NEW YORK (AP) — A civil rights group asked a judge Friday to find it unconstitutional for the federal government to exclude a prominent Muslim scholar or anyone else from the United States on the grounds that they may have endorsed or espoused terrorism.
In case that didn't register:
NEW YORK (AP) — A civil rights group asked a judge Friday to find it unconstitutional for the federal government to exclude a prominent Muslim scholar or anyone else from the United States on the grounds that they may have endorsed or espoused terrorism.
The entire article:
NEW YORK (AP) — A civil rights group asked a judge Friday to find it unconstitutional for the federal government to exclude a prominent Muslim scholar or anyone else from the United States on the grounds that they may have endorsed or espoused terrorism.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the papers attacking the policy in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The group included in its submissions a written declaration in which the scholar, Tariq Ramadan, said he has always “opposed terrorism not only through my words but also through my actions.”
The ACLU said schools and organizations who want to invite Ramadan and others into the United States are concerned about what is known as the ideological exclusion provision.
It said an entry in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual says that the provision is directed at those who have voiced “irresponsible expressions of opinion.”
The group said the provision violates the First Amendment and has resulted since 2001 in the exclusion from the United States of numerous foreign scholars, human rights activists and writers, barred “not for legitimate security reasons but rather because the government disfavors their politics.”
The ACLU said some foreign scholars and writers are now reluctant to accept invitations to the United States because they will be subjected to ideological scrutiny and possibly denied entry.
Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for government lawyers, said she had no comment Friday.
In the case of Ramadan, a 44-year-old native of Switzerland, the ACLU said he was excluded last year for making small donations that totaled $1,336 to the Association de Secours Palestinien, an organization that the U.S. government said he should have known provided funds to Hamas, which the government has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Ramadan said in court papers the donation was for humanitarian aid and he would not have given it “if I had thought my money would be used for terrorism or any other illegal purpose.”
Before his visa was revoked in 2004, Ramadan had spoken at Harvard University, Stanford University and elsewhere. He said he continues to decline numerous invitations to appear in the United States, including a request by The American Academy of Religion to speak next November at its annual meeting.
As a sovereign nation, the United States has the right to bar anyone for any reason entry to our country. Advocating Islamic terrorism is probably at the top of the list of good reasons.
The ACLU’s saccharine description of this terror-loving enemy is a dirty ACLU whitewash. Ramadan is not simply a “prominent scholar.” His connections to international terrorists and love for radical Islam are deep, documented and generational (Good ol’ granddad was a founder of the Muslim Brotherhood).
Let’s clear this up once and for all — there are no such things as “First Amendment rights” for foreigners not even on our soil. The ACLU is proving once again to be cultural cannibals, feasting off our own laws for the purpose of destroying the same. Imagine that — overseas terrorism advocates have a “First Amendment right” to come and go to and from our country at any time…and we have no say as to whether or not that happens. We can’t stop them because, after all, they have opinions. Doesn’t matter what they are, just having opinions entitles you a pass over our border. I suppose we couldn’t screen known jihadists with opinions with any extra scrutiny either. The ACLU would call that racial profiling and we can’t have that. I guess they’d slap Fourth, Fifth and 14th Amendment claims against us for good measure.
Pretty easy: Support Terrorism = Denial of Entry + (hopefully) Incoming Hellfire missile. Flip side: Never openly support terrorism = probable passport stamp.
I would be surprised if they haven't already put out a red carpet invitation to Bin Laden.
Put another check in the ACLU’s “Times I Defended the Enemy” column.
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