Immigration Must Be Restricted to Protect America Against Terrorists

Written only a month after September 11th, 2001, this article showed connections between the fears of terrorism that emerged after September 11th and immigration. The first connection this article proved was that between fear and hatred. The author, Samuel Francis, writes about what he believes to be the two dimensions of the problem. The second one is that there are places in America where “alien terrorists” can live and operate in without really being noticed by everyone else. He also exemplifies the stereotypes that are made about Arabs in this country. The facts that they maybe can’t speak English well and sometimes choose to live in the same areas doesn’t really sound too different than any other minority that has immigrated to America at some point. From a quote from an article written about Patterson, New Jersey, it is evident that the rest of the country at this time also assumes that Arabs exhibiting this kind of behavior are terrorists. “The area was ‘one of several East Coast staging areas for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,’ and the ‘hijackers’ stay here also shows how, in an area that speaks many languages and keeps absorbing immigrants, a few young men with no apparent means of support and no furniture can settle in for months without drawing attention.’” It doesn’t really make any sense to me how we are so concerned about them blending into our society and culture but when they choose to live together and for their own kind of subcultures, we assume they’re doing something wrong. Francis also talks about lessons that can be learned from other nations concerning this issue. The first lesson is that the enemy is here, not in Afghanistan. He describes how mass immigration and open-borders policies have led to potentially thousands of men that could be going unnoticed in our country but are working with terrorist groups preparing them against their enemies. But, what he wrote at the end of this paragraph really stood out to me and showed more connections of these ideas. “Short of expelling entire populations in a massive act of ethnic cleansing, there is virtually nothing the United States and the West can do about the new enemy within.” This line stood out to me because it reminded me a lot of what happened in Germany during the Holocaust. I had never really connected this at all to immigration, but it shows a possible consequence or result of the issue of immigration in America. Will we get so obsessed with maintaining our American culture and preventing immigrants from taking it over that we will attempt to remove all those who aren’t seen as Americans?

"Immigration Must Be Restricted to Protect America Against Terrorists." Opposing Viewpoints: National Security. Helen Cothran. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 8 Feb. 2010