What Rep. Peter King Could Do About Radicalization of American Muslims

by Jerry Gordon (January 2011)

In a NewsdayOp ed published on December 19th following Representative Peter King's election as US House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, he laid out the case for conducting investigative hearings on radicalization of American Muslims:

Even today I cannot begin to describe the disappointment, anger and outrage I felt when, barely a month after the 9/11  attacks that killed so many hundreds of Long Islanders, prominent Long Island Muslim leaders were insisting there was no evidence that al-Qaida was responsible for the attacks – even saying it could have been the CIA, the FBI or the Zionists!

Even more troubling is that to this day, no Muslim leader has denounced those vile remarks.

{. . .] it became more and more obvious to me that the moral myopia of Long Island's Muslim leaders and their apologists in the media was the rule – and that there were few exceptions.

Federal and local law enforcement officials throughout the country told me they received little or – in most cases – no cooperation from Muslim leaders and imams.

This noncooperation was perilous enough in the years following 9/11, when the main Islamist threat to the homeland emanated from overseas.

Al-Qaida has adjusted to this new reality and is recruiting Muslims living legally in the United States – homegrown terrorists who have managed to stay under the anti-terror radar screen. This is why the hearings I will hold . . are so critical. 

The New York Times in a January 2nd editorial poured oil on the fire of controversy about these upcoming hearings:

Mr. King, a New York Republican, is no stranger to bluster, but his sweeping slur on Muslim citizens is unacceptable.

We agree with Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the nation’s first Muslim elected to the House, who called Mr. King’s words “very scary.” It is worthwhile to try to fathom “what turns somebody from a normal citizen into a violent radical,” Mr. Ellison says, but not by vilifying an entire community for openers.

 In a January 4th, The Hillreport King replied:

The New York Times is just basically being a mouthpiece for political correctness. These are very legitimate hearings. I’m certainly not going to take any political advice or direction from The New York Times People follow what I say. I’m outspoken, but I can back up everything I say.

Zead Ramadan, the New York Chair of Muslim Brotherhood Front, the Council on American Islamic Relations criticized King in a letter to Newsday:

Maybe Congressman King should first check with FBI Director Robert Mueller, who testified to the Muslim community's patriotism, cooperation and support before House and Senate committees in 2008 and 2009. Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Muslim community “has been tremendously supportive and worked very closely with [the FBI] in a number of instances around the country.”

King has a long history of extremist rhetoric and baseless allegations against American Muslims, including claiming that most mosques nationwide are run by “radicals.” In 2004, he said 80 to 85 percent of American mosques are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists.”

Another Newsday letter, from a West Hempstead, New York constituent, Marshall Bozzi, pretty well summed up the feelings of many Americans about your leadership on this issue:

Rep. Peter King is not afraid to call a spade a spade. Not afraid to take the Muslim community to task for denial of 9/11 and other similar acts. The liberals keep their heads in the sand, afraid to offend them for the usual sad reasons. Not Rep. King.

It's time the Muslim community publicly recognizes and acknowledges its failure in this regard and does all in its power through action in its centers and mosques to suppress the cultivation of homegrown terrorists. Then the anti-Muslim attitude in the United States would be eliminated.

That theme was picked up by M. Zhudi Jasser of the American Forum on Islam and Democracy in a New York Post column when he wrote:

Our national inability to discuss religious issues honestly is keeping American Muslims from having to accept the reforms needed to defeat political Islam and bring our faith into modernity. The victimization mantra feeds more Muslim isolation and radicalization.

A recent global study by the Pew Research Center showed that Muslims are aligning themselves more and more with Islamism. Of course, most major American Muslim groups, such ISNA, CAIR and MPAC, were built on some strand of that ideology. But knowing where most American Muslims fall in the spectrum of Islamism-vs.-liberalism, as King hopes to find out in his hearings, would be a key step toward countering radicalization.

Fellow New Yorker and former Mayor of New York City Ed Koch endorsed King's investigative hearing:

The Congressman’s decision to hold hearings into what he calls the “radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism” is, in my judgment, a sensible act on his part which should be supported by the American public. His decision is opposed, understandably, by some leaders of the American Muslim community. Far less understandable is the opposition of The New York Times editorial board and others who have attacked King for his plan to hold hearings.

Koch went on to note support for these hearings from a surprising source, Attorney General Eric Holder.

Did the Times editorial writer who denounced Peter King weigh the warning of Attorney General Eric Holder, as reported by the New York Post on December 22, 2010? The article stated:
“In a blunt, urgent warning, Attorney General Eric Holder said the threat from homegrown terrorists has increased significantly – and the prime cause is a fanatical US-born Muslim cleric. ‘It is one of the things that keep me up at night,” Holder told ABC News.

The Post article also reported “Holder noted that 50 of the 126 people indicted in the United States on terror-related charges over the past two years were American citizens.”

King has a fan out in California, Mano Bakh, a former Commodore in the Iranian Imperial Navy and a leader of Concerned American Citizens in opposition to the construction of the Temecula Grand Mosque. Bakh and his CAC members applaud your efforts for the forthcoming hearings. Like the vast majority of 1.5 million Iranians who live and work here as refugees from the totalitarian Islamic Republic, Bakh, a former Muslim,  believes in American values of freedom and liberty under our Constitution. He vigorously opposes the stealth Jihad agenda of Muslim Brotherhood groups in America. He wants to see a free secular Iran that values its ancient Persian traditions of human rights for all.

Given the imminence of these Homeland Security hearings here are our concerns for consideration:

•  the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood officials in the Department of Homeland Security;
• indicators of radicalization among American Muslims- the Mapping Shariah Project and the Freedom Pledge of Former Muslims United;
• American law for American Courts -a lawful means of outlawing Shariah;
• the creation of  An Act to Protect First Responders fighting Terrorism;
• the irony of homegrown Muslim terrorists given save haven as refugees in America.

Infiltration of DHS by the Muslim Brotherhood

Among King's first witnesses will be with Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Janet Napolitano and Michael Leiter, Director of the National Counter terrorism Center (NCTC).  We respectfully recommend an additional witness, Arif Alikhan, Assistant Secretary at DHS for Policy Development. Alikhan was one of two Muslim appointees to the DHS by President Obama. The other was Damascus-born Kareem Shora, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)'s national executive director, to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Arif Alikhan was Los Angeles Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. Prior to that he served as a special assistant to Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Alikhan was involved with several Muslim Brotherhood groups in sabotaging an important effort in late 2007 to monitor radicalization among Los Angeles Muslims.  That was an initiative launched by the LAPD under Chief William Bratton and the department's counter terrorism bureau in partnership with the University of Southern California's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events. 

Note this comment by Vincent diGoia on the episode in a Right Side News article:

During his years in Los Angeles, Alikhan was responsible for derailing the Police Department's plan to monitor activities within the Los Angeles Muslim community, where numerous radical mosques and madrassas existed, and where some of the 9/11 hijackers had received support from local residents.

Alikhan is strongly anti-Israel; he has referred to the terrorist organization Hezbollah as a “liberation movement.”  [At the time Alikhan was a member of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.]

In 2007 Alikhan was instrumental in removing the Muslim terror tracking plan in LA. The Muslim 'Mapping' Plan of the LAPD is now “dead on arrival” according to Chief William Bratton. “It is over and not just put on the side,” said Chief Bratton in a meeting with the Muslim leadership of Southern California moderated by Arif Alikhan.

[. . .] Those involved in the initial phases of this controversy were the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee.

In a Los Angeles Times report in November, 2007, Chief Bratton explained the purposes of the Muslim Mapping Program:

The LAPD's Los Angeles Police Department's counter-terrorism bureau proposed using U.S. census data and other demographic information to pinpoint various Muslim communities and then reach out to them through social services.

LAPD officials said that it is crucial for them to gain a better understanding of isolated parts of the Muslim community. Those groups can potentially breed violent extremism, the LAPD said in its plan.

“This is not . . . targeting or profiling,” Police Chief William J. Bratton in defending the program. “It is an effort to understand communities,” he said.

But the effort sparked an outcry from civil libertarians and some Muslim activists, who compared the program to religious profiling.

Deputy Police Chief Michael P. Downing, who headed the counter-terrorism operation in testimony before congress said.

“While this project will lay out geographic locations of many different Muslim populations around Los Angeles, we also intend to take a deeper look at their history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socioeconomic status and social interactions,” he said. “It is also our hope to identify communities, within the larger Muslim community which may be susceptible to violent ideologically based extremism and then use a full spectrum approach guided by intelligence-led strategy.”

As Alikhan had a hand in the demise of the Muslim Mapping program in Los Angeles aimed at targeting extremists, the issue is why did Napolitano appoint him? That is a question for both her and Alikhan to answer.

Indicators of Radicalization among American Muslims: the Mapping Shariah project and the Freedom Pledge of Former Muslims United

If the LAPD Mapping Muslims project failed aborning, another privately funded effort- the Mapping Shariah Project – succeeded and provides evidence about how radical American mosques may be.

In the December, 2010, New English Review, we interviewed prominent anti-Shariah litigator and researcher, David Yerushalmi, Esq.of Long Island, New York about the design and findings of the Mapping Shariah project.

The Mapping Shariah Project the findings of which revealed the extent of extremist Shariah compliance in a study of American mosques, will soon be published in a peer review professional journal.

Yerushalmi defined Shariah and the threat to America, thusly.

Shariah is Islamic law based upon the word of Allah as represented in the Qur'an and the rulings of the Hadith.

The fundamental principle of Shariah is that no law can coexist much less reign supreme over Shariah.

Thus we have a principled or theoretical threat in that Shariah must reign exclusively over every place Muslims live. We have a method, at least in speech, to achieve that end or purpose which includes violent jihad.

They are engaged in a full scale global war against the United States outside our borders and they successfully recruit and infiltrate our borders with home grown terrorists all the time. So the answer to your question is yes, I consider Shariah a threat to our way of life.

Yerushalmi, one of the co-authors of The Team B II report: Shariah Threat to America. A Competitive Analysis, published by the Washington, DC-based Center for Security Policy, notes the following principal findings:

First, the threat from Islamic terrorism, radical or extremist Islam, or “man-made disaster,” whatever nomenclature the Administration places on it, is in fact all driven by the same doctrine, Shariah and its law of jihad.

Second, the “Team B” II report assesses Shariah as followed by the various global jihadist groups and finds that it is neither some perverted or extreme version of Shariah. It is .. Classical Shariah.

Third, and most important, the “Team B” II Report finds that there is a concerted conspiracy by the Muslim Brotherhood  . . to infiltrate and insinuate Shariah into our legal and financial systems through a variety of methods including  'lawfare', immigration, political lobbying and other forms of what we deem pre-violent jihad. By “pre-violent” we mean that it is based upon the Shariah doctrine that mandates violent jihad, but permits da'wa or social, political, economic and legal jihad based upon persuasion or stealth methods if violent jihad is not viable. However, the moment that violent or kinetic jihad is possible, Shariah obligates the full subjugation of the enemy, the infidel, through violence or the threat of violence.

Gordon: Given your involvement in the Mapping Shariah Project, what are the principal findings and in particular, degree of Shariah compliance in American mosques included in the survey?

Yerushalmi: The Mapping Shariah project was a study that we began in 2008 to determine if there was a correlation in U.S. mosques between Shariah-adherence and violent literature promoting jihad. We sent researchers into a random representative selection of 100 mosques throughout the United States. We then measured Shariah adherence along several behavioral axes as independent variables, such as gender separation in prayer, strictness in Shariah-required prayer ritual and dress. Then we measured the existence or the presence of Shariah-promoting, violent literature as the dependent variable, including the Imam's recommendation to study the violent material.

What we wanted to test was the thesis that as mosque worshippers becomes more and more Shariah adherent, one would expect a greater likelihood of violent jihad literature and its promotion by the imam.

 As mosque worshippers became more Shariah adherent, the presence of violent jihad literature increases commensurately. The correlation between Shariah-adherent mosques and imams promoting this violent literature also held. What was eye-opening, however, was that we found that 80% of mosques in the U.S. are Shariah-adherent and promote this violent literature.

Of that 80% a majority were actually Salafi mosques, which are the more orthodox or puritanical sects of Shariah-adherents. 

Another indicator of radicalism can be found in the responses of more than 163 letters sent to American Muslim leaders and Imams containing a Freedom Pledge requesting them to abjure death fatwas against those who choose to leave Islam and deemed to be apostates. Alyssa Lappen in a Family Security Matters article about the Freedom Pledge and Imam Feisal Abdel Rauf of the ground Zero Mosque noted the prevailing Sunni doctrine regarding apostasy.

The 878- word Freedom Pledge itself outlines the principles of Islamic law under which apostates from Islam are subject to the death penalty. It notes that the four schools of Sunni Islam — Hanafi, Miliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali — “unanimously agree that a former Muslim male, also known as an apostate, must be executed” and that a woman, at best must be “imprisoned or beaten five times a day until she repents or dies” and at worst, like men executed outright. It then goes on to cite 1978 and 1989 religious rulings — from the Fatwa Council at Al Azhar University, the closest Muslim equivalent to the Vatican, and the Mufti of Lebanon, each, respectively consigning a renegade Muslim to death if they “do not repent.” Perhaps “a misunderstanding on his part may have taken place, and there would thus be an opportunity to rectify it,” intones the Mufti. But he must do so within three days, or die

The Freedom Pledge was prepared by Former Muslims United (FMU) a human and civil rights group headed by author and activist, Nonie Darwish. The Freedom Pledge was sent in three waves in the fall of 2008 and in 2009. Among the recipients of the Freedom Pledge were White House Advisory council on Faith-Based and neighborhood Partnerships Council Member, Dalia Mogahed and Imam Feisal Abdel  Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan of the controversial Park51 'ground Zero Mosque in lower Manhattan.  Only two positive responses were received, one from M. Zhudi Jasser of the AFID and the other from Dr. Ali Alyami of the Washington, DC – based Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Saudi Arabia.  Nonie Darwish commented:

Overwhelmingly, American Muslim leaders… do not honor freedom to choose one’s beliefs as guaranteed under our [U.S.] First Amendment. That is the only conclusion we can draw by their failure to acknowledge or sign the Freedom Pledge.

American Law for American Courts – a lawful means of outlawing Shariah

If Shariah is a threat to our way of life here in America, then how do we deal with it? In effect how do we separate Mosque from State so that free expression of religious faith and the Establishment Clause of our First Amendment are preserved? Yerushalmi has a possible solution in his model American Law for American Courts statutes enacted into law in Louisiana and Tennessee during the 2010 legislative sessions and poised to be considered by several additional states.  

Here is why Yerushalmi thinks it could work and avoid Constitutional clashes like the one that occurred in Oklahoma when a popular anti-Shariah referendum was passed and immediately became the subject of a federal court legal action brought by the state Chapter of CAIR.

Gordon: What states have successfully enacted anti-Shariah legislation and are they models for adoption elsewhere?

Yerushalmi: Only two states, Tennessee and Louisiana that I am aware of. They have adopted a version of our “American Laws for American Courts” model legislation. Tennessee's law was a valiant first effort but there were some amendments that reduced the scope of the model law in ways that I believe need to be corrected. For example, Louisiana endeavored to push through our uniform draft law but the final bill added a provision that excludes from its application any kind of corporate entity. That effectively limits the Louisiana version applicable almost entirely to domestic law cases or contract or tort cases only between two natural persons. That provision in the Louisiana law doesn't address legitimate kinds of cases that the law should preclude from entering into domestic courts. Both of those states in my view should go back and try to correct those versions. However, they at least made an effort and effectively passed a version of the model law. It was an important start and I applaud them and their legislative sponsors.

There are many states currently considering the uniform model law. … I think what we have to do is get at the underlying problem which is effectively outlawing Shariah in the United States.

We also have developed a legislative proposal for our client the Public Policy Alliance for doing just that at the State and at Federal levels. That is a harder nut to crack because of First Amendment jurisprudence but I do believe it can be done.

An Act to Protect First Responders Against Terrorism

When the 'six flying imams' matter arose at the Minneapolis Municipal Airport in 2006, Representative King came up with a solution to protect airline staff and passengers against 'lawfare' by Muslim Brotherhood (MB) groups like CAIR in the form of H.R. 1640. In 2008, we drafted An Act to Protect First Responders Fighting Terrorism that was subsequently introduced during the 111th Session by Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina and head of the House Anti-Terror Caucus.  

Congress is now beginning to wake up to the threat of MB front groups pose to our counterterrorism first responder community. Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute gave testimony at a hearing on “the roots of violent radical Islamic extremism and efforts to counter it” chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Committee. Baran had the courage to tell the truth about the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) infrastructure in America and how they have intimidated Federal and local counterterrorism efforts. As an IptNews report noted:

She cited the Muslim Brotherhood as the “prime example” of the spectrum of Islamist groups that, while differing in tactics, agree on their final goal: a world dominated by Islamic law, or Shariah. As such, Ms. Baran pointed out that there were inherent problems with the outreach policies of various government agencies. She specifically cited sensitivity training for the FBI run by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as “completely self-defeating” as FBI agents might be taught to be overly sensitive and may avoid asking certain questions during investigations that they should be asking.

So what is the solution to this MB intimidation bulldozer directed at our first responder community in America? It is a federal law to cut off the threats of civil complaints and lawsuits by MB fronts aimed at counterterrorism agents.

CAIR and other MB front organizations have fostered workplace harassment by filing frivolous civil complaints. These have hobbled first responders from protecting Americans against the threat of radical Muslim groups. Through threats of civil litigation, these MB groups have shut down counterterrorism training programs for first responders at both the federal and local levels. In its place, the MB front groups have created 'diversity’ programs and negotiated the delivery of them under threat of litigation to often confused and unwary first responders.

The proposal: (1) provides for a shield for first responders against civil liability complaints by MB front groups, identified by the US Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial with ties to and providing financial support to designated foreign terrorist organizations under US CODE: Title 8,1189

During the 111^th Congress, two important pieces of legislation were introduced to combat the lawfare offensive of the Muslim Brotherhood in America;  the “See Something, Say Something” Act S. 879 and H.R. 1343: First Responders Fighting Terrorism Protection Act of 2009 sponsored by Rep. Sue Myrick (R- NC).

However we remain troubled by a federal Minneapolis court decision that barred FBI agents and local police from having limited immunity from litigation by MB fronts. This will have a chilling effect on fighting terrorism in the US. The HHSC should pursue the proposed legislation to provide liability protection for first responders to overcome this court ruling abetting MB lawfare and protect first responders engaged in counterterrorism.

The proposed [legislation], after appropriate revision, should garner the widest possible support from the first responder benevolent, fraternal and union groups across America.

One Source of Home Grown Terrorism – our Humanitarian Refugee Programs

As 2010 was drawing to a close, a terror threat, “All Americans Must Die,” was allegedly scrawled on a poultry plant washroom wall according to a WSMV-TV Channel 4 report in Nashville. That occurred at the Tyson Foods  facility in Shelbyville, Tennessee. A recent documentary film about the alleged plight of Somalis in Shelbyville, Welcome to Shelbyville, created by liberal multi-culturalists and pro-immigration advocates, tried to paint the community as bigoted towards the Somali community which was brought to Shelbyville after Tyson was fined by the US government for hiring illegal Hispanic aliens. That flagrantly biased film premiered in October in Shelbyville and is being shown at US Embassies around the world and will appear on the PBS Open Lens program in the Spring of 2011.

Over the course of the New Year's holiday weekend, reports came about Tyson Foods adding security personnel, but denied the terror threat allegations. That led AP-award winning Shelbyville Times Gazette journalist, Brian Mosely to question whether there was some truth lurking behind this story. On January 2nd he wrote:

If the alleged graffiti did not include the reported threatening words, what exactly was written that would require the involvement of federal authorities? And which federal agency is now looking into this matter?

[. . .]

Had Tyson Foods given a full explanation of what allegedly occurred in the facility, we seriously doubt that Nashville’s NBC affiliate would have wasted valuable holiday air time on a story based on a second-hand rumor about what someone supposedly wrote on a bathroom wall.

Instead, the lack of disclosure over what appears to be a minor case of vandalism has only incited more speculation and rumor over what goes on inside the plant.

The several hundred Somali Muslims at the Tyson Foods Shelbyville plant demanded and received recognition of an Islamic holiday Eid al Fitr in 2008 and given time off for prayer, thus making the facilities Shariah compliant. This is not an isolated incident. Similar conflicts have occurred with Somali workers in the meat packing facilities of JB Swift in Greeley, Colorado and in Grand Island, Nebraska. There was even an honor killing perpetrated by a JB Swift Somali worker on his stepsister in Fort Morgan in 2009.  In January, 2008, Tyson Foods closed its Emporia, Kansas meat packing plant in the wake of community debates over the Somali workers and evidence of a public health hazard. Tests conducted by the Kansas State Public Health Department revealed that fully 160 Somalis out of a work force of 500 had a virulent form of TB at a rate nearly six times the incidence for the state as a whole. Clearly there was a problem with Somali meat packers and poultry workers who had primitive personal health standards and had come to the US without any health screenings and virtually non-existent health records.

But there was more.

Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota with a large Somali Muslim student body had a meditation room, which functioned as a sex-segregated mosque with Islamic materials that derogate both Christians and Jews. Wash basins in college lavatories are used as wudus or foot baths for Somali Muslim students in this Minneapolis area public colleges.  Posters found in the meditation room explicitly evinced Islamic anti-semitism:

Enter into Islaam completely and accept all the rulings of Islaam, the tract read in part. It should not be that you accept what entertains your desires and leave what opposes your desires; this is from the manners of the Jews.

[T]he Jews and the Christians are described as the enemies of Allaahs religion. The document adds: Remember that you will never succeed while you follow these people.

One history professor at Normandale commented:

For all practical purposes, this meditation room is essentially a Muslim prayer room, said Chuck Chalberg of Normandales history faculty. Something this unprecedented goes beyond religious toleration.

As a public institution, Normandale Community College was violating separation of church provisions of the US constitution, all because of intimidation by Muslims in the student body. It also may be violating Title IX of the US Civil Rights law as regarding segregation by sex. What is occurring in this Minnesota Community college is adoption of Sharia by intimidation of the administration and tolerance of hatred of the other-than-us, by Islamists in the student body. 

Then there is the Tareq ibn Zayed Academy In Minneapolis with a predominately Somali student body  funded as a charter school at taxpayer expense and operated by an MB front, the Muslim American Society. The Tarek ibn Zayed Academy (TiZA) was audited by the Minnesota Department of Education and found to be in possible violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  As a result of these disclosures, the ACLU  brought a law suit against a predominately Muslim charter school the TiZA, the Minnesota Department of Education, its Commissioner, as well as the Inver Heights school board for the alleged misuse of taxpayer funds because of purported violation of the First Amendment, “promotion of religion.”

Turning to criminal activity, in November, 2010, a Federal grand jury in Nashville handed down indictments against 29 Somali gang members from Minneapolis, Columbus and Nashville for engaging in human trafficking and forcing young African American and Somali Muslim girls into prostitution.

There is evidence of drug trafficking by Somalis in Khat, a mildly hallucinogenic leafy plant and DEA Class A drug. Packages of Khat arrive daily in this country sent by Somalis in the UK. A Las Vegas resident, Hassan Abdulla Omar, was caught with 161 pounds of the drug in a combined Police Counterterrorism and Narcotics, ICE, FBI sweep in January, 2010.

In 2007, two leaders of the 70,000 Somali Muslim community in Minneapolis were convicted of $1.5 million in Medicare Fraud using the ill gotten gains to fund a lavish life style.

Then there were the two Somali brothers in Grand Rapids, Michigan who pled guilty in a federal court to scamming $400,000 in Food Stamps and sending the funds via the hawala money transfer system to Somalia. The hawala money transfer system accounts for more than $1 billion in transfers from the Somali Diaspora to the war torn Horn of Africa country.

Somali Muslims are among most troublesome of refugees who have entered America under programs authorized by the Refugee Act of 1980. There are upwards of 200,000 Somali Muslims in America who were brought here under a program controlled by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The Refugee Act is administered by the US State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM) and the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The DHS ICE provides security and other clearances at refugee camps in Africa. During the 2010 fiscal year, over 4,000 Somali Muslims were sent to communities in the American heartland under a program instituted in the 1990's by the Clinton Administration. They are flown directly from refugee camps in Kenya to Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio, which have large émigré communities. Then they were vectored to locations like Nashville, Kansas City, Seattle, San Diego, Atlanta, and even small communities like Lewiston, Maine, Shelbyville, Fort Morgan and Greeley, Colorado 

The annual budgets for support of these refugee programs are in excess of $2 billion. That amount excludes several billions of welfare and Medicaid support for refugees via state agencies. Then there are the plethora of voluntary agencies like Catholic Charities, Lutheran World Services, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Ethnic Advocacy groups that receive sole source contracts and grants to assist in absorption. 

Many Somali Muslim émigrés have come to this country fraudulently through deceit and misrepresentation using the P-3 Family Reunification Visa program or portraying them as disadvantaged Bantu slave minorities. Somalis already in the US have been paid upwards of $10,000 per case to fraudulently sponsor non-relations. Some fraudulent applicants may even be involved in polygamous relations with US Somali sponsors. Ann Corcoran of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog estimates that fully 36,000 Somalis may have entered the US fraudulently based on DNA tests conducted by DHS ICE teams at refugee camps in Africa. That estimate excludes several thousand Somalis who have entered the US illegally via Latin America seeking asylum through the generosity of our immigration law courts of the ICE of DHS.

The P-3 Family Reunification Visa Program has been effectively shut down by the State Department for over two years. It is due to reopen soon, unless the Homeland Security Committee intervenes to suggest a more selective approach.

The Somali refugee community has spawned upwards of 40 homegrown terrorists recruited by radical Imams in émigré communities like Minneapolis, Columbus and Portland, Oregon to travel to Somalia to fight and die with al Qaeda affiliate, Al Shabaab, or to undertake, terrorist actions here. Several Somali young men recruited in the Minneapolis émigré community were killed when they ultimately reached Somalia. One angry relation of a youth recruited and killed in Somalia accused local Imams at a Senate Homeland Security Hearing in March 2009 of threatening Somali families and youths with retribution if they spoke to federal investigators tracking down recruiters of these home grown terrorists.

FBI Director Mueller in a Council of Foreign Relations speech on Global Terrorism underscored this cultural divide:

The prospect of young men, indoctrinated and radicalized within their own communities, and induced to travel to such countries to take up arms – and to kill themselves and perhaps many others – is a perversion of the immigrant story.

On Black Friday, November 26, 2010 Oregon State University student, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali Muslim was caught in an FBI sting operation, attempted to blow up a van filled with fake explosives during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland's Pioneer Square. One day, these home grown terrorists might mimic Mumbai -type swarming attacks using low tech weapons and vehicles against queues of early morning shoppers at big box stores.

Note these comments from a New York Times Opinion piece by James Arquilla, “The Coming Swarm”

Americans should brace for a coming swarm. Right now, most of our cities would be as hard-pressed as Mumbai was to deal with several simultaneous attacks. Our elite federal and military counterterrorist units would most likely find their responses slowed, to varying degrees, by distance and the need to clarify jurisdiction.

While the specifics of the federal counterterrorism strategy are classified, what is in the public record indicates that the plan contemplates having to deal with as many as three sites being simultaneously hit and using “overwhelming force” against the terrorists, which probably means mustering as many as 3,000 ground troops to the site. If that’s an accurate picture, it doesn’t bode well. We would most likely have far too few such elite units for dealing with a large number of small terrorist teams carrying out simultaneous attacks across a region or even a single city.

Nightmare possibilities include synchronized assaults on several shopping malls, high-rise office buildings or other places that have lots of people and relatively few exits.

So if these Somali Muslim émigré home grown terrorists are spawned by a generous refugee program, what could Rep. King as House Homeland Security Committee (HHSC) Chairman do about it?

Here are some further suggestions for the HHSC to consider.

We need the HHSC to require DNA testing here among alleged Somali ‘anchor’ family members applying for P-3 Family Reunification Visas in addition to that conducted by the ICE in African refugee camps. Moreover, we suggest that the HHSC to require a GAO audit of the Family Reunification Visa program as a condition for reopening it.

In view of the public health threats from undetected contagious diseases among refugee communities, we suggest both mandatory health screening and quarantines be mandatory before admittance to this country.

We should establish caps on Somali refugee quotas and negotiate possible diversion to other countries under the control of the UNHCR.

Radical Somali Imams with so-called religious order Visas have been found to have indoctrinated American émigré youths in Islamic Jihad violence. The H-1 Visas for religious orders from countries harboring extremist Muslim clerics must be tightened up to prevent such infiltration in Muslim communities in America

FBI and local counter terrorism authorities need to step up monitoring of the radical Somali émigré communities In the US. This is a vital necessity to prevent swarming attack threats from returning American Somali Al Shabaab fighters who evade capture by US immigration and counter terrorism authorities.

Overall, we need a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy which includes tackling Muslim immigration as a whole. The US is vulnerable to home-grown Jihadis initiating devastating Mumbai-type swarming attacks.

 *Listen as Mr. Gordon reads an open letter to Representative King on Radio Jihad.

 

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