Smoking Out Islamists via Extreme Vetting. (
MEForum).
by Daniel Pipes.
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2017.
On January 27, President Donald Trump signed an executive order
to implement his proposed "extreme vetting" of those applying for entry
visas into the United States. This article by Middle East Forum
President Daniel Pipes, who has written extensively
on the practicality and enforceability of screening for Islamists, is
an advance release from the forthcoming Spring 2017 issue of Middle East Quarterly.
Donald Trump issued an
executive order on Jan. 27 establishing radically new procedures to deal with foreigners who apply to enter the United States.
Building on his earlier notion of "
extreme vetting," the order explains that
to protect Americans, the
United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not
bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United
States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the
Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American
law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in
acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of
violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice
religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans
of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.
This passage raises several questions of translating extreme vetting
in practice: How does one distinguish foreigners who "do not bear
hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles" from those who
do? How do government officials figure out "those who would place
violent ideologies over American law"? More specifically, given that the
new procedures
almost exclusively concern the fear of allowing more Islamists into the country, how does one identify them?
I shall argue these are doable tasks and the executive order provides
the basis to achieve them. At the same time, they are expensive and
time-consuming, demanding great skill. Keeping out Islamists can be
done, but not easily.
The Challenge
By Islamists (as opposed to
moderate Muslims), I mean those approximately
10-15 percent of Muslims
who seek to apply Islamic law (the Shari'a) in its entirety. They want
to implement a medieval code that calls (among much else) for
restricting women, subjugating non-Muslims, violent jihad, and
establishing a caliphate to rule the world.
Islamists—not all Muslims—must urgently be excluded from the U.S. and other Western countries.
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For many non-Muslims, the rise of Islamism over the past forty years
has made Islam synonymous with extremism, turmoil, aggression, and
violence. But Islamists, not all Muslims, are the problem; they, not all
Muslims, must urgently be excluded from the United States and other
Western countries. Not just that, but anti-Islamist Muslims are the key
to ending the Islamist surge, as they alone can offer a humane and
modern alternative to Islamist obscurantism.
Identifying Islamists is no easy matter, however, as no simple litmus test exists. Clothing can be misleading, as some women
wearing hijabs are anti-Islamists, while practicing Muslims can be
Zionists; nor does one's occupation indicate much, as some
high-tech engineers
are violent Islamists. Likewise, beards, teetotalism, five-times-a-day
prayers, and polygyny do not tell about a Muslim's political outlook. To
make matters more confusing, Islamists often dissimulate and pretend to
be moderates, while some believers change their views over time.
In 2001, the Pentagon invited Anwar al-Awlaki to lunch. In 2011, it killed him by a drone strike.
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Finally, shades of gray further confuse the issue. As noted by
Robert Satloff of The Washington Institute, a 2007 book from the Gallup press,
Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think,
based on a poll of over 50,000 Muslims in 10 countries, found that 7
percent of Muslims deem the 9/11 attacks "completely justified," 13.5
percent consider the attacks completely or "largely justified," and 36.6
percent consider the attacks completely, largely, or "somewhat
justified." Which of these groups does one define as Islamist and which
not?
Faced with these intellectual challenges, American bureaucrats are
unsurprisingly incompetent, as I demonstrate in a long blog titled "
The U.S. Government's Poor Record on Islamists."
Islamists have fooled the White House, the departments of Defense,
Justice, State, and Treasury, the Congress, many law enforcement
agencies and a plethora of municipalities. A few examples:
- The Pentagon in 2001 invited Anwar al-Awlaki, the American Islamist it later executed with a drone-launched missile, to lunch.
- In 2002, FBI
spokesman Bill Carter described the American Muslim Council (AMC) as
"the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States" – just two years
before the bureau arrested the AMC's founder and head, Abdurahman
Alamoudi, on terrorism-related charges. Alamoudi has now served about
half his 23-year prison sentence.
- George W. Bush appointed stealth Islamist Khaled Abou El Fadl in 2003 to, of all things, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
- The White House included staff in 2015 from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in its consultations, despite CAIR's initial funding by a designated terrorist group, the frequent arrest or deportation of its employees on terrorism charges, a history of deception, and the goal of one of its leaders to make Islam the only accepted religion in America.
Fake-moderates have fooled even me, despite all the attention I devote to this topic. In 2000, I
praised a book by Tariq Ramadan; four years later, I argued for his
exclusion from the United States. In 2003, I condemned a Republican operative named
Kamal Nawash;
two years later, I endorsed him. Did they evolve or did my
understanding of them change? More than a decade later, I am still
unsure.
Uniform Screening Standards
Returning to immigration, this state of confusion points to the need
for learning much more about would-be visitors and immigrants.
Fortunately, Trump's executive order, "
Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,"
signed on Jan. 27, 2017, requires just this. It calls for "Uniform
Screening Standards" with the goal of preventing individuals from
entering the United States "on a fraudulent basis with the intent to
cause harm, or who are at risk of causing harm subsequent to their
admission." The order requires that the uniform screening standard and
procedure include such elements as (bolding is mine):
- In-person interviews;
- A database of identity documents proffered by applicants to ensure that duplicate documents are not used by multiple applicants;
- Amended application forms that include questions aimed at identifying fraudulent answers and malicious intent;
- A mechanism to ensure that the applicant is who the applicant claims to be;
- A process to evaluate the applicant's likelihood of becoming a positively contributing member of society and the applicant's ability to make contributions to the national interest; and
- A mechanism to assess whether or not the applicant has the intent to commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the United States.
Elements 1, 3, 5, and 6 permit and demand the procedure outlined in
the following analysis. It contains two main components, in-depth
research and intensive interviews.
Research
When a person applies for a security clearance, the background checks
should involve finding out about his family, friends, associations,
employment, memberships, and activities. Agents must probe these for
questionable statements, relationships, and actions, as well as
anomalies and gaps. When they find something dubious, they must look
further into it, always with an eye for trouble. Is access to government
secrets more important than access to the country? The immigration
process should start with an inquiry into the prospective immigrant and,
just as with security clearances, the border services should look for
problems.
Most everyone with strong views at some point vents them on social media.
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Also, as with security clearance, this process should have a
political dimension: Does the person in question have an outlook
consistent with that of the Constitution? Not long ago, only public
figures such as intellectuals, activists, and religious figures put
their views on the record; but now, thanks to the Internet and its open
invitation to everyone to comment in writing or on video in a permanent,
public manner, and especially to social media (Facebook, Twitter,
etc.), most everyone with strong views at some point vents them. Such
data provides valuably unfiltered views on many critical topics, such as
Islam, non-Muslims, women, and violence as a tactic. (Exploiting this
resource may seem self-evident but
U.S. immigration authorities do not do so, thereby imposing a self-restraint roughly equivalent to the
Belgian police choosing not to conduct raids between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.)
In the case of virulent, overt, outspoken jihadis, this research
usually suffices to provide evidence to exclude them. Even some
non-violent Islamists
proudly announce
their immoderation. But many Islamists adopt a milder and subtler tone,
their goal being to appear moderate so they can enter the country and
then impose Shari'a through lawful means. As suggested by some of the
examples above, such as Abou El Fadl or CAIR, research often proves
inadequate in these instances because cautious Islamists hide their
goals and glibly dissimulate. Which brings us to entrance interviews.
Entrance Interviews
Assuming that lawful Islamists routinely hide their true views, an
interview is needed before letting them enter the country. Of course, it
is voluntary, for no one is forced to apply for immigration, but it
also must be very thorough. It should be:
Recorded: With the explicit permission of the person being
questioned ("You understand and accept that this interview is being
recorded, right?"), the exchange should be visibly videotaped so the
proceedings are unambiguously on the record. This makes available the
interviewee's words, tone, speech patterns, facial expressions, and body
language for further study. Form as well as substance matters: does the
interviewee smile, fidget, blink, make eye contact, repeat, sweat,
tremble, tire, need frequent toilet breaks, or otherwise express himself
in non-verbal ways?
Effective interviewing requires a battery of queries on many topics.
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Polygraph: Even if a lie detector machine does not, in fact,
provide useful information, attaching the interviewee to it might induce
greater truth-telling.
Under oath: Knowing that falsehoods will be punished, possibly with jail time, is a strong inducement to come clean.
Public: If the candidate knows that his answers to abstract
questions (as opposed to personal ones about his life) will be made
public, this reduces the chances of deception. For example, asked about
belief for the full application of Islamic laws, an Islamist will be
less likely to answer falsely in the negative if he knows that his reply
will be available for others to watch.
Look
for inconsistency by asking the same thing in different ways. An
example: "May a woman show her face in public?" and "Is a male guardian
responsible for making sure his women-folk don't leave the house with
faces uncovered?"
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Multiple: No single question can evince a reply that
establishes an Islamist disposition; effective interviewing requires a
battery of queries on many topics, from homosexuality to the caliphate.
The answers need to be assessed in their totality.
Specific: Vague inquiries along the lines of "Is Islam a
religion of peace?", "Do you condemn terrorism?" "How do you respond to
the murder of innocents," depend too much on one's definition of words
such as
peace,
terrorism, and
innocents
to help determine a person's outlook, and so should be avoided.
Instead, questions must be focused and exact: "May Muslims convert out
of Islam, whether to join another faith or to become atheists?" "Does a
Muslim have the right to renounce Islam?"
Variety in phrasing: For the questions to ferret out the truth
means looking for divergence and inconsistency by asking the same
question with different words and variant emphases. A sampling: "May a
woman show her face in public?" "What punishment do you favor for
females who reveal their faces to men not related to them by family?"
"Is it the responsibility of the male guardian to make sure his
women-folk do not leave the house with faces uncovered?" "Should the
government insist on women covering their faces?" "Is society better
ordered when women cover their faces?" Any one of the questions can be
asked in different ways and expanded with follows-up about the
respondent's line of reasoning or depth of feeling.
Repeated: Questions should be asked again and again over a
period of weeks, months, and even longer. This is crucial: lies being
much more difficult to remember than truths, the chances of a respondent
changing his answers increases with both the volume of questions asked
and the time lapse between questionings. Once inconsistencies occur, the
questioner can zero in and explore their nature, extent, and import.
The Questions
Guidelines in place, what specific questions might extract useful information?
Zuhdi Jasser (L) with the author as teammates at a 2012 Intelligence Squared debate in New York City.
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The following questions, offered as suggestions to build on, are those of this author but also derive from a
number of analysts devoting years of thinking to the topic.
Naser Khader,
the-then Danish parliamentarian of Syrian Muslim origins, offered an
early set of questions in 2002. A year later, this author published
a list covering seven subject areas.
Others followed, including the liberal Egyptian Muslim Tarek Heggy,
the liberal American Muslims Tashbih Sayyed and Zuhdi Jasser, the
ex-Muslim who goes by "Sam Solomon," a RAND Corporation group, and the
analyst Robert Spencer. Of special interest are the queries posed by the
German state of Baden-Württemberg dated September 2005 because it is an
official document (intended for citizenship, not immigration, but with
similar purposes).
Islamic doctrine:
1. May Muslims reinterpret the Koran in light of changes in modern times?
2. May Muslims convert out of Islam, either to join another faith or to be without religion?
3. May banks charge reasonable interest (say 3 percent over inflation) on money?
4. Is taqiya (dissimulation in the name of Islam) legitimate?
Islamic pluralism:
5. May Muslims pick and choose which Islamic regulations to abide by (e.g., drink alcohol but avoid pork)?
6. Is takfir (declaring a Muslim to be an infidel) acceptable?
7. [Asked of Sunnis only:] Are Sufis, Ibadis, and Shi'ites Muslims?
8. Are Muslims who disagree with your practice of Islam infidels (kuffar)?
The state and Islam:
9. What do you think of disestablishing religion, that is, separating mosque and state?
10. When Islamic customs conflict with secular laws (e.g., covering
the face for female drivers' license pictures), which gets priority?
11. Should the state compel prayer?
12. Should the state ban food consumption during Ramadan and penalize transgressors?
13. Should the state punish Muslims who eat pork, drink alcohol, and gamble?
14. Should the state punish adultery?
15. How about homosexuality?
16. Do you favor a mutawwa' (religious police) as exist in Saudi Arabia?
17. Should the state enforce the criminal punishments of the Shari'a?
18. Should the state be lenient when someone is killed for the sake of family honor?
19. Should governments forbid Muslims from leaving Islam?
Marriage and divorce:
20. Does a husband have the right to hit his wife if she is disobedient?
21. Is it a good idea for men to shut their wives and daughters at home?
22. Do parents have the right to determine whom their children marry?
23. How would you react if a daughter married a non-Muslim man?
24. Is polygyny acceptable?
25. Should a husband have to get a first wife's approval to marry a second wife? A third? A fourth?
26. Should a wife have equal rights with her husband to initiate a divorce?
27. In the case of divorce, does a wife have rights to child custody?
Female rights:
28. Should Muslim women have equal rights with men (for example, in inheritance shares or court testimony)?
29. Does a woman have the right to dress as she pleases, including
showing her hair, arms and legs, so long as her genitalia and breasts
are covered?
30. May Muslim women come and go or travel as they please?
31. Do Muslim women have a right to work outside the home or must the wali approve of this??
32. May Muslim women marry non-Muslim men?
33. Should males and females be separated in schools, at work, and socially?
34. Should certain professions be reserved for men or women only? If so, which ones?
35. Do you accept women occupying high governmental offices?
36. In an emergency, would you let yourself be treated by or operated on by a doctor of the opposite gender?
Sexual activity:
37. Does a husband have the right to force his wife to have sex?
38. Is female circumcision part of the Islamic religion?
39. Is stoning a justified punishment for adultery?
40. Do members of a family have the right to kill a woman if they believe she has dishonored them?
41. How would you respond to a child of yours who declares him- or herself a homosexual?
Schools:
42. Should your child learn the history of non-Muslims?
43. Should students be taught that Shari'a is a personal code or that governmental law must be based on it?
44. May your daughter take part in the sports activities, especially swimming lessons, offered by her school?
45. Would you permit your child to take part in school trips, including overnight ones?
46. What would you do if a daughter insisted on going to university?
Criticism of Muslims:
Denying the Islamic nature of ISIS reveals much about a Muslim.
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47. Did Islam spread only through peaceful means?
48. Do you accept the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry into the origins of Islam, even if it casts doubt on the received history?
49. Do you accept that Muslims were responsible for the 9/11 attacks?
50. Is the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh Islamic in nature?
Fighting Islamism:
51. Do you accept enhanced security measures to fight
Islamism, even if this might mean extra scrutiny of yourself (for
example, at airline security)?
52. When institutions credibly accused of funding jihad are shut down, is this a symptom of anti-Muslim bias?
53. Should Muslims living in the West cooperate with law enforcement?
54. Should they join the military?
55. Is the "war on terror" a war on Islam?
Non-Muslims (in general):
Praying at the Hindu Temple in Dubai, founded 1958.
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56. Do all humans, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious beliefs, deserve equal rights?
57. Should non-Muslims enjoy completely equal civil rights with Muslims?
58. Do you accept the validity of other monotheistic religions?
59. Of polytheistic religions (such as Hinduism)?
60. Are Muslims superior to non-Muslims?
61. Should non-Muslims be subject to Islamic law?
62. Do Muslims have anything to learn from non-Muslims?
63. Can non-Muslims go to paradise?
64. Do you welcome non-Muslims to your house and go to their residences?
Non-Muslims (in Dar al-Islam):
65. May Muslims compel "Peoples of the Book" (i.e., Jews and Christians) to pay extra taxes?
66. May other monotheists build and operate institutions of their faith in Muslim-majority countries?
67. How about polytheists?
68. Should the Saudi government maintain the historic ban on non-Muslims in Mecca and Medina?
69. Should it allow churches to be built for Christian expatriates?
70. Should it stop requiring that all its subjects be Muslim?
Non-Muslims (in Dar al-Harb):
71. Should Muslims fight Jews and Christians until these "feel themselves subdued" (Koran 9:29).
72. Is the enslavement of non-Muslims acceptable?
73. Is it acceptable to arrest individuals who curse the prophet of Islam or burn the Koran?
74. If the state does not act against such deeds, may individual Muslims act?
75. Can one live a fully Muslim life in a country with a mostly non-Muslim government?
76. Should a Muslim accept a legitimate majority non-Muslim government and its laws or work to make Islam supreme?
77. Can a majority non-Muslim government unreservedly win your allegiance?
78. Should Muslims who burn churches or vandalize synagogues be punished?
79. Do you support jihad to spread Islam?
Violence:
80. Do you endorse corporal punishments (mutilation, dismemberment, crucifixion) of criminals?
81. Is beheading an acceptable form of punishment?
82. Is jihad, meaning warfare to expand Muslim rule, acceptable in today's world?
83. What does it mean when Muslims yell "Allahu Akbar" as they attack?
84. Do you condemn violent organizations such as Boko Haram, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Shabaab, and the
Taliban?
Western countries:
85. Are non-Islamic institutions immoral and decadent or can they be moral and virtuous?
86. Do you agree with studies that show non-Muslim countries such as New Zealand to be better living up to the ideals of Islam than Muslim-majority countries?
87. Is Western-style freedom an accomplishment or a form of moral corruption? Why?
88. Do you accept that Western countries are majority-Christian or do you seek to transform them into majority-Muslim countries?
89. Do you accept living in Western countries that are secular or do you seek to have Islamic law rule them?
90. What do you think of Shari'a-police patrolling Muslim-majority neighborhoods in Western countries to enforce Islamic morals?
91. Would you like to see the U.S. Constitution (or its equivalents in other countries) replaced by the Koran?
This interview:
92. In an immigration interview like this, if deceiving the questioner helps Islam, would lying be justified?
93. Why should I trust that you have answered these questions truthfully?
Observations about the Interviews
Beyond helping to decide whom to allow into the country, these
questions can also help in other contexts as well, for example in police
interrogations or interviews for sensitive employment positions. (The
list of Islamists who have
penetrated Western security services is a long and painful one.)
Islamists are hardly the only ones who condemn Israel. Here Jewish Voice for Peace activists protest.
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Note the absence of questions about highly charged current issues.
That is because Islamist views overlap with non-Islamist outlooks;
plenty of non-Islamists agree with Islamists on these topics. Although
Leil Leibowitz
in contrast sees Israel as "moderate Islam's real litmus test,"
Islamists are hardly the only ones who demand Israel's elimination and
accept Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate political actors – or believe
the Bush administration carried out the 9/11 attacks or hate the United
States. Why introduce these ambiguous issues when so many Islam-specific
questions (e.g., "Is the enslavement of non-Muslim acceptable?") have
the virtue of far greater clarity?
The interviewing protocol outlined above is extensive, asking many
specific questions over a substantial period using different
formulations, probing for truth and inconsistencies. It is not quick,
easy, or cheap, but requires case officers knowledgeable about the
persons being interviewed, the societies they come from, and the Islamic
religion; they are somewhat like a police questioner who knows both the
accused person and the crime. This is not a casual process. There are
no shortcuts.
Criticisms
This procedure raises two criticisms: it is less reliable than
Trump's no-Muslim policy and it is too burdensome for governments to
undertake. Both are readily disposed of.
Less reliable: The no-Muslim policy sounds simple to implement
but figuring out who is Muslim is a problem in itself (are Ahmadis
Muslims?). Further, with such a policy in place, what will stop Muslims
from pretending to renounce their religion or to convert to another
religion, notably Christianity? These actions would require the same
in-depth research and intensive interviews as described above. If
anything, because a convert can hide behind his ignorance of his alleged
new religion, distinguishing a real convert to Christianity from a fake
one is even more difficult than differentiating an Islamist from a
moderate Muslim.
Too burdensome: True, the procedure is expensive, slow, and
requires skilled practitioners. But this also has the benefit of slowing
a process that many, myself included, consider out of control, with
too many immigrants entering the country too quickly.
Immigrants numbered
5 percent of the population in 1965, 14 percent in 2015, and are
projected to make up 18 percent in 2065. This is far too large a number
to assimilate into the values of the United States, especially when so
many come from outside the West; the above mechanism offers a way to
slow it down.
Truly protecting the country from Islamists requires a major commitment of talent, resources, and time.
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As for those who argue that this sort of inquiry and screening for visa purposes is unlawful;
prior legislation
for naturalization, for example, required that an applicant be
"attached to the principles of the Constitution" and it was repeatedly
found to be legal.
Finally, today's moderate Muslim could become tomorrow's raging
Islamist; or his infant daughter might two decades later become a
jihadi. While any immigrant can turn hostile, such changes happen far
more often among born Muslims. There is no way to guarantee this from
happening but extensive research and interrogations reduce the odds.
Conclusion
Truly to protect the country from Islamists requires a major
commitment of talent, resources, and time. But, properly handled, these
questions offer a mechanism to separate enemy from friend among Muslims.
They also have the benefit of
slowing down immigration. Even before Trump became president, if one is to believe CAIR, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP)
asked questions
along the lines of those advocated here (What do you think of the USA?
What are your views about jihad? See the appendix for a full listing).
With Trump's endorsement, let us hope this effective "no-Islamists"
policy is on its way to becoming systematic.
Appendix
On January 18, 2017, just hours before Donald Trump became president
of the United States, the Florida office of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed ten complaints with the Customs
and Border Protection Agency (CBP) for questioning Muslim citizens about
their religious and political views. Among the
questions allegedly asked were:
1. Are you a devout Muslim?
2. Are you Sunni or Shia?
3. What school of thought do you follow?
4. Which Muslim scholars do you follow?
5. What current Muslim scholars do you listen to?
6. Do you pray five times a day?
7. Why do you have a prayer mat in your luggage?
8. Why do you have a Qur'an in your luggage?
9. Have you visited Saudi Arabia?
10. Will you every visit Saudi or Israel?
11. What do you know about the Tableeghi-Jamat?
12. What do you think of the USA?
13. What are your views about Jihad?
14. What mosque do you attend?
15. Do any individuals in your mosque have any extreme/radical views?
16. Does your Imam express extremist views?
17. What are the views of other imams or other community members that give the Friday sermon at your mosque?
18. Do they have extremist views?
19. Have you ever delivered the Friday Prayer? What did you discuss with your community?
20. What are your views regarding [various terrorist organizations]?
21. What social media accounts do you use?
22. What is your Facebook account username?
23. What is your Twitter account username?
24. What is your Instagram account username?
25. What are the names and telephone numbers of parents, relatives, friends?
CAIR also claims a Canadian Muslim was asked by CBP the following questions and then denied entry:
1. Are you Sunni or Shia?
2. Do you think we should allow someone like you to enter our country?
3. How often do you pray?
4. Why did you shave your beard?
5. Which school of thought do you follow?
6. What do you think of America's foreign policy towards the Muslim world?
7. What do you think of killing non-Muslims?
8. What do you think of [various terrorist groups]?
Finally, CAIR indicates that those questioned "were held between 2 to 8 hours by CBP."
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. This analysis derives from a chapter in Conceptualizing Moderate Islam, ed. Richard Benkin (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017).
