I agree about keeping the immigration of folks from countries who are not with us to a bare minimum. The problem is that they are already here. What do you do about that?
Revoke their visas for a start. Issue zero new ones to boot. If a person is here as a legal alien then just keep (better than pre-9/11) track of them. Simple stuff. The existing system issued a visa renewal for one of the 9/11 hijackers posthumously. Not good. Not good at all.
If a person has known links to IRA, Red Brigade, is a former Baader-Meinhoff gang member, NO VISA! But we aren't going to do that, because people's feelings might be hurt. It's 3 years after 9/11 and we don't even bother to keep the "impregnable" magic doors closed on our flight decks. Much less arm our pilots.
So we are left hoping that airport screeners will not only find a weapon of one sort or another on visitors to this country, but we are also hoping that said weapon will be a clue to the fact that a hijacking is about to take place. Which misses the point that the 9/11 hijackers committed their act using only those things - which at the time - did not constitute a weapon!
There are lots of really nice people that live in backward places, and it is sad that they do. It's sadder still that many of those backward places have way too many horrible bi-pedal animals who are completely vested in a sort of cultural/socio-political/theological insanity that makes the Dark Ages look pleasant. But none of that is my, or my country's, fault. We shouldn't be taking the chance of letting people from these easily identifiable places come into this country while we are at war. And as I said earlier, not being able to come to this country to play music (or any other non-essential activity) - and potentially make more $ in one night's gig than one can make in a year of hard labor at home - may serve as an incentive for folks to root out the psychotic death-cultists at home. It's undiplomatic to say "Come back when your country is at least half civilized!", but it's three years after 9/11, and few people are willing to face the fact that parts of our country are still being surveilled by foreigners for future attacks.
By the way, race doesn't enter into this in any way. Islamic extremist Chechens don't necessarily resemble Islamic extremist Syrians or Islamic extremist Filipinos or Islamic extremist Indonesians or Islamic extremist Kosovar Albanians or Islamic extremist Nigerians or Islamic extremist [fill in your personal favorite here], but if we are going to be in denial about the common thread that they share, and that several countries world-wide are currently being stepped on by the elephant in the room, then as I said earlier, there is little (
not nothing) that we can do to stop them.
You asked for common sense answers. How is asking to limit (to as near to zero as possible) the number of people coming into our ports from
known hotspots antithetical to common sense? Do you not change your awareness of potential threat level depending on what part of town you are in? Do you not (and I'm sure you do, as any thinking person would) limit your exposure to potential threats despite the fact that if you
had to, you could/would defend yourself using lethal force if necessary?
The 9/11 savages managed a kill rate of approximately 157 to 1. Even if we could sustain that for centuries, it would still be anathema to do so for the sake of some hurt feelings.
(Even if she was a freckle-faced celtic pixie.