April 24, 2018
By Joel Rose
...Haitham Dalati (click here) is a refugee from Syria who resettled in Connecticut last year after a federal judge put the first version of the travel ban on hold. Dalati and his wife hoped that their daughter and grandchildren would join them within weeks.
More than a year later, they're still waiting.
"This is so horrible for us," Dalati said. "I don't know now whether America is good or bad."
The U.S. is granting fewer visas to immigrants and admitting fewer refugees from around the world. But Muslims have been disproportionately affected....
The nightclub murderers in the USA are citizens, not immigrants. They buy their guns legally and then put a mark in history by killing innocent people. It has little to do with immigration. Omar Mir Seddique, also known as Omar Mateen was an angry American.
The problem with these "lone wolf" incidents in the USA is the ready accessibility of military style weapons.
April 5, 2018
By Jane Coston
...This evidence dramatically changes (click here) the mass shooting’s narrative; politicians and individuals across the political spectrum had positioned it as an anti-LGBTQ hate crime. Instead, the new evidence suggests, the Pulse nightclub shooting was intended as revenge for US anti-terror policies abroad.
The evidence emerged during the trial of the shooter’s wife, Noor Salman, whom the federal government charged with aiding and abetting and obstruction of justice. Federal prosecutors argued that Salman had helped her husband plan and orchestrate the attack. She was acquitted by a jury last Friday, a rare occurrence when most defendants accused of terror charges accept plea deals and the average conviction rate in such cases is above 90 percent.
The shooter’s motive was apparently revenge for United States bombing campaigns on ISIS targets in the Middle East. He had pledged allegiance to ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and during the Pulse shooting posted to Facebook, “You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes. ... Now taste the Islamic state vengeance.” In his final post, he wrote, “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa.”...
France's compassion was exploited when the Paris attacks took place. It was a vulnerability the French never conceived as a potential to violence. Immigrants to Europe have to be better vetted, too. The passport laws are too generous.
The French have become focused on ending the violence and perhaps this law will help, but, there is a larger picture in that terrorists, no matter the terrorist, seeks out weaknesses in a country's national security. That is what occurred in Paris. France and Europe, in general. Stronger laws are needed to know exactly the potential for violence an immigrant may be planning.
Europe has a different proximity to North Africa and the Middle East. They need to understand those that come to their country better, before allowing them to roam free within it's borders.
