25 Years Later: Muslim Immigration Is Our Post-9/11 Challenge

Where were you on September 11th?

I was working for the Ave Maria Foundation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Someone called out that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

Everyone in our office rushed to the newsroom of Credo, a Catholic community newspaper we published at the time. A Fox report was playing on a large, flat-screen TV.

As smoke billowed out of the stricken building, off-screen voices speculated on how such an unlikely accident could possibly happen. Then, a second plane hit the other tower, and it was clear there had been no accident.

“This means war,” I commented to my associates, “but war with whom?”

It’s now a quarter-century later. We know who declared war on the United States that day and what happened in the ensuing years. Muslim jihad against the West, which had been proceeding in fits and starts for nearly a millennium-and-a-half, had entered a new phase.

We will forever debate the wisdom of our response to the attack:

• George Bush’s decision to extend retaliation into Iraq from Afghanistan (where 9/11 had been managed);

• the toppling and subsequent execution of Saddam Hussein and the upheaval that followed;

• the Patriot Act, with its staggering expansion of government surveillance powers;

• confining terrorists (proven or otherwise) in a special prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba;

• Joe Biden’s humiliating withdrawal from Kabul (with its related deaths of U.S. service personnel) and those Afghan civilians clinging desperately to our departing planes; and all the other elements of this vast and tragic drama.

But looking back, I still marvel at the unity that prevailed on 9/11 and the days following, as well as at the tremendous outpouring of faith. The Foundation’s small chapel, where daily Mass was available to Catholics working in our office complex, was packed with people praying for the safety of the nation.

I also remember the keen sense of shared purpose that prevailed. People recognized 9/11 as an assault not only on our country but on Christian civilization and its highest values. Even those whose religious affiliations were weak (or nonexistent) understood that something profoundly hostile was striking at the heart of Western culture. That culture had to be defended against an aggressive and persistent foe.

There were those who didn’t share this view, of course. I remember images of Muslims, both abroad and right here in the United States, celebrating 9/11, hailing the jihadis who hijacked and crashed those planes as heroes and martyrs.

And it didn’t take long for government officials and media talking heads to start cautioning us against painting all Muslims as terrorists or terrorist supporters. After all, the word Islam meant “peace,” we were told.

That explanation wasn’t quite complete. In Islam “peace” is gained only through submission to Islamic belief and law. Nevertheless, it became common to hear the term “Islamophobia” applied to those who questioned the approved narrative.

Fast-forward 25 years.

The population of Muslims in the United States has grown markedly, estimated currently at around 4.5 million, coming from some 80 countries. Mosques, madrassas (religious schools), and Muslim residential enclaves and community centers dot the landscape.

How did this happen? Immigration policies were altered to accept Muslim civilians who had aided U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. This accommodation was extended to refugees from wars instigated across the Middle East and Africa by various jihadi groups, along with those fleeing from political chaos and oppressive regimes.

Subsequent gutting of all immigration controls by the Biden Administration opened the gates further. Many Muslims were among the flood of illegals from around the world pouring across our border for economic and other reasons. The Islamic wave has been presented as merely the latest chapter in our long history of absorbing the world’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But there’s something different about this immigrant group.

It has always been the practice of new arrivals to settle in ethnically cohesive neighborhoods in order to carry on customary ways of speaking, dressing, eating, and worshipping. But the desire to share in the “American Dream” eventually overcomes cultural habit and immigrant families assimilate. Kids born on these shores, or even brought here as toddlers, become Americanized with surprising rapidity. Families move out of the ethnic centers in which they settled first, dispersing throughout the general population. Marriage between nationalities is common.

With Muslims, this is much less the case. Separateness tends to be enforced vigorously, and traditional modes of behavior are maintained with great strictness.

I live near a Muslim enclave in Michigan. I have encountered Muslim families in stores, medical facilities, and on the street—women fully covered, avoiding contact with non-Muslims, shielding children from outside influence.

The young are discouraged from making non-Muslim friends. Marriage and other romantic relationships beyond the community cause family crises. Harsh punishments are often inflicted. The practice of female genital mutilation persists. Honor killings are not unknown.

Under such conditions, the prospects for integrating the mass of Muslims into the lifestyle of mainstream America are discouraging, to say the least.

Washington Times columnist Don Feder, a recent guest on my radio show, Free Expression, made a harsh but plausible assessment of the situation when he insisted that “Islam is alien to American life.” Feder was referring to his recent Times essay in which he had expanded on that point: “To endure, a nation must have a shared vision,” he’d written. “In America, that vision comes from our biblical heritage: human dignity, equality before the law, and the protection of civil liberties.”

These concepts, he insisted, are alien to the Islamic worldview.

Muslim separatism is more than mere social resistance (like that of the Amish). It has a strong political dimension that is highly susceptible to the appeal of jihad. Muslim scholars and religious leaders have been candid in proclaiming the long-held goal of bringing America under Muslim domination. You don’t have to probe too deeply into social media to find their intentions explicitly stated. Indeed, it’s sensible to assume that many Muslims come to this country with these specific objectives in mind.

Check out Dearborn, Michigan, America’s first Muslim-majority city, to observe this process in progress. The call to prayer is heard across town, while church bells are silenced. Muslim holy days are celebrated in the streets, while Christian residents are encouraged to move away.

I do not believe that all Muslims are committed to separatism. On the contrary, many appear to embrace America and thrive in it. The medical profession, for instance, has a considerable Muslim presence. I’ve been treated by several immigrants from Islamic lands.

Such folks struggle with a great irony: even if they sincerely want the American way of life, to some extent they live under a cloud of constant suspicion.

Whenever someone commits an act of terrorism in the name of Islam, people recall that the doctrine of taqiyya excuses deception if it advances the Muslim cause. This is a basic tenet of the Muslim faith. To acknowledge it—and hence, to be uncertain about someone’s true sympathies—is not Islamophobia. It’s caution. Consequently, the motives and loyalties of even well-meaning, Americanized Muslims are never quite beyond scrutiny.

We face a great conundrum in addressing the unique challenge of Muslim immigration. Our First Amendment assumes that different religious beliefs and practices will be treated evenhandedly. But Islam is a religion founded on the declared intention of crushing all other beliefs. This imperative is made explicit in the Koran, its guiding document.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, Islam is on the rise in America. Six Muslims have served in Congress. A Muslim has been elected Mayor of New York City. Others are running for political office, often assisted by alliances with leftist groups whose character and principles would seem antithetical to Muslim values (e.g., Queers for Palestine). But then, politics is politics; you seek advantage where you find it.

At present, we are a long way from Muslim domination. But in large measure, how we respond to this immigrant wave will determine if America can continue as a center of Judeo-Christian civilization—or if 9/11 was the moment when we began our slide into cultural eclipse.

What will the next 25 years bring?