An update from the New York Times on deliberations about repatriating ISIS women and their children. Are they still ISIS adherents? Impossible to know. Are they – as their advocates insist – poor fools who got trafficked and deserve sympathy? Well, but then they’re poor fools who got trafficked and can get trafficked again. (Those who’ve talked for the record, like Shamima Begum, tend to deny the trafficking bit and admit the ideology turned them on.)
[Belgium’s justice minister] said that any of the women wanting to return to Belgium would have to prove that they mean no harm to the country. “If they have not distanced themselves from ISIS ideology, they will remain on site,” he said.
Sounds a little naive, doesn’t it? Will Belgium ask them to recite the Scout’s Pledge?
So my thing is that France already has plenty of ordinary anonymous hardworking people/ISIS fanatics preparing the next attack on Paris, and one assumes the French state spends large sums of money tracking them and their circle. At the very least, returning demonstrated, way-hardcore ISIS adherents to the country who are really sorry now means far more, and far more extensive, surveillance work.