Years ago, our station got information on a shady motel possibly being used to harbor illegal aliens, mainly from the Middle East. It turned out to actually be a Pakistani owner who was involved in all sorts of shady business dealings with multiple businesses. We wound up referring the case to the local state officials because the easiest charge appeared to be that he was cheating on his taxes. As far as I could tell, the state did nothing with the information we were able to give them.

I once talked to an FBI Special Agent who worked on a terrorism task force. She told me that they often found that the Palestinian, Yemenis and Pakistani owned businesses (usually convenience stores aka Stop ‘n’ Robs or Jihadi Marts) were doing things like selling untaxed cigarettes, marijuana, counterfeit clothing, while engaging in both food stamp fraud and coupon fraud. Their crimes were regarded as relatively petty, so the cases were routinely turned over to local authorities to prosecute. As a result, they were rarely prosecuted. “But, if we go after them, they’ll call us racist!” seemed to be the attitude. It’s also in their culture that it is prestigious to own your own business and not work for someone else. (As a result, when picking up a soda, I try to find a Rite Aid, Walgreens or supermarket rather than give a dime to likely fraudsters.)

Going back to the Pakistani owner I first mentioned, he came into the United States claiming to be a persecuted Christian and indeed, being Christian in Pakistan is not a fun life [Christians in Pakistan are struggling to survive barbaric persecution—Pakistani Christians and other religious minorities face abductions, indentured servitude and state-sanctioned execution, by David Curry, ReligionNews.com, June 9, 2023].

However, once in the United States, he did so much business with Pakistani Muslims that we were inclined to believe he had lied his way into the United States with another fake asylum claim. Some investigation turned up that he was truly a Christian.

At first, it was a little confusing as to why he would do so much business with people who ostensibly hated him in the old country. When you think about it, the two groups still did share the same language, they looked alike, they probably enjoyed the same food, and grew up watching the same movies while listening to the same music. I wonder how their encounter went in the United States. Pakistani Muslim: “Where have you been? I missed beating you.” Pakistani Christian: “It’s been great, but I missed you beating me too! Not to mention kidnapping my daughters and forcing them into marriage. Glad to have you in America!”

It reminded me of a story about a Native American who after the Plains Wars joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. While travelling in Europe, their group happened to cross paths with the other Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show (Bill was an entrepreneur who had more than one show touring at a time). The first group recognized the Indians in the second group as being from their mortal enemies back home. What did they do? They ran at each other screaming with joy, they were so happy to see them in this strange foreign land.

So, I was on a message board the other day, reading comments about students marching in support of Hamas in Dearborn, Michigan.

Hundreds rally in Dearborn to support a ‘free Palestine’ amid Israel-Gaza war, by Ken Coleman, Michigan Advance, October 15, 2023.

Hundreds rally in Dearborn to support a ‘free Palestine’ amid Israel-Gaza war https://t.co/XyxFjXWAG4 via @michiganadvance

— Michigan Advance (@MichiganAdvance) October 15, 2023

Someone was speculating that the students learned that behavior in school. I think it far more likely that they learned it at home—Dearborn is 41.7% Arab, according to the Census, and 29.3% of residents speak Arabic at home.

The first Middle Easterners arriving in America were Christians, yet they were immediately followed by Muslims who moved into the same neighborhoods as them. Henry Ford employed a lot of them and that’s why Dearborn has been effectively colonized. See Ford Motor Company and its Impact on the Early Arab Americans of Michigan, ArabAmerica.com, February 2, 2022.

When you import people from the corners of the earth, they bring their cultures and habits with them.