Does the United States Need Extreme Vetting?

Dangerous people with radical beliefs are being allowed to enter the United States. Sometimes they enter illegally, but in some cases we have invited them in, as is the case with the Afghan man who shot two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C.

MEF endorsed the idea of Smoking Out Islamists via Extreme Vetting when it was proposed by President Trump in his first term. Our founder Daniel Pipes said then.

“I shall argue these are doable tasks and the executive order provides the basis to achieve them. At the same time, they are expensive and time-consuming, demanding great skill. Keeping out Islamists can be done but not easily.”

The piece laid out a comprehensive approach to identifying and excluding Islamists from entry. It seems that policy needs a fresh look now.

MEF Chief Strategist Jim Hanson discussed how this applies to the shooting in our capital and the President’s announcement of major reviews of immigration and asylum policies in an appearance on FOX News.

Transcript:

FOX: Jim Hanson is with the Middle East Forum and served in the Army Special Forces, where he conducted counterterrorism operations. And he joins us now.

Good morning, sir, and thank you for joining us. What is your assessment of thus far what we know about this deranged lunatic?

HANSON: I think what we know is when you bring people into this country who we don’t know their motives, their ability to assimilate, their suitability to be a part of Western civilization, you end up with problems like we have with this guy and others in the past.

And I think it shows that we don’t have a good system for figuring out who are the right people and who have belief systems that are inconsistent with our way of life.

President Trump, in his first term, mentioned something he called extreme vetting. And that’s something we at the Middle East Forum have been working with members of the national security team. We met a week ago Friday with Joe Kent and met with the National Security Council, Seb Gorka and others, trying to figure out how to take care of making sure don’t allow people in this country who mean us harm.

FOX: And, sir, you mentioned meeting with Joe Kent, and he discussed earlier saying that perhaps this individual was vetted for his service with, at the time, shared interests with the Central Intelligence Agency and the American forces over there.

But clearly, something happened between then and now, and the vetting was never appropriate for actual moving to this country. Excuse me. We can put on the screen a little bit about, indeed, the unit that this individual served with. And, sir, we’ll take your thoughts on that.

HANSON: I think you want one kind of person to kill enemy soldiers on a battlefield and to do those kind of things, and you can vet for that to an extent.

But that’s not the same kind of vetting, as Joe Kent pointed out, that you want for someone you’re going to bring here and have live among all of us, civilians, at this point.

I think the thing to consider is, how do you tell who the good guys are? A lot of these countries don’t have the administrative and operational systems that we do.

So you can’t even be 100 percent certain of their identity, their background. And you’re dealing in tribal culture and honor culture where lying to authorities or lying to people who don’t share your belief system, in our case, infidels, is acceptable.

So I think we have to look at every time we allow people in from countries that don’t have the ability to tell us who their people are and don’t share our belief system, how do we make sure those people should have any chance to come to this country?

FOX: Indeed, and echoing those sentiments, the representative from West Virginia said earlier he should not even have been here in the first place. Let’s take a watch.

REP. MOORE: The President is taking the correct step by re-vetting these individuals, but in my view, he should have never been here. He should have never been in this country to begin with.

We had over Afghan nationals piled into the United States. We don’t know these people. We should not be in this position to begin with. And a beautiful young lady from West Virginia lost her life because of this failed policy by Joe Biden.

FOX: Your reaction, sir?

HANSON: I think it’s horrifying. And I think there’s an element of, we feel an obligation when we ask someone to help fight a war. But in this case, that war was in their country, not ours.

And the idea that we owe some blanket obligation to anyone who was remotely involved with that, to bring them to the United States when they may not be capable of living here, that’s not a good idea, and it’s a horrible policy.

FOX: Indeed. Jim Hanson, thank you for joining us, and most importantly, for your service, sir.

HANSON: Good to be with you.