Response to ‘Agency Plans for Visa Push by Residents Made Legal’

The New York Times published an article on Thursday, that concerns an extremely important issue – the plans of the administration and members of Congress to implement a massive program known as “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”

The article is Agency Plans for Visa Push by Residents Made Legal, By JULIA PRESTON

I urge you to read the article in its entirety and then consider my concerns about this proposed legislation.

In the entire article, the critically important issue of the utter lack of integrity in the adjudications processes at USCIS that plagues that agency now would make it certain that “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” would have no integrity. The article therefore did not voice any concerns other than to note that it would be hard to keep up with processing the unknown millions of amnesty applications that would be filed in conjunction with Comprehensive Immigration Reform in a timely manner!

This is, incidentally, an issue that is seldom raised by our nation’s leaders or by most journalists. Congressman King is quoted briefly in the article about the issue of “security checks” but fails to go beyond that. I will address this issue in this commentary today.

I have expressed my grave concerns about Comprehensive Immigration Reform on many occasions and at many venues including when I testified before several hearings conducted at the House of Representatives as well as when I testified, two years ago, before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I have attached links to some of those hearings below as well as a link to a video of a portion of a Congressional hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on July 27, 2006.

The topic of that hearing was:

“WHETHER THE ATTEMPTED IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REID-KENNEDY IMMIGRATION BILL WILL RESULT IN AN ADMINISTRATIVE AND NATIONAL SECURITY NIGHTMARE”

Here is a link to the transcript of that hearing: Here is a link to a portion of the video of that hearing:

I have also provided you with a link to a commentary that I wrote for the Washington Times the last time that the Senate took up Comprehensive Immigration Reform. In conjunction with that commentary, I have provided you with a press release that Senator Jeff Sessions (R) Alabama issued in which he noted my commentary.

Opposition to Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Before you delve into all of the material I have provided you below, let me lay out my reasons for being adamantly opposed to “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”

Reason Number One:

National Security:

The division of DHS (Department of Homeland Security) that bears the responsibility for adjudicating all applications for various immigration benefits is USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.) This agency has amassed a track record that consists of unbelievable examples of incompetence and bungling on a galactic scale!

Consider that a couple of years ago USCIS claimed to have “lost” 111,000 immigration files that were needed for the adjudicators to adjudicate applications for a variety of immigration benefits ranging from permitting nonimmigrant aliens to seek additional time in the United States and nonimmigrant aliens to change schools, to aliens seeking to acquire resident alien status and even United States citizenship. According to a GAO report of an investigation into this outrageous example of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance, some 30,000 aliens whose files were “lost” had applied to become United States citizenship through the naturalization process. Each and every application was process by the adjudicators without the critically important files being provided to those adjudicators!

The “Green Card,” which signifies that the alien who has such a card is a lawful immigrant and, in fact, on the path to citizenship represents the key to the “front door.”

A naturalization certificate which signifies that the alien who has been awarded that certificate which is proof of United States citizenship represents the combination to the safe. It is truly the “Key to the Kingdom!”

There have been numerous examples of aliens who became naturalized United States citizens who were able to use their newfound citizenship as a means of securing a security clearance. Among such aliens have been those who have spied on our country for foreign governments and terrorist organization including Hezbollah and even al-Qaeda!

Let me make this point as clearly as I can: Most naturalized citizens are honest and honorable people and are eager to share the ever more elusive “American Dream,” looking to build their futures and our nation. The problem is that with an utter lack of integrity to the adjudications process, it is not difficult for the bad guys to game the system as an embedding tactic enabling them to hide in plain sight.

Providing official identity documents to these millions of illegal aliens would provide them with a level of credibility that they are not entitled to! Worse, I have often made the point that the only thing worse than no security is false security!

If our government was to provide identity documents to millions of illegal (undocumented) aliens whose identities are unknown and unknowable- we would have nothing more than false security! It would be unconscionable for our government’s “leaders” to foist this madness on our nation so that they could achieve their own selfish goals with apparently no thought being given to what this what irreparable damage this would do to our nation and the citizens of our nation!

Of 94 terrorists who were identified as operating in our country in the decade leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 59 of them were found to have engaged in immigration fraud as a means of entering our country and/or as an embedding tactic.

There have been numerous reports of investigations issued by both the GAO (General Accountability Office) and the OIG (Office of Inspector General) pointing to fraud rates that, in some instances, ran as high as 90% where immigration benefits were concerned!

It is amazing that the article notes that USCIS is planning to establish a “lockbox” so that alien applicants will not even have to file their applications at a federal building. It is clear that the emphasis is not on the effective and accurate adjudication of these applications but on simply “rubber stamping” these applications with an approval stamp!

Especially after the economic meltdown- could you imagine a bank processing loan applications in such a slipshod manner especially when fraud has already been identified as being a huge issue for the process by which applications for benefits are processed? I will discuss this in greater detail in the next section.

Reason Number Two:

Lessons that the Amnesty of 1986 Should Have Taught Us:

Professor Albert Einstein famously stated:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I was a Special Agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 1986. I recall that we were told that the number of illegal aliens who were expected to avail themselves of the opportunity to emerge from the proverbial “shadows” into the light of a “one shot” amnesty program would be no more than 1.5 million and probably significantly less. When the bureaucratic smoke cleared and the dust settled, nearly 4 million illegal aliens were given the key to the front door! Among them were such “contributors” to our nation were aliens involved in a variety of criminal activities including aliens who managed to become United States citizenship even though they were involved in narcotics trafficking and worse! If you wonder what I mean by worse, I would ask you to consider my prepared Congressional testimony that I provided at a field hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Committee at Dubuque, Iowa on September 1, 2006. Please pay special attention to the section of that testimony that is highlighted.

The hearing was entitled:

“IS THE REID-KENNEDY BILL A REPEAT OF THE FAILED AMNESTY OF 1986?”

Here is a link to the transcript of that hearing:

Prepared Statement of Michael W. Cutler

Chairmen Sensenbrenner and Hostettler, Ranking Members Conyers and Jackson Lee, members of Congress, distinguished members of the panel, ladies and gentlemen. It is a distinct honor and privilege to provide testimony at this hearing because the topic of the hearing is of truly critical significance. We are here to avert what I believe would be a catastrophe for the United States. The United States Senate passed a bill, S. 2611, that would provide incentives for a massive influx of illegal aliens, aided, abetted and induced to violate our nation’s immigration laws at a time that our nation is confronting the continuing threat of terrorism and the increasing involvement of violent gangs, comprised predominantly of deportable aliens, in a wide variety of violent crimes committed against our nation’s citizens. It is of critical importance that this hearing and others like it, illuminate why S. 2611 would expose our nation to unreasonable vulnerabilities especially in the post-9/11 world.

As a former senior special agent of the INS I had ample opportunities to observe, up close and in person, the failings of the former INS to control the borders of the United States and create a system that deterred violations of the immigration laws of our nation. I believe that it is important that our legislative bodies reach out to law enforcement professionals when they contemplate enacting legislation that would have a significant impact on the criminal justice system. Simply enacting legislation will not guarantee that the desired goals of the legislation will or can be met. It is therefore important for Congress to consider the experience and insight of members of the law enforcement agencies that would ultimately enforce the laws that are enacted by these legislative bodies. While I will not claim to have all of the answers, I believe that my having spent some 30 years with the former INS in a variety of positions provides me with a unique perspective that I am happy to share with you today.

A nation’s primary responsibility is to provide for the safety and security of its citizens and yet, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, the members of the Senate who voted for S. 2611 are seemingly oblivious to the lessons that the disastrous amnesty of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) should have taught us. That piece of legislation lead to the greatest influx of illegal aliens in the history of our nation. Fraud and a lack of integrity of the immigration system not only flooded our nation with illegal aliens who ran our borders, hoping that what had been billed as a ”one time” amnesty would be repeated, but it also enabled a number of terrorists and many criminals to enter the United States and then embed themselves in the United States.

A notable example of such a terrorist can be found in a review of the facts concerning Mahmud Abouhalima, a citizen of Egypt who entered the United States on a tourist visa, overstayed his authorized period of admission and then applied for amnesty under the agricultural worker provisions of IRCA. He succeeded in obtaining resident alien status through this process. During a 5 year period he drove a cab and had his license suspended numerous times for violations of law and ultimately demonstrated his appreciation for our nation’s generosity by participating in the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 that left 6 people dead, hundreds of people injured and an estimated one half billion dollars in damage inflicted, on that iconic, ill- fated complex. America had opened its doors to him so that he might participate in the ”American Dream.” He turned that dream into our worst nightmare. The other terrorists who attacked our nation on subsequent attacks, including the attacks of September 11, 2001, similarly exploited our generosity, seeing in our nation’s kindness, weakness, gaming the immigration system to enter our country and then, hide in plain sight, among us.

As I recall, when IRCA was proposed, one of the selling points was that along with amnesty for what was believed to have been a population of some 1.5 million illegal aliens would be a new approach to turn off what has been described as the ”magnet” that draws the majority of illegal aliens into the United States in the first place, the prospect of securing employment in the United States. In order to accomplish this important goal, IRCA imposed penalties against those unscrupulous employers who knowingly hired illegal aliens. My former colleagues and I were pleased to see that under the employer sanctions of IRCA, the unscrupulous employers of illegal aliens would be made accountable, or so we thought. We were frustrated that we had seen all too many employers hire illegal aliens and treat them horrendously They paid them sub-standard wages and created unsafe, indeed hazardous working conditions for the illegal aliens they hired, knowing full well that these aliens would not complain because they feared being reported to the INS. Meanwhile the employer would not face any penalty for his outrageous conduct. Finally, it seemed that the employer sanctions provisions of IRCA would discourage employers from hiring illegal aliens and would also make it less likely they would treat their employees as miserably as some of these employers did.

Of course, we now know that the relative handful of special agents who were assigned to conduct investigations of employers who hired illegal aliens made it unlikely that employers would face a significant risk of being caught violating these laws and that they would face an even smaller chance of being seriously fined. Furthermore, the way that the amnesty provisions of the law were enacted simply created a cottage industry of fraud document vendors who provided illegal aliens with counterfeit or altered identity documents and supporting documents to enable the illegal alien population to circumvent the immigration laws. Ultimately approximately 3.5 million illegal aliens emerged from the infamous shadows to participate in the amnesty program of 1986. I have never seen an explanation for the reason that more than twice as many aliens took advantage of the 1986 amnesty than was initially believed would but I believe that two factors came into play. It may well be that the number of illegal aliens in the country was underestimated. I also believe, however, that a large number of illegal aliens were able to gain entry into the United States long after the cutoff point and succeeded in making false claims that they had been present in the country for the requisite period of time.

To put this in perspective, I have read various estimates about the number of illegal aliens who are currently present in the United States. These estimates range from a low of 12 million to a high of 20 million. If, for argument sake, we figure on a number of 15 million illegal aliens, or ten times the number that had been estimated prior to the amnesty of 1986, and if the same sort of under counting occurs and if a comparable percentage of aliens succeed in racing into the United States and making a false claims that they had been here for the necessary period of time to be eligible to participate in the amnesty program that the Reid-Kennedy provisions would reward illegal aliens with, then we might expect some 35 million illegal aliens will ultimately participate in this insane program. Once they become citizens they would then be eligible to file applications to bring their family members to the United States, flooding our nation with tens of millions of additional new lawful immigrations while our nation’s porous borders, visa waiver program and extreme lack of resources to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States would allow many millions of illegal aliens to continue to enter the United States in violation of law.

The utterly inept and incompetent USCIS, which is now unable to carry out it’s most basic missions with even a modicum of integrity would undoubtedly disintegrate. The system would simply implode, crushed by the burden of its vicious cycle of attempting to deal with an ever increasing spiral of rampant fraud thereby encouraging still more fraudulent applications to be filed. Terrorists would not find gaming this system the least bit challenging and our government will have become their unwitting ally, providing them with official identity documents in false names and then, ultimately, providing them with the keys to the kingdom by conferring resident aliens status and then, United States citizenship upon those who would destroy our nation and slaughter our citizens.

I hope that this doomsday scenario will not be permitted to play out.

Insanity has been described as doing the same things the same way and expecting a different result. Where our nation’s security is concerned it would be indeed, insane to ignore the lessons of IRCA.

When I was a boy my dad used to tell me that there were no mistakes in life, only lessons, provided we learn from what goes wrong and make the appropriate changes in the way we do things. However, to repeat the same mistakes was to him and to me, simply unforgivable.

Chairmen Sensenbrenner and Hostettler, I commend your leadership in calling this hearing to make certain that these concerns are made public and are taken into account, especially as we approach the anniversary of the fifth anniversary of the attacks of September 11 and our nation continues to grapple with the immigration crisis.

America is at historic crossroads at this moment in time. Courageous decisions need to be made by our nation’s leaders. If our nation fails to select the proper path, there will be no going back. If our nation decides to provide amnesty to millions of undocumented and illegal aliens, I fear that our national security will suffer irreparable harm as we aid and abet alien terrorists who seek to enter our country and embed themselves within it in preparation for the deadly attacks they would carry out. The priority must be clear, national security must be given the highest consideration and priority where the security of our nation’s borders and the integrity of the immigration system are concerned.

I look forward to your questions.

The reason that nearly 3 times as many aliens took advantage of the amnesty of 1986 as had been predicted was the simple facts that there may have been some underestimates as the actual number of illegal aliens who were present in our country. I am, however, convinced, as were just about all of my former colleagues, that the majority of those additional aliens had actually entered the United States after the cutoff date- in some cases even as the amnesty program was up and running, and then claimed to have been in the United States for the requisite period of time. This is not a difficult crime to commit (fraud is, indeed, a crime!)

Illegal aliens who are undocumented have no reliable form of documentation to attest to their true name, date of birth or even their, nationality. (That is why they are referred to as being undocumented.)

If an alien claimed to have paid his rent under one name, his utility bills under other names and then claimed to have worked under yet additional name(s)- how would an adjudicator determine when this individual actually entered the United States? Remember that if the alien in question claimed to have run our border on the day he (she) first entered the United States, there would be no record of his entry into our country under any name!

If you think this scenario is far-fetched, let me tell you that when I was assigned to the squad that arrested illegal aliens who were working in factories and other employment settings, the majority of these aliens had multiple identity documents either in their possession or in their homes if we went to their apartments in an effort to determine who we had arrested.

Adjudicators at USCIS would not have the time to delve into the true identities of aliens who would apply for amnesty. In fact, they would have only enough time to run fingerprints and the name the alien claimed was his through a computer database. Here is where national security is again an issue. If a terrorist knew his name was likely on a terror “watch list” and he (she) was careful to never be fingerprinted by our law enforcement authorities, there is absolutely nothing to prevent such a “sleeper” agent from providing a false name on his application for amnesty (Comprehensive Immigration Reform).

His fingerprints would come back as a “No hit” as would his fictitious name. USCIS, in its headlong dash to keep up with the avalanche of applications, would simply provide that alien terrorist with an official identity document in a false name that would enable the bad guy to immediately apply for a Social Security Card, a driver’s license, library cards and credit cards and bank accounts. He would then be able to secure employment in the United States and would have accomplished his primary goal of establishing a “clean” identity that would also enable him (her) to travel freely around our country, gain access to airports and airliners, government office buildings and other potential places of interest.

Reason Number Three:

Aliens and the Economy:

How many times have we heard the statement, “Illegal aliens do the work Americans won’t do?”

As I have often noted, illegal aliens are not more industrious or competent then American workers, it is just that they are vulnerable and hence easier to exploit. When an alien who has been working for substandard wages acquires lawful immigrant status in the United States, such as alien who participate in an amnesty program, that alien will no longer accept substandard wages or substandard working conditions. An alien who is on the pathway to United States citizenship will demand his employer treat him as he would treat any resident alien or United States citizen. (This also happened when nearly 4 million aliens were granted lawful status under the 1986 amnesty.)

Unscrupulous employers who were determined to keep costs low and profits high simply fired aliens who had worked for him when they were illegally present in the United States and hence easy to exploit as soon as they acquired lawful status in the United States.

These employers did not do without workers, he simply hired the next wave of illegal aliens. I believe that this would happen today. The few raids that ICE stages around the United States represents little more than a publicity stunt. There are only a handful of ICE agents who are assigned to working on “Employer Sanctions” investigations.

The publicized policy of the administration and DHS to not seek to take illegal aliens into custody who work illegally in our country makes it easy for such illegal aliens to simply find employers who are willing to take the slight risk of facing adverse consequences for hiring illegal aliens. Under this one-sided approach, the illegal aliens have absolutely nothing to lose!

It is also important to remember that there have been a series of GAO reports that make it clear that our nation’s border is anything but secure even as extremely violent crime from Mexico is not simply spilling across our border into communities in close proximity to the free-fire zone that passes for a border, but is now infesting hundreds of American cities from coast to coast and border to border!

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is rapidly closing in on 10% nationally. That number is, in fact, deceptive. It does not take those out of work employees into account who have given up looking for work nor does it take into account those workers who have become “underemployed” taking part time jobs or working for wages far below what they had earned before the economy tanked!

Reason Number Four:

You Only Get One Opportunity to Make a First Impression:

It has been said that you only get one opportunity to make a first impression. Generally the first laws aliens entering our country or who are seeking to enter our country encounter are our nation’s immigration laws.

Those laws were promulgated to protect our nation and our citizens.

The immigration laws establish the grounds under which an alien may be denied permission to enter the United States and the ground under which an alien who had been admitted into the United States may be ordered removed or deported.

Most of those laws deal with aliens who are involved in criminal activities such as convicted felons, narcotics traffickers, child molesters, terrorists, war criminals and the like.

Additionally aliens may be kept out of the United States if they have dangerous communicable diseases. While most of the “open borders” crowd wax poetic about Ellis Island, I think it is important to remember that Ellis Island was, in fact, a quarantine station that was run by a number of federal agencies, most notably Immigration and Public Health. The reason that arriving immigrants were required to remain at Ellis Island for a significant period of time is that when that quarantine station was first opened, medical science was crude and lacked the ability to quickly screen individuals to determine if they were ill and/or harbored dangerous diseases. Keeping these new arrivals at the Island for a period of time gave the doctors who worked there ample opportunity to see if these people exhibited symptoms of dangerous diseases.

Also worth considering is the fact that until the onset of the Second World War the enforcement and administration of the immigration laws was the responsibility of the Labor department. Hard as it may be to believe in this day and age, back then, during the era of the “Greatest Generation,” our government was actually concerned that foreign workers would undercut American workers! Could you imagine that?!

Today our nation has convinced people all over the world that if they can make it to America, even if it is in violation of our borders and our laws, that no less an authority than the President of the United States, is eager to not only let them get away with those transgressions but reward them for doing so! This has been the case for decades and that is why we now how more illegal aliens living and working in our country than at any time since the founding of this nation!

Consider statements made by none other than Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives when she went to Mexico City in 2003 at equated an ICE raid on WalMart that resulted in the arrest of hundreds of illegal aliens with an act of terrorism! Consider that she has also stated that arresting illegal aliens was “Un-American!”

Let us not forget what the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano had to say about those who want our nation’s borders secured and illegal aliens arrested- she equated those who wanted to see those objectives accomplished as being “Extremists!”

Simply stated, you cannot make this stuff up!

And now the administration is once again raising the issue of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, in spite of all that I have stated above.

If our government does, indeed, embark on this disaster, there will be no turning back. It would be no different than a pilot taking off in an airliner that was not airworthy! As citizens of this nation, we would be the passengers on that airliner! We would have no opportunity to get off the airplane but would be along for the ride whether we liked it or not!

My concerns about Comprehensive Immigration Reform are not about racism or bigotry, a claim often made by the open border advocates when anyone says we need to secure our nation’s borders and create an immigration system that has integrity.

On September 11, 2001 just about every race, religion and ethnicity was represented among the nearly 3,000 victims of the most brutal mass murder ever committed in our nation since its founding!

The victims of ethnic organized crime are often of the same ethnicity as are the criminals who prey upon them. This applies to every ethnic group.

Americans who are losing their jobs are similarly of every ethnicity, race and religious background.

Our nation is comprised of citizens from every corner of the world.

This is what has made America- America!

As a young boy I recall studying Social Studies in school. My teachers used to say that the United States was a country of law!

How can our nation be a “Country of law” when our nation’s “leaders” show utter contempt for the laws that were promulgated to protect our nation and our citizens?

I have attached several items below that I urge you to take the time to read.

If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same.

In less than two years each and every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection. In less than two years more than one third of the members of the United States Senate will have to face their constituents. They need to be reminded that they work for us, We the People!

However, the practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there. The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines! The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians. I implore you to get involved! If this situation concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation! You need to politely but pointedly, demand to know what they are doing to protect our nation. You need to ask them how they are protecting you and your families. You can also forward this commentary to them. All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are! We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue! You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem! Democracy is not a spectator sport! Lead, follow or get out of the way!

Press Release Re: Senate Floor Statement of Senator Sessions on June 25, 2007 on Comprehensive Immigration Reform:

“Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank my able colleague from Missouri. He is one of our most valuable and able members in the Senate. I value his thoughts on that and share his thoughts, actually. I want to move off of that and some of the comments that Senator Dorgan had about working Americans and what they are facing today.

I remember addressing this point last year in the debate on immigration. I think it was at night when not many people were on the floor. Senator Kennedy was here. I raised the question of what was happening to wages of working Americans as a result of large-scale immigration, and quoted professors and experts who had demonstrated that where those areas-where immigration reached its highest levels, wages had gone down for workers; they hadn’t gone up. Now we are told that businesses cannot get workers, and we are told we are at full employment, but apparently something is awry if wages are not going up in many areas.

I want to mention to you what we have with regard to the immigration bill that is coming before us. We will have cloture vote on it in the morning. This is what I want to say to my colleagues. The legislation promises that it will bring legality to the system. They say we have an illegal system and we have got a comprehensive plan to fix it. What does our own Congressional Budget Office say? They just did an analysis of it. The Congressional Budget Office looked at the legislation that is proposed.

They made an opinion about how much it would cost the U.S. Treasury. It was about $30 billion over the

next 10 years; not for the cost of enforcement, just the cost of additional social and welfare benefits provided to those who are here illegally, who will be made legal. They made that analysis, and they also made one more analysis that is so stunning and so remarkable that I remain baffled that my colleagues have not picked up on it.

What the Congressional Budget Office, our own budget office-a budget office that answers to the House, answers to the Senate, answers to the majority leader, Harry Reid, answers to the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi-the Congressional Budget Office concluded that net illegal immigration, after the passage of this bill, would only be reduced 13 percent. Now what kind of reform is that, I ask my colleagues? I submit to you this is not a reform.

A fix that is supposed to bring legality to a system that only reduces illegality by 13 percent. Last year we arrested 1 million people entering our country illegally. These are huge numbers. I would have thought we would want to see an 80 or 90 percent reduction of illegality at our border. This is a bill that by our own evaluation does not bode well. There is another factor that many of my colleagues probably do not know, have never understood.

My staff has worked very hard to account for the actual flow of legal immigration into the country. In the next 20 years, this country, if this bill is passed, will see a doubling of the legal permanent residents in America. That is the number of people who are given a green card. That is the next step to citizenship. Anybody with legal permanent residence can move on to citizenship.

It will double the number of legal permanent residents, which is what we call green card holders. So we are not going to have any reduction in illegality, and we are going to have a major increase – a doubling of legal immigration. I am worried about that. We have been talking here about this debate about card check and unions. What it is about is wages and fairness for American workers, is it not?” _______________________________________________________

“That is a strong, crystal-clear condemnation of this act by the officers whose lives are on the line this very moment on our border trying to enforce our laws. Are we going to listen to them? Or are we going to listen to our mandarins, our masters meeting in secret, who plopped a bill down here, 700 pages long, that they say will make the system work?

The event focused on the grave threat to national security the immigration bill represents. Mr. Cutler authored an op-ed in the Washington Times last Friday entitled “Immigration Bill Is a No Go” that focused on security issues raised by the bill. People are going to be invited to come in who are here illegally, give their name and so forth, and within 24 hours they will be receiving a legal status in the country, a probationary visa.

It will soon be converted into this Z visa that people will have, but immediately within 24 hours, they will be provided that, unless something shows up of a serious nature in their background. But as these experts have told us, it is not possible to do a very effective check in 24 hours, as you can imagine. Even though you can do a computer run, it still has great weaknesses in it.

So he focuses on this whole issue and says this: If a person lies about his or her identity and has never been fingerprinted anywhere in our country, what will enable the bureaucrats at the USCIS-that is the agency that will be handing out the immigration benefits-to know the person’s true identity? If the adjudicators simply run a fictitious identity through a computerized database, they will simply find the name has no connection to any criminal or terrorist watch lists. I am quoting him now.

What is the true value? Remember, we are talking about a false name. Let me continue quoting: There is absolutely no way this program would have even a shred of integrity and the identity documents that would be given these millions of illegal aliens would enable every one of them to receive a driver’s license, Social Security card, and other such official identity documents in a false name. Undoubtedly, terrorists would be among those applying to participate in this ill-conceived program. They would then be able to open bank accounts and obtain credit cards in that same false name. Finally, these cards would enable these aliens to board airliners and trains even if their true names appear on all of the various terrorist watch lists and “no fly” lists.

That is why I have come to refer to this legislation as the “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007.” There has been a lot of talk in this Senate about Mexico’s consulates throughout the United States issuing matricula cards and that these matricula cards are given based on documents that nobody knows for sure how good they are.

Therefore, the cards they have are not really guaranteed to be a valid identity, but they are being utilized around the country as legitimate identification. What Mr. Cutler says is the identification documents we will be giving out under this bill will not be any better than matricula cards….” Here is a copy of the commentary I wrote for the Washington Times that Senator Sessions quoted from in the press release above:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jun/22/immigration-bill-a-no-go/print/

Immigration bill a ‘No Go’ Most of us have seen how mission control at Cape Canaveral conducts a countdown before the space shuttle is launched. Many engineers, scientists and other essential personnel sit before their consoles monitoring various factors that determine if the launch should be made. Generally, they respond with a “Go” or “No Go” response when asked by the flight director if their respective element of the launch is functioning properly.

Generally, each of these highly trained personnel is backed up by a staff of many others sitting in a back room along with banks of computers. In most cases, if any member of the launch team does not give a “thumbs up” indicating satisfaction with his area of responsibility, the launch is postponed. This is done to ensure the safety of crewmembers and space shuttle and to make certain the objectives of the mission will be successfully carried out.

The Senate is poised to begin a debate about an extremely critical mission advocated by the president and the majority of the members of the Senate committee that came up with a proposed immigration reform bill. The implications for the United States, where this bill is concerned, are of the utmost significance for our nation. Immigration impacts so many other aspects of the United States, starting with national security and criminal justice, and including the economy, education, health care and the environment. We could compare the debate about the wisdom of the proposed legislation with the preflight preparation of scientists and engineers charged with launching the space shuttle who provide their perspectives in determining whether to launch.

If I had a seat at that debate, much like a member of a launch team, I would give the legislation an emphatic “No Go.” There are many reasons I adamantly oppose the legislation, but first and foremost is national security. This aspect has not been addressed in any public debate, including the televised debates involving the presidential candidates. No matter which scheme we are to consider concerning the fate of the unknown millions of illegal aliens present in our country, one common factor remains: The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would have to provide identity documents to those millions of undocumented aliens who have absolutely no documentary evidence to verify their true identities.

Though former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Arizona’s Sen. John McCain are eager to invoke the recommendations of the September 11 Commission and provide those undocumented illegal aliens with what they describe as “tamper-proof” identity documents, there really is no way to know what name or even what nationality should be imprinted on those millions of supposedly secure identity documents. There is no way an adjudicator at USCIS can look at an applicant and know who he or she is.

The USCIS also would be unable to know when, where or how the applicant entered the U.S. That is what the term “undocumented” means. Those who advocate for a guest worker amnesty program attempt to gloss over this critical issue by saying that our government would simply use “high-tech” biometric methods. What does that mean? If a person lies about his or her identity and has never been fingerprinted in our country, what will enable the bureaucrats at USCIS to know that person’s true identity? If the adjudicators simply run a fictitious identity though a computerized database, they will simply find the name has no known connection to any criminal or terrorist watch lists. What is the value?

Remember, we are talking about a false name. There is absolutely no way this program would have even a shred of integrity and the identity documents that would be given these millions of illegal aliens would enable every one of them to receive a driver’s license, Social Security card and other such official identity documents in a false name. Undoubtedly, terrorists would be among those applying to participate in this ill-conceived program. They would then be able to open bank accounts and obtain credit cards in that same false name.

Finally, these cards would enable these aliens to board airliners and trains even if their true names appear on all of the various terrorist watch lists and “no fly” lists. That is why I have come to refer to this legislation as the “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007.” A final thought. To once again draw an analogy between the debate concerning this legislation and the launch process at Cape Canaveral: On Jan. 28, 1986, members of the launch team warned the flight director and others that the cold weather should cause them to postpone the flight of the space shuttle Challenger.

They were ignored and the Challenger and its precious and irreplaceable crew of seven astronauts, including the astronaut-teacher Christa McAuliffe, were obliterated in an explosion 73 seconds after liftoff. The astronauts paid the ultimate price because management at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) refused to listen to the advice of those with legitimate concerns about the safety of the launch procedure that terrible day.

Michael Cutler, a former Senior INS Investigator, an expert witness in more than a dozen Congressional Hearings is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and an advisor to the ‘911 Families for a Secure America.’ He writes about the nexus between immigration and national security.