By Mitch Hall
Thursday, February 04, 2016
For the past few months, the question of admitting tens
of thousands of Syrian refugees has rocked the American political landscape,
and predictably the issue has been remarkably polarized. Many on the Left,
including both Democratic presidential candidates, have advocated for a massive
domestic resettlement effort, while those on the Right favor either granting
asylum only to Christian refugees or admitting no refugees.
On February 3, Congress joined in the debate through a
public hearing hosted by the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee. The hearing,
which analyzed Canada’s plans to screen and admit 25,000 Syrian refugees,
invoked the testimony of both Canadian and U.S. experts, including U.S. border
officials. This scrutiny of our northern neighbor’s refugee plans is evidently
Congress’s attempt to check for flaws in the Canadian system (which could
result in potentially violent migrants living dangerously close to the United
States) and to better understand whether the Obama administration’s vetting
program will be effective.
The Senate’s hearing comes hot on the heels of terrorist
acts perpetrated by Middle Eastern immigrants across the globe, which have
seriously complicated the conversation on Syrian refugees. Last month, for
instance, an Islamic State operative from Syria killed 10 Western tourists
through a suicide bombing in Turkey, and on New Year’s Eve a group of 1,000
confirmed Arab and North African asylum-seekers robbed and sexually assaulted
literally hundreds of women in Cologne, Germany. Even in the United States, the
federal government recently arrested two Iraqi-born refugees, in Sacramento and
Houston, for plotting with terror groups and lying about their activity.
As the hearing demonstrated, the controversy surrounding
refugees in America has focused almost entirely on the potential threat to
national security, and the possibility—or probability, rather—of ISIS
capitalizing on open borders to plant insurgents into the country.
While these points are undoubtedly legitimate and signify
cause for concern, the potential cultural implications of a large-scale Muslim
migration into the United States have, on the whole, been relegated to the
sidelines of the national conversation. This part of the discussion is equally
important, however, because it exposes how open borders are quite contrary to
liberal Americans’ own values and interests.
A Culture
Antithetical to American Values
According to available statistics, the vast majority of
Syrian refugees that have been admitted to the United States since 2011 are
Muslim, and given the fact that only about 10 percent of all global refugees
are Christian, it’s safe to infer that the majority of refugees settling in
other parts of the globe are also Muslim.
In their rush to appear as compassionate champions of
Syrian refugees, many liberals have apparently forgotten how marginalized
groups are treated in the majority-Muslim countries of the Middle East.
According to a report by the World Health Organization in 2013, rates of
domestic violence are the highest by far in the Muslim countries of North
Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
It’s only been within the past 15 to 20 years that women
have gained access to political rights and offices in some of these countries,
yet despite this, women are still openly harassed in public, completely
undermined by many of their states’ legal systems, and severely restricted from
basic civil rights, particularly the freedoms of choice and expression.
Incredibly, it’s still not uncommon
for young women to be forced to marry someone who rapes or assaults them—a
reality that stems from regional religious and cultural views of honor.
Gays have it even worse than women. Homosexual behavior
and LGBT expression is either illegal or severely restricted in all countries
of the Middle East besides Israel, and punishments include lifelong
imprisonment or execution. Indeed, Israel is the only country in the region
that recognizes same-sex marriage, provides for adoption by same-sex couples,
and allows gays to serve in the military. As for transgender individuals, the
Left’s darling new minority group? Only Israel, Iran, and Syria provide legal
recognition for changes in gender identity.
Recent events in Europe show that incoming refugees are
not so quick to abandon their native cultural attitudes. Last month, gay
refugees in the Netherlands had to
be moved to separate facilities after other refugees attacked them, and
across Europe facilities are being built specifically for LGBT refugees because
of at least a hundred reports of assault.
The Cologne attacks clearly demonstrate that many
refugees have no qualms assaulting and robbing women, and several other
European countries have been dealing with a spike in rapes in migrant-heavy
areas for the past several years. This has lead some, like Norway, to institute
classes at asylum centers teaching refugees how to treat women properly.
While this may help prevent further attacks, it likely won’t
be that easy for refugees to conform to Western cultural standards so quickly.
After all, many have grown up in extremely patriarchal societies where any
scantily clad woman is understood to be a prostitute and even the slightest
display of skin is taken as an invitation for sex.
Is it really the progressive thing to do to grant
indefinite sanctuary to individuals who are committed to such fundamentally
different ways of life? This is a question that liberals—especially women and
gays—should ask themselves before jumping into the open border abyss.
A Potential
Long-Term Problem
Presented with this mounting evidence, some on the Left
have attempted to negate concerns that Europe’s refugee problems will manifest
in America, arguing that the overseas case is different because their incoming
refugees are overwhelmingly young men, a demographic naturally prone to such
violent behavior. They further point out that the United Nations has said it
plans to direct mostly women and children across the Atlantic, and that the
Obama administration has sworn the government’s vetting process will grant
preference to these ostensibly less-threatening refugees.
While women and children do make up a large portion of
the potential refugees to the United States, no one can say for certain that
young men or potential ISIS insurgents will not get past government screening.
But let’s say for a moment that, unlike most things run by the government, the
vetting system is actually effective and does bar potentially disruptive
refugees, allowing only the harmless women and children as Obama promised.
Would this situation leave liberals with no cause for concern?
Peter Skerry at The
Weekly Standard offers insightful information about the nature of Muslim
immigration and assimilation that suggest otherwise. He explains that,
generally, immigrant parents reconcile with what’s known as “the brutal
bargain.” They reluctantly come to terms with what they lost in leaving their
homeland by comparing their past circumstances to their newer, better prospects
in America.
Moreover, while Muslims are remarkably assimilated in
some respects—most speak English, earn a decent living, and attend American
schools—a notable shift occurs as the second generation comes of age. This
generation likely grows up seeing their parents deal with the realities of the
bargain. For example, first-generation parents might acquiesce to American
social norms in the public sphere, grateful to be making a decent living in a
safe environment, but at home they’ll express intense disapproval of American
culture—especially youth culture—even if they aren’t particularly observant
Muslims.
Skerry explains that their children, whose only real home
has been the United States, may inherit their parents’ cultural disapproval but
lack the same sense of obligatory appreciation that led their parents to
assimilate. Thus, when it comes to assimilation, they may “[try]
self-consciously to apply the brakes, even to reverse the process in order to
regain what many feel has been lost.”
What’s more is that today’s liberals—who control most of
education, including the public schools and colleges these immigrant children
eventually attend—relentlessly teach immigrants and minority groups that
they’re perpetual victims of a racist American society, and that they should
hate the governing system that granted their ancestors protection.
Indeed, many on the Left have completely abandoned
assimilation, which they regard only as a synonym for “racism,” “xenophobia,”
and “white supremacy,” while worshipping their religions of multiculturalism,
diversity, and tolerance. It’s likely because of the global Left’s obsessive,
coercive commitment to these principles that German police attempted to cover
up the sexual assault epidemic—something authorities in other European nations
have also been doing—to protect refugees from any perceived “discrimination.”
While there may be no apparent threat in admitting fleeing
Muslim families to the United States, liberals are creating an environment for
potentially deadly anti-American sentiment to fester when they encourage
migrants to simultaneously preserve their native culture and abhor their new
American one.
ISIS and other terror groups have already proven their
digital arms extend across the Atlantic and into the United States. The San
Bernardino shooters, for instance, long-time residents in the United States who
became radicalized domestically, as evidenced by their communication with
overseas terror groups prior to the massacre. Who’s to say ISIS or another
terror organization won’t similarly manipulate future Muslim-Americans?
Open Borders Lead
to a Culture of Fear
You’ll recall that the media absolutely lost its
collective mind when Donald Trump suggested a temporary ban on Muslim immigration in response to the Paris
attacks. You couldn’t go to any news outlet without seeing Trump’s name in top
headlines. Yet despite all the attacks and accusations of Republican xenophobia
most mainstream media outlets launched, Trump’s lead in the polls only expanded
after his suggested ban, proving that a good chunk of Americans actually liked
the sound of his policy.
Liberals are right when they say that closing our borders
to refugees in desperate need of help is inconsistent with our American (and
Judeo-Christian inspired) values. They are also right when they argue that
increasing surveillance on American Muslims and letting in some refugees over
others—based on religion, perhaps—is discriminatory and inconsistent with constitutional
principles.
But as the Wall
Street Journal correctly notes, sometimes it’s in our national interest to
“accept small infringements on liberty” such as these, because “the
consequences of failure will be so much worse for liberal values” and for the
nation as a whole. Keeping out certain demographics of immigrants as a temporary policy solution might
certainly be worth it if the wrong handful of individuals gain access into the
country and commit a Paris-style terror attack.
If you have trouble imagining the restrictions placed on
the personal liberties of all
Americans that would likely follow such an event, think back to the Patriot Act
and the post-9/11 paranoia. Or, even more extreme, think of the Japanese
internment camps during World War II, which were an egregious violation of
civil rights that grew out of the fear instilled by Pearl Harbor.
In any case, we know that liberals’ unequivocal support
for open borders and unfiltered immigration on a massive scale only increases
“xenophobic” sentiment among Americans. We’ve already seen some lawmakers move
further down that path as a consequence of the massive amounts of Hispanic
aliens who have entered the country and not assimilated particularly well.
Adopting the same unwavering stance for Muslim migration would only compound
the polarized political landscape, reducing the chances of the United States
providing assistance for any refugees.
It’s certainly tempting to sift through heart-wrenching
pictures of starved Syrian children and passionately condemn those opposed to
their immediate entry as heartless, nonsensical, and even monstrous. But
liberals shouldn’t let their commitment to compassion blind them to the
potential consequences of mass Muslim migration—consequences that would utterly
contradict their own interests and beliefs. If they don’t lift the veil,
they’ll fail to realize that the most compassionate thing to do isn’t to open
the border, but rather to focus their efforts on eliminating the evil that’s
pushing the refugees out of their homeland in the first place.
Correction: The
classes for refugees in Norway were voluntary, not mandatory. And one of the
San Bernardino shooters was born outside the United States. We regret the
errors.
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