Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people and wounded 53 people at a gay nightclub (Pulse) in Orlando, Fla., while predictably shouting “Allahu Akbar.” In the middle of the slaughter he called 911 three times to explain how he was acting on behalf of ISIS and was inspired by the Muslim immigrants who bombed the Boston marathon (Tsarnaev brothers). This slaughter has a familiar feel to it. It followed other Muslim slaughters in Boston, Brussels, Chattanooga, Fort Hood, Paris (Charlie Hebdo and later more bloody attack), San Bernadino, and so on.

Mateen’s anti-gay attitudes surprised no one. Muslim states are strongly anti-gay with nearly the entire Middle East criminalizing homosexuality, including countries we have generously supported (for example, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia). A number of Muslim countries even have the death penalty for it (for example, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen).

The slaughters and anti-gay hostility are, of course, different from Muslims immigrants and their children’s misogyny. In a 2016 New Year’s celebration of the New Year roughly 1,900 women in Germany were sexually attacked by mostly Muslim immigrants in seven cities, most famously Cologne. This was a different misogynist take than the Muslim Brits in Rotherham who from 1997-2013 abducted, raped, and trafficked roughly 1,400 white (non-Muslim) teenage girls.

The U.S. should lessen the terrorist threat and the enormous costs that go with it. First, the U.S. should stop taking in immigrants, including refugees, from Muslim countries, with a possible exception of countries that do not pose a serious threat of terrorism (perhaps, for example, Turkey). Here I focus on immigration from the Middle East. Second, the U.S. should stop allowing visitors from Muslim countries to enter the country. Green cards, H1-B visas, and tourist visas should be sharply limited to the wealthiest and most talented Middle Easterners, if not stopped altogether, and current green cards and visas should be revoked to the maximum extent allowable by law.

There are two reasons to limit immigration. First, the Muslim immigrants on average worsen Americans lives, probably in general and at the very least relative to other immigrants that the U.S. could be letting in. Second, while the threat of violence Muslim immigrants pose is (statistically) unimportant, the threat of Muslim violence will contribute to a significant loss of liberty, vast new police expenses, and increase the chance of yet more American wars in the Middle East.

Following 9/11, the U.S. political establishment decided to flood the country with Muslim immigrants. Writing in the American Thinker, Carol Brown estimates that since 9/11, the U.S. has taken in 3 million immigrants. Others estimate the immigration is fewer than 2 million, but on any estimate the number is large. If the American people had been asked in a referendum whether they wanted 3 million new Muslim immigrants following 9/11, there would have resoundingly said “no.”

Muslim immigration elsewhere is a mess. The Daily Express reports record numbers of Jews are fleeing Paris and France as anti-Semitic attacks rise. In Great Britain and Germany, gays are fleeing areas increasingly inhabited by Muslim immigrants. This is entirely unsurprising.

The attitudes of Muslims in the U.S. and Britain are appalling. Pew Research found that roughly half of American Muslims think they should have the option of being governed by Sharia law. Another poll found that nearly a quarter of American Muslims said it is legitimate to use violence to those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed. Even the leaders of seeming respectable Muslim organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have stated that they would like Islam to be dominant in the U.S. rather than being equal with other religions.

What are U.S. citizens getting out of Muslim immigrants that they wouldn’t get far more of from an equal amount of immigration from India, Japan, and Spain? On average, taking skills- or wealth-based immigrants from these countries would result in smarter, better educated, and more productive immigrants. Furthermore, there would be fewer immigrant in insular communities and fewer who are disturbingly misogynistic, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic.

In the grand scheme of things, terrorist attacks in the U.S. do not cost many lives. After 9/11, for example, fewer people have been killed in Muslim terrorist attacks across the U.S. in any year than are killed in urban violence in Chicago. The real cost comes about not from the loss of life, but from the loss of liberty as police and national security organizations are increasingly permitted to pry into Americans’ private lives in an attempt to stop terrorism. The establishment is chomping at the bit to ratchet up American war efforts in the Middle East and Muslim terrorism spurs this on. The response to the Orlando shooting will most likely be more bombing of ISIS and more advisors and members of the military in the Middle East, thereby deepening our involvement. Recently, 51 U.S. diplomats urged the U.S. to start bombing the Syrian government. This despite the fact that the U.S. has already spent more than two trillion dollars on war efforts in the millennium with nothing to show for it.

To the extent that the establishment insists on taking in millions of poorer and uneducated on the basis of their having snuck into the country or being related to other immigrants, the American people are best served by a moratorium on immigration. Later, when the establishment loses its death grip on immigration, the issue can be revisited.

Stephen Kershnar is a State University of New York at Fredonia philosophy professor. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com