by Brian Lonergan
Just when we thought it was impossible for Joe Biden to make his immigration policies any more ridiculous, he finds another low. Against the backdrop of America’s current border crisis and with adversaries increasingly viewing the United States as a paper tiger, the Biden Administration will now make it easier for foreign nationals with terrorist ties to enter the United States and take advantage of immigration benefits.
A joint statement by the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State in the Federal Register explained that the two agencies have made changes to the application of the Immigration and Nationality Act, our country’s immigration law. Going forward, the U.S. government will grant entry into the United States to those who provided “limited” or “insignificant” support to designated terrorist organizations.
The absurdity of this policy evokes the legendary standup comedian Robert Klein, who once remarked on the federal government’s acceptable amount of rodent hair in a can of tuna fish: “I have no acceptable amount.”
Similarly, when confronted with this abominable interpretation of the law, Americans grounded in common sense will conclude that there should be no acceptable amount of foreign nationals with ties to terrorist groups allowed entry into our nation.
The White House is framing the change as a debt owed to Afghans who assisted the U.S. military during our two decades-long presence in Afghanistan. Like most things with this administration, however, a closer look reveals a deeply flawed policy serving a partisan agenda to the detriment of American security.
The amended INS language makes no reference to Afghans. Without limiting the policy to Afghan refugees, the change can apply to anyone seeking entry into the U.S. from another state designated as a sponsor of terror.
Despite its claims that arrivals last year from Afghanistan were rigorously vetted, the administration still cannot give a clear answer on how many Afghan refugees actually worked with the U.S. military. In an interview last June with the Washington Post, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “I can’t really quantify it or measure it against expectations.”
In February a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general found that Biden’s administration has been importing large numbers of unvetted Afghan refugees. The report found that many of these refugees have “significant security concerns,” but that Defense Department personnel cannot locate them.
Even those who did work with our military in Afghanistan should not be above suspicion. Sean Parnell, decorated Afghan war veteran and former U.S. Senate candidate, told Tucker Carlson about a longtime translator for his unit who turned out to be working with an Iranian terror cell. He betrayed the unit and led them to a hidden explosive device that killed one American serviceman and seriously wounded several others.
“Just because an Afghan works with us and is friends with us does not actually mean they are safe to bring here,” Parnell said. “And this is precisely why we cannot bring 30,000 unvetted Afghan refugees to the United States of America. It’s an irresponsible policy.”
The language in the Federal Register also says that normal bans on entry for reasons of national security will not apply if individuals can show they “pose no danger to the safety and security of the United States.” That’s a nice-sounding fig leaf for the administration to hide behind to appear responsible, but it also leaves us wide-open to exploitation by those who mean us harm.
Aside from the impossibility of proving a negative, the standard is likely to miss potential threats in the mass relocation of people from a radically different culture. According to a 2013 study, 99 percent of Afghan Muslims support sharia law, and 61 percent believe that all citizens should be subject to sharia law. Of the Afghan Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land, 81 percent support hudud punishments including amputation of limbs and flogging for crimes such as theft and robbery.
Such extreme social differences may help explain the growing number of sexual assault charges against Afghan refugees in the United States, in many cases for doing harm to children. There have been calls to relocate Afghans to nearby Muslim countries that would provide a better cultural fit. Such calls fall on deaf ears in the Biden Administration, which practices the warped ideology that America must somehow be punished through its immigration processes.
There is no shortage of evidence that America’s enemies are using our naïve ideas about immigration to further weaken us. The Biden White House, after all the damage it has caused to our border security, thinks now is a good time to loosen standards for refugees with terrorist connections. Never again should Americans grant so much authority to those so irresponsible.
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Brian Lonergan is an adjunct fellow of the Center for American Greatness and director of communications at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.
