Posted on 08/16/2002 3:23:14 AM PDT by kattracks
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Middle Easterners are one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in America and their interest in coming to the U.S. has remained high despite some anti-Arab sentiment following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks according to a report released Wednesday.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reviewed data from the 2000 U.S. Census and found that - while overall legal and illegal immigration tripled since 1970 - immigration from the Middle East has grown seven-fold, from less than 200,000 people in 1970 to nearly 1.5 million in 2000. That number is projected to grow to nearly 2.5 million by 2010 if current trends continue.
Dr. Steven Camarota, director of research for CIS, found another significant change tied to Middle Eastern immigration.
"As the Middle East immigrant population has grown, it has become dramatically more Muslim," he explained in his a href="http://www.cis.org/articles/2002ack902.html"report, "Immigrants from the Middle East: A Profile of the Foreign-born Population from Pakistan to Morocco."
His analysis of the data shows that in 1970, only 15 percent of Middle Eastern immigrants were Muslim. By 2000, that portion had risen to 73 percent.
Camarota says Middle Eastern immigration to the U.S. will probably have a noticeable impact on U.S. foreign policy in the not too distant future.
"Absent a change in U.S. immigration policy, continued Mid-East immigration appears likely to changes in U.S. Policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict as elected officials respond to this population's growing electoral importance," he explained.
That is not necessarily a cause for concern, he added, as it is the right of naturalized Americans to participate in the political process alongside native-born citizens. The growing Islamic religious affiliation of Middle Eastern immigrants does raise what Camarota calls an "interesting" question.
"There has been, and continues to be a debate within the Muslim world about whether one can even be a good Muslim while living in the land of unbelievers," he explained. "There is also a debate within the community about whether a good Muslim can give his political allegiance to a secular government, such as ours, that is comprised overwhelmingly of non-Muslims."
Another CIS a href="http://www.cis.org/articles/2002ack802.html "report, "Muslim Immigrants in the United States," by Daniel Pipes and Khalid Duran, does raise concerns about one segment of Muslim Middle Eastern immigrants known as Islamists.
"Islamists arrive in the United States despising the country and all it represents, intending to make converts, exploit the freedoms and rights granted them, and build a movement that will effect basic changes in the country's way of life and its government," writes Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, a think tank working to promote American interests in the Middle East.
"Islamists do not accept the United States as it is but want to change it into a majority Muslim country where the Quran replaces the Constitution," he continued.
Pipes and Duran criticize organizations "claiming to represent Muslim political interests" including the American Muslim Council, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
"It is striking to note that all three organizations are Islamist, and so seek to forward goals deeply at variance with mainstream American principles, as well as the aspirations and concerns of a majority in the Muslim community," the authors wrote.
"They aspire to achieve four general goals:
- Win special privileges for Islam (e.g., call for the creation of a White House Muslim advisory board);
- Intimidate and silence the opponents of militant Islam (e.g., have death edicts brought down on them, as happened to co-author Khalid Duran);
- Raise funds for, apologize for, and otherwise forward the cause of militant Islamic groups abroad, including those that engage in violence (e.g., the Holy Land Foundation, closed down for raising money "used to support the Hamas terror organization."); and
- Sanitize militant Islam (e.g., promote the notion that jihad is not warfare but a form of moral self-improvement)."
Hodan Hassan, spokeswoman for CAIR disputed Pipes' and Duran's claims.
"People who come to this country from the Middle East, from Muslim countries, have the same material aspirations, have the same goals to live in this country and to succeed," she said. "Islamic values have absolutely no contradiction to American values."
Hassan told CNSNews.com that the Quran teaches Muslims to respect people of other faiths despite their religious disagreements.
"We find it very offensive [when people say] that Muslims are somehow, because of their faith, going to have a hard time assimilating," she added. "You have examples everywhere of people who have come, who are second-generation Americans, who have succeeded and are doing well and have contributed back to this country."
The problem, she believes, comes when individuals misuse quotations from religious documents or leaders to justify their violent actions.
"What's really important is for people to put into context the actual numbers," she concluded. "We're still talking about a very few people who are not at all representative of the entire faith."
E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.
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They have UK and France and Belgium.
The US is next.
This is the best argument I've heard yet to search diligently for any and all opportunities to obliterate the pest-holes that these troglodytes come from.
Destroy the damn hives they swarm from. Then we will be positioned to deal with the remaining stateless remnants at both our leisure and advantage.
That shouldn't be a problem for them, since the Democrats are reeducating the next generation to believe that the Constitution is a "living breathing" document.
And letting them in must be desirable since they are a "minority" and we love "diversity" and "multiculturism" don't we?
Please add me to your 'enemies list'.
Get Ready for Twenty World Trade Center Bombings (A MUST READ interview from 1997) -- excerpt:
MEQ: What about ultimate goals?Prophetic Dream of the Capturing of Many Women - 1997 -- on FreeRepublic here: 30Emerson: Ultimately, incredible as it seems to us, to turn the United States into an Islamic country. They believe the world has to be made Muslim, preferably through da`wa but if necessary through other means. They seek to impose the Shari`a [Islamic sacred law] and even to resurrect the caliphate.8 The success of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan prompted some of them to turn their sights on Western targets. Strange as it sounds, they think that they brought down one super power: one down, one to go. You have to see the World Trade Center bombing in light of that ambition.
They are sometimes publicly explicit about this goal. The Muslim, a British-based Islamic fundamentalist publication, appeals to Muslims, "let us not hesitate in preparing for Jihad against the unbeliever--to subjugate the world to Islam."9 Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (or CAIR) openly declares that he would like to see the U.S. become a Muslim country.10Abdulrahman Alamoudi, head of the American Muslim Council, stated at the Islamic Association for Palestine conference in December 1996 that the United States will become a Muslim country, even if it takes a hundred years. ...
And letting them in must be desirable since they are a "minority" and we love "diversity" and "multiculturism" don't we?
Amen Sam Cree, Amen! Logically one would question the thinking in granting citizenship to those who seek to destroy and replace our founding document, but as you point out they’re just bolstering what the democrats have been trying to do for ages now.
Owl_Eagle
”Unleash the Hogs of Peace.”
P.J. O’Rourke Parliament of Whores
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