Time to List Islamist Organizations on Applications for U.S. Citizenship - Dexter Van Zile

 

​ by Dexter Van Zile

Islamist Organizations Have Destroyed Lives Just Like Communists and Nazis

 

Following historical precedent, U.S. citizenship application forms should require immigrants to disclose any affiliation with or support for a clearly defined list of prohibited Islamist organizations, just as applicants are currently asked about ties to Communist movements. Immigrants connected to specific Islamist groups that promote violence, anti-constitutional activity, or the erosion of liberal democratic norms should be barred from entry or stripped of citizenship under these standards.

It’s time to make a list of Islamist organizations that will get you banned from becoming a citizen or resident of the United States of America.

There is precedent. It was (and still is) illegal for Nazis and Communists to become U.S. citizens. Foreigners who hid their totalitarian affiliations when becoming citizens were subject to denaturalization and deportation.

It didn’t happen very often, but it did happen. It happened to Jakiw Palij, a guard at the Trawniki concentration camp in Poland during World War II. When a U.S. judge discovered his Nazi affiliation, he stripped Palij of his citizenship and ordered him to leave the country in 2018. The same thing happened to Friedrich Karl Berger, another Nazi guard, in 2021.

Anyone who has ever filed for U.S. citizenship knows the drill. Applicants must inform officials from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services if they have ever been a member of the Communist Party or other totalitarian political movement.

It’s all laid out in USCIS Form N-400, which requires applicants to disclose any past affiliation with extremist or anti-government activity or groups. The form further probes whether the applicant has endorsed or been involved in efforts to overthrow the U.S. government by force or other unconstitutional means, or supported actions such as the killing or assault of government officials. It concludes by asking about participation in or support for acts of property destruction or sabotage.

In practice, a “Yes” on the N-400 doesn’t always mean automatic denial—USCIS has discretion, and applicants can provide evidence of renunciation or lack of meaningful involvement. Nevertheless, it raises a high bar and can lead to denial if the affiliation is recent or substantive.

The precedent is pretty clear. If past or recent ties to Communism (an ideology that historically sought to replace liberal democracy with one-party rule) can bar citizenship to an applicant, then active affiliation with groups that endorse jihadist ideology, Islamic supremacy, or the destruction of Israel (and by extension, Western liberal values) should face similar restrictions.

Clearly, there are a number of people in the United States who would never have made it into the country if the rules against supporting anti-democratic totalitarian movements were applied effectively. Banning—and expelling—clerics from the Middle East and elsewhere who support the Islamic Republic of Iran would be a good start. Religious leaders who host events that commemorate the deaths of Islamist leaders such as Qassem Soleimani and Ayatollah Khamenei are not engaging in religious practices but in political activism on behalf of a regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds—if not thousands—of U.S. service members.

Imams who come into the U.S. on temporary religious visas have no right to promote anti-Americanism under the cover of religion. Interestingly enough, the application for religious workers who hope to live in the United States temporarily makes no inquiry into the political activities or allegiances of foreigners intent on serving as religious leaders in the U.S.

That needs to change.

And while we’re at it, the last thing we need is students coming from overseas to promote advocate for groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-e-Islami, or any other jihadist organization that has made life so miserable for people in the Middle East and South Asia. We have enough crazies of our own who were born in the United States; we don’t need to import any more.

It’s time for government officials to come up with a list of groups that will get you banned if you try to come into the United States either as a citizen or resident, temporary or permanent. The names of these organizations need to be included on the application forms just to make sure that everyone knows where the line is drawn. The goal isn’t just to keep people out and send evildoers back home—without demonizing all Muslims—but to stigmatize Islamist organizations in the minds of loyal Americans. The ban on citizenship for Nazis and Communists encouraged and gave license to loyal Americans to view adherents of these movements with the contempt they deserved.

Communists and Nazis destroyed millions of lives in the 20^th century. Islamists are doing the same in the 21^st century. It’s time to ban them and kick them out. 

Dexter Van Zile, the Middle East Forum’s Violin Family Research Fellow, serves as managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism. Prior to his current position, Van Zile worked at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis for 16 years, where he played a major role in countering misinformation broadcast into Christian churches by Palestinian Christians and refuting antisemitic propaganda broadcast by white nationalists and their allies in the U.S. His articles have appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the Boston Globe, Jewish Political Studies Review, the Algemeiner and the Jewish News Syndicate. He has authored numerous academic studies and book chapters about Christian anti-Zionism.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/fwi/fwi-opinion-interview/time-to-list-islamist-organizations-on-applications-for-u-s-citizenship

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