The Somali refugee responsible for attacking young Americans at Ohio State University was deliberately imported into the country by the nation’s federal immigration policy–yet the scale and impact of immigration from undeveloped, foreign cultures is still a surprise to some politicians.
Since 2001, the United States has permanently resettled nearly 100,000 migrants from Somalia–a nation where the prevalence rate of Female Genital Mutilation for women and girls ages 15 to 49 is 98 percent, and where homosexuality can be punishable by death. In a single year, a Republican-led Congress funded visas for nearly 300,000 (temporary and permanent) Muslim migrants, which is a population that is nearly twice the size of the entire population of Dayton, Ohio.
The federal government invited Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 18, into the United States as a refugee, according to reports. Artan reportedly came to the U.S. in 2014, and his refugee status allowed him to fill a coveted slot at Ohio State University. It also allowed him to obtain federal benefits, and eventually would have given him quick access to citizenship, the voting booth, and the ability to bring over foreign relatives through chain migration.
Yet some Republican lawmakers seem unaware of the social and cultural impact that large-scale Muslim migration has had in their own backyards.
In an October 2015 interview with Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Breitbart News asked Jordan about Ohio’s Somali population and reports documenting how more than 20,000 girls in Ohio are at risk of having their sexual organs cut from their bodies through the Somali practice of female genital mutilation.
“In Ohio? Wow,” Jordan, who is the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said in response.
When Breitbart asked if Jordan thought the nation’s policy of annually dispensing visas to more than a quarter of a million (temporary and permanent) Muslim migrants ought to be curbed, Jordan replied, “I’d have to look at that closer. I have not looked at that particular.”
On Monday, Breitbart News asked Jordan’s office if he regrets not having paid attention to the nation’s federal immigration policy responsible for the attack on the Ohio State campus. Breitbart also asked if Jordan plans to champion legislation that will pause the refugee program.
Jordan’s office did not respond to Breitbart News’s questions.
However, Jordan was not the only member of the House Freedom Caucus who has admitted that he is unfamiliar with basic aspects of U.S. immigration law. Jordan’s comments came just a few days before Freedom Caucus co-founder Mick Mulvaney told South Carolina radio host Bob McCalin, “Honestly I have no idea what the number of legal green cards [issued annually] is”— even though Mulvaney’s website suggests immigration rates should be increased even higher.
Every single year the U.S. admits one million plus foreign nationals on green cards, one million guest workers, dependents, and refugees, and half a million foreign students.
Under current federal policy, the U.S. admits more than two times more Muslim migrants each year than there are Jim Jordan voters in Ohio’s fourth Congressional district— and roughly half of these migrants will be able to apply for citizenship. According to Pew, only 11 percent of Muslims vote Republican or even lean Republican.
Since Ohio voters sent Jordan to Washington D.C. in 2007, the U.S. has permanently resettled more than 50,000 Somali migrants. FBI officials are now watching the community to block additional jihad attacks by Somali migrants.
As the Minneapolis Star Tribune has reported, Minnesota, which is home to the nation’s largest Somali population, “leads the nation in would-be ISIL terrorists from the U.S.” according to a 2015 Congressional report.
“During the last two years, more than 20 Somali-Americans from Minnesota have left to fight alongside terrorists under the banner of ISIL,” a report from 2015 states.
In September, a Somali immigrant allegedly stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall while shouting “Allahu akbar” and asking his would-be victims whether they were Muslim.
Earlier this year, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked Speaker Ryan specifically about the Somali refugee crisis in Minnesota.
“We have a Somali problem up in Minneapolis-St. Paul,” O’Reilly told Ryan. “[We] have a problem there and those are refugees from Somalia. And if, God forbid, some refugee comes in and blows people up, it’s going to be grisly.”
Ryan replied by claiming that he and the House had “passed a bill pausing this refugee program.” However, Ryan’s declaration was demonstrably false. As NumbersUSA’s Rosemary Jenks explained, the House bill championed by Ryan did not in any way pause the Somali refugee program and, in fact, would “not have affected the Somali refugee program at all.”
Despite the House Speaker’s seeming inaction on pausing the Somali refugee program, in August, the Senate Immigration Subcommittee compiled a list of some of the recent instances of Somali refugees who have been implicated in terrorism:
– On April 20, 2015, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, Abdurahman Yasin Daud was charged (along with six others) with conspiracy and attempt to provide material support to ISIS. Daud, a Somalian refugee who came to the United States as a child, and subsequently obtained a green card. Daud and another individual drove from Minnesota to San Diego to attempt to get passports, cross the border into Mexico, and fly to Syria in to join ISIS.
– On February 5, 2015, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Abdinassir Mohamud Ibrahim was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for conspiring to provide material support to Al-Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and for making a false statement in his immigration paperwork. Ibrahim is a native of Somalia who came to the United States as a refugee in 2007 at the age of 22 and subsequently obtained a green card. Ibrahim knowingly lied on his citizenship application and previously lied in his request for refugee status, by falsely claiming that he was of a member of the minority Awer clan in Somalia and subject to persecution by the majority Hawiye clan. Ibrahim was actually a member of the Hawiye clan and not subject to persecution. In fact, according to court documents, “Ibrahim’s family was famous . . . [and] [t]hrough his clan lineage, Ibrahim was related to known Somali terrorists[.]” Ibrahim also admitted he lied on his citizenship application by having previously lied on his refugee application by falsely claiming that he had not provided material support to a terrorist group, when he had in fact provided material support in the form of cash to an Al-Shabaab member.
– On January 29, 2015, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a federal warrant was unsealed for the arrest of Liban Haji Mohamed for allegedly providing material support to Harakat Shabaab Al-Mujahidin, also known as Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda. Mohamed is a native of Somalia who sources indicate came to the United States as a refugee, obtained a green card, and subsequently applied for and received citizenship. He is believed to have left the United States on July 5, 2012, with the intent to join Al-Shabaab in East Africa. Mohamed previously lived in the Washington, D.C. area and worked as a cab driver, and is believed to have snuckacross the border to Mexico after being placed on the no-fly list. Carl Ghattas, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Washington, D.C. Field Office emphasized the importance of locating Mohamed, “because he has knowledge of the Washington, D.C. area’s infrastructure such as shopping areas, Metro, airports, and government buildings . . . [t]his makes him an asset to his terrorist associates who might plot attacks on U.S. soil.”
– On November 18, 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Issa Doreh was sentenced to ten years in prison for “conspiracy to provide material support to terrorist, conspiracy to provide material support to foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, and providing material support to foreign terrorist organization.” Doreh was admitted to the United States as a refugee from Somalia and subsequently obtained a green card and became a citizen. Doreh worked at a money transmitting business that was at the center of the conspiracy, which also involved Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud.
During the 2015 interview with Breitbart News, Jordan revealed that the Freedom Caucus had received no commitment from Paul Ryan that he would in any way try to curb the nation’s importation of Muslims on visas in exchange for their support for him as House Speaker.
The admission was significant because the Freedom Caucus played a key role in installing Ryan, who has a two-decade-long history of pushing open borders immigration policies as House Speaker. Indeed, as Speaker, Ryan championed an omnibus spending bill that fully funded Obama’s refugee resettlement operation and expanded the importation of migrants from the Muslim world.
Federal law makes clear that as President, Donald Trump will be able to act on his own to block certain foreign nationals from entering the nation.
Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act states:
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate…
As the Daily Caller‘s Alex Pfeiffer has reported, all of the past six presidents have used the authority this statute provides to block certain classes of immigrants from entering the country. Temple University Law Professor Jan Ting told the Daily Caller that existing law “absolutely and without any doubt” would allow a President Trump to restrict immigration of certain nationalities or religious groups.
Yet Ryan, who leads the pro-Islamic migration wing of the Republican Party, has previously suggested that he would personally push back against President Trump if he were to use his authority to act on this issue.
In a June interview with the anti-Trump publication The Huffington Post, Ryan suggested that he would sue a President Trump if he were to use his executive authority to temporarily pause Muslim migration into the United States.
Despite Ryan’s repeatedly stated opposition to curbing Muslim migration, on November 15th, Ryan was re-nominated to serve as House Speaker by a voice-vote of Republican lawmakers—with the backing of many in the House Freedom Caucus.
Ryan was nominated by House Freedom Caucus Rep. Mulvaney, who shares Ryan’s support for large-scale immigration.
Breitbart News reached out to House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jordan’s office and asked if he plans to support Ryan for House Speaker in January’s election. Jordan’s office did not respond to Breitbart News’s inquiry.