Policies put in place by\nthe Trump administration have dramatically curtailed the practice of allowing\nlarge numbers of asylum seekers to enter the country pending a hearing on their\nclaims. These policies have outraged advocates for migrants who see any\nrestrictions on admission of people claiming persecution as just another form\nof persecution. And, depending on the outcome of the election, they may have\nsomeone who shares their views sitting in the White House come January 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The let-\u2018em-all-in position\nhas been bolstered in recent years by a lack of truly horrific acts carried out\nby terrorists claiming to be asylum-seekers. While there has been a steady\nspate of criminal activity in the United States and other nations perpetrated\nby illegal border-crossers, there has not been the kind of headline-grabbing\nevent that captures public attention. Until the last two weeks, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twice in the last two weeks migrants claiming to be fleeing persecution in their homelands have perpetrated gruesome attacks in France that serve as a reminder that aside from encouraging large-scale asylum fraud, allowing anyone to enter pending a hearing poses mortal dangers. The first attack was the October 16 decapitation of Samuel Paty<\/a>, a high school teacher in a Paris suburb. As the trial of those accused of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre<\/a> got underway in France, Paty led a debate about the limits of free speech that included showing his class the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that outraged those who murdered the editorial staff of the satirical magazine and shoppers at a kosher supermarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That classroom exercise\noutraged Abdoullakh Abouyezidvitch Anzorov, an 18-year-old migrant from\nChechnya, a Russian province known to be a hotbed of Islamist activity. As a\nway to express his displeasure with Paty, Anzorov decapitated him outside the\nschool. The incident served as a reminder to the French public (that has seen\nmore than its share of Islamist terror attacks) that just because someone\nclaims he is fleeing persecution in his country does not mean you want him in\nyours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That horrific attack was followed closely by an even more deadly one on October 29 in the southern city of Nice. This attack on worshippers in the Notre Dame de l\u2018Assomption basilica<\/a> left three people dead. The motives for this murder spree carried out by Brahim Aouissaoui, a 21-year-old Tunisian migrant, are not clear. What is clear is how he happened to be in Nice last Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aouissaoui, like many other North African migrants (nearly all of whom are economic migrants), arrived in Europe by boat (with no identification documents) at the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 20. After a two-week COVID quarantine Aouissaoui was given an \u201cexit slip\u201d<\/a> ordering him to leave Italy within seven days. It took him nearly a month to leave, but finally on October 27, Aouissaoui caught a train from Rome to Nice, where two days later he murdered three French citizens as they prayed in their church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n French authorities have arrested at least six other people<\/a> in connection with the Nice massacre, indicating that Aouissaoui may have been a terrorist carrying out a planned attack on a soft target. Notwithstanding protestations from migrant advocates that terrorist organizations are not exploiting Europe\u2019s lax border policies, a July 2020 UN Security Council report<\/a> warned that groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS are taking advantage of those policies to infiltrate Western nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not unreasonable to\nimagine that if the United States were to relax many of the border security\nmeasures and policies in place to deter asylum fraud that Americans could soon\nface similar dangers. Vice President Biden has vowed that he would terminate\nconstruction of the border security fence, roll back agreements with Mexico and\nCentral American countries that prevent large numbers of migrants posing as\nasylum seekers from pouring across the border, rescind travel restrictions on\npeople from countries known to support terrorism, and end detention for nearly\nall asylum seekers while they pursue their claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If he wins and carries\nthrough on those promises we can be certain that in addition to countless\neconomic migrants, terrorists and criminal cartels all around the world will be\npaying attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Policies put in place by the Trump administration have dramatically curtailed the practice of allowing large numbers of asylum seekers to enter the country pending a hearing on their claims. These policies have outraged advocates for migrants who see any restrictions on admission of people claiming persecution as just another form of persecution. And, depending<\/p>\n