House Republicans voted to pause the process of allowing refugees from Iraq and Syria to enter the United States. Republican-led states are refusing to help the refugees. Republican presidential candidates want to keep the refugees out. But their xenophobic bed-wetting bigotry ignores one small fact:
All the other known attackers, as well as Abaaoud, are of French and Belgian nationality with similar life stories of limited petty crime or drug taking, and radicalisation in their late teens or early twenties. At least four are known to have spent time in Syria with Islamic State extremists.
As European citizens, there was no need to resort to subterfuge or risk Mediterranean sea crossings to reach their target. They could travel freely around the continent even when the authorities in their home countries were aware of their extreme views and foreign travels.
Some had traveled to Syria, but they were all European. They were not refugees from Syria or Iraq. They were not refugees from anywhere. One Syrian passport was found at one of the attack sites, but there are huge questions about its significance:
But there are several reasons why it’s worth waiting until all the facts are known before making too strong a link between the attacks and the refugee crisis. The first is a general one: on at least 12 occasions, Isis has actually criticised refugees for fleeing to Europe. “For those who want to blame the attacks on Paris on refugees, you might want to get your facts straight,” wrote Aaron Zelin, an analyst of jihad, in an online commentary about the 12 outbursts. “The reality is, [Isis] loathes that individuals are fleeing Syria for Europe. It undermines [Isis’s] message that its self-styled caliphate is a refuge.” It’s therefore unlikely that the vast majority of Syrians fleeing to Europe are Isis supporters, since their actions are in obvious contravention of the group’s creed.
The second reason for caution is more specific. Investigators still need to verify the Syrian passport was carried by an attacker rather than a dead bystander (one Egyptian passport-holder initially believed to be an assailant turned out to be an injured victim). They will then need to be certain that the passport’s carrier was the same as the passport’s legitimate owner.
It’s possible that it was stolen. Since the possession of a Syrian passport makes it easier to claim asylum in Europe, there is a busy trade in stolen Syrian documents. Syrians interviewed on Greece’s border with Macedonia have described how they were mugged for their passports after leaving the Greek islands as they tried to make their way north through the Balkans. Such passports can be sold on for as much as several thousand euros, in a trade that the EU’s border agency acknowledges is a growing problem. Forgeries are also common; a Dutch journalist recently had one made in the name of his prime minister.
The Republican posturing is pure politics, and the ugliest form of politics. It’s fearmongering and bigotry and it has nothing to do with actual national security. It’s also just plain cruel. The Democrats are actually trying to do something about national security, but it’s about actual national security rather than about stoking fears to garner screaming headlines.