Terror Watch On The Broken Border

Yesterday, Stephen Dinan, one of the most experienced journalists covering the immigration issue, wrote a disturbing story in the Washington Times.

A news report prepared by Fox News the day before, addressed extraordinarily worrisome information that DHS is concerned that terrorists from Somalia may be seeking to enter the United States by running our nation’s border in Texas.

Now stop and put both stories together – the United States Senate has refused funding to station 6,000 national guard troops on the border, even though DHS is now concerned about the infiltration of terrorists into our country along the Mexican border!

There has been no shortage of news reports about the utterly unacceptable situation that exists along our nation’s border that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico but this takes the lunacy to an unbelievable level!

I am convinced that the planet earth has fallen into a worm hole and we are now in a parallel universe!

The administration has vilified Jan Brewer, the Arizona Governor who beyond anything the “leaders” in Washington could imagine – actually took the safety of citizens into account. The Governor lived up to her responsibilities to provide for the safety and security of the folks who live in her state. Likewise, the members of Arizona’s legislature acted to fill the gaping void created by Washington’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and enforce our nation’s immigration laws.

Governor Brewer and the other true leaders of her state also apparently listened to the vast majority of the citizens of Arizona who were justifiably angered and concerned about the many issues that our nation’s virtually open borders have created for citizens of that state. Case in point – the fact that, as I have been discussing in many of my recent commentaries, Phoenix, Arizona has become the “Kidnap and Home Invasion Capital” of the United States and probably the entire Western Hemisphere! It is believed that the vast majority of these crimes are committed by members of the Mexican drug cartels and members of other transnational gangs.

What state would want to post that sort of unique situation on travel brochures?

Providing national guard troops along the border would be helpful but only if many other steps would be taken and unbelievably, the United States senate has now blocked the deployment of those national guard troops!

Consider these two links of news reports broadcast by Atlanta-based television station WSB-TV that address the national security implications of our nation’s open borders:

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/23686786/detail.html

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/23438021/index.html

I probably should not be amazed, when you consider that just last week, Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico, the country that sends our nation more illegal aliens than any other country in the world, and the country through which more narcotics flow en route to the United States was invited to address the United States Congress. Calderon called for the enactment of Comprehensive Immigration Reform and condemned the government of the State of Arizona for enacting legislation that discourages illegal aliens from coming to Arizona and setting up shop!

What is absolutely amazing is that Calderon’s remarks were greeted with a standing ovation by members of the United States government who were sworn to uphold our nation’s Constitution and laws and protect the sovereignty of this nation!

Here is a video of that disgusting moment:

I would love to know the last time an American president or president of any other country, for that matter, has ever gone to Mexico to complain about the abysmal way that the citizens of that wealthiest of Latin American countries treats its citizens. In fact, what other country encourages people to violate the borders of the United States and the laws of the United States to take menial jobs under substandard conditions and send money back to Mexico? Indeed, it is common knowledge that the government of Mexico has provided its citizens with comic book style training manuals and even video tapes that aid its citizens by instructing them as to how best evade the United States Border Patrol!

In point of fact, the terms “Encourages” and “Aids” where it applies to those who encourage and aid aliens in entering our country illegally, represents a violation of our nation’s immigration laws. Check out this link to Title 8, United States Code, Section 1324

U.S. Code

TITLE 8, CHAPTER 12, SUBCHAPTER II, Part VIII, 1324, 1324.

Bringing in and harboring certain aliens

(a) Criminal penalties

(1)

(A) Any person who –

(i) knowing that a person is an alien, brings to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever such person at a place other than a designated port of entry or place other than as designated by the Commissioner, regardless of whether such alien has received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States and regardless of any future official action which may be taken with respect to such alien;

(ii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law;

(iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;

(iv) encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or

(v)

(I) engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or

(II) aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts,

shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B).

Mexico acknowledged its second most valuable export is its citizens! I say that the citizens of Mexico are its “acknowledged” second most valuable export because I would not be surprised if the citizens of Mexico are actually more important than petroleum exports when you consider how much money is smuggled from the United States to Mexico. If you add in the tens of billions of dollars that the drug trade generates for the Mexican economy – I doubt that oil would come even close to the amount of money we are talking about!

It is also interesting to note that the constitution of Mexico absolutely prohibits any foreigner from engaging in any political activities in Mexico – yet Mr. Calderon was happy to tell our country’s president and Congress what laws they should enact and received a standing ovation!

I guess we should not, however, be surprised at Calderon’s display of unmitigated chutzpah when you consider what the President of the United States had to say about the new immigration laws enacted in Arizona. Check out this video prepared by Governor Brewer:

The other issue that I cannot place enough emphasis on is the fact that nearly half of all illegal aliens who are present in our country did not run our nation’s border. They did not evade the inspections process to circumvent that process that is supposed to prevent the entry of aliens into our country whose presence here would be harmful to our citizens or our nation and might even represent a threat to national security, That is just one of many ways that aliens become illegally present.

Lou Dobbs, the most visible broadcast journalist, until he left CNN, and who was willing to tackle the issue of immigration generally referred to his segment on immigration as “Broken Borders.” In an effort to get as many people as possible to understand just how easily aliens are able to enter our country and then, in one way or another violate the terms of their admission, I came to say that any state that has an international airport or a seaport should be considered a “Border State.”

On May 11, 2006 I testified before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on International Relations on the topic:

“VISA OVERSTAYS: CAN WE BAR THE TERRORIST DOOR?”

You can read the transcript of that hearing.

Additionally, the immigration benefits program by which aliens acquire lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship is rife with fraud. Nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance are committed routinely by the employees of USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), the agency under the DHS, an agency I have come to refer to as the Department of Homeland Surrender.

A few years ago I wrote a commentary about the various ways in which aliens enter our country in violation of law. In order to explain the many ways that our nation is vulnerable to the unlawful entry of foreign nationals. I decided to copy the beginning of the famous poem by Henry Wasdsworth Longfellow, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower, as a signal light, –

One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

Paul Revere had it relatively easy, there were only two possibilities. The British invaders could only come by land or by sea. Today, were Mr. Revere alive and decided to continue his now “low tech” method to communicate how illegal aliens and criminals and terrorists among them were entering the United States, he would need to have his friend place so many lanterns in the North Church tower that the tower would have probably burned to the ground!

Let us consider some of the many ways that illegal aliens and potentially criminals and terrorists, can gain entry into our country and embed themselves once they are here:

1. Running the Mexican border

2. Running the Canadian border

3. Stowing away on a ship

4. Entering the United States through a port of entry under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program (This enables aliens from 35 countries to enter our country without first applying for and obtaining a nonimmigrant visa.)

5. Procuring a nonimmigrant tourist visa by filing a fraudulent application.

6. Entering the United States with a valid visa and then violating the terms of the visa such as overstaying the period of time for which he was admitted. (US VISIT is not currently able to track the departure of aliens who are admitted for a temporary period.)

7. Procuring a nonimmigrant student visa and then not attending the school for which the visa was issued – (Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, the 19 year old terror suspect who was arrested while plotting to use explosives to destroy an office building in Dallas, Texas is an example of this method of entry and ebedding in our country as was Nada Nadim Prouty, a woman from Lebanon who entered the United States on a student visa roughly 20 years ago who went on to commit immigration fraud and ultimately feloniously acquired United States citizenship. She parlayed her naturalization certificate into a security clearance and a job at the FBI and CIA where she used her clearance to access sensitive databases involving Hezbollah!)

8. Applying for and receiving an immigrant visa based on a fraud marriage. (If successful, this ploy provides the alien with a “green card” and puts him (her) on the path to United States citizenship.)

9. Applying for and receiving an immigrant visa based on a fraud job offer, as is the case with the marriage fraud, the alien would receive a “green card” and would place the alien on the path to United States citizenship.

10. Applying for political asylum by making a false claim of “credible fear.” (Mir Aimal Kansi used this ploy. In January 1993, roughly one month before the first attack on the World Trade Center, he stood outside the headquarters of the CIA in Virginia and opened fire on CIA employees who were arriving for what they had thought would be a routine day at work. Two CIA officials died and three were wounded. Additionally, more recently a 23 year old native and citizen of Eritrea by the name of Samuel Abrahaley Fessahazion, aka “Sami,” aka “Alex” and aka “Alex Williams” was able to easily game the bureaucracy at USCIS and was awarded political asylum on November 13, 2008, just under six weeks after applying for political asylum and falsely claiming that he had been fleeing persecution in Eritrea. In reality – at the time he claimed to have been fleeing persecution in Eritrea he was smuggling illegal aliens from East Africa into the United States through South and Central America and across our nation’s “border” with Mexico!)

When you consider the way that USCIS is utterly unable to provide a shred of meaningful integrity to the system by which aliens are able to acquire lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship how in blazes would USCIS deal with the onslaught of 20 million, 30 million or perhaps even more than 40 million applications filed by aliens who would claim to not have a piece of official documentation to attest to their true names, dates of birth or nationalities (remember that is why they are “undocumented!”)

Furthermore, there would therefore be no way of being able to determine if they have any involvement with any criminal or terrorist organization!

There would be absolutely no way of knowing if that person got here ten days ago, ten months ago or ten years ago without a field investigation. There is no way that our nation could conduct 40 million field investigations! The adjudications officers would simply have to take the alien’s word for how long he had been in the United States!

Of course the very same politicians who are jumping up and down and condemning Governor Brewer and members of her state’s legislature for attempting to address the immigration crisis that is destroying their state and our nation, will tell you that Comprehensive Immigration Reform would require that each alien applicant would be fingerprinted and undergo a “security check.”

As I have noted on ever so many previous occasions, any alien who had never been previously arrested in the United States could easily game this system by providing a false name. Even if such an alien’s real name was on a “terror watch list” or a “no fly list” those lists generally have no biometrics associated with those names. If such a terrorist provided a false name- the fingerprints would come back as a “no hit” and the false name would similarly come back “clean.” Within 24 or perhaps 48 hours that individual would be granted temporary status in our country and an official identity document that would immediately enable that person to receive a Social Security Card, a driver’s license, credit cards and library cards and all sorts of other official and authentic identity documents.

If you wonder why I believe that so many more aliens would apply for participation in Comprehensive Immigration Reform- look no further than the Amnesty of 1986 when Chuck Schumer and his friends on the “Hill” told us that the 1986 Amnesty would be a “One time” program that would involve no more than one million to one and a half million aliens. We wound up with four million! If there are between 12 million and 20 million aliens as many claim- you do the math!

Here is another question no one seems to ask and Schumer and company are not about to tell you-

How would our government deal with 40 million newly legalized aliens who would demand prevailing wages and benefits once they acquire lawful status and are therefore no longer vulnerable? Why would our government have to deal with them? We can look to the 1986 Amnesty to understand this issue also. The unscrupulous employers who hired the illegal aliens because they were vulnerable and easy to exploit can be expected to fire most of them once they make their demands known to their employers. Where will these now unemployed legalized aliens go? They will go to the nearest unemployment office for their unemployment benefits!

Furthermore, these 40 million newly legalized aliens would have the authority to immediately bring their wives and minor children to the United States! If these aliens lose their jobs and are on unemployment- I assure you that their families will be immediately eligible for food stamps, welfare, assistance with housing, etc., etc.

How will cities, states and the federal government pick up this tab when communities across our nation are as solvent as Greece and teachers and police officers are being fired?

I would be willing to bet that now we would be talking about a minimum of 100 million aliens!

Does anyone who is attempting to foist Comprehensive Immigration Reform on our nation and our citizens have any answers?

The only answer that the United States Senate has come up with where simply trying to secure the Mexican border from the incursion and infiltration of terrorists and criminals is a resounding “NO!” Meanwhile, I would remind you that a country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

I can only imagine that any attempt to hire an adequate number of special agents for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to conduct fraud investigations to seek to uncover marriage fraud and other forms of fraud known to be used by terrorists and criminals as an embedding tactic will meet with a similar response!

Meanwhile, according to a recent statement by officials of ICE, there are all of 272 investigators seeking to locate all of the illegal aliens who are present in our country who had overstayed their authorized period of stay or otherwise violated the terms of their admission into our country!

Here is my challenge to Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and the other “Immigration All Stars” on Capitol Hill:

Why don’t you simply level with the citizens of our nation and tell us what you really want?

Why don’t you just step forward and look into those cameras you just love, and tell us that you plan to draft legislation that would make any human being born on the planet earth a United States citizen and order the Border Patrol and the special agents of ICE to only seek to locate and arrest extraterrestrials who arrived in flying saucers? You could call these government employees “The Men In Black (MIB)!”

Of course I am certain that if any such extraterrestrials were located, Harry Reid or some other “leader” in the Senate or House of Representatives or the administration would question if the MIB special agents had resorted to species profiling!

If reading this makes it difficult for you to sleep now – perhaps you could do something worthwhile – perhaps you might spend a couple of your sleepless hours writing letters to your elected representatives this evening and remind them that Election Day is just months away!

We the People can add to the consternation of these politicians who are failing to live up to their oaths of office by contacting them and making it abundantly clear that election day is coming and they should think of election day as their personal “Day of Reckoning!”

Our government must live up to its obligation of protecting its own citizens and, indeed, all who are present in our country from the criminals and terrorists who would threaten our lives and the survival of our nation and our way of life. In the end, the government is actually those who are elected to act as our “leaders.” Those who fail to truly lead and look out for those they are supposed to represent, need to be sent packing this coming Election Day!

If our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!

We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm’s way in defense of this nation and our citizens.

My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.

The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.

Any politician who refuses to work to secure our borders and create an immigration system that has integrity is either corrupt or too dumb to keep his (her) job. Any politician, irrespective of party affiliation who favors Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the outrageous betrayal that this would represent given the national security implications that this program would have, should be shown the door at the next election!

If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same. We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”

Later this year, each and every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection. Later this year 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 “Representatives.” This is not only your right – it is your obligation!

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!

See Also:

Senate says no to 6,000 border troops

Feds Issue Terror Watch for the Texas/Mexico Border

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.