Thread: Fort Dix Six Immigration Policy in Wartime

Fort Dix Fix
Immigration policy in wartime.

By Mark Krikorian

Mercifully, today we are not commemorating 100 soldiers killed at Fort Dix this month by a group of immigrant jihadis. Their lives were spared. But we can’t just rely on Circuit City clerks to defend America — Congress needs to help too.

Unfortunately, the Senate’s grotesque immigration bill ignores the lessons about the intersection of immigration and terrorism that we should have learned from the Fort Dix plotters and from dozens and dozens of their predecessors. That lesson is that normal, sustained immigration enforcement, conducted across the board and without apology, is an indispensable tool in preventing and disrupting terrorist plots against our people.

What does the immigration backstory of the Fort Dix plot tell us about homeland security? Let us count the ways.

Border enforcement
The Duka brothers — Dritan, Eljvir, and Shain — the three Albanian illegal aliens among the six plotters, are believed to have snuck across border with their family near Brownsville, Texas, in 1984. Immigration maximalists (in Jonah Goldberg’s useful formulation) have been telling us since 9/11 that none of the hijackers crossed the Mexican border, therefore that part of the immigration problem has no security implications.

But in modern conditions, immigration and security are indivisible — weakness in any aspect of immigration enforcement can and will be exploited. The Duka family didn’t come here planning to be terrorists, intending rather to be ordinary illegal aliens doing the mythical jobs Americans won’t do. But better border enforcement would have short-circuited the chain of events that led to the plot.

But it’s not as though such indirect connections are needed to make the security case for tight border enforcement. Mahmoud Kourani, described in his federal indictment as a “member, fighter, recruiter and fund-raiser for Hezbollah,â€

[quote]The Senate amnesty bill would not successfully address any of the border-security concerns that past terrorist plots have raised. It would require just 370 miles of fencing to be built (less than half the amount required by legislation just last year). In any case, the border-security benchmarks in the bill, which must be satisfied before Phase One of the amnesty (immediate “probationaryâ€

Another great column by Mr. Krikorian. I'm impressed at how firmly the National Review has come out against the Bush/Kennedy/Kyl amnesty scheme.

Keep up the pressure on the Senate and House members! Keep calling, faxing, e-mailing, (www.outsourcecongress.org) AND attend their town hall meetings and get in their faces! NO Z-VISA AMNESTY! ENFORCE EXISTING LAW!

This week is crucial.