Nativism vs. National Security

Last Friday, I wrote about why 'closing the border' is exactly the wrong thing to do in the interests of national security. Today, Kevin Drum links to an article suggesting yet another reason why this is true. The article deals with the question of why Europe has had more Islamist terrorist attacks than the US:

Karl-Heinz Kamp, the security policy coordinator at Germany's prestigious Konrad Adenauer research center, said..."The U.S. has a historical advantage; America is still the land of opportunity to the whole world. The people moving there believe the American dream of social mobility," he said. "In Europe, we've historically treated our immigrants as hired help, and waited for them to finish the work they arrived for and go home."

Bob Ayers, a security and terrorism expert with London's Chatham House, a foreign-policy research center, thinks that immigrants to the U.S. actually become Americans, giving the United States a huge advantage in avoiding homegrown al Qaida terrorists.

Which is exactly the advantage the Know-Nothings would throw away.

Kevin adds:

I wish this could be stapled on the foreheads of Tom Tancredo and every one of his immigration-hating dittoheads in Congress. The traditional American approach to immigration is the most successful in the world. Why anyone would want to dump it in favor of a policy of nativist exclusion is beyond me....

In the long run, reducing the tolerance for al-Qaeda and likeminded jihadist groups in the Middle East is the only way we'll ever permanently reduce the threat of Islamic terrorism. This — not military action — should be the single most important guiding principle of our foreign policy.

Stapling it to their heads wouldn't help; they still wouldn't get the message. It would sure be entertaining, though.

[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]