“We’re not holding anything, we’ll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy.”
Pushing back against Comprehensive Immigration Reform is the same as holding position. The time has come for us to advance by demanding that our borders be made truly secure and our immigration laws be effectively administered and enforced.
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-
Please check out my website:
https://www.michaelcutler.net/
On Friday evenings from 7:00 PM until 8:00 PM Eastern Time, I host my show, “The Michael Cutler Hour” on the USA Talk Radio Network on Blog Talk Radio.
Here is a link to the program:
http://www.usaradionetwork.com/cutler.htm
“Immigration and National Security:
Administration Denies Visa to Iranian Ambassador,
But Continues to Ignore the Obvious”
Michael W. Cutler, Senior Special Agent, INS (Ret.)
On April 18, 2014 the Washington Times published a news report about the President signing a new law to block Hamid Aboutalebi, the newly appointed Iranian ambassador to the United Nations from being issued a visa to enter the United States.
The title of the report:
Obama signs law denying Iran ambassador’s visa, but says law is ‘advisory’
The reason for this extraordinary action is based on the fact that Aboutalebi played a role in the seizure of the U.S. Embassy at Tehran in 1979.
I recall that incident with crystal clarity. One of the State Department officials who was taken hostage was the RSO, the Resident Security Officer, a Special Agent of the State Department with whom I had worked a year earlier on an investigation into visa fraud that was of mutual concern to both the State Department and the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service).
I also recall that as the hostage crisis played out, my colleagues and I at the INS were tasked with seeking to identify and locate Iranian citizens and particularly Iranian college students in the United States out of a concern that some of them might be subversives or otherwise pose a threat to the United States.
We found it was nearly impossible to find out where these students and other Iranians were- many of the nonimmigrant Iranians had failed to supply meaningful addresses when they were admitted into the United States. Matters only got worse when a massive demonstration was held by Iranians in Washington and we found it nearly impossible to properly identify these individuals who had mostly lied about their true names when they were arrested by the Washington, DC and Capitol Hill Police officers.
Our failures back then should have served as a lesson to be learned- but it did not.
On July 30, 2013 the Washington Times published a truly disturbing report:
Homeland Security loses track of 1 million foreigners; report could hurt immigration deal
Here is how this important report begins:
The Homeland Security Department has lost track of more than 1 million people who it knows arrived in the U.S. but who it cannot prove left the country, according to an audit Tuesday that also found the department probably won’t meet its own goals for deploying an entry-exit system. The findings were revealed as Congress debates an immigration bill, and the Government Accountability Office’s report could throw up another hurdle because lawmakers in the House and Senate have said that any final deal must include a workable system to track entries and exits and cut down on so-called visa overstays.
The government does track arrivals, but is years overdue in setting up a system to track departures — a goal set in a 1996 immigration law and reaffirmed in 2004, but which has eluded Republican and Democratic administrations.
It is interesting to note that the focus of the report was how this failure to track the departure of one million foreign visitors might adversely impact Comprehensive Immigration Reform yet it blithely failed to note that what is of greater importance is that the failure to track the departure of one million nonimmigrant visitors poses a threat to national security! Remember, the implementation of an effective tracking system, known as US-VISIT, was a key mandate of the 9/11 Commission!
To go back to an excerpt from the Washington Times report about the current situation involving the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations:
President Obama on Friday signed a law allowing him to deny entry to the U.S. for Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations — but even as he did so, Mr. Obama said he considers it “advisory” and not binding.
The president, who took office saying he would curtail use of signing statements to reinterpret laws, issued just such a statement on this latest law, which Congress hastily passed to target Hamid Aboutalebi, who the U.S. says was involved in the 1979 hostage crisis.
“Acts of espionage and terrorism against the United States and our allies are unquestionably problems of the utmost gravity, and I share the Congress’s concern that individuals who have engaged in such activity may use the cover of diplomacy to gain access to our nation,” Mr. Obama said.
Here are the issues important to understand. First of all the president has, once again, reneged on a campaign promise- that of not using signing statements to circumvent Congress and the legislative process that is intrinsic to the concept of checks and balances established by our Constitution.
The other issue and one never discussed by the journalists goes to the statement made by Obama about the threats posed by spies and terrorists. Here, once again is that statement:
“Acts of espionage and terrorism against the United States and our allies are unquestionably problems of the utmost gravity, and I share the Congress’s concern that individuals who have engaged in such activity may use the cover of diplomacy to gain access to our nation,” Mr. Obama said.
President Obama claims to be concerned about individuals engaged in terrorism and espionage and terrorism against the United States and our allies by using the cover of diplomacy. The obvious question is whether he is concerned about aliens who are engaged in terrorism and espionage who have other ways of gaining entry into the United States besides utilizing he cover of “diplomacy.”
This goes back to the issue of the way that our borders remain porous and that there are unknown millions of illegal aliens who are present in the United States.
It has been said, “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” There is more than one way for terrorists and criminals to enter the United States.
The Iranian ambassador is attempting to enter the United States by metaphorically knocking on our front door by applying for entry into the United States through a port of entry- most likely, John F. Kennedy International Airport. On a personal note, I began my career with the INS as an Immigration Inspector assigned to John F. Kennedy International Airport. When I provided my deposition to the law firm that was retained by Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer to help defend her and her state from the outrageous lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice over the Arizona immigration law, SB 1070, I stated that during my tenure as an Immigration Inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport, I had my eye to the peephole on America’s front door.
It is through the lawful immigration process that the administration is attempting to block the entry of the Iranian ambassador by not opening our front door to him.
However, if the president is truly concerned about those who commit acts of espionage and terrorism and, in Obama’s words, “…may use the cover of diplomacy to gain access to our nation” why is he and members of the administration and Congress not concerned about those who commit acts of espionage and terrorism who may use the cover of surreptitiously entering the United States by evading the inspections process altogether in order to enter the United States?
A number of questions come to mind. One of the questions that cannot be ignored is that it must be remembered that it was not until President Reagan was inaugurated that the American hostages were released. Indeed, the attack on the U.S. Embassy at Tehran became a major issue for the 1980 Presidential campaign and it is believed had a significant impact in the outcome of the election enabling Reagan to trounce Jimmy Carter.
Could this be a significant reason why suddenly the issue of Iranians engaged in anti-American activities has taken on importance with the White House?
Obama and other advocates for passage of Comprehensive Immigration Reform have engage in an effort that, in fact, began with the administration of President Carter, to attempt to minimize the true threats posed to national security and public safety by referring to aliens who evade the inspections process as having entered “undocumented.” I can tell you from personal knowledge and experience that INS agents used the term EWI (Entry Without Inspection) to describe aliens who evaded the inspections process.
The disconnect between reality and fantasy where, immigration is concerned, could not be greater.
Consider what is contained in the preface of the document that was prepared by the 9/11 Commission Staff. The staff members were the attorneys and federal agents who were assigned to work with the 9/11 Commission and played an integral role in the 9/11 Commission investigation into the way that the 19 terrorists and other terrorists who preceded them were able to enter the United States and embed themselves (hide in plain sight) as they went about their deadly preparations.
The 9/11 Commission Report payed significant attention to issues involving immigration but the staff came to the conclusion that even more information needed to be compiled and memorialized about the various components of the immigration system that failed that they wrote their own report about these failures.
The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel:
“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.”
The lack of integrity in the adjudications process was the focus of clear concerns of the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission staff noted it in their report.
This paragraph is found on page 98 under the title “Immigration Benefits:”
“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.”
Page 47 of the above-noted report contained the following paragraph:
“Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida. Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.”
I bolded the key sentence in the previous paragraph, “Their primary method was immigration fraud.”
There is absolutely nothing in Comprehensive Immigration Reform that addresses immigration fraud, the primary tool for terrorists to embed themselves in the United States. In fact, at present, the adjudications officers at USCIS are processing hundreds of thousands of “undocumented” aliens who may be as old as 31 years of age, for participation in the DACA (Deferred Action- Childhood Arrivals) also known as the DREAMERS without even doing face to face interviews or having the resources to do actual field investigations.
On October 28, 2013 CAPS posted my commentary about the dangers posed by current failures of the immigration system and the ability Terrorists and others who pose a threat to national security and public safety to game the system. Dumping millions of files onto the desks of adjudications officers who cannot deal with their workload now would only serve to exacerbate this serious threat to America and Americans- indeed all who are present in the United States including members of the various immigrant communities. My article was titled:
“Criminals Terrorists War Criminals Hide Plain Sight Through Immigration Fraud“
Comprehensive Immigration Reform would have to operate in much the same way- no face-to-face interviews and no meaningful resources to conduct field investigations to make certain that fraud is deterred. There is no way to proporly scrutinize millions of applications even while dealing with the onslaught of applications that USCIS already deals with each year- more than 6 million applications are generally received by the agency annually.
On November 1, 2013 CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization posted my commentary:
USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) is the woebegone division of the DHS that would be tasked with administering this program. As it is, this beleaguered and inept agency cannot keep up with its workload without “rubber-stamping” approvals on many applications where this slipshod approach enables fraud to often go undetected.
What most people do not realize is that it only takes minutes to approve an application for an immigration benefit such as granting an alien political asylum, lawful immigrant status or United States citizenship but can take days or longer to deny an application Denials require a formal report be prepared after sufficient articulable evidence has been compiled by agents. Legal sufficiency standards must be met in anticipation of an appeal that would likely be filed by the attorneys retained by the alien who is denied an application. Therefore the pressure is on to approve the great majority of applications to keep the bureaucratic conveyor belt running at a speed that would keep up with the onslaught of millions of applications.
Today, even without a massive program under the aegis of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, USCIS adjudicates well over 6 million applications for various benefits each and every year.
On March 21, 2012, the Huffington Post published an extremely disturbing article that was entitled:
“Peter King: Iran May Have ‘Hundreds’ Of Hezbollah Agents In U.S.”
The basis for the Huffington Post article was a hearing that was conducted that day in 2012 by the House Committee on Homeland Security that was then chaired by Congressman Peter King of New York. The topic of the hearing was:
“Iran, Hezbollah, and the Threat to the Homeland”
Here is how the Huffington Post article began:
WASHINGTON — Iranian-backed Hezbollah agents, not al Qaeda operatives, may pose the greatest threat on U.S. soil as tensions over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program ratchet up, according to the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
“As Iran moves closer to nuclear weapons and there is increasing concern over war between Iran and Israel, we must also focus on Iran’s secret operatives and their number one terrorist proxy force, Hezbollah, which we know is in America,” said New York Rep. Peter King at a Wednesday hearing of his committee.
The hearing, which featured former government officials and the director of intelligence analysis for the New York Police Department, follows a foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., and testimony by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in late January that Iran’s leaders are “more willing to conduct an attack inside the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”
Opening the hearing, King said, “We have a duty to prepare for the worst,” warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States, including 84 Iranian diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington who, “it must be presumed, are intelligence officers.”
In case you missed what Congressman King said in the quote from the news article, here it is again:
Opening the hearing, King said, “We have a duty to prepare for the worst,” warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States, including 84 Iranian diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington who, “it must be presumed, are intelligence officers.”
I have testified before well over a dozen Congressional hearings. Perhaps the highest profile hearing I for which I have been called to testify was on March 19, 2002 when I joined three other witnesses at a Congressional hearing that was convened by the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, on the topic:
The hearing was called when it was discovered that two of the 9/11 terrorists had been granted authorization by the INS, to attend flight school six months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001!
C-SSPAN has posted a video of this hearing.
You would likely expect that after the incredible ineptitude demonstrated by this that DHS would make certain that this sort of outrage would never be permitted to happen again.
Wrong!
On August 2, 2012, CAPS posted my commentary. It focused on a troubling GAO report that and a CNS News report about the ensuing Congressional hearing that disclosed among other facts, that the TSA had permitted 25 illegal aliens to attend a flight school that was owned by an illegal alien!
On September 10, 2012 CAPS posted my commentary:
Problems still abound in student visa program
The focus of this commentary was the utter lack of integrity to the process by which foreign students are admitted into the United States. According to the GAO there are currently some 850,000 foreign students present in the United States and some 10,000 schools are authorized to provide training to foreign students. Most of those schools have never even been visited by ICE personnel!
Let us also consider the arrest of a former translator who had worked for a subcontractor that provides translators for the United States Army:
On Friday, May 24, 2013, “The Blaze” and “My San Antonio,” reported on the arrest of an individual by the name of Wissam Allouche by the FBI and members of the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) in San Antonio, Texas, for lying on his application for naturalization to acquire United States citizenship.
While his application for naturalization was approved and he was arrested and indicted for committing fraud in filing that application years ealier- what no one has pointed out is that in addition to successfully gaming the naturalization process, he had been a lawful immigrant for years. He had a Green Card for at least three years before he applied for United States citizenship He did, in fact successfully beat the immigration system at least a couple of times! It is vital to understand that the lack of integrity to the process by which aliens are granted lawful status in the United States- including resident alien status and United States citizenship poses an immediate and direct threat to national security.
The title for the Blaze headline was a true attention grabber:
“Infiltration? The Alarming Details Surrounding Alleged Hezbollah Member’s Arrest in Texas”
Here is an important excerpt from the article:
The federal indictment revealed Allouche had married a U.S. citizen and was going through the naturalization process when he was arrested. When asked by officials if he had ever been associated with a terrorist organization, he replied no. That apparently turned out to be a lie.
According to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, he was a militant with the Amal militia in Lebanon in the early to mid-1980s. He was reportedly captured as a Israeli prisoner of war, but was later released to become a commander of the Amal militia.
“News reports at the time said Hezbollah was formed by religious members of the Amal movement,”the Express-News notes.
In addition to lying about his terror ties, Allouche is also accused of lying about his relationship with his ex-wife. He falsely claimed on his application forms in 2009 that he and his wife were married and living together for the past three years. In reality, they had no lived together since May 2007 and they filed for divorce in December of 2007.
Allouche’s indictment succinctly lays out the charges he faces. It was unsealed on May 24, 2013.
On Wednesday, May 29, 2013 both of those newspapers published follow-up reports in conjunction with disclosures made by prosecutors during the bail hearing:
The Blaze: “God of Death Bombshell Revelations About Alleged Hezbollah Commander Arrested In Texas”
My San Antonio: “Accused Ex-Hezbollah Member Referred to as God”
Here is a quote from the latest “My San Antonio” news report about Allouche:
Allouche was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force here last week after being indicted on charges of not disclosing, during his quest to obtain his U.S. citizenship, his membership in the Amal militia and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s.
He’s also charged with not disclosing his prior membership in those groups when he applied for a security clearance with the Defense Department as he sought a contracting job.
Before 2009, Allouche worked for L-3 Communications, which provides linguistic services for the U.S. military, and he was deployed for several months to Iraq. He has lived in the U.S. since about 2002, and once owned Windcrest Mobil, a gas station at Walzem Road and Interstate 35, his lawyer said.
In view of the charges lodged against Allouche, it would be important to know what the vetting process was that enabled him to be put in a position of trust.
I would be greatly concerned about what documents or people he may have had access to. Did he come to meet with covert officers whose identities must be preserved? Did he meet with suspected terrorists and, perhaps, have the capability to alter what the record reflects that they did or did not say? Might he have learned the identities of foreign nationals who for whatever reason decided to become cooperators? Has this endangered their lives and the operations that they were providing information for?
Let us now consider yet another example of ineptitude that is beyond description or comprehension.
The Inspector General that has responsibility for the Witness Protection Program, conducted an audit of that program and found gaping holes in the system. While it is important for the government to protect witnesses whose testimony and information is vital to conducting successful investigations and prosecutions of criminals and terrorists, it must also be remembered that witnesses can themselves, pose a threat to public safety. The Witness Protection Program is commonly known by an acronym, WITSEC that stands for “Witness Security.”
Perhaps the important WITSEC program should henceforth be referred to “WITLESS Security!”
Here is the headline from the most recent example of galactic incompetence by our government, this time where WITSEC is concerned, as it appeared in the Atlantic Wire article:
How Did U.S. Marshalls Lose Suspected Terrorists in Witness Protection?
The Atlantic Wire article provided a link to the CNN report which contained even more details. Here is the link to the CNN article:
First on CNN: Witness Protection Program lost two ‘known or suspected terrorists’
Here is how the CNN report filed by Jake Tapper begins:
The U.S. Marshals Service lost two former participants in the federal Witness Security Program (WITSEC) “identified as known or suspected terrorists,” according to the public summary of an interim Justice Department Inspector General’s report obtained by CNN.
The Marshals Service has concluded that “one individual was and the other individual was believed to be residing outside of the United States,” according to the summary.
A Justice Department official said in response to follow up questions about the matter by reporters that the pair had left the program years ago and had been accounted for.
Let’s stop and give the claims by the Marshal Service a bit of thought. They said that the two terrorists had been accounted for but yet they only believe that one of the terrorists is now residing outside the United States while they apparently know the other one is also residing outside the United States. What exactly does this mean? Do our officials have any idea as to where they truly are?
If this is disturbing to you- and it certainly should be consider this quote from the article:
As of March 2013, the Justice Department was reviewing more than 18,000 Witness Protection Program case files to determine whether more known or suspected terrorists have been admitted to the program, the summary notes. As such, the number of terrorists lost or unaccounted for “may not be complete and may continue to evolve.”
The IG summary said that although the Marshals Service was giving known or suspected terrorists who participated in the WITSEC program and their dependents new names and identity documentation, the Justice Department “was not authorizing the disclosure to the Terrorist Screening Center,” which operates the terrorist watch list that helps provide information to the Transportation Security Administration’s No-Fly and Selectee lists. “Therefore it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,” the summary said.
This is something that should stop everyone in their tracks! The Witness Security Program (WITSEC) is an important program that is used by the United States government to protect the lives of criminals and terrorists and others who come forward to provide vital information about criminals or terrorists to protect them from reprisals. In some instances these witnesses were co-conspirators who committed crimes alongside those that they ultimately came to provide evidence against. Their lives and the lives of their families are endangered when the former cohorts find out that those providing the evidence against them had previously worked with them.
WITSEC is an important program and one that I am familiar with, having spent 30 years with the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service.) Without WITSEC it is unlikely that people would come forward to provide evidence against their former “colleagues.”
One of the tactics commonly employed by WITSEC is to move cooperating witnesses far from the cities where they had previously lived and worked and provide them with brand new identities. This is done to help make it far more unlikely that those who would kill these witnesses would be able to find them.
However, some of these witnesses may well still pose a threat to public safety. While some witnesses are not criminals or prone to violence, there are those who do pose such a threat. Some witnesses had been members of organized crime groups and participated in murders and other crimes of violence.
Some of these witnesses, as it turns out were known terrorists.
The next time you are standing online to be searched before boarding and airliner, give some thought to the sentence from the news report that explained how dangerous the incompetence of the government is:
“Therefore it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,”
If this sort of incompetence was part of a movie it would not be believed. Yet, this is what has seemingly come to pass for “business as usual” where our government is concerned!The bottom line is that USCIS is currently processing applications without face-to-face interviews for hundreds of thousands of DACA applicants and that every year that beleaguered and thoroughly inept and overwhelmed agency processes more than 6 million applications including more than a half million applications for United States citizenship.
I am glad that the administration is moving to block the entry of an individual who allegedly participated in the taking of U.S. hostages in Tehran.
The obvious question not being asked by any of the journalists is why is the administration ignoring all of the other obvious means of entry and embedding regularly used by terrorists that were clearly identified by the 9/11 Commission and the 9/11 Commission staff?
This is the question that any candidate for any elected office- especially those who seek election or re-election to the United States Senate or the House of Representatives.
The “Gang of Eight” cobbled together Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation that should have earned them the MVP award by terrorists seeking to enter and embed themselves in the United States. There was nothing in that ill-fated and ill-conceived legislation that would have done anything whatsoever to increase integrity of the adjudications process. Indeed, dumping unknown millions of those applications on the desks of beleaguered adjudications officers who cannot, at present, keep up with their work load would have caused that agency to implode.
The simple question that must be asked of all involved- “Why is the obvious being ignored?”
This is hardly an academic question- the future of our nation and our citizens hang in the balance.
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