Immigration: Islamic State terrorists have an easier way of entering the U.S. than as refugees. It's the Visa Waiver Program, which lets citizens of 38 countries — including ISIS hotspot Belgium — travel here with no visa.
Since the program brings more than 20 million travelers a year to America, it's a boon for the tourism industry. And few in Washington dare put even a temporary freeze on the program, even if it poses a threat to homeland security.
Nations participating in the program are viewed as a low security threat to the U.S. But an exception must be made in the case of Belgium. Suspending its participation in the program is a wartime imperative.
Turns out that the ISIS terrorists who attacked Paris used Brussels as their rear base of operations. Fearing other ISIS cells are planning attacks, Belgian authorities have locked down the city.
Once known for its chocolates, Brussels is now known as "Little Morocco," after a decade of Muslim immigration from Morocco and Algeria flooding the city.
Belgium now supplies the highest per-capita number of fighters to the Islamic State of any European nation. French authorities have tracked some of the Paris attackers back to Molenbeek, a Muslim suburb of Brussels known as the "cradle of jihadism" in Europe. In fact, the mastermind of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was a Belgian whose parents are Moroccan immigrants.
U.S. officials warn that at least one of the eight Paris terrorists would have been able to travel to the U.S. under the visa waiver program.
"The problem is there's so many who are not on the European (terror watch) lists, that have European passports, could easily board a plane in Brussels, end up in New York, meet somebody, legally buy a gun and launch a military-style assault," said former CIA operative Bob Baer.Read the rest of this IBD editorial HERE.
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