In a new investigative book, author Peter Schweizer argues jihadist movements have long viewed immigration not as humanitarian relief but as a doctrinal and strategic tool to penetrate and subvert Western societies, including the United States.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Jihadist movements aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood have for decades treated immigration as a deliberate weapon aimed at penetrating, reshaping, and ultimately subverting Western nations, according to a new book by investigative author Peter Schweizer.
In The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, Schweizer documents how Islamist leaders openly frame mass migration not as a humanitarian phenomenon but as a strategic extension of jihad, grounded in Islamic doctrine and adapted to modern immigration systems in the United States and Europe.
Schweizer traces that strategy to Islam’s origins, focusing on hijrah — the migration undertaken by the Prophet Muhammad in 622 from Mecca to Yathrib, later renamed Medina. That event, Schweizer writes, marked Muhammad’s transition from religious figure to political and military leader and is so foundational that it serves as the starting point of the Islamic calendar itself.
Migration, Schweizer explains, was never simply relocation. It was central to da’wah, the effort to spread Islam, and to the establishment of political power within host societies. Islamist doctrine, he argues, treats hijrah as both an obligation and a tactical tool in expanding Islamic influence.
Schweizer cites multiple hadiths — sayings attributed to Muhammad — embraced by Islamist movements that frame migration as an ongoing duty. One declares hijrah continues until a land has been “won over” and occupation achieved. Another asserts migration will persist “until the sun rises from the West.” A further command instructs believers “to assemble, to listen; to obey; to immigrate; and to wage jihad for the sake of Allah.”
From doctrine, Schweizer turns to execution. He argues Islamist movements have studied and adapted revolutionary models previously used by radical political groups in the West, deliberately seeking to “import the revolution” through immigration channels.
One key mechanism, Schweizer writes, is the R-1 religious worker visa program, created in 1990, which allows U.S. religious institutions to sponsor foreign clerics. He documents that most American mosques are now led by foreign-born imams trained overseas, some of whom later propagate extremist ideology domestically.
Among the most notorious cases Schweizer cites is Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called “Blind Sheikh” linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who entered the United States through an R-1 visa. Schweizer also highlights the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development case, in which the organization was convicted of operating as a Hamas front, noting that several employees entered the country using the same visa pathway.
Schweizer writes that the vulnerability of the R-1 program has been formally documented. A 2007 Department of Homeland Security investigation found fraud within the program to be “excessively high,” particularly among applicants from predominantly Muslim countries. In one cited case, a man in Brooklyn declared himself an imam and filed 200 religious-worker visa applications.
The consequences, Schweizer argues, are visible in American communities. He points to Imam Usama Abdulghani, an Iranian-born cleric at the Hadi Institute Youth Community Center in Dearborn, Michigan, who publicly urges followers to “fight Western civilization.”
“We need to expose Western civilization,” Abdulghani said. “The world needs to know this system is no longer a solution. These institutions are morally bankrupt. There is no other way, but God, or taklif — divine obligation-oriented, God-based resistance and rejection of the systems.”
Warnings about extremist exploitation of immigration channels have also come from within Muslim communities. Schweizer cites Adnan Khan, former president of the Council of Pakistan American Affairs, who warned that religious visas have been used to promote “hardline and dangerous views,” encourage overseas indoctrination, and “can potentially be used to harm the USA.”
Schweizer also references a 1999 warning from Muslim leader Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, who said extremists had taken over “80 percent of the mosques” in the United States.
From there, Schweizer documents Islamist leaders expressing confidence that demographic and ideological warfare will succeed. In a 2015 sermon at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Muhammad Ayed urged Muslims in Western countries to remain patient.
“This dark night will be over,” Ayed said, predicting that “soon, we will trample them underfoot, Allah willing.”
Ayed framed migration as demographic conquest rather than compassion. “We will breed children with them,” he said. “We shall conquer their countries — whether you like it or not, oh Germans, oh Americans, oh French, oh Italians.”
Schweizer situates such statements within a broader framework described by Professor David Bukay, who characterizes Islamist migration strategy as a step-by-step process aimed at subduing host societies and ultimately imposing shari’ah, making the Islamization of non-Muslim territories “inevitable.”
He also cites Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, longtime chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and a leading Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, who predicted Islam would return to Europe and the United States not through open warfare but through da’wah, with Western converts themselves spreading the faith.
Schweizer argues that this Islamist worldview has converged with elements of Western progressive activism. He writes that many progressives either ignore or dismiss Islamist statements out of what he calls “strategic convenience,” treating migrants as instruments of radical social change.
He points to refugee advocacy organizations such as the Global Goals Foundation, backed by donors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Google, which openly describe refugee policy as a means of “driving social change” and “transforming” societies. Schweizer questions why stable democracies require transformation rather than assimilation.
He also highlights warnings from Europe. Schweizer cites Czech President Milos Zeman, who warned that the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to “gain control of Europe” through mass migration rather than conventional war, a view Zeman said was informed by discussions with leaders in the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
Schweizer cautions that while the United States may be earlier in the process, it is not immune. He argues that once Islamist ideology is understood as a civilizational conflict, acts of mass violence take on clearer context.
He points to New Year’s Eve 2015, when coordinated waves of sexual assaults and violent crimes by groups of migrant men struck cities across Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said at the time, “Nobody can tell me that this was not coordinated or prepared.”
Schweizer writes that European analysts viewed the attacks not as random criminality but as the use of sexual violence as an instrument of war designed to terrorize women, humiliate men, and degrade Western societies.
In that context, Schweizer concludes, migration must be understood as more than population movement.
“Immigration,” he writes, “is often used as a weapon deployed against Western civilization — that cannot be in doubt.”
The unresolved question, Schweizer argues, is how long the alliance between progressive political movements and Islamist actors can endure. He cites comments by Ibraheem Samirah, a former Virginia legislator and senior advisor to Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who described such alliances as echoing Muhammad’s practice of forming temporary partnerships with nonbelievers who later became adversaries.
Schweizer’s The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon is scheduled for release by HarperCollins on January 20 and is available for pre-order.
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