Many of you have probably heard about the recent terrorist attacks that occurred on Saturday, September 17 in New York City and in Seaside Park, New Jersey. Thankfully nobody was severely injured or killed in these attacks. These attacks most definitely hit close to home due to that fact that I was born and raised in New York most of my life and now I currently live just a few exits away from Seaside.

But my question here is: Can our country do more to help prevent these awful acts of terrorism against our nation or will they continue to happen no matter how much we try to protect ourselves?

Thankfully we do live in a country where we have an organized police force that helps to serve and protect us when awful events like this happen. Fortunately, police were already able to identify and capture the man who is linked to these terrorist attacks. This man is identified as Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was captured in Linden, New Jersey this Monday morning, just two days after the attacks.

The 28-year-old was born in Afghanistan and is a naturalized citizen, according to the FBI. There are a lot of negative stereotypes about the people who emigrate to the U.S. from these Middle Eastern countries and many of these stereotypes are not true.

But at the same time there are a percentage of radicalized people who do come to the U.S. in order to pursue these acts of terrorism against our country. I do believe that since our country does have a lot of tension with these countries in the Middle East that we should be doing more to prevent radical people from entering our country. How many acts of terrorism are going to occur before we actually do something about it? Although Rahami, “was not on the radar for possible radicalization” (CNN.com) I still believe that our country needs to be taking all of the extra precautions possible. Have we not learned anything from 9/11 or the Boston marathon bombings?

I believe that until the War on Terrorism ends (or if it ever ends) that we should make it harder for radicalized people from the Middle East to come into this country. This is where I agree with what presidential candidate, Donald Trump has to say about letting radical Muslims into our country. Trump wants “American law enforcement to start profiling radical Muslims and stop being politically correct about the terrorist threat Americans face.”

I believe that our country and our law enforcement can go about this in a way where we are not stereotyping all Muslim people and their religion, because to say that all Muslims are terrorists is ignorant and not true. But as for the radicalized Muslim people, I really believe that we need to be more on top of letting them into this country in order to prevent future attacks.

Hopefully we can one day live in a world where love overrules hatred and we can walk out of our homes feeling safe. Until that day comes, our country should be aggressive and protect us as much as they possibly can.