Beckel is right: no more Muslim student visas, no more mosques

By Bryan Fischer

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"

Bob Beckel gave the entire left wing of the American political sphere a collective aneurysm by saying things I have been saying for years: it's time to restrict Muslim immigration and stop the building of mosques.

Here's what Beckel said yesterday, as the house liberal on the Fox News program, "The Five:"

"I will repeat what I said before: No Muslim students coming here with visas. No more mosques being built here until you stand up and denounce what's happened in the name of your prophet. It is not what your prophet meant as soon as I know. I don't know his mother's name and I don't care. The point is, that the time has come for Muslims in this country and other people in the world to stand up and be counted, and if you can't, you're cowards."

He's absolutely correct that it is time to stop the practice of extending student visas to Muslims. Almost all of them fit the classic profile of the jihadists we most have to fear: Arab, between the ages of 17 and 40, well-educated and well-heeled.

Most of them will join the Muslim Student Association on the campus of their choice. The MSA is one of the 29 organizations in the U.S. which are simply branches of the Muslim Brotherhood. The chilling and clearly state stated goal of the Brotherhood is to "eliminate and destroy the Western civilization." Each MSA is little more than a recruiting, indoctrinating and training center for Islamic jihad.

The same can be said for mosques. According to a thorough study done by the Center for Security Policy, 95% of the Muslims in America who attend mosque on a weekly basis attend a mosque which either distributes literature or hosts speakers advocating the use of violence in advancing the cause of Islam. Thus each mosque also is little more than a recruiting, indoctrinating and training center for Islamic jihad. Every MSA and every mosque is an actual or potential terrorist cell.

This is why the NYPD has had numerous mosques under close surveillance for years. After 9/11, they know that being politically correct when it comes to the threat of Islam is foolish and suicidal.

Can suspending Islamic immigration and banning mosques be done constitutionally? Of course.

The Constitution invests Congress with the right to determine immigration policy. Article I, Section 8 says that "Congress shall have the power...to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization." No one has a constitutional right to immigrate to the United States. If Congress says Muslim students – or all Muslims, for that matter – can't come in, they can't come in.

As far as the building of mosques goes, state governments can ban them if they wish under the Constitution given to us by the Founders. Not, you will note, as mangled by activist judges who have made the Constitution virtually unrecognizable.

In the Constitution as given, the First Amendment restrains only the actions of Congress. "Congress shall make no law..." (Emphasis added throughout.) State governments are left free of federal government interference to do as they wish regarding the regulation of religious expression.

In his second inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson said, "In matters of religion I have...left them (i.e, religious exercises), as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of state and church authorities..."

In a letter written to Samuel Miller in 1808, Jefferson reiterated this constitutional position. "Certainly no power...to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states as far as it can be in any human authority."

Joseph Story, the longest serving associate justice in history and author of the first authoritative history of the Constitution, confirms Jefferson's view. He points out that the First Amendment was written only to deal with the issue of Christianity. "The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism..." The verb "to countenance" means "to permit or tolerate, to approve or encourage."

So Islam was not even countenanced by the Founders. That is, it was not permitted or approved of or sanctioned. It wasn't dealt with at all. The sole purpose of the First Amendment was "to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects" by preventing the establishment of one Christian denomination as the official church of the United States.

Story went on to say that jurisdiction over religious expression is therefore entirely a matter for the states. "Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions." In other words, when it comes to mosques and Islam, state governments can do anything they want without violating the Constitution.

Bottom line: if we follow the Constitution as given by the Founders and not as mangled by the courts, states can prohibit the building of mosques if they choose. And choose they should.

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer