Lou Barletta: U.S. Legal Immigration System ‘Rolls Out Red Carpet for Terrorist Cells Plotting Attacks’

The current United States legal immigration system “rolls out the red carpet for terrorist cells plotting attacks” against the country, according to Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA), who is running for Senate.

Following a report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which found that 73 percent of terrorists convicted on international terrorism-related charges were foreign-born, Barletta says the alarming news underscores the problems with the country’s current legal immigration system.

“We have immigration laws in this country for two basic reasons: to preserve American jobs and protect national security,” Barletta said in a statement. “Clearly, the report issued by the DOJ shows there are terrorists trying to enter our nation.”

Currently, more than 70 percent of the legal immigration system is made up of foreign relatives arriving in the U.S. to reunite with family members who have become naturalized citizens. This process is known as “chain migration,” and it has imported more than 120,000 foreign nationals to the U.S. from terrorist-funding countries since 2005, as Breitbart News reported.

The populist conservative also noted the Diversity Visa Lottery as a legal immigration program that has made the U.S. more susceptible to importing terrorism.

Under the Visa Lottery, championed by former Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the U.S. randomly gives out 50,000 visas every year to foreign nationals from a multitude of countries, including those with known terrorism problems – such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Yemen, and Uzbekistan. Winners have undergone only minor screening from immigration officials, even when their ideology is hostile to Americans laws and culture.

“The current system rolls out the red carpet for terrorist cells plotting attacks with loopholes like the diversity lottery and chain migration,” Barletta continued. “It’s astonishing that pre-9/11 thinking for immigration is still seen as a viable solution going forward.  Despite this report, the Democrats in the Senate seem intent on sabotaging immigration enforcement talks and shutting the government down.  We need serious talks about enforcement, not bad faith efforts by Senate Democrats.”

In the last months of 2017, it was revealed that three foreign-born terrorists were able to arrive in the U.S. through chain migration and the Visa Lottery.

Chain migration was responsible for bringing Ahmed Amin El-Mofty, a 51-year-old from Egypt, who allegedly targeted Pennsylvania police officers in December 2017 in a terrorist attack, Breitbart News reported.

Breitbart News additionally reported how chain migration also imported accused suicide-bomber Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old Bangladesh national, who allegedly attempted to detonate his bomb in New York City in an ISIS-inspired attack.

Ullah, as confirmed by DHS, entered the U.S. in 2011 as a chain migrant. Ullah came to the U.S. through the chain migration F43 visa, allowing him to obtain a Green Card simply because his father’s brother or sister had recently been naturalized as a U.S. citizen.

In November 2017, it was discovered that the Visa Lottery had imported Uzbek national 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov who allegedly murdered at least eight individuals in an ISIS-inspired attack in New York City.

Saipov was allowed to enter the U.S. through frivolous immigration policy. In 2010, Saipov won one of the 50,000 visas randomly allotted every year under the Diversity Visa Lottery.