Counter-Terrorism: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Terrorists

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May 17, 2014: The industrialized nations (especially in the West) saw a record number (over 600,000) of illegal migrants seeking asylum in 2013. That number looks likely to be even higher in 2014. It’s estimated that over 600,000 of these migrants are now in Libya, on the coast and waiting for a smuggler to take them across to Italy. Libya is the favorite country for getting smuggled into Europe because Libya is the most lawless state in North Africa at the moment. It also provides the shortest distance to reach Europe by boat. Once there the migrants seek to reach Germany, France or Britain but if caught in Italy they ask for asylum in Italy. While the war in Syria is currently providing over 100,000 illegal migrants in Europe, most of all such refugees  come from Africa, Afghanistan or other areas a lot of people want to leave.

Despite the fact that more than half these migrants are Moslem, very few of them are terrorists. Nevertheless some are the families of terrorists or are related to one but nearly all of them are simply trying to escape difficult situations (war, abject poverty, tyranny). Many of these Moslem migrants do eventually become terrorists or supporters of that sort of thing and for that reason Moslem migrants are less welcome in the West. But because Western nations still have generous asylum laws, and religious profiling is generally frowned on, resistance to the Moslem refugees tends to be informal and illegal. This does discourage Islamic terrorists from trying to get in with the general migrant population and instead they use more expensive and skilled smugglers who know how to move people who might not pass intense police scrutiny.