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| 'You say we can't invalidate visas for Iranian citizens? Since when? |
It might read something like this:
(20 January 2017, 1:30 pm soon after the Inauguration on the West Front of The US Capitol. No parade, just right to work in the Oval Office for 'President Trump')
'President Trump' orders 50,000 Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi students in the US to report to immigration office with the view to deporting those in violation of their visas'
'President Trump' also orders the Secretary of Treasury [State] and the Attorney General to invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today.
'We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires' says 'President Trump'.
'This directive will be interpreted very strictly' says the new President.
Sounds pretty harsh, doesn't it?
Well, guess what?
That is precisely what President Jimmy Carter did in 1979 and 1980 following the capture of 50 American hostages in the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran, none of whom would be released until 30 minutes before the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981.
The quotes above are taken directly from official records and accounts of President Carter's executive orders that sought to 'get tough' with the Iranian government as well as to protect the national security of this country and our citizens.
Here's the chronology of the events leading up to and including the capture of the American hostages and the subsequent actions all the way through their release in January, 1981.
Here is the complete statement by President Carter on April 7, 1980 announcing the sanctions against Iran including the suspension and invalidation of all new and old visas for Iranian citizens traveling to the United States.
In both, all you have to do is remove 'President Trump' from the hypothetical case mentioned above and substitute 'President Jimmy Carter' and you have a real-life, living breathing historical account of something that happened under a Democratic President not too long ago, 35 years almost.
Does that make you feel any better or any worse about America and the way past Presidents have chosen to try to defend our borders and make things safer for you and me and our parents and grandparents?
Let's face it: Donald Trump's broad-based statement that every Muslim should be considered a threat to this nation is wrong and wrong-headed. We coached a lot of Muslim kids in Northern Virginia in a variety of sports and got to know their parents and their siblings. One mother wore her hajib to every lacrosse game and said her son was going to be the 'greatest lacrosse player ever from Turkey....mainly because no one in Turkey had ever heard, seen or played lacrosse before!'
The vast majority of Muslims in America are just like the vast majority of Christians, Jews and atheists: good hard-working people who basically want a chance to provide a better life for their family and themselves and want the freedom to do so with a minimum of interference from anyone or any government.
However, just as President Carter saw in 1979, there are some Muslims who see western civilization as 'The Great Satan' and they want to rid the world of us infidels and will take any means necessary to achieve those ends. The 1993 World Trade Center bombings, 9/11, the USS Cole..the list of Islamist terror attacks on the US and Western Europe and other civilized nations just never seems to ever end, does it?
President Carter saw the existential threat to America when Iran took those 50 American citizens hostage and held them for 444 days against their will for really no other reason than the fact that they were American citizens. He took executive action to forcefully, or as forcefully as he could at the time, show the world that the United States wouldn't tolerate such acts of hostility without repercussions.
President Carter's actions are facts of history. There is no denying them or trying to equivocate them away in any fashion. He took action against the Iranians, many of whom were just innocent college students in America trying to get an education.
50,000 of those college students were ordered to a deportation center where many of them were deported for violating or over-staying their visa. Roughly 7000 students were forced to leave the US immediately. A total of 15,000 Iranians were ultimately deported from the US.
President Carter invoked the McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to justify his actions. Here are the disqualifying factors that would prohibit any alien from gaining access to the US:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this Act, the following classes of aliens shall be ineligible to receive visas and shall be excluded from admission into the United States:
(1) Aliens who are feeble-minded;
(2) Aliens who are insane;
(3) Aliens who have had one or more attacks of insanity;
(4) Aliens afflicted with psychopathic personality, epilepsy, or a mental defect;
(5) Aliens who are narcotic drug addicts or chronic alcoholics;
(6) Aliens who are afflicted with tuberculosis in any form, or with leprosy, or any dangerous contagious disease;
(7) Aliens not comprehended within any of the foregoing classes who are certified by the examining surgeon as having a physical defect, disease, or disability, when determined by the consular or immigration officer to be of such a nature that it may affect the ability of the alien to earn a living, unless the alien affirmatively establishes that he will not have to earn a living;
(8) Aliens who are paupers, professional beggars, or vagrants;
(9) Aliens who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (other than a purely political offense), or aliens who admit having committed such a crime, or aliens who admit committing acts which constitute the essential elements of such a crime; except that aliens who have committed only one such crime while under the age of eighteen years may be granted a visa and admitted if the crime was committed more than five years prior to the date of the application for a visa or other documentation, and more than five years prior to date of application for admission to the United States, unless the crime resulted confinement in a prison or correctional institution, in which case such alien must have been released from such confinement more than five years prior to the date of the application for a visa or other documentation, and for admission, to the United States;
(10) Aliens who have been convicted of two or more offenses (other than purely political offenses), regardless of whether the conviction was in a single trial or whether the offenses arose from a single scheme of misconduct and regardless of whether the offenses involved moral turpitude, for which the aggregate sentences to confinement actually imposed were five years or more;
(11) Aliens who are polygamists or who practice polygamy or advocate the practice of polygamy;
(12) Aliens who are prostitutes or who have engaged in prostitution, or aliens coming to the United States solely, principally, or incidentally to engage in prostitution; aliens who directly or indirectly procure or attempt to procure, or who have procured or attempted to procure or to import, prostitutes or persons for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; and aliens who are or have been supported by, or receive or have received, in whole or in part, the proceeds of prostitution or aliens coming to the United States to engage in any other unlawful commercialized vice, whether or not related to prostitution;
(13) Aliens coming to the United States to engage in any immoral sexual act;
(14) Aliens seeking to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor, if the Secretary of Labor has determined and certified to the Secretary of State and to the Attorney General that (A) sufficient workers in the United States who are able, willing, and qualified are available at the time (of application for a visa and for admission to the United States) and place (to which the alien is destined) to perform such skilled or unskilled labor, or (B) the employment of such aliens will adversely affect the wages and working conditions of the workers in the United States similarly employed. The exclusion of aliens under this paragraph shall apply only to the following classes: (i) those aliens described in the non-preference category of section 203 (a) (4), (ii) those aliens described in section 101 (a) (27) (C), (27) (D), or (27) (E) (other than the parents, spouses, or children of United States citizens or of aliens lawfully admitted to the United State for permanent residence), unless their services are determined by the Attorney General to be needed urgently in the United States because of the high education, technical training, specialized experience, or exceptional ability of such immigrants and to be substantially beneficial prospectively to the national economy, cultural interest or welfare of the United States;
(15) Aliens who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission, are likely at any time to become public charges;
(16) Aliens who have been excluded from admission and deported and who again seek admission within one year from the date of such deportation, unless prior to their re-embarkation at a place outside the United States or their attempt to be admitted from foreign contiguous territory the Attorney General has consented to their reapplying for admission;
(17) Aliens who have been arrested and deported, or who have fallen into distress and have been removed pursuant to this or any prior act, or who have been removed as alien enemies, or who have been removed at Government expense in lieu of deportation pursuant to section 242 (b), unless prior to their embarkation or reembarkation at a place outside the United States or their attempt to be admitted from foreign contiguous territory the Attorney General has consented to their applying or reapplying for admission;
(18) Aliens who are stowaways;
(19) Any alien who seeks to procure, or has sought to procure, or has procured a visa or other documentation, or seeks to enter the United States, by fraud, or by willfully misrepresenting a material fact;
Somewhere in there must be some understanding that anyone who seeks to gain access to the United States, whether they be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or atheist or whatever, in order to do physical harm and commit atrocious acts of murder and mayhem like these Islamist terrorists are intent on doing today as we witnessed in San Bernardino (and saw from afar in Paris, France) must be discovered, deported or imprisoned BEFORE they can do such harm.
What good does it do after the fact to tell the survivors of the victims of such horrific terror: 'Oh, well, you know, we have been tracking these folks for awhile but we couldn't take action because we wanted to make sure that we followed due process and made 100% sure they were going to kill someone before we could charge them with a crime'
What sort of 'American value' is that?
This is not your normal everyday America nowadays. We are at a state of war with these Islamist terrorists whether we like to admit it or not simply because they have stated they are at a state of war or jihad against us. We can't just ignore that fact and keep whistling happy tunes all day long like we are in some la-la land, can we?
That is at the crux of this important issue right now. Saying that 'America has to respect our values' also includes one of the most important duties our elected officials have in Washington for us as citizens and that is placing a high 'value' on the peace and security of this nation so we can all live free and happy lives without worrying about when a terrorist is going to blow us up or shoot us in a mall one day.
President Obama has failed that test. His nationally televised speech last Sunday might as well have been to announce another hashtag Twitter campaign saying #WeSupportSanBernardinoAndParisBut DontExpectUsToDoAnythingToPreventOtherAttacksFromHappening or something like that.
It would have been just as impactful.
Maybe the news media should read and try to understand history before making broad pronouncements on television that we can't do what presidents have done before.
Even just 35 years ago as was the case with President Jimmy Carter.
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