Quandaries of integration in America and Europe: An introduction

TY - CHAP

T1 - Quandaries of integration in America and Europe

T2 - An introduction

AU - D'Appollonia, Ariane Chebel

AU - Reich, Simon

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - On June 24, 2008, Levar Haney Washington-a Los Angeles Islamic convert who planned to finance terrorist activities through armed robberies-was sentenced to twenty-two years in federal prison. He was convicted on terrorism conspiracy charges. At his sentencing hearing, he told a federal judge he belonged to a prison-based Islamic terrorist cell. Documents found at the scene of their arrest included plans to attack the Los Angeles International Airport, the Israeli consulate, army recruiting centers, and local synagogues.1 Washington claimed that he and three other defendants were members of Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, a militant Islamic organization formed in California prisons. The following month, Gregory Patterson, an accomplice of Haney's, received a comparable sentence. Although United Press International reported both stories, neither made the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post.2 Yet these indictments were not as isolated as they might seem. There are, indeed, good reasons to believe that the issue of Islamist terrorism is becoming more threatening in the United States, as illustrated by the so-called Lackawanna Seven who were arrested in September 2002 for providing material support to terrorists. Likewise, the conspiracy to attack Fort Dix-involving six landed immigrants-was another example of a planned high-profile attack thwarted by federal authorities. Indeed, five of the immigrants were convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers in December 2008, the sixth having pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.3 Across the United States, much has been made over the course of the last decade of the challenge to national and civil security threatened by terrorists posing as immigrants and visitors, an issue that we ourselves addressed in a recent coedited book on the subject, Immigration, Integration and Security: America and Europe in Comparative Perspective.4 Yet while a new literature has developed on the subject of immigration and security,5 comparatively little work has examined theissue of the threat posed by a lack of integration of landed immigrants and their descendents in the United States and Europe. Despite the inclusion of the word "integration" in the title of the book, our prior study focused largely on the relationship between immigration and security. Questions regarding the importance of, and mechanisms by which, integration stands to enhance domestic security were raised but were largely unaddressed. That issue is the subject of this book, thus constituting a companion volume to our 2008 book. In effect, while focusing on distant wars, screening procedures at embassies around the world, and border controls at home, U.S. policy makers have paid little attention to the dynamics of the relationship between integration, security, and civil rights. Rather, their presiding assumption has been that legally landed immigrants and their descendants will successfully integrate through a series of civil and market-driven mechanisms into American culture-conventionally characterized as the "American melting pot." Yet just as in Europe, the "enemy within" in the United States is often a domestically born citizen, as exemplified by the cases of Ryan Anderson, a Muslim convert and member of the Washington National Guard who was convicted of providing military intelligence to al-Qaeda, or of Adam Gadahn, known as "Azzam the American." Gadahn, who converted to Islam at the age of seventeen, is a son of a prosperous Jewish physician. He was the first American to be charged with treason in more than fifty years, describing the United States as "enemy soil" in an al-Qaeda documentary. While policy makers have been largely silent on the issue of integration in America, some analysts have voiced concern about the threat posed to internal security by the lack of civil and political integration, particularly among portions of the Arab and Muslim communities. Bruce Hoffman is just one expert who believes that the United States is not immune from the threat of al-Qaeda sleeper agents-"al-Qaeda locals who are already in place and taking advantage of the radicalization to recruit the radicals for terrorist attacks."6 Furthermore, data seems to substantiate such concerns with, reputedly, nineteen attacks being thwarted between 2001 and 2007,7 although those caught constituted just a handful of the 400,000 people on the government's surveillance watch list.8 It is perhaps wishful thinking to assume that a new presidential administration will quell such radical tendencies. In contrast to their American counterparts, European policy makers have voiced their growing awareness of the problem, prompted in part by the increasing number of terrorist attacks organized or implemented by domestically born citizens. In Great Britain, for example, Dhiren Barot, a Hindu convert to Islam who planned several possible attacks, was arrested in 2004 and received a forty-year prison sentence in 2007. More generally, after two car bombs failed to explode in Central London and one failed to do so at Glasgow International Airport in July 2007, official sources reported an increasing number of arrests of British nationals. While some of this increase may have reflected better investigative work carried out by police and counterterrorist agents, a component was undoubtedly due to more intensive recruitment by local terrorist groups.9 Europeans also seem to act more aggressively on the threat posed by terrorism, with Europol reporting that a total of 1,044 individuals were arrested throughout the European Union (EU) for terrorism-related offenses in 2007, an increase of 48 percent over the previous year.10 Possibly the most crucial finding of the 2007 Europol report, in terms of this volume, is that the vast majority of the suspects were EU citizens (up to 91 percent). This upward trend is due in part to the fact that the majority of attacks were plotted or committed by national separatist groups such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). Yet there was also an increase in the number of homegrown Islamic terrorists. Furthermore, in many EU countries, such as Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, and Germany, the majority of those arrested were nationals, with Dutch authorities in 2007 also reporting an increasing number of their nationals and residents willing to participate in jihads inside and outside of Europe.

AB - On June 24, 2008, Levar Haney Washington-a Los Angeles Islamic convert who planned to finance terrorist activities through armed robberies-was sentenced to twenty-two years in federal prison. He was convicted on terrorism conspiracy charges. At his sentencing hearing, he told a federal judge he belonged to a prison-based Islamic terrorist cell. Documents found at the scene of their arrest included plans to attack the Los Angeles International Airport, the Israeli consulate, army recruiting centers, and local synagogues.1 Washington claimed that he and three other defendants were members of Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, a militant Islamic organization formed in California prisons. The following month, Gregory Patterson, an accomplice of Haney's, received a comparable sentence. Although United Press International reported both stories, neither made the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post.2 Yet these indictments were not as isolated as they might seem. There are, indeed, good reasons to believe that the issue of Islamist terrorism is becoming more threatening in the United States, as illustrated by the so-called Lackawanna Seven who were arrested in September 2002 for providing material support to terrorists. Likewise, the conspiracy to attack Fort Dix-involving six landed immigrants-was another example of a planned high-profile attack thwarted by federal authorities. Indeed, five of the immigrants were convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers in December 2008, the sixth having pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.3 Across the United States, much has been made over the course of the last decade of the challenge to national and civil security threatened by terrorists posing as immigrants and visitors, an issue that we ourselves addressed in a recent coedited book on the subject, Immigration, Integration and Security: America and Europe in Comparative Perspective.4 Yet while a new literature has developed on the subject of immigration and security,5 comparatively little work has examined theissue of the threat posed by a lack of integration of landed immigrants and their descendents in the United States and Europe. Despite the inclusion of the word "integration" in the title of the book, our prior study focused largely on the relationship between immigration and security. Questions regarding the importance of, and mechanisms by which, integration stands to enhance domestic security were raised but were largely unaddressed. That issue is the subject of this book, thus constituting a companion volume to our 2008 book. In effect, while focusing on distant wars, screening procedures at embassies around the world, and border controls at home, U.S. policy makers have paid little attention to the dynamics of the relationship between integration, security, and civil rights. Rather, their presiding assumption has been that legally landed immigrants and their descendants will successfully integrate through a series of civil and market-driven mechanisms into American culture-conventionally characterized as the "American melting pot." Yet just as in Europe, the "enemy within" in the United States is often a domestically born citizen, as exemplified by the cases of Ryan Anderson, a Muslim convert and member of the Washington National Guard who was convicted of providing military intelligence to al-Qaeda, or of Adam Gadahn, known as "Azzam the American." Gadahn, who converted to Islam at the age of seventeen, is a son of a prosperous Jewish physician. He was the first American to be charged with treason in more than fifty years, describing the United States as "enemy soil" in an al-Qaeda documentary. While policy makers have been largely silent on the issue of integration in America, some analysts have voiced concern about the threat posed to internal security by the lack of civil and political integration, particularly among portions of the Arab and Muslim communities. Bruce Hoffman is just one expert who believes that the United States is not immune from the threat of al-Qaeda sleeper agents-"al-Qaeda locals who are already in place and taking advantage of the radicalization to recruit the radicals for terrorist attacks."6 Furthermore, data seems to substantiate such concerns with, reputedly, nineteen attacks being thwarted between 2001 and 2007,7 although those caught constituted just a handful of the 400,000 people on the government's surveillance watch list.8 It is perhaps wishful thinking to assume that a new presidential administration will quell such radical tendencies. In contrast to their American counterparts, European policy makers have voiced their growing awareness of the problem, prompted in part by the increasing number of terrorist attacks organized or implemented by domestically born citizens. In Great Britain, for example, Dhiren Barot, a Hindu convert to Islam who planned several possible attacks, was arrested in 2004 and received a forty-year prison sentence in 2007. More generally, after two car bombs failed to explode in Central London and one failed to do so at Glasgow International Airport in July 2007, official sources reported an increasing number of arrests of British nationals. While some of this increase may have reflected better investigative work carried out by police and counterterrorist agents, a component was undoubtedly due to more intensive recruitment by local terrorist groups.9 Europeans also seem to act more aggressively on the threat posed by terrorism, with Europol reporting that a total of 1,044 individuals were arrested throughout the European Union (EU) for terrorism-related offenses in 2007, an increase of 48 percent over the previous year.10 Possibly the most crucial finding of the 2007 Europol report, in terms of this volume, is that the vast majority of the suspects were EU citizens (up to 91 percent). This upward trend is due in part to the fact that the majority of attacks were plotted or committed by national separatist groups such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). Yet there was also an increase in the number of homegrown Islamic terrorists. Furthermore, in many EU countries, such as Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, and Germany, the majority of those arrested were nationals, with Dutch authorities in 2007 also reporting an increasing number of their nationals and residents willing to participate in jihads inside and outside of Europe.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84898583735

UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84898583735&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Foreword/postscript

SN - 9780813547169

SP - 1

EP - 19

BT - Managing Ethnic Diversity after 9/11

PB - Rutgers University Press

ER -