Thanks to a push from President Obama, around 2,000-3,000 Syrian refugees have now been admitted to the United States since last summer, and 358 more arrive each week. Will Islamic radicals slip among the many who are just trying to escape war and poverty? That concern has many in Washington calling for an immigration slowdown from Syria, and for more aggressive screening, but the Obama administration doesn’t seem to be listening.

A majority of Americans say they do not want the Syrian refugees coming here, and thirty U.S. governors asked the federal government to halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees until security concerns are addressed. Instead, Obama sped up the resettlement process, with the State Department setting up a special “resettlement surge center” in Jordan to hasten the migration. The staff was increased, and additional processing stations were set up in Lebanon and Iraq. The 18–24 months processing time was reduced to only three months.

There are concerns this will mean even less screening, allowing militants to sneak into the country. FBI director James Comey has admitted that adequately screening the refugees is impossible, and that allowing them into the country comes with risks.

ISIS Coming in From Mexico?

Meanwhile, according to Judicial Watch, ISIS is already operating a camp in Mexico just a few miles from El Paso, Texas, and drug smugglers are helping them cross the border into the U.S.:

According to these same sources, “coyotes” engaged in human smuggling — and working for Juárez Cartel — help move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border between Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the east of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, cartel-backed “coyotes” are also smuggling ISIS terrorists through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing.

The Judicial Watch report concludes, “ISIS is conducting reconnaissance of regional universities; the White Sands Missile Range; government facilities in Alamogordo, NM; Ft. Bliss; and the electrical power facilities near Anapra and Chaparral, NM.”

Lessons From Europe’s Migrant Crisis

ISIS is already actively infiltrating Western countries in Europe by pretending to be refugees. An ISIS militant told Buzzfeed last year that 4,000 members of the organization sneaked into Europe disguised as refugees, and that they intend to execute revenge attacks in the West in retaliation for the US-led coalition airstrikes.

ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani praised terror attacks in Australia, Belgium and France, and urged militants to shed blood. “We repeat our call to Muslims in Europe, the infidel West, and everywhere to target the Crusaders in their home countries and wherever they find them,” he said. Another ISIS operative went even further, saying, “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world and we will have it soon, God willing.”

Many of the refugees have shown no interest in assimilating into Western countries, and besides draining taxpayer money for government benefits, some of them have engaged in violence and rape. The problems have gotten so bad in Europe that many of the countries are closing their borders and building barriers to keep the refugees out — and these are generally countries with much more generous immigration policies than the U.S.

After the Paris terrorist attacks last November, Congress attempted to take action to better screen the refugees. Concerns further intensified after the Brussels terror attacks last month. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) introduced a bill that would allow states to opt out of taking refugees, improves screening and directs Congress, not the president, to determine the number of refugees allowed into the country. The bill passed out of the committee 18–9.

Additionally, a few states are fighting in court to block the refugees from settling there. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has told the Obama administration he does not want any of the refugees. Michigan already has a significant Muslim population and has received the most refugees this year of all the states. However, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) has included funding for Obama’s refugee resettlement plan in an omnibus spending bill.

The Muslim Wave

There are an estimated 4.8 million Syrian refugees. So far, 26,213 Syrian refugees have relocated to Canada, and the country expects to take in 25,000 more. Current and former security sources warn that Canada will have to cut corners on screening the refugees in order to accept that many. The U.S.–Canadian border is even easier to sneak across than the U.S.-Mexico border.

Obama has said the number of Syrian refugees the U.S. accepts “should be even higher” than 10,000, and is considering upping the number to 50,000-60,000. He defended his decision by comparing the refugees to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. However, the vast majority of Syrian refugees are Muslims fleeing their predominantly Muslim country. Also, only about two percent of the Syrian refugees are Christians, the rest are Muslims — yet Christians make up an estimated 10 percent of the population of Syria. Christians are being persecuted by ISIS at least as cruelly as other Muslims are, and probably more cruelly, so there are concerns that Obama is favoring Muslims over Christians.

The states that have received the most Syrian refugees are Michigan, California, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Islam is now one of the fastest growing religions in America, and in addition to the Syrian refugees, there are tens of thousands of refugees being admitted each year from other predominantly Muslim countries, such as  Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Some 85,000 total are expected to arrive in the U.S. this year. The number of mosques has more than doubled since 2000, from 1,200 to 2,600 today.

During a press conference last month, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said, “We need to immediately halt the president’s ill-advised plan to bring in tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees. Our vetting programs are woefully insufficient, and this administration has no means of preventing those refugees from being ISIS terrorists.” Yet even if Cruz or another Republican becomes president, it may be too late, since at that point it will be impossible to find and remove many of the refugees who have blended into the population.