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I’ve Changed. This Is War. Seal the Borders. Stop the Visas.
Asylum seekers arriving at train station in Munich. Jazzmany / Shutterstock.com
I know this is not my usual position. But this is a war. Therefore I have come to believe there should be no immigration or visa waivers until the US adopts a completely new system to stop radical Islamic terrorists from entering the country. A wartime lockdown. And a big change in my thinking.
ISIS and related Islamic terrorists are already here. More are coming. We must stop them.
Until FBI director James Comey gives us the green light, I say seal the borders.
Here’s what we must do: Completely reform the vetting process for immigrants and foreign visitors. Change the screening process. Come up with a new visa-application review process. Stop this nonsense of marriage-visa fraud. And in the meantime, seal the borders. I agree with Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, who argued many of these points in excellent detail on the National Review website Friday.
Again, why am I taking this hardline position? In the past I have been an immigration reformer, not a restrictionist. But we are at war. That changes everything.
Let me emphasize that my support for wartime immigration restrictions is not based on religion. I think Donald Trump made a big mistake here. Instead, I agree with this Rupert Murdoch tweet: “Complete refugee pause to fix vetting makes sense.”
Fortunately, the Republican House voted to tighten restrictions on travel to the US by citizens of 38 nations who presently enter our country without a visa. This covers 20 million visitors a year who are allowed to stay 90 days. And of course this system is abused, big time.
But I say seal the borders. People hoping to relocate to the US from Syria, Iraq, and anywhere in the Middle East, and people coming here from France, England, Sweden, and wherever will be upset, at least for a while. There may be some unfairness to this. But I don’t care. Wars breed unfairness, just as they breed collateral damage.
We may set back tourism. We may anger Saudi princes whose kids are in American schools. But so be it. We need a wartime footing if we are going to protect the American homeland.
Of course, President Obama doesn’t get it. He never will. Already we should have led NATO into a declaration of war against ISIS. Already we should have pushed a resolution of war against ISIS through the UN Security Council. Already we should have convened meetings with our Mideast allies to formally declare war against ISIS. Already the US Congress should have issued a formal declaration of war against ISIS.
The president had his last chance last Sunday night. And he didn’t do it. He is not a wartime commander in chief. In fact, he is not a commander in chief.
As I have written before, if the US wants to destroy ISIS, it can destroy ISIS. We won’t end terrorism around the world. But we can destroy ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Prominent generals are telling us that. Prominent national-security strategists are telling us that.
So let’s do it.
If there is to be a true wartime effort to destroy ISIS, our leaders must communicate a sense of urgency and energy. Define the clear goal: the destruction of ISIS. Speak to that goal constantly. Take steps at home and abroad to back up that goal. Lead the country. Rally the country.
Republican and Democratic commanders in chief have done this in the past. We must do it again.
I don’t believe a visa or immigration lockdown here in the US will solve the Islamic terrorist threat. Many other steps must be taken. And I am not suggesting this in the name of religious profiling. Instead, I am hardening my position on immigration because we are at war and I fear we may be losing this war.
My shift in thinking comes from a deep desire to strengthen homeland security. Hopefully an immigration freeze will not be in place for very long. But for now I believe we must do it. (By the way, keeping America safe is a prerequisite for growth.)
And let me add, as I have in the past, if the US has the will, the urgency, and the energy to destroy ISIS, then we will destroy ISIS.
Published in Immigration, Islamist Terrorism
Bravo.
Excellent line.
Even if you have the “political will” (an extremely dangerous term) there are a zillion details to work out. Even if you adopt the Trump proposal to deny admittance to all Muslims, temporarily, there is a lot to work out. There is no DNA test or litmus to determine who is and who isn’t a Muslim. There is no shibboleth/sibboleth test that I know of. Even you and those on Ricochet for whom “political will” is not lacking could not come up with a workable set of criteria in the next month. Well, you could come up with something, but you would soon find you didn’t allow for this and that ambiguous situation and would want to change it and tune it. It takes time to work all these things out. Mistakes will be made in the meantime. Even Mr. Kudlow’s idea of a total lockdown would be difficult to implement, never mind the screaming from the airline stockholders and people like your sister-in-law and her relatives. But it would have the advantage of requiring the formation of the smallest possible set of rules.
Larry, try spreading the new Gospel other places besides the choir here at Ricochet, who mostly agree and applaud your sentiment. I didn’t need any sort of come-to-Jesus moment, as I am Jewish, and they will come for my people first.
Billy, I live in Connecticut and I will take this change of heart in Larry and hope that he does run for senate. We in Connecticut have the most embarrassing representation in congress and things in this state need to change and with Malloy our governor backing every, single Obama policy including the welcoming Syrian refugees, who I’m sure we’re throughly vetting (yeah right). along with our annoyingly ignorant senators again who always toe the party line. It would be nice not to be completely ashamed everytime any representative from the state that I live in decides to open their mouth
I listened to the flagship cast a little while ago & heard Larry voice his sentiments there – pleased to see it laid out in writing here. Could the pendulum be pushed back even a little bit towards sanity on immigration, if some more people with influence sound off like this?
Immigration should be based on “what awesomeness do you bring to the party?” rather than “Gee, there is not reason to bar you from the party, so you can come in.” The open borders supporters want to bring everyone in unless there is a solid, solid, solid reason to bar them, which they don’t find because they don’t look or ask.
Same question here.
I’m willing to accept tactical movements from friendlies, provided they are in the right direction :-)
Clearly put, now enter politics, it’s this kind of straight forward dialogue we need.
In the 1964-65 school year I was a junior in high school and a strong Goldwater partisan. Among other things (such as door-to-door work) I would argue for Goldwater every day on the school bus, in class, in between classes, whenever. I was probably overly strident about it. Lots of people argued back, but one sophomore kid who rode the same school bus would get into it with me, articulately disagreeing with just about every point I made.
Goldwater won the vote in our school’s town, but lost the mock election at school, badly. The day after the election, when this kid got on the bus, I said (hopefully in a more subdued fashion than usual) “Well, I suppose you’re happy now.” He replied quietly, “No. I voted for Goldwater.” For once in my life I was speechless.
Even then I knew better than to ask what convinced him.
I’ve never forgotten that lesson. You never know why some people come around, and you don’t need to know, either.
After the Caliphate completes the conquest of Londonistan, who will want to go there?
More, please.
Some practical questions:
a) What do you suggest be done about the roughly 900,000 international students in our universities on student visas, many of whom have already paid their tuition, some of whom will be approaching graduation? Can they stay?
b) Are you suggesting shutting down all commercial air travel to the US, save for flights repatriating US citizens?
c) What about air cargo? Will you shut that down? US and foreign airlines carried nearly 10 million freight tons to and from the United States in 2014 — a 6.8 percent increase from the previous year, although US flag share declined from 44.4 percent to 43.4 percent. What economic effect would shutting this industry down have on the US economy?
d) Would you shut down all 360 commercial ports? According to the American Association of Port Authorities, in 2014 these “Created employment opportunities for an estimated 23.1 million Americans, including 21.4 million who were employed in exporter/importer-related businesses and their support industries throughout the U.S. Business activities related to waterborne commerce contributed approximately $4.6 trillion overall to the U.S. economy, and those same businesses paid nearly $321.1 billion in federal, state and local taxes. Seaport activities alone in 2014 accounted for $41 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues.” What effect would shutting the ports have on the US economy? What about the roughly 9 million barrels per day of petroleum we import from about 75 countries — what effect will it have on the economy if it can’t come in? All traded goods come in through our borders one way or another. Are you suggesting autarky?
e) What’s your plan for sealing the Mexican and Canadian borders? How much will it cost and how soon will it be done? Canada’s our biggest trade partner: We exchange about two billion dollars a day in goods and services every day with Canada, and about nine million US jobs depend on it. What would be the economic effect of sealing off that border?
f) No tourist visas to anyone? Expenditures by international visitors in the United States generate 2.7 percent of our GDP. The International Trade Administration believes this creates 7.9 million jobs per annum — 5.5 million direct; 2.4 million indirect. This is a $1.6 trillion industry. As for trade, we’re talking about $220.8 billion p/a in international spending in United States; travel and tourism receipts account for 31 percent of U.S. services exports and 9 percent of all U.S. exports. What would be the economic effect of shutting this down?
f) What about B1 visas, which are issued to people who need to travel for short-term business reasons such as meetings, seminars, conferences, trade shows, negotiations, fact-finding trips, and market research? Would you cancel those? What effect do you think that would have on Foreign Direct Investment? FDI makes up about 16.5 percent of GDP. Foreign firms make new investments in the United States, grow their US operations, build new factories, fund research and development, and employ millions of Americans. What effect would it have on the economy if we canceled B1 visas?
g) How many global trade treaties would we have to abrogate to achieve this, and how fast could the legislation be pushed through Congress? What would it do to our credibility to abrogate those treaties, especially as we’re trying to negotiate TTIP?
I can’t even do a back-of-the-envelope calculation to figure out what the economic cost to Americans would be of doing this for even a month, but it seems to me the costs would be absolutely devastating. Have you worked out how much this would cost the US taxpayer per day? The long-term damage to certain industries? Given that we’re at war, is it wise to cripple our own economy? Will the war be paid for entirely by debt?
Finally, given that other countries will surely reciprocate, this will amount to making it near-impossible for Americans to leave — for tourism, study, or business. It would be the modern equivalent of building an Iron Wall around the country: Not only could others not get in, but we wouldn’t be able to get out.
It seems to me that truly sealing the borders would rapidly hasten the speed with which the international economy moves to Asia. Will all the Americans who’ve lost their jobs even be allowed to move to Asia to find one?
Like this.
Okay. About beating ISIS: How? What is the strategy? What are the tactics? How many troops? Where do they come from? Not just active combat troops but logistical support, security for, say, supply convoys, base set up and maintenance, air strips, centers of operation, forward command, mid command, ports, and on and on. I’m all for defeating ISIS, but all I hear are Ralph Peters style Uh Rahs about yes we can. If we’re going to send troops into harm’s way–some of whom may be family members–I want the brass tacks.
a) They can stay until their Visa expires.
b) See Israel
c) Silly question
d) Silly question
e) See Israel
f) See Israel
g) See Donald Trump
Nations that serve their own self interest’s first–such as Japan and Israel–have no problem participating in the global market place/community while maintaining a healthy skepticism of naked internationalism.
Tell me Claire, why should the United States be not allowed to pursue the best interests of it’s citizens over that of foreigners’?
Glad to have you on board, Larry. But let’s give credit where it’s due. See that figure way up ahead? That’s Donald Trump breaking trail.
Perhaps they’re silly questions, but humor me: What’s your answer? These seem like massive practical problems to me. Israel is a tiny country in both territory and population. I don’t see how any solutions that would work for a country (much) smaller than the greater Los Angeles area could work for a superpower with the world’s largest economy and the second-largest trading nation in the world. Japan would suffer the same fate as we would. In fact, it tried this under the Tokugawa shogunate, until Commodore Matthew Perry forcibly opened Japan to Western trade.
But autarky isn’t in our interests.
Claire – Larry Kudlow wants to:
How do you get from that to, for example, shutting off all air cargo? Or overnight removing 900,000 foreign students and ending virtually all air traffic? Larry’s a Laffer Curve-loving, free markets-type economist . . . would be odd if he were suddenly to argue for us to become North Korea in terms of foreign trade, no?
Since a nation is not a Ziploc® bag, it’s obvious that “sealing” is used here metaphorically. He means we should regain control of, for example, the lack of border control which allows this:
That’s only the children crossing illegally. It follows some 18 months of highly politicized debate about border security between, inter alia, Presidential candidates. The Obama regime intends this border collpase, Claire! You can’t dismiss it with unrelated facts and figures about trade and tourism, implying someone advocates eliminating legitimate economic activity.
Claire, if you agree that closing the borders is in principle on the table, then it makes sense to discuss those finer points. Otherwise, no. Why? Because nobody is going to change their mind about the big things based on haggling the little ones.
These are moral decision about priority and the responsibility of the government toward citizens. Your list is details of implementation.
Obviously, “seal the border” does not mean “pretend we live in a different universe”. It’s shorthand for gaining control over our uncontrolled borders and immigration processes, with a connotation that the interests of the other side are not important. because they’re not. If we can’t get Americans’ interests protected, then why be delicate about pushing back?
Off with their heads. If there were any real support for “sensible” border and immigration controls, don’t you think that would have happened already? The GOP keeps falling for amnesty requirements instead of telling the commiecrats to go screw themselves if they can’t see their way to defending this country. So the GOP can go screw themselves as well, and they can take their precious exploited labor and untracked immigrants and refugees with them.
So no, we don’t need a bulletproof plan. We need bullets.
Isn’t this exactly what ISIS wants us to do? To panic?
Do you have any idea what the consequences of a blanket travel ban would be? To start with, it would have to prohibit Americans from leaving the U.S. or it will be meaningless. It could also disrupt the global economy, potentially re-syncing the world’s regional business cycles (that’s a bad thing).
Neither is importing tens of thousands of ungrateful, ill-tempered, homicidal maniacs.
Isn’t all this talk just a substitute for what everyone knows has to happen: another ground war in the Middle East? If we want to defend ourselves from ISIS, we have to send troops to where they live, occupy their territory, and kill their leaders. I’m sorry, but there’s simply no avoiding it.
But these aren’t unrelated: This is how people come in and out of the United States. He’s proposing “a wartime lockdown,” which doesn’t sound metaphorical, so I’d like to know the details. Let’s see how he answers, perhaps I’ve misunderstood him.
Is the current system in our interests?
I know that you care about and are learned in a number of US interests abroad, but I would call many of those secondary interests, with the primaries remaining unaddressed.
Easy. The only people hyperventilating here are talking themselves into a stupor. Sit down before you fall down.
That’s a bit much, and it also delegitimizes the real point. Letting even a few dozen terrorists inside the U.S. would be a disaster; if only, say, 20 refugees turned out to be terrorists, out of 10,000 refugees that works out to 0.2%. No vetting process can guarantee such a small margin of error.
The moral question is simple: if we refuse to let in refugees, we are guaranteed to keep out the terrorists that would inevitably come with them. Conversely, if we allow the refugees in, we let in the terrorists.
(This is not as slam-dunk as it sounds; allowing terrorism to dictate your actions is itself not without cost. I imagine the Isrealis have a lot of experience situations like this, we should have Judith Levy on the podcast again to discuss it).
Yes, and it’s much worse this time. The US had unchallenged military hegemony in 2003. Now we’d be invading a country that Russia has all but declared is under its nuclear umbrella. I don’t find the idea of turning America into an autarchic fortress at all ridiculous compared to the risks involved. But I’d like politicians honestly to explain what this would really involve and what would happen to our economy — and the world’s — if we did it.
I feel like I should build a war memorial for all the poor strawmen who have been massacred today.
You make an argument to completely stop accepting any refugees at all. Great idea, especially the people most likely to successfully assimilate into American society are apparently kept out by US government policy.
However, I disagree with your idea that if we react to terrorism the terrorists have won. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan did not win WWII because they took actions that made us bomb them into smithereens. Neither will the terrorists have defeated us, if we take actions to prevent them from killing us, especially here.