By: Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, Congressional Candidate for AZ-04 (June 21, 2024)
Have you been reading the headlines?
No wonder FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress that the threat of a terror attack on U.S. soil is the highest he’s seen. Over 350 individuals on the terror watch list have been apprehended during Biden’s time in office. What concerns me is not the ones we caught — it’s the ones we missed.
Because of the mass scale of illegal crossings that have been allowed under Biden, our systems are overwhelmed and vetting of migrants has been all but abandoned. Migrants can simply walk across the border at one of many un-fenced areas (only about half the length of the southern border is secured with a wall) and claim asylum while presenting very little paperwork and making claims that are difficult to verify. At least more robust vetting was once in place for migrants from threatening countries, but that also has been largely suspended.
Bottom line: for our safety and security, we must know who is coming into this country.
It’s not acceptable to simply shrug our shoulders and wait for the worst to happen.
That’s why I’ve called for intensifying vetting as part of my 8-point border security plan.
I’m not just talking about vetting for terrorism.
Wonder why we’re seeing so much wokism and anti-American sentiment fomenting across our college campuses?
We need to vet against anti-American ideologies, like communism, certain political parties, fascist parties, the Muslim Brotherhood, National Democratic party of Egypt, Assad’s Baath party in Syria, and many others. We also need to vet for willingness to embrace western core American ideals, including economic freedom, religious freedom, and the existence of God-given human rights.
When my parents immigrated as political refugees from Syria before I was born, they fully embraced what it meant to be American. They embraced our values and our ethic of freedom and individual responsibility. They truly became Americans.
Today, we have migrants who have no intention of becoming Americans. Some even hate America, and we are allowing them blindly — then wondering why we’re seeing a wholesale decline in American values.
I’ll close with this.
Vetting also matters when you’re choosing a candidate to represent you. You’re sending that person to make daily decisions on your behalf. You need to be able to trust their track record and their values. I’ve been thoroughly vetted and battle tested over decades, whether as a decorated U.S. Navy officer for 11 years, a physician to the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court, a Senate Appointee to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a vocal leader in the fight against radical Islamists, or as a doctor who stood up to the medical establishment and its weaponization of health care during COVID-19. I’ve been a lifelong conservative, sharing my views publicly since my first column as a high school student. You know what I believe, and you know I will run into the fire when our safety, our values and our freedom are at risk.
Frankly, I can’t say the same about my primary opponent. You can’t be trusted when you registered as a Republican only one year before running for office after pulling Green Party and Democrat party ballots for years. You can’t be trusted to lead boldly on border security when your publicly written statement on immigration is almost identical to President Biden’s and Greg Stanton’s and calls for “a fair and reasonable way to address those that are here” while that same statement is silent on the need for a border wall, our broken asylum system, and the millions who have come illegally under Biden’s abuse of executive authority.
A primary is for vetting and the choice is clear.