THE INVASION SPONSORED BY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
Congressional Democrats are apparently fine
with catch-and-release policies because they see the likely electoral benefits.
According to Customs and Border Protection (CPB), of the 94,285 Central
American family units apprehended last year, 99 percent of them remain in the
country today. CPB also reports that 98 percent of the 31,754 unaccompanied
minors from the Northern Triangle of Central America remain in the country. CAL
THOMAS
"This is how
they will destroy America from within. The leftist billionaires
who orchestrate these plans are wealthy. Those tasked with representing us in
Congress will never be exposed to the cost of the invasion of millions of
migrants. They have nothing but contempt for those of us who must
endure the consequences of our communities being intruded upon by gang members,
drug dealers and human traffickers. These people have no intention
of becoming Americans; like the Democrats who welcome them, they have contempt
for us." PATRICIA McCARTHY
TRUMP’S BATTLE FOR A BORDER WALL
National security, public safety, and Americans' jobs are “on the
line.”
The
immigration debate has been raging for years. Advocates for open borders can be found on both sides of the political
aisle and in a wide variety of special interest groups who have come to see the
immigration system that delivers an unlimited supply of cheap and exploitable
labor, an unlimited supply of foreign tourists, and unlimited supply of foreign
students and, for the lawyers, an unlimited supply of clients.
Now
the debate about the construction of a border wall is coming to a head.
A line has been drawn,
and not in the sand, but along the highly porous and dangerous U.S./Mexican
border that permits huge numbers of illegal aliens to enter the United States
without inspection and permits huge quantities of narcotics and other
contraband to be smuggled into the United States as well.
President
Trump is arguably the first U.S. President in many decades who truly
understands that border security equals national security. He also understands that flooding America
with exploitable foreign workers from Third World countries is not
compassionate for those foreign workers and certainly not for the American
workers that they displace.
President
Trump is determined to build that wall but incredibly, the Democrats are
adamantly opposed to the construction of a border wall.
Pelosi
and company have created the false illusion that the border wall would seal off
the United States from Mexico when, in point of fact, nothing could be further
from the truth. The border wall would not block access to U.S.
ports of entry along that border but simply funnel all traffic to those ports
of entry so that the aliens can be inspected and vetted and records of their
entry into the United States can be created. Similarly all cargo would be
subject to inspection to keep drugs and other contraband out of the United
States.
How could any rational
person not want to act to combat the flow of those drugs into the United
States?
Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) employs approximately 60,000 employees that include
the U.S. Border Patrol, the CBP Inspectors at ports of entry and support
staff. The annual budget for CBP is nearly $14 billion. It makes absolutely not sense for the
United States to not secure the U.S./Mexican border against the un-inspected
entry of aliens into the United States and against the smuggling of tons of
heroin, cocaine, meth, fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into the United
States that cost tens of thousands of innocent people their lives in the United
States from drug overdoses. The drugs also provide a huge revenue stream
for the drug cartels and, as I noted in previous articles for Hezbollah, the
client terrorist organization of Iran.
Drug
are also a major factor where transnational gangs operating in the United
States are concerned, leading to more violence and more senseless deaths, most
often of children living in ethnic immigrant communities across the United
States.
Of
course the wall that President Trump is determined to construct would not, by
itself, end illegal immigration or stop all illegal drugs from flowing into the
United States, but would represent a major element of what needs to be a
coordinated system that plugs all of the holes in the "Immigration Colander.”
Finally,
as I have written in previous articles, the wall would pay for itself.
Illegal aliens provide cheap and exploitable labor for greedy and immoral
employers but, as the saying goes, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
The cost of educating
illegal alien children who are cannot speak, read or write English has been
estimated to be 20% to 40% more than for educating children who are English
language proficient.
Illegal aliens often use
emergency rooms as their primary healthcare provider, creating long lines of
those patients who, although they cannot pay for their treatment cannot be
turned away.
Illegal aliens send as
much of their illegal earnings back to their families in their home
countries. For Mexico the remittances sent by their citizens working
illegally in the United States amounts to more than $25 billion annually.
Furthermore, not all money is sent via quantifiable wire transfers. Money
is also smuggled out of the United States to the countries of origin of the
millions of illegal aliens who have taken jobs that should be taken by U.S.
citizens and lawful immigrants
That
money is lost to the U.S. economy and “multiplier effect” exacerbates this loss
of money that would otherwise circulate through the U.S. economy if that money
was earned by Americans who would spend and invest that money in the United
States.
Flooding the United
States with Third World workers suppresses wages and working conditions of
America’s working poor and, as a consequence, has contributed to increasing
homelessness among America’s poor.
If
only a fraction of all of these negative results of illegal immigration was
prevented, the wall would pay for itself in short order and, as a consequence,
enhance national security, public safety and, public health by preventing the
entry of un-inspected aliens.
However,
many well-intentioned Americans have fallen for the bogus mythology created by
the immigration anarchists who advocate for open borders and ineffectual
enforcement of the immigration laws from the interior of the United States by
promoting the absurd notion that advocates for border security to prevent the
illegal and un-inspected entry of aliens into the United States is a bigot and
a xenophobe.
In
reality the immigration laws of the United States make absolutely no
distinction about the race, religion or ethnicity of aliens but rather
objectively and dispassionately seek to prevent the entry and continued
presence of aliens in the United States when those aliens pose a threat to
public health, public safety, national security and the jobs of Americans.
Given
the perilous era in which we live, it is unthinkable that anyone would be
willing to board an airliner if some of the passengers on that airliner were
observed sneaking past the TSA screeners, yet today we live in cities where we
live with huge numbers of illegal aliens who have entered the United States
surreptitiously by evading the inspections process conducted at ports of entry.
Worse
yet, consider how many “sanctuary cities” and even “sanctuary states” have been
created across the United States, while “leaders” of the Democratic Party
openly call for dismantling ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
altogether.
The
immigration anarchists have become proficient at conning huge numbers of
Americans into accepting near-anarchy where immigration law enforcement is
concerned.
Prior
to the Second World War, the enforcement and administration of our nation’s
immigration laws was primarily the responsibility of the Department of
Labor. The goal was to make certain that American workers would be
shielded from unfair foreign competition for jobs. Remember at that time
the United States was struggling to emerge from the “Great Depression.”
Authority
for the enforcement and administration of the immigration laws was shifted to
the Department of Justice at the beginning of the Second World War when it
became readily apparent that enemy spies and saboteurs were attempting to enter
the United States, posing a serious threat to national security.
Ironically,
after the terror attacks of 9/11 the responsibility for the enforcement and
administration of those very same laws was shifted to the newly created
Department of Homeland Security but in a way that undermined that very
mission. This was an issue I wrote about in my article, Caravan Of 'Migrants' -
A Crisis Decades In The Making. When the DHS (Department of Homeland
Security) was created, in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, the
administration of President George W. Bush apparently failed to follow the
Homeland Security Act (HSA), the enabling legislation that created DHS
resulting in what Congressman John Hostettler, the Republican Chairman of the
House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims referred to as
“Immigration incoherence” during a hearing on the topic, New ''Dual Missions''
Of The Immigration Enforcement Agencies.
Here
are two excerpts from his statement at that hearing:
Failure
to adhere to the statutory framework established by HSA has produced
immigration enforcement incoherence that undermines the immigration enforcement
mission central to DHS, and undermines the security of our Nation's borders and
citizens.
*
*
The
9/11 terrorists all came to the U.S. with-out weapons or contraband—Added
customs enforcement would not have stopped 9/11 from happening. What might have
foiled al Qaeda’s plan was additional immigration focus, vetting, and
enforcement. And so what is needed is recognition that, one, immigration is a
very important national security issue that cannot take a back seat to customs
or agriculture. Two, immigration is a very complex issue, and immigration
enforcement agencies need experts in immigration enforcement. And three, the
leadership of our immigration agencies should be shielded from political
pressures to act in a way which could compromise the Nation’s security.
It
is time for our “leaders” to put America and Americans ahead of their
greed-driven political agendas and take Chairman Hostettler’s lament and
observations to heart.
Sanctuary Country - Immigration failures by
design
By Michael W.
Cutler
Volume 29, Number 1 (Fall 2018)
Issue theme: "Sanctuary
Nation - The Fraying of America"
The idea of writing
about how America has become a “Sanctuary Country” came to me less than two
months before demonstrators and, incredibly, leaders of the Democratic Party
began demanding that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) be completely
disbanded and terminate the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.
My consternation led me
to think back to a Congressional hearing at which I participated in 2005 and at
which Rep. John Hostettler, then Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, expressed frustration over how
the very structure of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the
inclusion of a divided immigration law enforcement program had come to be
created, hobbling border security and immigration law enforcement. Rep.
Hostettler warned that immigration enforcement must not take a “back seat to
customs or agriculture” and that it should be shielded from political
pressures. He observed that the structure of DHS itself violated the Homeland
Security Act which was enacted in 2002 roughly one year after the terror
attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11). This was the enabling legislation that
created the DHS, which was supposed to address the myriad vulnerabilities that
the 9/11 terrorists had exploited, enabling them to enter the United States and
carry out their deadly attacks.
Let’s not forget that
the “C” in ICE stands for “Customs,” an area of law that has nothing to do with
immigration. In fact, before the creation of the DHS the U.S. Customs Service
operated under the auspices of the Treasury Department while the former INS
(Immigration and Naturalization Service) was an element of the Justice
Department.
As we consider the
extreme politicization of immigration law enforcement, consider these opening
remarks by Chairman Hostettler from that hearing well over a decade ago:
The 9/11 terrorists all
came to the U.S. with-out weapons or contraband—Added customs enforcement would
not have stopped 9/11 from happening. What might have foiled al Qaeda’s plan
was additional immigration focus, vetting, and enforcement. And so what is
needed is recognition that, one, immigration is a very important national
security issue that cannot take a back seat to customs or agriculture. Two,
immigration is a very complex issue, and immigration enforcement agencies need
experts in immigration enforcement. And three, the leadership of our
immigration agencies should be shielded from political pressures to act in a
way which could compromise the Nation’s security.
Since the 9/11 attacks
and the Congressional hearings to address the core issues involved, the U.S.
has been victimized by a multitude of failures of the immigration system. There
is a clear pattern of utter unwillingness by political leaders from both
parties to address those failures with meaningful efforts and/or resources.
So-called “Sanctuary
Cities” and “Sanctuary States” refuse to cooperate with ICE agents to seek the
removal (deportation) of any illegal aliens, including aliens who have been
convicted of violent felonies. Those cities should actually be referred to as “Magnet
Cities” because they attract illegal aliens, among whom are international
terrorists and their supporters, members of extremely vicious transnational
gangs, and international fugitives from justice, as well as aliens who are
likely to displace American and lawful immigrant workers.
However, the most
effective way to block the vital work of ICE is to make certain that there is
an abject lack of personnel to carry out their vital missions. The federal
government has, in point of fact, been guilty of this crime. There are roughly
6,000 ICE agents nationwide, half of whom are not even doing immigration law
enforcement-related work. To provide some comparisons, the Border Patrol has
about 20,000 agents, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has
roughly 45,000 employees, and the New York City Police Department has roughly
37,000 officers, while the U.S. military has more than one million enlisted men
and women serving in all five branches.
The very structure of
DHS and the immigration law enforcement elements of ICE obstruct rather than
facilitate the enforcement of our immigration laws. This has been known to
those in Congress concerned with immigration-related problems for a long time.
For example, at a hearing on “Funding for Immigration in the President’s 2005
Budget” before the House Immigration Subcommittee on March 11, 2004, Rep. Lamar
Smith (R-TX) lamented the lack of ICE agents to combat the hiring of illegal
aliens — the “magnet” responsible for drawing many of them to the U.S.
Rep. Smith’s statement
below at the hearing on immigration enforcement funding illustrates how long
these issues have persisted and how both political parties bear responsibility
for the crisis that continues to this day. Here is Rep. Smith’s statement:
Mr.SMITH OF TEXAS.Thank
you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you once again for holding an interesting and
timely and critical hearing on such an important subject matter. I want to make
some observations and then I have a couple of questions for some of our
witnesses here today.
First of all, I am glad
to see in the Administration’s budget an increase in the money that’s going to
be spent on the worksite inspections. I notice, though, in some figures that we
have been given in a memo to all Members of the Subcommittee that the number of
companies fined for hiring illegal workers has plummeted from over 1,000 in
1992 to 13 in 2002. That means it was almost non-existent.
And while it’s a step
in the right direction that we’re increasing the amount of money—as I recall,
it was something like from $20 million to $40 million, roughly—for worksite
inspections, that’s a little bit like having two candles instead of one candle
in a blackout. It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not doing near what
we should.
The gentleman from Iowa
just made an excellent point a while ago, which is basically if we’re not
willing to enforce employer sanctions, we’re not really willing to reduce the
attraction of the largest magnet that is attracting the individuals to this
country, that is jobs. So I hope that this is the beginning of an
Administration willing to go into the right direction.
But what concerns me, I
think, is the mixed signals that is coming from the Administration. We had this
small increase in a very large budget in one area. Meanwhile, as I understand
it, we are not increasing the number of Border Patrol agents. And meanwhile,
going back to my assertion of mixed signals, we are approving matricular cards
which are only going to be helpful to illegal immigrants and help them stay in
the country longer. We’re not doing anything to discourage States from offering
drivers’ licenses. We continue to give Federal benefits to many people in the
country who are here illegally.
In other words, we make
it very, very easy in many, many ways for individuals to stay here who are here
illegally. That is not the right signal to send if we are, in fact, serious
about reducing illegal immigration in America.
To the question that we
hear asked so frequently, well, we have ten million people in the country
illegally. What are we going to do, deport them all? No. There’s an alternative
to that and there’s an alternative to gradual amnesty or immediate amnesty,
depending on who is proposing it, and that is enforcing immigration laws. And if
we enforced immigration laws alone, that would discourage many people from
coming and would discourage those who are here from staying.
All that would lead to
a reduction in the number of people who are in the country illegally, which, by
the way, is far more than ten million. Ten million refers to the number of
people who are here permanently. If you today took a head count of the number
of people in the country illegally, it would probably be closer to 20 million
because there’s a lot of people who are here only for a month or two or three.
That’s how serious the
problem is, and if the Administration were serious, we wouldn’t be sending
these mixed signals, in my judgment.
Another mixed signal,
by the way, is that I just had a staff counsel return from a trip to the border
where she was informed by various agents that in New Mexico and Arizona, a
person coming across the border illegally had to actually be apprehended
between ten and 15 times before they were actually arrested and officially
deported. When you’re coming into the country or want to come into the country
illegally and you figure your chances, that you have 15 free chances, that’s an
open invitation in bright red lights to come to America, keep trying to come to
America. And, of course, we know once you get across the border and if you
don’t commit a serious crime, you’re basically home free. So we shouldn’t be
surprised that both the illegal immigrant traffic is increasing and we
shouldn’t be surprised that so many people want to stay here. We’re making it
very easy for them to stay here.
By the way, I don’t
know who to ask, Mr. Dougherty or Mr. Stodder. On the Texas border, how many
times do you have to be apprehended before you’re actually a part of the
deportation process, do you know?
Indeed, failures of the
immigration system under-mine national security, public safety, public health,
and the jobs and wages of American workers and create great stresses on the
critical infrastructure of towns and cities across the U.S. Failures of the immigration
system violate the findings and recommendation of the 9/11 Commission that was,
we must remember, convened to make certain that future such attacks would be
prevented.
Early on, as a new INS
employee, I came to the worrying conclusion that the INS was an agency that
refused to take itself seriously when, in point of fact, the mission of the INS
should actually be thought of as an extension of the common mission of all five
branches of the U.S.
military. Simply
stated, that common mission for our armed forces is to keep America’s enemies
as far from its shores as possible. During World War II German saboteurs
attempted to enter the U.S. surreptitiously on U-Boats. Today’s terrorists are
not coming to America on U-Boats but on airliners or by crossing our nation’s
borders and entering without inspection. This puts this deadly threat firmly in
the realm of immigration law enforcement.
Politicians and the
mainstream media frequently claim that the immigration system is broken. To
bolster this claim they point to the millions of illegal aliens who live
throughout the U.S. Estimates as to the true size of the illegal alien
population vary, but commonly the media report that there are about 11 million
illegal aliens present. That number has been constant for the past decade in
spite of the massive flood of illegal aliens flowing across the U.S./Mexican
border, including so-called “Unaccompanied Minors” and the fact that a series
of GAO and other reports state that more than a half-million aliens who were
lawfully admitted each year violate the terms of their admission. In point of
fact, it is likely that the U.S. has more than 30 million illegal aliens.
For millions of aliens
to embark on the dangerous and financially costly journey to the southwest
border of the U.S., covertly without inspection, or enter through ports of
entry with the intention of violating their terms of admission, is a measure of
the abject failure of our government to deter such illegal conduct.
I would argue that this
failure to deter the entry of all of these aliens in violation of our laws is
willful on the part of political leaders from both major political parties and
demonstrates, that for all intents and purposes, the lack of resources and
commitment to effective and meaningful immigration law enforcement has already
turned our entire country into a virtual “sanctuary” for illegal aliens.
The supposed “solution”
proffered by the politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties
has been to provide lawful status to millions of illegal aliens. They repeat,
“We cannot arrest them all.” This actually incentivizes still more aliens from
all over the world to enter America.
There is no other area
of law enforcement where politicians are so eager to readily admit defeat and
offer to provide a massive amnesty. There are certainly more motorists who have
cell phones than there are illegal aliens, and certainly more motorists who
drive drunk than there are illegal aliens. Yet no politician or chief of police
has ever said that because there are so many motorists who text or are under
the influence of alcohol or drugs while driving, that we simply can’t do
anything about it.
Indeed, when there are
massive violations of laws, the traditional response is to increase penalties
for those who violate the laws, and to ramp up resources dedicated to finding
and arresting the law violators. The authorities use every means possible to
alert the public that such violations will not only not be tolerated, but will
result in serious consequences for law violators who are caught. After thirty
years in immigration law enforcement, I have come to the disquieting conclusion
that the failures of the immigration system are actually “failures by design.”
To the globalists, open borders are a beautiful thing. To greedy employers and
a long list of others, the ability to exploit cheap labor is their “meal
ticket” to a lavish dinner with all of the trimmings.
In order to truly
understand what we are witnessing, you need to change your vantage point.
Forget that you are an
American citizen or lawful immigrant who scrupulously abides by our laws.
Consider the massive flood of foreigners pouring into our country from the
perspective of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or executives of the hotel,
hospitality, or travel industries. Consider the situation from the perspective
of manufacturing executives. Consider that human tsunami from the perspective
of immigration lawyers, and suddenly a new and clear image emerges.
Instead of thinking of
the immigration system as a law enforcement system, think of it as a delivery
system, a system that delivers an unlimited supply of cheap, exploitable
labor. Think of it as a delivery system that delivers a huge
number of foreign students who can then qualify to gain practical training in
the U.S. by working for American companies. Think of it as a delivery system
that provides an unlimited stream of foreign tourists, and finally, think of
the immigration system as a delivery system that delivers an unlimited supply of
clients for immigration attorneys.
From these
perspectives, the immigration system is hardly a failure, but is, in
fact, the most effective and efficient delivery system this
side of Fed-Ex and UPS combined. That delivery system is well paid for. It is paid
for by the campaign contributions of every industry and special interest group
that sees profit in undermining the integrity of the immigration system.
To the greedy, the
lives lost to criminal aliens, gangs, and terrorists are, as the father of a young
man who was slaughtered during the terror attacks of 9/11 testified, simply
“the cost of doing business.”
Military leaders go to
great pains to minimize civilian casualties in war zones, euphemistically
referred to as “collateral damage.” Engineers and scientists have devised
“smart weapons” to save non-combatant lives, overseas. Inside the U.S.,
however, the thousands of innocent victims killed or injured by illegal aliens,
including transnational gang members or international terrorists, are nothing more
than collateral damage to the beneficiaries of the immigration system.
To greedy employers,
the destruction of middle class wages, through the importation of cheap and
exploitable workers, is not a problem but a goal.
Furthermore, offering
illegal aliens lawful status accomplishes a number of other goals that are
certainly not in the best interests of the American public. It acts as the
“starter pistol” for aspiring illegal aliens from around the world, convincing
them that our government lacks the resources or the will to search for them
once they get past the U.S. borders. Additionally, it offers the promise that
at some point they will not only not be arrested and deported after making the
dangerous, arduous, and costly journey, but they are likely to be rewarded for
successfully running the U.S. borders by our very own government.
Finally, if another
massive legalization program is created, it will cause a veritable stampede of
illegal aliens, quickly filling the waiting rooms of immigration law offices
from coast to coast.
Immigration lawyers,
particularly immigration lawyers who are members of Congress, from both
parties, certainly want to get those illegal aliens “out of the shadows” and
into the law offices of their colleagues or, perhaps, into their own law
offices when they leave Congress, as some are doing at the end of this year.
Let’s not forget that
the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” legislation first introduced ten years
ago would have paid legal fees for the illegal aliens. This was not out of any
sort of compassion for illegal aliens but was a taxpayer-funded subsidy for
immigration attorneys who hate to work for free (think “billable hours”!).
This outrageous feature
of that stalled legislation the “Bi-Partisan Gang of Eight” nearly foisted on
us was legislation that I came to refer to as the “Terrorist Assistance and
Facilitation Act.” It would have required the beleaguered and overwhelmed
adjudications officers of USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration
Services) to process the applications of unknown millions of illegal aliens
without the capacity to interview them or request outside field investigations.
This would have created an open invitation to massive levels of immigration
fraud — a threat not just to the integrity of the immigration system but to
national security as well.
After the terror
attacks of September 11, 2001, it became abundantly clear that at the root
cause of those deadly and savage attacks, staged by international terrorists,
were multiple failures of the immigration system.
The Homeland Security
Act, which was enacted by the Bush administration in 2002, roughly one year
after the 9/11 terror attacks, was the enabling legislation that created the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to address the myriad vulnerabilities
that the 9/11 terrorists had exploited, which enabled them to carry out their
deadly attacks. As has become clear over the years, in creating the DHS,
immigration law enforcement was not enhanced but hobbled when it was moved from
the Justice Department to the DHS and sliced into multiple agencies and
combined with other law enforcement entities.
On May 5, 2005, I
testified before a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border
Security, chaired by Republican Congressman John Hostettler. The topic of the
hearing was new “Dual Missions” of the Immigration Enforcement Agencies.
Chairman Hostettler’s
opening statement is essential reading. Remember, he was a Republican and
courageously speaking out clearly and unequivocally against the actions of a
Republican president to interfere with immigration law enforcement, even as the
attacks of 9/11 continued to reverberate around the world, around our nation,
and certainly within the hearts and souls of all Americans. Here are Rep.
Hostettler’s heartfelt
remarks:
The first two
Subcommittee hearings of the year examined in detail how the immigration
enforcement agencies have inadequate resources and too few personnel to carry
out their mission. The witnesses mentioned the lack of uniforms, badges,
detention space, and the inevitable low morale of frontline agents who are
overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming illegal aliens. If this were not
enough, these “immigration enforcement” agencies also face internal confusion
resulting from dual or multiple missions in which immigration has all too often
taken a back seat. Sadly, contrary to Congress’ expectations, immigration
enforcement has not been the primary focus of either of these agencies, and
that is the subject of today’s hearing.
The Homeland Security
Act [HSA], enacted in November 2002, split the former Immigration and
Naturalization Service, or INS, into separate immigration service and
enforcement agencies, both within the Department of Homeland Security. This
split had been pursued by Chairman Sensenbrenner based on testimony and
evidence that the dual missions of INS had resulted in poor performance.
There was a constant
tug-of-war between providing good service to law-abiding aliens and enforcing
the law against law-breakers. The plain language of the Homeland Security Act,
Title D, creates a “Bureau of Border Security,” and specifically transfers all
immigration enforcement functions of INS into it. Yet when it came down to
actually creating the two: new agencies, the Administration veered off course.
Although the service functions of INS were transferred to USCIS, the
enforcement side of INS was split in two: what is now Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, or ICE, to handle interior enforcement, and Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) to guard our borders.
ICE was given all
Customs agents, investigators, intelligence and analysis from the Treasury Department,
as well as the Federal Protective Service to guard Federal buildings, and the
Federal Air Marshals to protect our airplanes, and finally the INS
investigators.
CBP was given all
Treasury Customs inspectors at the ports-of-entry, Agriculture Inspector from
the Department Of Agriculture, and INS inspectors.
At no time during the
reorganization planning was it anticipated by the Committee that an immigration
enforcement agency would share its role with other enforcement functions, such
as enforcement of our customs laws. This simply results in the creation of dual
or multiple missions that the act sought to avoid in the first place.
Failure to adhere to
the statutory framework established by HSA has produced immigration enforcement
incoherence that undermines the immigration enforcement mission central to DHS,
and undermines the security of our Nation’s borders and citizens.
It is not certain on
what basis it was determined that customs and agriculture enforcement should
become part of the immigration enforcement agency, except to require Federal
agents at the border to have more expertise and more functions.
It is also unknown on
what basis the Federal Air Marshals should become part of this agency,
especially since it has been revealed that the policy is not to apprehend
out-of-immigration status aliens when discovered on flights. If the mission of
the Department of Homeland Security is to protect the homeland, it cannot
effect its mission by compromising or neglecting immigration enforcement for
customs enforcement....
While I am grateful for
the service and good work of the heads of our immigration agencies — some of
whom are leaving presently for other experiences in Government — I would urge
the Administration in the future to place the leadership of the immigration
agencies in the hands of those experienced in immigration matters.
Because the DHS was not
created capriciously or arbitrarily, it must be concluded that it was done with
considerable forethought. I have come to the conclusion that the Bush
administration’s response to the 9/11 attacks had the actual effect of
undermining the enforcement of our nation’s immigration law enforcement system.
What I had to say at
that hearing back on May 5, 2005, is as relevant today as it was back then. In
my prepared testimony I make it clear that the myriad failures of the
immigration system were not the result of regrettable mistakes, but rather by
intentional design:
Chairman Hostettler,
Ranking Member Jack-son Lee, distinguished Members of Congress, members of the
panel, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome this opportunity to provide testimony
today on the critical issue of the dual missions of the immigration enforcement
agencies.
While my prepared
testimony will focus on ICE, it’s my understanding that the inspections program
of CBP is similarly hobbled in its ability to enforce the immigration laws.
For decades our Nation
has had the reputation of being the can-do Nation; if we could dream it, we
could accomplish it. Our Nation’s entry into both world wars ended with
victory. When President John F. Kennedy challenged our scientists and engineers
to land men on the moon and return them safely to the Earth, in less than a
decade we again rose to the challenge.
Today our Nation is challenged
by many problems, and the one issue that impacts so many of these other issues,
the enforcement and the administration of the immigration laws, eludes our
purported efforts at solving it.
For decades the
immigration crisis—and it is, indeed, a crisis—has grown more significant, and
its repercussions have increased expo-nentially. We are waging a war on terror
and a war on drugs. The immigration component of this battle, of which not only
the lives of our citizens, but the survival of our nation itself is on the
line, appears to be insoluble. I am here today to tell you that we can control
our Nation’s borders, and we can effectively administer and enforce the
immigration laws from within the interior of the U.S.
In order to gain control
of our borders and our immigration programs, we need to see [them as part of a]
system; we also need to understand that the interior enforcement program is
critical to gaining control over our Nation’s borders.
Nearly half of the
illegal aliens do not enter the country by running the border, but rather by
being admitted through a port-of-entry and then subsequently violating their
terms of admission. Special agents are desperately needed to not only seek to
arrest illegal aliens, but to conduct field investigations to uncover
immigration fraud to restore integrity to the benefits program which has been
historically plagued with high fraud rates. This is especially troubling as we
wage a war on terror. The 9/11 staff report on terrorist travel made it clear
that this dysfunction of bureaucracy aided the terrorists who wrought so much
damage upon our Nation.
The fact is that many
of the managers of ICE appear more focused on traditional Customs-oriented
investigations than they are on enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act
to safeguard our Nation from terrorists and criminals who have become adept at
hiding in plain sight by making use of gaping loopholes and deficiencies in the
immigration bureaucracy that go undetected by the law enforcement agency that
is supposed to enforce these laws.
Since the merger of
legacy INS and legacy Customs into ICE, the new ICE special agents are no
longer even being given Spanish language training, even though it’s been
estimated that some 80 percent of the illegal alien population is, in fact,
Spanish-speaking. It is impossible to investigate individuals you are unable to
communicate with, yet this critical language training program has been
eliminated from the curriculum of new ICE agents. I have to believe that this
represents more than a simple oversight on the part of the leaders at the
Academy; it underscores an absolute lack of desire to enforce the critical
immigration laws.
If anything, our agents
should be getting additional language training as we seek to uncover aliens
operating within our Nation’s borders who are a threat to our well-being.
Strategic languages such as Arabic, Farsi and Urdu should be added to the
curriculum, along with Chinese, Korean and other such languages; yet at present
the curriculum not only fails to mandate any foreign language training, it
doesn’t even offer any foreign language training.
Identity documents are
the lynchpins that hold the immigration program together, yet incredibly, while
other law enforcement agencies provide in-service document training to their
personnel to help them recognize altered or counterfeited identity documents,
ICE does not. Immigration law training is not as effective as it needs to be.
Besides the extreme
lack of resources that have been the focus at previous hearings, we need to
make certain that the people in charge of enforcing the immigration laws have a
true understanding of the laws and have a clear sense of mission that many key
managers appear to lack. At present, nearly every field office of ICE is headed
by a Special Agent-in-Charge who came from the U.S. Customs Service and not
from the former INS. The immigration laws are highly complex and require that
the executives who are charged with leading the enforcement effort have a
thorough understanding of the laws that they are responsible for enforcing.
They should have real-world experience at investigating and aiding in the
prosecution of criminal organizations that produce fraudulent documents,
promote fraud schemes to circumvent the immigration laws, and engage in
large-scale human trafficking or the smuggling of criminal or terrorist aliens
into the U.S. They should also have real-world experience and understanding of
the ways in which proper enforcement of the immigration laws can synergistically
act as a force multiplier when ICE agents team up with law enforcement officers
from other law enforcement agencies.
The effective
enforcement of immigration laws can also help to cultivate informants to
facilitate not only investigations into immigration law violations, but into
other areas of concern, including narcotics investigations, gang
investigations, and terrorism investigations.
The current lack of
leadership that is experienced in immigration law enforcement, the lack of
effective training and the previously examined lack of resources have been
disastrous for the enforcement of the immigration laws, thereby imperiling our
Nation and our people.
It is vital that there
be real accountability and real leadership where immigration is concerned.
While Customs and Immigration were both border enforcement agencies, the border
is where their similarities begin and end. I would, therefore, strongly
recommend that the law enforcement officers charged with enforcing the
immigration laws have a dedicated chain of command with a budget and training
program that focuses on immigration. Certainly they can and should work
cooperatively with the former Customs enforcement agents, but they need a
separate identity in order to make certain that the current “Customization” of
immigration law enforcement stops immediately for the security of our Nation.
The enforcement of our immigration statutes needs to be the priority, and not
an afterthought.
Back then some members
of the Republican Party had the courage and integrity to confront the President
about failures of the immigration system, even though that President was
himself a Republican. Today President Trump faces fierce, bi-partisan attacks
for trying to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws.
I made mention of Rep.
Lamar Smith and his
remarks about the lack of resources to enforce our immigration laws. He made
crystal clear his disappointment with the administration of George W. Bush, a
fellow Texas Republican, in its failing to provide funding and leadership where
immigration law enforcement was concerned.
I hasten to add that I
am not being a partisan in stating my opinion. For the record, I have been a
registered Democrat ever since I voted in my first election more decades ago
than I care to remember. First and foremost I have always thought of myself as
an American. How the times and our political “leaders” have changed! The issues
that we are considering have nothing to do with “Left” or “Right.” They are all
about right or wrong!
Globalists come in all
shapes and sizes. They hate the concept of sovereign nations. They have flooded
the campaign contribution war chests of politicians from both parties. George
Soros and the Koch brothers are on the identical page where immigration-related
issues are concerned.
Many decent Americans
have been snookered by the promoters of mass immigration to believe that our
immigration laws, and those who seek to have them fairly but effectively
enforced, are xenophobic racists. In point of fact, our immigration laws are
utterly and totally blind as to race, religion, or ethnicity.
CBP (Customs and Border
Protection) inspectors who stand guard over America’s ports of entry applying
and enforcing our immigration laws in determining whether or not to admit
aliens are guided by one of the sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act
(INA) — Title 8, U.S. Code, Section 1182, which enumerates the categories of
aliens who are to be excluded. Among these classes of aliens are aliens who
suffer from dangerous communicable, diseases or extreme mental illness, are
criminals, human rights violators, human traffickers, drug smugglers, war
criminals, terrorists, spies, or aliens who had been previously deported from
the U.S. and did not have authorization to return, or had committed visa fraud.
Additionally, aliens
are to be excluded if they are likely to become public charges because they did
not have the financial resources to care for themselves, or in the case of
nonimmigrant (temporary visitors), were likely to seek illegal employment, thus
displacing American workers and/or driving down the wages of American workers
who are similarly employed.
Aliens who evade the
inspections process do so because they know that they are within one or more
categories of aliens who are statutorily ineligible to enter the U.S. for
reasons I enumerated above.
As Americans we share
common goals and concerns. As an INS agent I arrested aliens from around the
world of every race, every religion, and every ethnicity.
The complaint about
families being separated at the U.S./Mexican border is cynicism at its worst.
Those children would never have been separated from their parents (if indeed
they were smuggled across the southwest border by their actual family members)
if crimes had not been committed by the adults who brought them here.
No one complains when
children are taken from their parents who mistreat them or leave them in deadly
hot cars to suffocate in the summer time. It is expected that unfit parents
will lose custody of their children to protect them from further harm.
It is estimated that
about 3,000 children have been separated from their families by the Border
Patrol, yet the activists want ICE to be disbanded. Religious groups rushed
psychologists to care for the “traumatized children” who had been smuggled into
the U.S. In my article for FrontPageMagazine.com, July 19, 2018, I revealed
uncomfortable facts about the “family separation” issue, “The Left’s
Embarrassing Plea For Open Borders,” which included the following:
The website Children’s
Rights posted a section on Foster Care that included the following statistics:
On any given day, there
are nearly 438,000 children in foster care in the U.S.
In 2016, over 687,000
children spent time in U.S. foster care.
On average,children
remain in state care for nearly two years,and six percent of children in foster
care have languished there for five or more years.
Despite the common
perception that the majority of children in foster care are very young,the
average age of kids entering care is 7.
In 2016,more than half
of children entering U.S. foster care were young people of color.
While most children in
foster care live in family settings, a substantial minority — 12 percent — live
in institutions or group homes.
How many psychologists
carrying Teddy bears were dispatched, with lights flashing and sirens blaring,
to care for those traumatized children?
By words and deeds, our
political leaders, journalists, and judges solemnly invoke objections to the
alleged “unconstitutionality” of President Trump’s efforts to finally secure
the borders and enforce our nation’s immigration laws while ignoring Article
IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution: “The United States shall guarantee to
every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect
each of them against invasion; and on Application of the
Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened)
against domestic Violence.”
Invasion has been
defined in part, in Dictionary.com, as:
• an incursion by a
large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity: stadium
guards are preparing for another invasion of fans.
• an unwelcome
intrusion into another’s domain: random drug testing of employees is an
unwarranted invasion of privacy.
The popular
misconception about immigration law enforcement focuses attention on the U.S.
Border Patrol. Indeed, the Border Patrol mission is extremely important and
dangerous, securing our nation’s borders against the unlawful entry of individuals
and materials by circumventing the inspections process at ports of entry.
Obviously our borders
must be secured. However, nearly half of all illegal aliens did not run our
nation’s borders but entered through ports of entry and then, in one way or another,
violated the terms of their admission.
The Border Patrol has
no role to play in locating and arresting aliens who violate their terms of
admission into the U.S. by violating their visas. This is a responsibility of
ICE. ICE searches for aliens who fail to show up for immigration hearings and
also conducts investigations into crooked employers who intentionally hire
illegal aliens. ICE agents participate in various other task forces such as the
Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force
where I spent the final ten years of my career.
The 9/11 Commission
identified immigration and visa fraud as the key method of entry and embedding
for terrorists, and not just the 19 terrorist hijackers who so savagely
attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, but a list of other
terrorists the Commission investigated.
Immigration fraud
undermines the integrity of the immigration system and national security. Such
investigations are not conducted by the Border Patrol but by ICE.
America should indeed
be a true sanctuary where Americans and law-abiding immigrants are safe. That
would certainly fulfill President Lincoln’t dream of a government: “of the
people, by the people, for the people.”
About the author
Michael
W. Cutler is a retired Senior Special Agent with the INS (Immigration and
Naturalization Service). He appears regularly on numerous radio and
television programs, including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. He hosts his own
Internet radio program, “The Michael Cutler Hour.” Mr. Cutler has testified as
an expert witness at more than a dozen Congressional hearings, provided
testimony to the 9/11 Commission, and provides expert witness testimony at
trials where immigration is at issue: www.michaelcutler.net.
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