"Immigration and Broken Windows"

Hi Gang:

As usual, my most recent commentary for the CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) website, a copy of which is attached below, is the predication for my comments today.  Today the focus will be on a concept known as the “Broken Windows” approach to law enforcement.  

The idea is that crime breeds crime.  When people enter an area where laws are largely ignored, they tend to assume the attitude that “anything goes!”  This is the reason that first impressions are so important.  If you are walking along in a neighborhood where graffiti can be found on buildings and the streets are strewn with trash you would likely not look for a trash receptacle to deposit a wrapper from a stick of chewing gum but might well feel that it would not matter if you simply tossed that wrapper onto the street- what difference could it matter?  

Our nation’s lack of secure borders and reluctance or downright unwillingness to enforce our immigration laws provide millions of foreign nationals with an extremely dangerous first impression of our nation and how seriously we take our own laws.  Currently, the President of the United States, the ultimate leader of our nation, has also become the leader of the political choir that routinely sings the praises of providing aliens who evade the inspections process with the highest honor and privilege a nation can bestow upon foreigners- citizenship!  When the governors of Arizona and Alabama signed bills into law that essentially parallel the federal immigration laws, their actions were met with lawsuits filed by the United States Department of Justice, yet when other political leaders openly declared that they would not even ask suspects who were arrested for committing serious crimes about their immigration status and the federal government took no action- the message is clear and unmistakeable- our immigration laws are unimportant and anyone who wants to come to the United States need not bother with the “formality” of seeking to enter the United States via a long established lawful process!

Meanwhile, the 9/11 Commission Report makes it abundantly clear that if our immigration system had real integrity, most of the terrorists would likely not have been able to enter the United States and/or embed themselves in our country as they went about their deadly preparations.

Most countries on the face of this planet take their borders seriously.  Throughout history wars have been fought over where borders were drawn.  To this very day many countries enforce their borders with their military rather than their law enforcement officers because they see those borders as directly relating 
to national security.  Furthermore, borders do not only exist along land borders but also exist wherever their is a seaport or international airport.  This is why immigration laws must be enforced from within the interior of a nation.  Simply stated, the immigration laws of the United States are designed to save American lives and American jobs and thereby preserve the Middle Class.  The Middle Class, it should be noted, is the heart and soul of the United States and the fact that anyone could aspire to move from poverty into the Middle Class and beyond by acquiring a higher education or a needed skill or trade and working diligently was what created the “American Dream.”

The American Dream has been all but extinguished as more and more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure and Americans who possess the skills and/or education in high tech fields are finding that they have been cast aside by foreign workers who will work for substandard wages and under substandard working conditions.  The cost of a college education continues to rise about as quickly as job opportunities for the highly educated are diminished or eliminated altogether by outsourcing of jobs of the importation of cheap labor.  Meanwhile many journalists and political leaders insist that the “moderate” position on immigration includes a “pathway to United States citizenship for unknown millions of illegal aliens and a “DREAM Act” that would provide in-state tuition for illegal aliens and a pathway to  lawful status for illegal aliens who were under 35 years of age but who could claim to have entered the United States prior to their 15th birthday!  It is a well established fact that immigration fraud permeates the immigration benefits program and in fact, just about 5 years ago, USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) claimed to have “lost” some 111,000 immigration files relating to applications for various immigration benefits, including the files of some 30,000 aliens who had applied for United States citizenship!

On Novermber 29, 2006 the Washington Post ran an article about that fiasco entitled:

“Citizenship Agency Lost 111,000 Files”

You can read the article at: 


This made a complete and utter mocker of the entire immigration benefits program yet no one was fired or, to my knowledge, even disciplined!  This was just seen as another one of those screw-ups that are all but inevitable!

USCIS processes between six million and seven million applications each and every year and there are fewer than 700 investigators assigned to USCIS to attempt to maintain integrity to the agency that is, for all intents and purposes, the locksmith of the United States.  (Lawful immigrant status and especially United States citizenship are often referred to as the “Keys to the kingdom.”)

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has about 7,000 Special Agents and at least half of them are assigned to working cases that deal with customs laws and not immigration laws.  Meanwhile the TSA that searches prospective airline passengers at airline terminals across our nation has more than 60,000 employees who search those passengers!

Wow!  Need I say more?

The late radio talk show host, Terry Anderson- a man I was proud to consider a friend, often said, “If you ain’t mad, you ain’t paying attention!”

Show me a politician who refuses to enforce the immigration laws or attempts to trivialize these laws, and I will show you a politician who needs to find out what it is like to stand on the unemployment line!

Benjamin Franklin, in discussing our then fledgeling nation, said that they had given us a republic if we could keep it!

What he was making clear was that this democratic republic required that its citizens take their citizenship seriously and keep the political leaders accountable.

It is time for the citizens of our nation to make certain that our nation’s leaders, on all levels, to come to terms with the fundamental fact that the purpose of our immigration laws is to protect our nation and our citizens from aliens whose presence has the potential to have a serious adverse impact.  Ignoring those laws exposes our nation and our citizens to a variety of serious threats and challenges ranging from national security and criminal justice and public safety to the economy, the environment, healthcare and education!

A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

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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.

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!”

The practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.

For far too long our citizens demonstrated apathy which 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. 

It is therefore understandable that the politicians of both parties, are greatly concerned about the demonstrations currently sweeping our nation just as did the creation of the Tea Party.  Clearly  more and more of our fellow Americans are demonstrating that they are not as dumb as the politicians from both parties had expected us to be!

I am encouraged that more and more of us, We the People, are not willing to simply sit on the sidelines anymore!


I believe our nation’s is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world.  However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda!

I also believe that the original purpose of our nation’s immigration laws need to be be brought “front and center” to make certain that our nation does not permit the entry of aliens into our country whose presence in our country is problematic for the citizens of our nation and that if such aliens do succeed in entering our country that our nation have the resources, integrity and dedication to do everything possible to make it impossible for such aliens to function within our country so that even if they are not apprehended, they will find it pointless to remain in the United States.
As I have noted on a number of occasions, “No one would break into the amusement park if they could not get to go on the rides and no one remains in the amusement park at the end of the day when they turn shut down the rides and turn off the lights!” 

If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws 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!


-michael cutler- 

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By Michael Cutler, Senior Special Agent, INS (Ret.), CAPS Senior Fellow, February 24, 2012 (6 hours ago)

The concept of the “Broken Windows” approach to law enforcement was first postulated in an Atlantic magazine article entitled, “Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety” written by two renowned academics, George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson.

This approach called for aggressively going after the “small crimes” to discourage more significant crimes.  When Rudy Giuliani took office as Mayor of the City of New York he brought in Bill Bratton to head up the NYPD. Bratton subscribed to the broken windows concept as did Mayor Giuliani.  As a result, the members of the NYPD were ordered to go after the graffiti “artists,” the “squeegee men” who would approach cars stuck in traffic and aggressively solicit money from the hapless motorists who were intimidated by these panhandlers and also seek to arrest subway turnstile jumpers.

In 2008 an article was published that reported on the findings of a Dutch experiment that appear to have substantiated the validity of the broken windows concept where law enforcement is concerned.

Under Giuliani’s administration, the New York City crime rate plummeted as did the murder rate.  Many factors undoubtedly came into play but there are those who attribute a substantial drop in the crime rate on the broken-windows approach aggressively pursued by the NYPD.  The point is that Giuliani came to regard this approach to law enforcement to make perfect sense.  However, where immigration is concerned, Giuliani refused to accept the fact that by not enforcing immigration laws and, in fact, advocating for providing illegal aliens with “lawful status” that a dangerous message was being sent to millions of illegal aliens and aspiring illegal aliens all over the  world; that in the United States you cannot only break our laws and expect to get away with violating our borders and our laws, but that you will also be richly rewarded.  Giuliani was apparently more concerned with those who would jump the NYC Transit Authority turnstiles, to save a $1.25 fare, than he was with illegal aliens who jumped our borders!

When the President of the United States and high ranking members of his administration as well as leaders in Congress, on both sides of the political aisle, advocate for providing illegal aliens with pathways to United States citizenship, people around the world understandably take encouragement that our nation’s borders are the “finish line” and all that they need to do is cross that line, no matter how they do so, and they will be entitled to the “Keys to the Kingdom!”

This perception is reinforced and further amplified by the fact that a number of state governors and city mayors have turned their jurisdictions into “sanctuaries” for unknown millions of illegal aliens whose true identities, countries of citizenship, backgrounds, potential affiliation with criminal or terrorist organizations is unknown and unknowable.  This “invitation” encourages still more illegal aliens to violate our nation’s borders and immigration laws and impacts virtually every challenge and threat our nation and our citizens face ranging from national security and criminal justice and community safety to the economy, unemployment rates, the environment, healthcare, community safety and education.

The 9/11 Commission Report and the 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel did an in-depth analysis of how the terrorists who attacked our nation on September 11, 2001 were able to enter the United States and embed themselves in our country as they prepared to launch the worst terrorist attack ever carried out on our soil.

The first paragraph from the preface of that report states that:

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.

And a paragraph under the title “Immigration Benefits” found on page 98 says that:

Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding,  go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.

It is absolutely impossible to comprehend how, given all of these facts, there is even a debate about whether or not our borders should be secured and our immigration laws be enforced in such a way as to deprive terrorists the opportunity to enter our country and embed themselves in our country.

It is similarly impossible to comprehend why there is any controversy to be found in enforcing immigration laws to make certain that Americans are provided with jobs at a time of record levels of unemployment.

When will our government fix our nation’s windows?

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