and honest discussions about value differences. No wonder Europe is in trouble.

German Jews Warned Not To Wear Yarmulkes After Anti-Semitic Attack From Muslim Immigrant

Anti-Semitism

Lauren Southern has had enough of double standards.
The conservative author and YouTube star says there&#8217;s one set of standards for the liberal elite accused of sexual impropriety &#8212; and another set for everyone else.
&#8220;The elites play by a different set of rules,&#8221; Southern said Tuesday in an appearance on &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show.&#8221;
&#8220;When you have enough money to hire all the lawyers in the world to intimidate someone &#8230; to pay someone off, when you hold someone&#8217;s career in the palm of your hand, their success, their failure, of course you&#8217;re playing by a different set of rules than the average young man on college campus who will brush a woman&#8217;s arm and get kicked out of school these days,&#8221; she said.
On immigration, Southern insisted that a free society cannot achieve those things with open borders and multiculturalism.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a myth! It hasn&#8217;t worked everywhere it has been applied,&#8221; she said. And she singled out the Canadian prime minister, who has all but embraced open borders.
&#8220;Justin Trudeau can say diversity is our strength over and over and over again, but as the face of the nation changes, and people find that multiculturalism is just segregated enclaves, that answer is not going to be good enough for the young people who find themselves an English-speaking minority in certain places,&#8221; Southern said.
On The Daily Wire podcast, host Klavan dug into what shaped Southern&#8217;s alignment with the conservative and libertarian movements. &#8220;Did you start out there or did you have to take that trip?&#8221; he asked.
&#8220;I can thank where I am right now to wonderful parenting,&#8221; Southern said. &#8220;When I got home from school everyday, my father would start the drive home by asking me what I learned and instead of just saying, &#8216;That&#8217;s great,&#8217; he would ask me questions to follow-up.&#8221;
&#8220;He gave me this nasty bug of being forced to ask questions about everything, and it ended up getting me in a lot of trouble,&#8221; she added.
Klavan brought up some controversy surrounding Southern, noting that members of the far left have accused her of being a racist religious bigot. &#8220;Defend yourself, Lauren,&#8221; he said jokingly.
Southern did so succinctly. &#8220;I want the highest amount of freedom with the highest amount of safety and peace and happiness,&#8221; she said.
Watch the interview below:
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Lauren Southern is the author of &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Barbarians-Boomers-Immigrants-Screwed-Generation/dp/1541136942">Barbarians: How Baby Boomers, Immigrants, and Islam Screwed My Generation</a>&#8221; and a freelance journalist.

DAILY WIRE EXCLUSIVE: Lauren Southern Talks Feminism, Multiculturalism, Hollywood Scandals, And More

England

Justin Trudeau

Donald Trump met with King Abdullah II of Jordan on Wednesday following the president’s speech at the <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/21306/watch-trump-slams-socialism-un-world-leaders-ryan-saavedra">United Nations</a> in New York City. The two leaders discussed terrorism in the Middle East as well as the growing partnership between the United States and Jordan.
The president and King Abdullah II gave joint remarks to the press before their bilateral meeting.
Trump told reporters, “It&#8217;s a great honor to be with the King of Jordan, who has been our partner and ally for a long time. And I think never has the relationship been better than it is right now.”
He continued, “And we&#8217;re working together on many problems, and some things that aren&#8217;t problems that are very, very good. But we&#8217;re going to make some of the bad ones turn out good.”
Trump also praised Jordan’s refugee policy, saying, “I just want to thank you for everything you&#8217;ve done, in terms of the refugees and taking care of people that &#8212; who knows what would have happened without you. So I want to thank you and I want to thank everybody involved with you, and you have done an amazing job.”
King Abdullah expressed his concern for the victims of the recent hurricane, commenting, “I&#8217;d also like to extend our condolences on the victims of the hurricanes, but also how you, the government, the people, the first responders reacted to this crisis,” he said. “I mean, for us sitting on the outside, looking at how the Americans came together at a difficult time, is really an example to everybody else. And we&#8217;re very, very grateful for that.”
Trump also praised the Jordanian monarch: “I have to say this about the King: He is a very fine gentleman, a very nice man. He&#8217;s also a great, great fighter.”
King Abdullah also emphasized his dedication to fighting radical Islamic extremists: “Terrorism is a scourge around the world, but I think Jordan will always stand beside you and your country. And we will overcome.”
Afterward, the two leaders took questions from reporters.
Watch the comments below:
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