| Part of the reason why we have not had the many massive jihadi attacks we’ve been seeing in Europe, very probably, not to mention all the lone wolves running amok with kitchen knives, is because after 9/11 so many illegal immigrants from the Ummah were deported or just packed up and left. I happened across a report from that time, and thought it worth revisiting. It begins thusly: |
[WashingtonPost] The FBI grabbed the cook at Lazzat Pakistani Pizzeria as he spun dough. The plump newsstand man from Lahore rode the D-train to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service -- and never came back. The owner of Kashmir Travel pulled down his metal gate one night and vanished. His darkened store sits there, paperwork, copiers and gumballs in place.
Qamar, 25, drove his mom, dad and younger brother north a month ago. His brother had a visa problem so his parents decided to apply for asylum in Toronto. Now the younger brother calls Qamar in Brooklyn each night.
"He wanted to know all about prom night at Dewey High School," says Qamar, who asked that his last name not be used. His hair is gelled and brushed forward, his jeans ride low; his affect is Pakistani boyz in the New York 'hood. "He still thinks he's coming back.
"I tell him: 'Hello! Brother, that life's over.' "
Once the mosque on Coney Island Avenue was so crowded on Friday afternoons that white-capped Pakistani taxi drivers and computer analysts placed their prayer rugs on the sidewalk. Once the restaurants were so crowded that scents of saffron and rose water and vindaloo wafted across the broad avenue all night.
Now Little Pakistan in Brooklyn is a neighborhood being pulled up at its roots. Of the 120,000 or so Pakistanis who lived near here, 15,000, maybe more, have left for Canada, Europe or Pakistan, according to Pakistani government estimates. The departures began after Sept. 11, 2001, when federal agents began stopping and detaining hundreds of Pakistanis. The exodus accelerated five months ago when the Department of Homeland Security required that every male Pakistani visa holder age 16 or older register with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 
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