VDARE.com proposes a contest, prize to be the traditional autographed copy of Alien Nation, for the best idea on what immigration policy can do about terrorism in the light of September 11th.
Already people all over the country are proposing new government initiatives, voting supplemental appropriations, calling up the Reserves, and generally panicking over the terrorist situation. But nobody is talking about immigration.
Meanwhile, back at Bush's ranch, there's an undefended border, and a chaotic immigration policy. Years ago, regarding America's nuclear defence plan, Robert McNamara told the head of the SAC: "General, you don't have a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm!"
The Army has developed better war plan (as Osama bin Laden may be about to learn) but America's immigration policy is still at the "horrible spasm" stage.
Here are some of the suggestions from the pundit class, friends and enemies, suggestions from VDARE.com's own writers, and an address to send in your suggestions.
Friends
Ann Coulter's foreign policy suggestion may have been unusual ("We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."), but she's got a Constitutional note in her latest column, reminding us that:
All 19 hijackers in last week's attack appear to have been aliens. As far as the Constitution is concerned, visitors to this country are here at the nation's pleasure. Congress could pass a law tomorrow requiring that all aliens from Arabic countries leave. (More on that next week.) Congress could certainly pass a law requiring all aliens to get approval from the INS before boarding an airplane in the United States.
Sam Karnick has a similar suggestion here on VDARE:
[T]he INS should be assigned the task of keeping close watch over exactly what our noncitizen guests are up to while they reside on American soil. That is a job that only Congress can do, and it had better act soon, before more atrocities transpire.
Enforcing those standards would be the job of a rejuvenated INS, and it will be important for both Congress and the INS to make sure that the burdens fall where they historically did before 1965—upon the prospective immigrants rather than on current citizens. Proposals for a national I.D. card, greater harassment of U.S. citizens traveling across the border, and the like fail that test completely and should be rejected. Those who wish to benefit from long-term access to America should be happy to pay the price of admission, and current citizens should be expected to benefit from their presence, not be burdened by it.
Mark Krikorian is in favor of building the immigrant-tracking database that Congress ordered built in 1996, and Clinton failed to build.
Michelle Malkin suggests a purge of the State Department (always a good idea, anyway.),
We may not be able to seal our vast and porous borders, but Washington must make this stand: No more terrorist welcome mat at the front door.
At least 16 of the 19 terrorist hijackers reportedly entered the country with legal visas. President Bush should purge the State Department of Clinton-era bureaucrats responsible for allowing so many murderous plotters and schemers to live and work among us.
She also has a number of technical suggestions about the visa program, regarding J-1, B-1, and F-1 visas, including the suggestion that the US not provide pilot training for foreigners likely to become suicide pilots:
The J-1 and M-1 programs were created in order "to foster international understanding through educational and cultural exchange." But the security risks clearly outweigh the supposed multicultural benefits of training foreign pilots to fly American planes. Stop giving terrorist pilots a government-sanctioned license to kill.
And limit (taxpayer-funded) higher education for foreigners:
Freeze U.S. admissions of foreign students from Arab countries. [VDARE note: this is what's called "enemy profiling."] Two of the hijack bombers, believed to be Saudi Arabian Air Force pilots, reportedly attended American military academies. One received language training at the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas; the other may have studied strategy and tactics at the Air War College in Alabama. Their visa status has not yet been publicly revealed, but the terrorists may have received F-1 academic visas.
Robert Locke, here on VDARE.com, called for a 90-day moratorium on all visas, because
The first thing you do when you are in a hole is to stop digging deeper.
Sam Francis says that:
But the larger truth that Americans need to grasp is that by allowing a vast subculture of non-Western immigrants to emerge within our own society, we have permitted the creation of an alternative social structure in which terrorists can move virtually undetected.
Peter Brimelow responds to this problem by saying:
We are here to point out that, unlike chasing alleged terrorist leaders around Afghanistan with airborne missiles, immigration policy actually offers concrete ways in which America can be defended. The borders can be sealed. Illegals can be expelled. Alien enclaves can be assimilated. And the mounting destabilization of America's political order can be stopped-even reversed.
Since we've been talking about profiling a lot here on VDARE.com, that may be a solution to some of the safety problems. (Instead of gun-free flights, offer Arab-free flights.) In fact, according to the New York Times, everyone is profiling these days. (NYT, September 26, 2001 Once Appalled by Race Profiling, Many Find Themselves Doing It)
The New York Times talked about the need for tolerance after an incident in which a Muslim teen was attacked by some African-American youths. This is wrong. While the African-American community needs to learn more tolerance, the American nation as a whole needs more intolerance. Paul Craig Roberts reports that jurors in the Embassy bombing case wouldn't give Muslim terrorist the death penalty, because mass murder was part of Islamic culture.
Sir George Napier, a British Imperialist, had an answer for that. He suppressed the traditional Hindu custom of burning widows alive. When locals protested this early instance of globalism, Napier told them
"My nation also has a custom. When men burn women alive, we hang them. By all means build your pyre, beside it my men will build our gallows. Let us by all means act according to national custom!"
James Morris, Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress (1980).
Enemies
Two left-wing women, Barbara Kingsolver in San Francisco, and Katha Pollitt in New York, are both appalled that their daughters want to fly the American flag.
Pollitt reports that a friend of hers dug up an old "Pentagon Action" button, instead, because it has a globe instead of a flag on it, forgetting that Osam bin Laden has been attacking the Pentagon harder than any group of left-wing feminists ever did.
The same flag (the American, not the Confederate, has been banned at ABC, which doesn't want to be seen as taking sides.
According to Brent Bozell, some people think that we don't have enough diversity:
Whiny complaints on the left are taking many different forms. Dara Williams of the News Watch project at San Francisco State University argues for stricter quotas: "There are people who can put into context what's been going on in the Middle East who are not white men." She must have turned the channel every time Colin Powell gave a press briefing. She must have been in the other room when Congressman Charlie Rangel was speaking. She must really believe someone out there cares about this kind of polemical nonsense right now.
Steve Moore [email him] of the Cato Institute, has a suggestion:
for immigration advocates like himself the best tack right now may be to "lay low and don't talk about it a lot."
Ziad Asali, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, seems to feel that anti-discrimination laws can be used to isolate and shame…me.
Dr. Asali said admonitions from Mr. Bush and other national and state leaders had helped isolate and shame those who might attack Arab-Americans. "It has cast the extremists as just that — extremists," Dr. Asali said.
A look at census figures, civil rights laws and standards of political discourse shows how complicated — and illegal, and politically unacceptable — it has become to single out enemies based merely on dark skin, religious belief or a turban.
I personally suggest that gun control be abolished on planes, which is off-topic, except that there are still more Americans flying than fanatical Islamists, and it's just stupid to put 300 unarmed people on a plane with six armed terrorists.
In terms of immigration, my suggestion is that citizenship swearing-in ceremonies should be delayed until the Administration has decided who the enemy is, and can avoid swearing in enemy aliens.
We welcome VDARE.com readers' suggestions. First prize will be an autographed copy of Alien Nation, which we can guarantee the winner, and a much safer country if the Administration takes the suggestion. (No guarantees there.)
Remember that the call is for suggestions that might help deal with the immigration crisis, rather than the war, because immigration takes place within the borders of the United States, where tactical nukes are not an option.
Mail entries by clicking on this link, or write to [email protected] with the subject line "Contest."
September 26, 2001
