Rubio’s right on this. King should have kept his suspicions — justifiable suspicions, of course — to himself. For all we know, cops could have grabbed the Saudi student just because he was Saudi and was running from the blast — a perfectly defensible move, of course, but one that tells us nothing about his involvement. People in prominent positions — not just congressmen but also former congressmen and media bloviators — should shut up about motivations, implications, and condemnations until there are actual facts to base them on.
But if the bombing does prove to have an immigration angle, amnesty-pushers will deny it anyway, as they did after 9/11, which short-circuited Bush’s first amnesty campaign. Jim Ziglar was INS commissioner at the time and said of the attacks “we’re not talking about immigration, we’re talking about evil.” In fact, 9/11 was about evil people using the manifold weaknesses in America’s immigration-security system to attack us. Cecilia Muñoz of the National Council of La Raza — now the chief of domestic policy at the White House, leading the administration’s role in the amnesty push — followed suit, saying “there’s no relationship between immigration and terrorism.” And “Jihad Jeannie” Butterfield, then executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (and former head of the Palestine Solidarity Committee), echoed the party line: “I don’t think the events of last week can be attributed to the failure of our immigration laws.” Such views were why the 9/11 Commission staff had to title its immigration-related report “9/11 and Terrorist Travel” instead of “9/11 and Immigration”.
President Obama spoke for all of us when he said, ”Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.” Let’s wait till we know something, and then let’s pursue it regardless of where it leads.