Bad News for Jihadists, Good News for Minnesota: Trump Administration Establishes National Vetting Center

Over the last three decades, our federal government during both Republican and Democratic administrations, has made Minnesota the top destination for refugees—and jihadists— in the nation.

In recent years, the largest number of refugees are Muslims coming from Africa and the Middle East. The State Department knows a good deal when it sees one: we have the best welfare policy for refugees, and the “best” federal contractors that place refugees (the big ones are Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services). These contractors are paid to enroll refugees on welfare and find them housing but they are not paid to walk alongside refugees to insure assimilation.

And because refugee policy favors placing people with their own families and kin, our population of Somalis, for example, has grown to the point where we refer to the West Bank of Minneapolis as Little Mogadishu.

 

Yesterday John Hinderaker posted that Minnesota has been identified in a new study as a center of terror recruitment more like hubs in Europe than America:

The Star Tribune reports on a new study that shows Minnesota is number one when it comes to per capita terror recruitment: An unprecedented “cluster” of Minnesotans aspiring to become jihadists overseas fueled the nation’s highest rate of terrorism recruitment, according to a new study that also found that attempts to travel to Syria or Iraq are on a steady decline since 2015. *** In a report released Monday called “The Travelers: American Jihadists in Syria and Iraq,” three terrorism scholars described a Twin Cities cluster more akin to terror conspiracy hubs in Belgian and French neighborhoods than the more…

Last night, Paul Teller, Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs at The White House, sent this press statement:

Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding the Creation of the National Vetting Center

Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum to establish a National Vetting Center (NVC) to coordinate the efforts of departments and agencies to better identify individuals seeking to enter the country who present a threat to national security, border security, homeland security, or public safety.

The NVC, which will be led by the Department of Homeland Security, will help fulfill the President’s requirement that departments and agencies improve their coordination and use of intelligence and other information in the vetting process.

The Federal Government’s current vetting efforts are ad hoc, which impedes our ability to keep up with today’s threats. The NVC will better coordinate these activities in a central location, enabling officials to further leverage critical intelligence and law enforcement information to identify terrorists, criminals, and other nefarious actors trying to enter and remain within our country. The NVC’s operations will adhere to America’s strong protections for individuals’ privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. The Administration’s top priority is the safety and security of the public, and the NVC will empower our frontline defenders to better fulfil that obligation.

Is this too little, too late for Minnesota?

This does nothing to address the huge challenge communities like Minneapolis, St. Cloud, Wilmar and Faribault are facing, whether it is terror recruitment, the impact on state and local budgets or the huge challenge of welcoming tens of thousands of people from a culture that is alien to ours. The jihadists and disaffected communities that produce them are already here.

But Minnesotans, including people who came as refugees, and other legal immigrants who embrace Minnesota and the U.S. as their home with grateful hearts, will be cheered to know that the administration has taken off the blinders in two significant ways.

One, the number of refugees entering our country has already dropped—the official target has been lowered from 110,000 refugees per year under Obama to Bush-era goals of 45,000 but the Trump administration is not on track to admit even half that number. Why? Because, two, this is the first administration in decades that actually vets people before they are admitted.

Apparently, what the administration found since it took over was a very flawed vetting process, and after decades of sloppy work, now plan to tighten things up.

That means that the American people, which includes all the immigrants who make this their home, are now the top priority.

That will give Minnesota, and our great nation, which is the best in world at admitting and assimilating new and diverse peoples, a chance to catch our collective breath and figure out how, as a state, we are going to successfully assimilate, not just accommodate or integrate, our new neighbors.