Dear Next President:

ISIS is a terrorist group that must be stopped. We think you should have better protection of keeping us safe in our own country. One way that you, as our next president could stop ISIS from terrorizing our country is lowering the capacity of people that we allow to enter until we have the problem under control. The issue of illegal immigration we are having is that we don’t know much about who is entering our country so there is a possibility that they could be terrorists. Another way we could put an end to ISIS is by regulating the internet in the U.S. The citizens of our country are getting recruited or getting inspiration from websites and videos of ISIS and their ways which is putting our lives at danger. People of all ages could be apart of ISIS whether they are in Syria or not. So many lives have already been lost, and the people involved in ISIS need to be stopped before there’s more damage done than there already is.

As soon you are elected, this is one of the first problems that should be addressed. In the article “Does Illegal Immigration Pose a Threat to the United States”, the author James A. Lyons says “It is an acknowledged fact that since we have refused to secure our borders… affiliated terrorists and narco-terrorists who are now living in the United States.” The immigration is causing people to walk into our country, planned and armed to attack. The people entering the United States could have very elaborate ideas about how to attack and threaten the lives of anyone. The more people we let in, the more our national security is at risk. Another article that backs up our point is the “Orlando Shooting Follows ISIS Call for U.S Ramadan Attacks” article by Paul Cruickshank, which says that there have been 87 sympathizers charged with terror-related offences in the U.S. since 2014. There have been 25 terrorist plots inspired or instigated by ISIS. Illegal immigrants coming into our country ties together with ISIS because many attacks wouldn’t have happened if people weren’t allowed to easily enter our country, and if ISIS wasn’t so open and aggressive about the way they terrorize people. The illegal immigration is interfering with the safety of the people living in the U.S, and it must have a stop to it before it is too out of hand for us to do anything about.

ISIS needs to be stopped and have an end put to it before it’s too late. ISIS is giving people the ideas to attack other innocent people, and have websites to show them how to join and be in their group. The “Orlando Shooting Follows ISIS Call for U.S Ramadan Attacks” article by Paul Cruickshank is one of the many articles that backs us up. They state how the shooter called 911 after shooting the Pulse night club and pledged to be with ISIS. This proves you don’t have to be with ISIS physically to be apart of them. The shooter Omar Mateen, a 29 year old security guard U.S. citizen who was radicalised online, shot people at the club because he was connected to ISIS by the internet. ISIS doesn’t believe in being gay, so Omar shot 49 people dead and injured another 53 innocent people that were just having fun at the gay nightclub. Omar told people to “Shoot anyone, anywhere, anyhow.” Another article to back our point up is “ISIS: The Threat to the United States,” which states that a 17 year old boy was sentenced to prison for 11 years for showing support to ISIS on Twitter. He had about 4,000 followers on Twitter, so that proves why we need to regulate the internet to keep people from seeing the terrible things ISIS has done, and stop the potential for future attacks. Not only does ISIS have online websites and videos, but ISIS and other terrorist groups have social medias like Facebook and Twitter. In the article “Why Facebook and Twitter Can’t Just Wipe out ISIS Online” by Julia Greenberg, readers learn why we can’t get rid of ISIS via Facebook and other social medias. “There is no place for terrorists on Facebook.” says Facebook spokesman Andrew Souvall. “We work aggressively to ensure that we do not have terrorists or terror groups using the site, and we also remove any content that praises or supports terrorism.” Facebook and Twitter both claim that any profile, page, or group related to a terrorist organization is shut down and any people celebrating terrorism is removed as soon as they see it. As easy as it may sound they can’t remove all terrorist pages. One quote to back this up is, “A blanket policy of banning anything that might be seen as inciting violence also could lead to questions of censorship, because one person’s hateful propaganda could be another’s free speech.” Facebook and other social media apps work to shut down almost all terrorist related pages but they can’t shut down some of the pages that just have speeches because to us Americans it is hate speech but to the people that support ISIS and other terrorist groups it is free speech and they are not permitted to take down free speeches. But what people need to realize is that Facebook, Twitter, and other social medias are working hard to get terrorist pages and their content off of these apps, but it isn’t easy. Social media apps and internet websites are all working hard to keep as many terrorists connecting via the apps, but it is hard to make the decision on whether it is a free speech or it is something that could get people to join or be inspired by ISIS and other terrorist organizations.

On the other hand, many people do not agree with our thoughts. They believe that people who are illegal immigrants are a helpful resource to fighting terrorists that make their way to our country. In the article “Does Illegal Immigration Pose a Terrorist Threat to the United States”, the author American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) believe that the government is wasting money trying to keep people from other areas out of our country, and should spend that money preparing for attacks of terrorists. “If there were legal channels for these migrants to use, the government could concentrate on identifying the real terrorists. Instead, the government is wasting money and manpower trying to keep out the immigrant workers the U.S. economy needs.” This is a good point, because money is being wasted that could be used to defend ourselves. All that money being spent could be at better use making ourselves stronger so that we have better protection. This argument is quite a good idea about how to handle the immigrants, because they do provide resources and do the jobs that we would have to do if they weren’t here. If all of the trouble of trying to stop illegal immigration was put to rest because the government believes that terrorists could be ready to attack us, then maybe the immigrants could tell us who the real terrorists are. We can really see the point that this person is making, because some may believe that letting them in would do more good than harm.

The reason that we disagree with the last point is because although it might save money, it is not a good way to handle the people coming into our country. The article “Does Illegal Immigration Post a Terrorist Threat to the United States” by Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) agrees with us. “Knowledgeable Americans have come to understand that our welcoming immigration policies are easily exploited by terrorists and that porous borders and lax immigration enforcement are no longer an option.” They are saying the same thing that we believe, like that we don’t know the people crossing the border so they could be linked with terrorist groups such as ISIS and could attack us at any time. It is much safer to limit the capacity of people coming into our country until we have the situation under control. Our approach is much stronger and more powerful than the other ones who disagree with us because it’s showing terrorists like ISIS that we’re very serious about this and aren’t messing around. Illegal immigration is putting our lives at risk because yes, there may be some good people who cross the border, but you never know. Right now we may have a terrorist in our neighborhood and not even know because we are allowing people we know nothing about into our country. Illegal immigration is causing so much more damage than good, and leaving the doors wide open for terrorists to either walk right in or influence other people to do the same.

As a final point we believe that ISIS is a powerful terrorist group that must be stopped immediately. We both know how incredibly busy you are, but we would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time out of your crazy schedule to really think about how we can stop ISIS. We hope you have considered our ideas on ways to stop ISIS and make the move to do it as soon as possible for the better of our country, America, the place we feel safe and call home. We wish you the best of luck running our country.

Yours truly,

Sophia & Gianna