Toward the removal of Western-born Muslims

(The below was drafted last September 6.)

In my 2004 article, “How to Defeat Jihad in America,” I proposed a series of steps by which jihad-supporting Muslims could be made to leave this country, while many other Muslims would depart voluntarily in response to the Muslim-unfriendly policies I was outlining, the aim being the reduction of the U.S. Muslim population to a small fraction of its current size. First we stop all Muslim immigration. Then we deport all Muslim illegals. Then we deport all Muslim resident aliens who can be reasonably suspected of having jihadist allegiances, then we strip the citizenship of and deport naturalized Muslim citizens with jihadist allegiances, and then, finally, the most radical step, we strip the citizenship of and deport Muslim native-born Americans with jihadist allegiances. To justify the last step, I reminded readers of the famous short story about Philip Nolan, “The Man without a Country,” to show that there is a recognized moral precedent in our tradition for removing the citizenship of a disloyal citizen.

Now Daniel Pipes tells the real-life story of 18-year-old Jaber Ismail, an American-born Muslim, and his father, 45-year-old Muhammad Ismail, a Pakistani native and naturalized U.S. citizen, both of whom were refused re-entry to the U.S. on their way back from a four-year stay in Pakistan, where U.S. authorities suspected them of terrorist connections. The Ismails père et fils were not charged with any criminal act but had been placed on a terrorism watch list which required them to undergo a security check and to answer questions with a lie detector before they could be re-admitted to the U.S. They refused the examination, and so have been unable to come back to America.

The ACLU protests the “threat of banishment” under which the Islails have been placed, another observer says it is “unprecedented” for U.S. citizens “to be rendered stateless in this fashion” (echoes of Philip Nolan), and Jaber’s older brother, Usama, 20, complains that his brother and father are being treated “like foreigners or something.”

Pipes concludes:

The DHS not only applied the law to scrutinize possibly dangerous Islamists but its actions suggest a possible conceptual breakthrough, signaling that the U.S. government sees the “nationality” of radical Islam to be incompatible with American citizenship.

Given the fact that Western-born Muslims are just as likely as Muslim immigrants to become jihadists and terrorists, such a conceptual breakthrough is vitally necessary for our safety and survival.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 29, 2006 03:16 PM | Send