The political and media elite erupted again this week when President Trump stated that, if reelected, he would “absolutely revoke citizenship from naturalized criminals” and take strong measures to protect Americans from violent offenders who entered under our increasingly broken immigration system. He reminded audiences that he has the authority to do so, and that protecting the American people is not only legitimate — it is the first responsibility of the commander in chief. The statement immediately reignited the debate over immigration from radicalized regions and the now-infamous “Muslim Ban.”
The truth is that the “Muslim Ban” was never a Muslim ban. Critics shouted the phrase loudly and often enough that many Americans never learned what the policy actually did. The original executive order did not prohibit Muslims from entering the United States. It restricted travel and refugee entry from seven countries racked by civil war, controlled by terror networks, or lacking reliable identity-verification systems. Those countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — were identified not because they were Muslim, but because they were unstable, violent, or compromised states. In other words, the ban was targeted at the highest-risk points of entry, where terrorism was statistically the most concentrated and where vetting was impossible. That’s not bigotry; that’s basic national security.
And given what we know today, it was one of the most responsible foreign-policy decisions made in the last quarter-century.
This week’s headlines provide fresh, horrifying evidence that the threat is not theoretical. After the killing of an innocent National Guard troop and the critical wounding of another by a shooter reportedly here illegally from Afghanistan — a country President Biden handed back to the Taliban in a historic failure — Americans are once again confronted with the consequences of importing instability and hoping for the best. Afghanistan is now once again a global terrorist incubator. To pretend that migrants from such environments present no risk is willful ignorance dressed up as compassion.
At the same time, in Europe, a story emerged so brutal it would be dismissed as implausible if it appeared in a film script. According to multiple reports, including Fox News coverage of Dutch prosecution statements, a Muslim father and his two sons in the Netherlands have been charged with drowning their 18-year-old daughter in a swamp because she adopted what they called “a Western lifestyle” and refused to wear a headscarf. It is being investigated as an honor killing — an execution carried out in the name of “family purity.” That phrase alone should send chills down the spine of anyone who cares about human dignity.
Honor killings. Forced circumcision of girls in Sudan. Female genital mutilation across large portions of North Africa. Wife-beating legalized or tacitly protected in parts of the Middle East. Public executions for leaving Islam. Children forced into child marriage. Women treated not as human beings but as property whose “value” is based on obedience. These are not fringe anomalies. They are cultural norms in large swaths of the Muslim world. They openly defy the American idea that life has inherent worth.
That American principle — the belief that every individual is created in the image of God — the Imago Dei — is the foundation for the concept of human rights. Remove that principle, and freedom collapses into barbarism. A culture that treats women like disposable furniture and kills its daughters for autonomy cannot peacefully integrate into a society that believes human beings possess sacred dignity.
This is not an abstract concern. It is personal. On Sunday, over brunch, I tried to explain these realities to my sons. It was painful, because we personally know Muslims whom we count as friends — moderate, thoughtful, kind people. People who enjoy the liberty that America provides. People who do not practice the extreme devotions of fundamentalist Islamic law. But that leads to a hard and unavoidable truth: what makes them good neighbors is precisely what makes them bad Muslims according to the strictest demands of their own doctrine. The only Muslims who flourish in a free society are those who reject the most rigid and brutal demands of orthodoxy. That is not prejudice — that is observable reality.
It is not racist to ask whether importing large populations from cultures that endorse or tolerate honor killings, female mutilation, and religiously justified violence is wise. It is not hateful to protect daughters from being murdered in the name of purity. It is not bigotry to insist that those entering our nation embrace the belief that women and children have intrinsic value.
And yet, thanks to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, refugee and asylum pipelines from volatile regions expanded dramatically, often over the objections of national security officials. Skeptics were shamed into silence. Even questioning the wisdom of unchecked entry became grounds for accusations of racism. Meanwhile, families buried their children, communities buried their soldiers, and media outlets shrugged.
Now, after preventable deaths, President Trump faces impossible moral math: act boldly and be called cruel, or do nothing and allow the killing to continue. There is only one morally defensible path. Revoking citizenship from naturalized criminals is not extreme. Halting asylum fraud is not extreme. Restoring travel restrictions from radicalized nations is not extreme. Speeding deportations of violent offenders is not extreme. Protecting innocent American lives is not cruelty — it is leadership.
The harshest policy is the one that allows more innocent people to die.
The left insists strong borders are unkind. No — burying a soldier while explaining we refused to act is unkind. Telling parents their daughter died because we chose ideology over safety is unkind. Watching terrorists exploit compassion and slaughter our citizens is unkind.
America must choose. Civilization or chaos. Security or suicide. Courage or appeasement. We cannot survive a world where every value is negotiable and every boundary is erased. We have a duty to protect the civilization our ancestors built with blood and hard-won wisdom.
It is time to rethink what the media mocked as a “Muslim Ban.” It was never a ban on a religion. It was a shield for our people. And it may be the only thing that prevents more funerals.