(PJM Exclusive) "DOJ Memo Confirms Terrorists Have Crossed the Border"

Hi Gang:
Over the past couple of days I have received numerous e-mails concerning a posting by PJM (Pajamas Media) reporting on what must be considered clear evidence that terrorists have entered the United States by evading the inspections process along our nation’s southern border.  I have provided you with a copy of a posting by PJM on March 23, 2011 that included a link to a DOJ Pre-sentencing Memorandum prepared by the United States attorneys who prosecuted Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane in San Antonio, Texas (Western District of Texas) for making false statements in conjunction with an application he filed for political asylum.
Here is a link that was furnished in the article I have provided you below that will provide you with the pre-sentencing report:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51237749/Ahmed-Dhakane-DOJ-Sentencing-Memorandum

This report is about 20 pages in length and contains significant information that is of extreme importance to illustrate many of the vulnerabilities I have often noted in various venues and especially when I have provided testimony at Congressional hearings into immigration related issues.
First of all, you will notice that Dhakane, apparently a citizen of Somali, attempted entry into the United States on March 28, 2008 at the port of entry located at Brownsville, Texas.  He was not admitted into the United States but was rather detained.  On October 28, 2008 he filed a form I-589 in conjunction with an application for political asylum in which he omitted material facts and provided false statements about his interactions with terrorist organizations.
What should grab your attention is how many aliases were listed for him on the first page of the memorandum.  Criminals and terrorists often use changes in identity as camouflage, much the same way that a chameleon uses changes in coloration in order to hide in plain sight, often among his intended victims.  This is one of the most compelling reasons that our government, absolutely must never provide an illegal alien with any sort of identity document until and unless the true identity of the alien can be determined.  A massive amnesty program such as the program that is often referred to as “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” would compel the overworked, inept and incompetent agency known as United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to suddenly have to process unknown millions of applications that would be filed by illegal aliens.  This agency has come under extreme criticism by the GAO and OIG for being unable to carry out its current mission because of a lack of resources and leadership- any massive amnesty program would simply cause this terminally hobbled agency to implode if Comprehensive Immigration Reform was to be enacted.  In 2007 I wrote an Op-Ed for the Washington Times, entitled, Immigration bill a “No Go” in which I stated that the term “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” was utterly misleading.  I recommended that a more accurate and honest name for this legislation would be the “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act.”
Here is a link to my article that the Washington Times published and that Senator Jeff Sessions quoted from the floor of the United States Senate on three separate days during the floor debate into that bit of legislative detritus:

At this point I want you to see the importance of immigration laws in terms of national security and especially where the efforts to protect our nation against terrorism is concerned.  A number of individuals who have been identified as being terrorists or who have been identified as being involved in efforts to support terrorism engaged in visa fraud and/or immigration benefit fraud.  Examples of immigration benefits include the filing of applications by aliens to extend their authorized period of admission into the United States, applications to change nonimmigrant status to enable aliens to attend school applications for political asylum, applications to become lawful immigrants and applications to naturalize and thereby become a citizen of the United States.

Consider the case of Mir Amal Kansi, a citizen of Pakistan who lied on his application for political asylum in the United States but was nevertheless granted political asylum, whereupon he showed his appreciation to our government when, on January 25, 1993 he stood outside CIA Headquarters in Maclean, Virginia with an AK-47 and opened fire upon vehicles being driven by CIA officers who were reporting for work that winter morning.  Before his rampage was over, two CIA officers were dead and three others were wounded.   
Kansi is not the first terrorist to commit fraud in his applications for an immigration benefit or for a visa.  In fact, the 9/11 Commission noted that of 94 terrorists who were identified as operating in our country in the decade prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001 roughly two thirds of them (59) were found to have made use of visa fraud and/or immigration benefit fraud in order to enter our country and embed themselves in communities across our nation. 
Here is a recent example of such a fraud that was successfully carried out by an illegal alien in our country.  An alien whose tactics closely parallel those employed by Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane.
On March 30, 2010 the United States issued a press release, entitled, “Eritrean Man Pleads Guilty to Alien Smuggling” that can be found a this link:
I have provided you with the entire text of that press release beneath the Daily Mail report, but for the sake of convenience, here are the three short paragraphs I have taken directly from the press release that “cut to the chase:”

WASHINGTON – Samuel Abrahaley Fessahazion, 23, an Eritrean national, has pleaded guilty to helping smuggle illegal aliens to the United States for private financial gain, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney José Angel Moreno of the Southern District of Texas and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton.


Fessahazion, aka “Sami,” aka “Sammy,” aka “Alex” and aka “Alex Williams” pleaded guilty yesterday in Houston before U.S. District Court Judge Nancy A. Atlas to one count of conspiracy, and two counts of encouraging and inducing aliens to come to, enter or reside in the United States in violation of law for the purpose of private financial gain.

According to plea documents, from at least June 2007 until approximately January 2008, Fessahazion was the Guatemalan link of an alien smuggling network that spans East Africa, Central and South America.   Specifically, according to the court documents, Fessahazion illegally entered the United States at McAllen, Texas, on March 20, 2008.   He applied for asylum on Sept. 30, 2008, claiming in his application that he was traveling across Africa in 2007 and 2008, fleeing persecution in Eritrea.   However, according to court documents, Fessahazion was actually in Guatemala during that period facilitating the smuggling of East African aliens to the United States.   Fessahazion was granted asylum by the United States on Nov. 13, 2008.

Stop and give some thought to the statement that he purportedly ran our border on March 20, 2008 and then applied for political asylum on September 30, 2008, over six months after he allegedly ran the border, and in under six weeks his application for political asylum was approved!  He claimed he was facing prosecution on the other side of the planet yet the government rushed to provide him with political asylum!  This “rush to judgement” rewarded him with political asylum even though he completely falsified all of the significant relevant facts!
Here are two other important facts for you to consider-
1.  There was no mention of Fessahazion being charged with committing fraud in has application for political asylum.
2.  There was no mention of any efforts being made to locate and/or apprehend the illegal aliens he helped to smuggle into the United States.

Furthermore, In pushing for various forms of amnesty for illegal aliens our nation’s “leaders” have all but declared that running our borders should be a prerequisite for naturalization.  This is a betrayal to our citizens and our nation, not only because it makes a mockery of the many millions of lawful immigrants who, since the founding of our nation entered our country in accordance with law to help build this great nation, but because such a huge amnesty program would be riddled with fraud that would enable aliens whose intentions are malevolent to game the system.

As I have often noted, visa fraud and immigration benefit fraud are among the most often used criminal violations that federal law enforcement agencies employ in seeking to thwart terrorists operating in our country- yet there are only approximately 6,000 special agents of ICE who enforce our nation’s immigration laws throughout the entire United States of America.  To put this in perspective, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has approximately 35,000 police officers to enforce the laws and safeguard the lives and property of those who live, work and visit the City of New York.  It is also of extreme importance to note that the Special Agents of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) also enforce customs laws which have nothing to do with immigration laws.  Additionally, the great majority of supervisors and managers of ICE and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) came from the former United States Customs Service and hence have no real background in the enforcement of the critically important immigration laws.
On May 5, 2005 I was invited to testify at a hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on the topic:
“NEW ”DUAL MISSIONS” OF THE IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES”

You can find the transcript of that hearing, in its entirety at:

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju21026.000/hju21026_0f.htm

The concerns I expressed back then apply today.
Next I want you to consider the memorandum noted that Dhakane smuggled numerous aliens into the United States who he believed would, if called upon, engage in terrorist acts within our country.   He boasted that he had earned more than $75,000 on a single day by smuggling citizens of Somalia into the United States through Latin America.  Some of these aliens were smuggled from Brazil.  It is worth noting that the Tri-Border Region of Brazil is known to host training camps for Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.  Furthermore, the memorandum made it clear that in addition to smuggling these aliens into the United States, he coached them in the way that they should apply for political asylum and also furnished a number of them with fraud passports from a number of different countries.
Here are a couple of questions not addressed and therefore not answered in the memorandum:
1- Have our officials identified all of the aliens who were smuggled into the United States with the assistance of  Dhakane?  (If not, what is being done to try to figure out who they all are?)
2- Are all of those smuggled aliens in custody?  If not, what efforts are being made to locate and arrest them?
The fact that Dhakane is accused by the Department of Justice is the primary reason that so many folks e-mailed me the Pajamas Media article that contained the link to the memorandum. Certainly this is of extreme significance- especially while Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Surrender, as I have come to refer to her inept bureaucracy, maintains that the border is secure!  I take no satisfaction in assailing Ms Napolitano.  I was proud to be a Special Agent of the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) one of the key agencies that was merged with the former U.S. Customs Service and several other agencies to form the DHS.  However, I found many problems with the INS and I continue to find at least as many problems with the DHS.  However, the first step in solving problems is to identify the problems.  If Ms Napolitano can continue to spew these meaningless assertions that the border is secure she is either lying or ignorant.  Either way she cannot possibly be effective in her mission unless her mission is to engage in something I came to refer to a number of years ago as “Operation Back-Rub.”
When a child wakes up at night suffering from a nightmare or night terrors, the parent will often rub the child’s back and in soft, soothing tones, try to convince the upset youngster that all is well.  The goal of the parent is to help the child go back to sleep and of probably equal importance, if the child goes back to sleep, the awakened parent can also go back to sleep.  Hence the term I have coined is “Operation Back Rub!”
The point is that it is clear that our borders are not stopping criminal or terrorists from entering the United States.
Brad Stone, the Special Projects Producer at WSB-TV, the Atlanta based ABC affiliated news station has produced a series of hard hitting reports on how bad the situation is along the Mexican border.  I was pleased to have been interviewed by Brad on a number of occasions.  Here is a link to his broadcast on this important issue that aired several months ago:
The memorandum also delved into other crimes that Dhakane engaged in including money laundering and structuring.  He is believed to have moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from the United States to terrorist organizations overseas.
I presume that some of the money that he moved may have come from his “fees” that he was paid for his smuggling “services.”  However, the memorandum also made it clear that he operated an unofficial banking operation created to move money surreptitiously.  It has to be presumed that some of this money was given to him by other individuals who were in the United States.  The obvious question this raises is how these individuals acquired the money that they gave him to send to terrorist organizations.  While some of the money may have simply been money that was earned by working in the United States, the likelihood exists that some of the money was obtained by committing crimes in the United States.  Terrorists often commit all sorts of crimes in order to get their hands on money the way that an organized crime group engages in a variety of crimes in order to raise money.  
In my experience, the crimes may range from various scams that would fall under the general category of mail fraud.  Examples include coupon fraud where a grocery store owner redeems many more coupons for products than he sells, to insurance fraud including where arson is concerned, to the sale of narcotics.  There were no indications of any of these sorts of crimes being related to the large sums of money that he admitted moving out of the United States, but given the scale of the money laundering operation, you have to presume that the funds were sourced in all sorts of ways.
It is also worth noting that in order to bolster his own application for political asylum Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane is accused of imprisoning and repeatedly raping an underage girl he tried to pass off as his “wife” even though they were never married.  According to statements contained in the memorandum, he repeatedly raped her in an effort to impregnate her to create a compelling image of a man with a young pregnant wife!
Yet when there are those of us who demand that our government lives up to its Constitutional obligation and its moral obligation to protect its citizens, there are those who would accuse those who demand secure borders of being “anti-immigrant!”
How much more suffering and how many more people need to die before our “leaders” like Napolitano will admit that there is a problem?

Not long ago Janet Napolitano stated that running our nation’s borders is not a crime!  This statement would have been frustrating if anyone would make such an absurd statement, but when the Secretary of Homeland Security cold make such an outlandish statement you could almost want to replace America’s motto of “E Pluribus Unum” which translates to “From many one” to “Abandon all hope- all ye who enter here!”

Napolitano and a laundry list of political and governmental administration have attempted to trivialize the risks that our nation’s open borders pose to the safety of our nation.

To provide a bit of clarity, any alien who has been previously deported from our country commits a felony when he (she) runs our borders in an effort to reenter the United States without authority.  The real issue is not if it is a crime when an alien evades the inspections process but to consider why there is an inspections process in the first place.  The immigration laws of our nation specify various reasons why an alien should be excluded from entering our country.  Among the reasons are aliens who have dangerous communicable diseases, suffer from serious mental illness and pose a threat of violence, aliens who are convicted felons, are war criminals, have committed human rights violations, are human traffickers or drug smugglers, are involved in espionage or terrorism.  There are a number of other categories of aliens whose presence is supposed to be prevented by our officials of DHS.  This is why border security is so critical to the safety and security of our nation and our citizens.

When the Apollo 13 crew realized that the service module of their spacecraft had experienced an explosion half way between the earth and the moon, they immediately radioed Mission Control in Houston, Texas and reported, “Houston we have a problem!”
Had they and members of mission control not immediately accepted the true magnitude of the crisis they faced it is clear that the crew of Apollo 13 would not have returned home alive.  Flight Director Gene Kranz immediately poured all of the resources at his disposal into a “full court press” to find a way to work the problem and get those three valiant astronauts home alive.
In briefing his team, Kranz is famously remembered for declaring, “Failure is not an option!”
I had the extreme privilege of meeting both Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 and Gene Kranz, on separate occasions.  These men are true leaders!
Now we come to Napolitano, the Secretary of DHS upon who our nation depends for its security and, indeed its survival. 
She would do well to learn by the clarity of vision that was evidenced by the swift and focus response mounted by those men so many years ago!  She and our other national “leaders” also need to come to the very same conclusion that Gene Kranz immediately came to given the magnitude of the threat they faced- Failure is not an option where our borders and failures to establish an immigration system that possesses true integrity are concerned! 
The effective enforcement and administration of our nation’s immigration laws are, arguably, among the most important of all missions that are supposed to be carried out by our federal government.  
Nothing less than the security of our nation and safety of our citizens hang in the balance!
A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

I

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.

The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!


The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians.  I implore you to resolve this year to get involved!
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!

If this situation concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation! 

All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!

We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.

This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!

You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!

-michael cutler- 


Please check out my website:



– Pajamas Media – http://pajamasmedia.com –
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(PJM Exclusive) DOJ Memo Confirms Terrorists Have Crossed the Border

Posted By Patrick Poole On March 23, 2011 @ 12:00 am In Crime,Homeland Security,Immigration,US News | 45 Comments

A potentially explosive admission by federal prosecutors in the pending sentencing of Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane in a San Antonio federal courtroom could aid the case of border states looking to take the initiative to stem the flood of illegal immigrants coming into the U.S.

In this court filing, provided exclusively [1] here at Pajamas Media, prosecutors admit that Dhakane, who ran a human smuggling ring based in Brazil for the Somali Al-Shabaab terrorist group, transported “violent jihadists” into the country. He stated that “he believed they would fight against the U.S. if the jihad moved from overseas locations to the U.S. mainland.” (p. 7)

The contents and implications of this admission by DOJ will be one of the items discussed when my colleagues Army Lt. Col Joseph Myers (ret.), Mark Hanna, and I will be testifying Wednesday [2] before the Arizona House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee on the topic of “Cross-border Terror Threats and Islamic Radicalization in Arizona.”

Dhakane was charged in March 2010 with lying about his terror ties [3] when he applied for asylum in 2008, specifically omitting information that he had worked for two specially designated global terrorist entities (SDGT). He pleaded guilty earlier this year to lying to the FBI and awaits sentencing next month. Rather than trying him on terror charges, federal prosecutors are asking for terror enhancements [4] on the sentence for lying to the FBI.

In the DOJ sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors explain that Dhakane knowingly smuggled violent jihadists into the country:

More importantly, based on the Defendant’s recorded statements and admissions made to law enforcement agents, the Defendant was a former member, or at the very least, associated with [Al-Ittihad al-Islami] AIAI, an SDGT, and that he believed that there was no separation of personnel between AIAI, the Council of Islamic Courts, and Al-Shabbab, a designated [Foreign Terrorist Organization] FTO.

He admits that he knowingly believed he was smuggling violent jihadists into the United States with the full knowledge that if the decision was made by the SDGT, for which he was associated with in the past, to commit terrorist acts in the United States, these jihadists would commit violent acts in and against the United States. Because the law enforcement authorities are constantly trying to investigate, detect, and prevent the infiltration of potentially violent jihadists, the Defendant’s lies hid critical information from the United States authorities regarding his successful smuggling activities. Thus, the preponderance of the evidence proves that the other obvious motivation for him to lie on his asylum application was to cover up and obstruct the fact from United States authorities that he facilitated the smuggling of violent jihadists who are now present into the United States. (pp. 10-11)

This is far from the first time that Islamic terrorists are known to have attempted to enter the U.S, or actually succeeded. Just last year Homeland Security authorities put out an alert concerning a group of terror-tied Somalis [5] who were attempting to enter the country through Mexico. Then last May another terror alert was issued [6] for a known Al-Shabaab official, Mohamed Ali, who was suspected of trying to cross the border from Mexico. And in February 2010, a Virginia convert to Islam who was in contact with Al-Shabaab officials, Anthony Joseph Tracy, was charged for his role in an international smuggling ring that brought at least 200 Somalis [7] into the U.S. on Cuban travel documents.

Other terrorist operatives are known to have successfully crossed the border:

  • In February 2001, Mahmoud Kourani crossed the border [8] from Tijuana in the trunk of a car, eventually settling in Dearborn, Michigan. Kourani, who federal prosecutors claimed [9] had received training in weapons, intelligence, and spy craft in Iran, bribed a Mexican embassy official in Beirut to obtain a visa. Kourani’s brother is known to be Hezbollah’s security chief in southern Lebanon.
  • In December 2002, Salim Boughader was arrested for smuggling 200 Lebanese, including Hezbollah operatives [10], across the border. Boughader had previously worked for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV satellite network.
  • In July 2004, Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed was arrested at a Texas airport boarding a flight to New York. According to the Washington Post [11], she was connected to a Pakistani terrorist group. Believed to be ferrying instructions to U.S.-based al-Qaeda operatives, authorities issued a terror alert [12] for Washington D.C., New York, and New Jersey.
  • In January 2005, two Hamas operatives, Mahmoud Khalil and Ziad Saleh, were arrested as part of a criminal enterprise in Los Angeles. Both had entered the U.S. after paying a smuggler $10,000 each to take them across the border.
  • Rep. John Culberson said in November 2005 [13] that an Iraqi al-Qaeda operative on the terror watch list was captured living near the Mexico-Texas border.

During our testimony before the Arizona legislature on Wednesday, Lt. Col. Myers will be discussing the nexus between the South American drug cartels and Islamic terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda. With cartel violence already spilling across the border, and U.S. Border Patrol agents armed with beanbags being gunned down in the field by  smuggling operatives, when might we see terrorist groups attempting to open up a new front against the U.S. across the vast stretches of our unguarded border?

Today we will be discussing what states might be able to do to confront this problem in the absence of federal attention to the border and exactly who might be on our side of the border ready to help terrorist groups. As DOJ has admitted in the Dhakane case, terrorist operatives are already inside the U.S. and are prepared to go operational at the command of their leadership. If the issue of homegrown terrorism is already keeping Attorney General Eric Holder awake at night [14], why aren’t similar concerns being translated into action to defend Americans from cross-border terror threats?


Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/doj-memo-confirms-terrorists-have-crossed-the-border-pjm-exclusive/

URLs in this post:

[1] provided exclusively: http://www.scribd.com/doc/51237749/Ahmed-Dhakane-DOJ-Sentencing-Memorandum

[2] testifying Wednesday: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/agendas/03230110102.doc.htm

[3] lying about his terror ties: http://sanantonio.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/sa030410.htm

[4] asking for terror enhancements: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Feds-drop-terror-link-charge-809077.php

[5] group of terror-tied Somalis: http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/world/somalis-terrorist-links-feared-headed-us-border

[6] terror alert was issued: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/26/terror-alert-mexican-border

[7] brought at least 200 Somalis: http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/23/va-man-accused-of-illegally-aiding-somalis

[8] crossed the border: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8408009/ns/us_news-security

[9] prosecutors claimed: http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/terrorism/uskourani111903ind.pdf

[10] including Hezbollah operatives: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161473,00.html

[11] the Washington Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30903-2004Jul31.html

[12] issued a terror alert: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/nyregion/01THRE.html?hp

[13] said in November 2005: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176216,00.html

[14] awake at night: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20026288-503544.html

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