I’ve lost track of how many times we have heard the story about how refugee resettlement has slowed due to the discovery that some terrorists might get into the US through the program. This incarnation is from the Denver Post a couple of days ago and I feel obligated to post it, if for no other reason then to keep our archives complete on the recent arrest in Colorado of Uzbek refugee—Jamshid Muhtorov.
The Denver Post:
The U.S. government, concerned that the refugee resettlement process might be exploited by terrorists, has tightened background checks for refugees coming into the country.
Twice in the past three years, Colorado refugees have been arrested on terrorism charges. They are among a few scattered across the country who have raised concerns about the process.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has taken an interest in the issue after it was learned two Iraqi refugees, living in his state of Kentucky, were arrested on terrorism charges, that story here.
The Denver Post continued:
The incidents raise questions about how Americans should balance helping refugees fleeing oppression versus protecting the homeland from security threats.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,called for congressional hearings to look into the resettlement process after the February 2011 arrests of two Iraqi refugees in Kentucky accused of conspiring to send weapons to al-Qaeda. [As far as I know the arrests happened in late May, so am not sure what this February date is. LOL! maybe they were arrested in February and the public was not informed for months?—ed].
In July, he testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and questioned the numbers of refugees and other immigrants being allowed into the U.S.
“I don’t fault you for missing the needle in the haystack,” Paul said to the committee. “But you have to make the haystack smaller.”
Some don’t arrive radicalized, they get that way in America, says a United Nations mouthpiece:
No security check can prevent someone from becoming a terrorist after they enter the U.S. For example, officials say, there was nothing in Muhtorov’s file and screening that would have barred him from resettling in Colorado in 2007.
“You cannot screen the people on the basis of what they would become five years later,” Cochetel said.
Actually he is wrong in this case, there was plenty in Muhtorov’s (an Uzbek “freedom fighter”) file to at least give pause about whether he should have been admitted to the US. And, it might have been discovered if he hadn’t been airlifted here outside the normal refugee resettlement screening process!
Life in the US turned me into an Islamist!
Will we never learn! Continuing this myth that Islamic radicalization comes from socio-economic deprivation will be our undoing.
“Most recently, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have attempted to recruit and radicalize people to terrorism here in the United States, as we have seen in several plots and attacks, including the deadly attack two years ago on our service members at Fort Hood,” said President Barack Obama in August. “As a government, we are working to prevent all types of extremism that leads to violence, regardless of who inspires it.”
Greg Holloway, the prosecutor assigned to Muhtorov’s case, told a federal judge that Muhtorov might have become dissatisfied with his life in the U.S. and dedicated his life to global jihad.
Holloway read from letters submitted by Muhtorov’s supporters that said he was an educated man in Uzbekistan who had grown frustrated that the only jobs he was able to get involved manual labor. The truck driver had also worked at a meat-packing plant in Greeley and as a casino janitor in Black Hawk.
The income wasn’t enough for him to support his wife and two children on his own.
So, we are to believe he turned into an extremist Muslim so he could better support his family?
And, golly, not even his meat-packing job could make him happy! He must not have been working for Tyson Foods (the premiere employer of happy Muslim meat-packing workers).