Who could have foreseen that the completely disorderly admission of hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants into Germany from countries with terrorism problems would turn out to be an issue? Apparently not German Chancellor Angela Merkel, until now.

On Tuesday, Merkel told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that part of the reason the problem got so out of control was because Europe had ignored it for so long.

"There are political issues that one can see coming but don't really register with people at that certain moment — and in Germany we ignored both the problem for too long and blocked out the need to find a pan-European solution," Merkel said, according to a translation from Reuters.

She said the European Union had "rejected a proportional distribution of the refugees" when the problem first became apparent. Germany has taken in more than 1 million refugees, but the EU had let each country come up with their own plan at first.

But then Merkel acknowledged that the continent failed to properly handle the migration. "We didn't embrace the problem in an appropriate way," she said. "That goes as well for protecting the external border of the Schengen area."

The "Schengen area" refers to the 26 European countries that stopped requiring passports for travel between them.

Maybe if Merkel and her ilk had recognized the dangers of letting so many people in without having space for them – or knowing who they were – they wouldn't be in the mess they're in now. Earlier this month, a senior German security official told BBC that Islamic State "sleeper cells" had infiltrated the country disguised as refugees. A month earlier, Merkel had made a similar acknowledgement about her own policies allowing terrorists to enter the EU.

We want to help those victimized by terrorism or living in a country under the threat of terrorism, but an orderly migration, in which migrants can be identified and malefactors weeded out, is key to security. Germany and the EU ignored the possibility of danger in favor of political correctness.

H/t PJ Media

Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.