What Would You Do If You Had The Key to The Front Door of The United States?

The predication for this commentary is about as serious as it gets!

I was sent the copy of the letter dated 14, October 2010, that Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa sent to the Inspector General who is responsible for maintaining integrity for those agencies under his purview including, in this case, USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Here is the PDF file of that letter:

I have also attached a copy of the letter beneath my commentary.

Here is an excerpt from Senator Grassley’s letter that makes the seriousness of the allegations abundantly clear:

The allegations that Senator Grassley raises are of incredible importance and should be of concern to all of us. While so much attention has been customarily paid to the issue of our nation’s porous borders, an issue that is of great importance, it is important to note that the issue of border security is only one of many components of what should be an integrated immigration system. What is all too often ignored by nearly everyone is the way that immigration benefits are provided to aliens who are either seeking to enter our country or are present in our country.

Immigration Benefits include the conferring of resident alien status on aliens as signified by the issuance of Alien Registration Receipt Cards (Green Cards) and by naturalizing aliens- providing them with United States citizenship. Other benefits deal with adjudicating applications for political asylum, adjudicating applications to allow nonimmigrant aliens to extend their lawful period of time in the United States and providing them with an opportunity to change their immigration status to enable them to attend school or lawfully seek employment to name but a few examples.

While it is of extreme importance to secure our nation’s borders against unlawful entry, a green card or United States citizenship represents the key to the front door of the United States. Only a fool would indiscriminately provide a stranger with the keys to his home, but it would appear that where the immigration benefits program is concerned, this is precisely what the adjudications officers at USCIS have been doing because of the orders that they were given by their bosses!

If these allegations prove to be true- and frankly I am convinced that they are- then nothing less than the security of the United States of America was compromised!

This sort of madness is not, however, without precedent. During the Clinton Administration, a program known as CUSA (Citizenship USA) resulted in more than one million aliens being naturalized with district directors being allegedly threatened with the loss of their jobs in key offices if they failed to deliver on a quota of naturalized citizens.

Here is a link to a report issued by the Office of the Inspector General into that sordid mess in which it was ultimately determined that thousands of aliens were accorded United States citizenship who were ineligible to naturalize and, indeed, a number of whom probably should have been deported from the United States because of criminal convictions!

I would remind you that USCIS is the agency that would be put in charge of putting God knows how many millions of illegal aliens on the pathway to United States citizenship even though there would be absolutely no easy way- or any way at all, of determining their true identities backgrounds or potential affiliation with criminal or terrorist organizations!

I want you to take the time to read Senator Grassley’s letter and realize just how serious these allegations are consider just how courageous the adjudications officers who came forward are!

Whistleblowers subject themselves to all sorts of problems and need to be recognized for their valor and their integrity!

They understood that what they were being ordered to do compromised national security- something that is always of extreme significance but especially true in this perilous era where terrorists seek to not only to enter our country but to embed themselves in our country. It is through immigration benefits that terrorists and criminals manage to embed themselves in communities across our nation and thus “hide in plain sight!”

I recently had an argument with a reporter who asserted that terrorists would never walk into an immigration building in order to seek immigration benefits. He challenged me to provide him with just one incident where a terrorist did anything like that. I told him that of 94 terrorists who were identified as operating in our country in the decade leading up to the attacks of September 11, 2001 that 59 of those terrorists, were found to have used immigration fraud as a means of entering our country and/or embedding themselves in our country!

Amir Kansi was a Pakistani citizen who made false claims on an application for political asylum who then shot and killed two CIA officers and wounded three others in January 1993.

Additionally, in March of 2002 I was called upon to testify at a Congressional hearing conducted by the House Immigration Subcommittee.

The topic for the hearing was:

“INS’S MARCH 2002 NOTIFICATION OF APPROVAL OF CHANGE OF STATUS FOR PILOT TRAINING FOR TERRORIST HIJACKERS MOHAMMED ATTA AND MARWAN AL-SHEHHI”

Here is the link to the transcript of the hearing in its entirety.

Here is the link to the C-SPAN video of the Congressional hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, at which I testified on March 19, 2002 as you watch this video I want you to consider how much has not changed in the more than 9 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001:

Let me make this as clear and succinct as possible, if the officials who are in positions of authority jeopardize national security in the name of political expedience or because they are inept, they need to be fired!

In all jobs accountability goes with the job.

If a law enforcement officer discharges his (her) weapon and is ultimately found to have acted improperly, they may not only lose their job but their freedom- they are arrested and prosecuted even if they were under extreme pressure and had scant moments to react to what they perceive to be a life or death situation.

If the integrity of the system that is supposed to protect our nation and our citizens is compromised then whoever caused this to happen needs to be made accountable!

If it is ultimately determined that reprisals were taken against those who have come forward, then those who are determined to have taken those reprisals need to, at the minimum lose their jobs!

We need to have a “zero tolerance” for the sort of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance that now passes for “business as usual!”

If We the People fail to get involved in the democratic process and live up to our obligation as citizens of this nation, I fear that history may well remember our generation as America’s “Last Generation!”

If reading this makes it difficult for you to sleep tonight- 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 days 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!”

In just over one week, each and every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection and 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!

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!