While much of the discussion concerning illegal versus legal immigration centers on the action on our southern border, the immigration statistics and patterns of another group will also have a large impact on the future of America.

According to U.S. Census Data, the United States admits approximately 100,000 Muslim immigrants legally each year, representing the fastest growing bloc of legal immigration into the U.S.

Unlike illegal immigrants, legal immigrants invited into the U.S. with green cards are granted automatic work permits, welfare access, and the potential to become voting citizens.

Another significant source of Middle Eastern immigration is through our nation's refugee program, which allows an additional 70,000 to enter. Arabic is the most common language spoken by these refugees, and more than 90% of refugees from the Middle East receive food stamps and welfare.

Recent research from Pew estimates that the population of Muslims in the U.S. will swell from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030. This does not even count those who overstay their visas.

Many of these Muslim immigrants find their way to established, insulated communities that do not wish to be “Americanized” and become part of the general community. There are many pockets of extremist, radicalized districts, according to counter-terrorism expert Steve Emerson.

According to Breitbart, Kenneth Palinkas, the head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Union, recently warned about this very issue: "It is also essential to warn the public about the threat that ISIS will exploit our loose and lax visa policies to gain entry to the United States. Indeed, as we know from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, from the Boston Bombing, from the recent plot to bomb a school and courthouse in Connecticut, and many other lesser-known terror incidents, we are letting terrorists into the United States right through our front door."

Let's finally face it: the U.S. has been extremely welcoming and tolerant toward Muslims, whether fleeing their native countries from religious persecution or seeking economic opportunities. Yet with greater frequency and intensity, it seems too many members of these community have become radicalized and yearn to wage jihadist terrorist attacks against innocent Americans.

Incredibly, there has been little retaliation against the Muslim communities, not families, businesses, nor mosques. But the pattern has become typically scripted to the point of boredom: in the wake of ghastly attacks against "infidels" and "dhimmis", there are immediate calls from the Muslim communities -- and media and government -- not for forgiveness or to express their remorse, sorrow, condemnation, or outrage, but for the mythical fear of Islamophobia and to understand their "grievances."

The obvious and immediate purpose of such calls is to shut down any further criticism and investigation of the potential main source of the attack, which is often religiously based, inspired by the Koran and the likes of ISIS. 

There is far too much concern for preventing upsets to Muslim sensitivities, it appears, rather than clamping down on the problem at hand. If there have been any major, sustained expressions of gratitude from these Muslim communities for the freedoms, opportunities, and protections our Judeo-Christian based democratic society has provided to them, they are hard to detect.

Here are some commonsense immediate concerns, suggestions and courses of action that we must take:

• All Muslim men, especially those 18-44 years, who travel from the U.S. to Muslim countries such as Turkey, Syria, Sudan, Gulf states and Iraq for any period of time more than one week, should be detained immediately upon their return until such time as U.S. security authorities can be assured they are not radicalized and planning to engage in jihadist attacks.
• Stop the inane mindset of A.B.I.: "Anything But Islam" as the root cause for these attacks (i.e. Boston Bomber, Fort Hood, Chattanooga), and the many dozens of thwarted attacks and arrests.
• The jihadis are bringing the fight here -- as they do wherever they settle on the planet. Consequently, we must take the fight to them.
• All U.S. military installations and personnel must be permitted to be armed to defend themselves. To date the policy insanely has been to "disarm" our military, to make them appear more welcoming and friendly. Instead, they are sitting ducks. If we can’t trust our own military to be armed, who can we trust?

Muslim support -- tacit or otherwise -- of jihad has been excused for far too long. Islamic extremist terrorism is at war with us whether we like it and recognize it or not. Liberals and those on the left who preach tolerance, multiculturalism, political correctness, and justify Islamic-based hatred and violent behavior are quick to vilify those who are against securing our borders as haters. This mindset must be reversed.

Through luck or divine intervention we each individually are being spared the wrath of what we are sowing. There is nothing inherently bad or immoral about being vigilant and fighting back, even if it now appears we will have to step on a few toes in order to protect ourselves into the foreseeable future.

Lee Bender is the co-President of the Zionist Organization of America-Greater Philadelphia District, and is the co-author of the book Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-Z (Pavilion Press).