As a former Immigration and Naturalization Service agent, FSM Contributing Editor Mike Cutler has seen and heard it all. Of the many insults and challenges thrown his way, the racist card was only one. Read how that charge easily can be disproved.

Immigration’s Racist Canard

By Mike Cutler
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/ho ... id=1339684

As you all know, I have participated in many debates and panels in various venues about the issue of illegal immigration. I have appeared before Congressional hearings, press conferences, on radio programs, television programs and before live audiences.

Often I’ve heard the accusation wielded by my opponents that I must be a racist if I want our nation to secure its borders and create an immigration system that possesses meaningful integrity. Hillary Clinton raised this issue in the most recent debate.

It would be absurd for me even to pretend to address the motivation behind those who may or may not share my beliefs, although I’ve found that the great majority of people I’ve met were not opposed to lawful immigrants but were absolutely adamant about their opposition to illegal aliens. I can, however, speak with absolute authority about my own motivation and believe it would be helpful to clear the air about this crucial issue.

I spent most of my adult life as an employee of what was the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I started as an immigration inspector and then became a criminal investigator (special agent). I was also assigned for one year as an immigration examiner, a position now referred to as an "adjudicator." I determined whether or not aliens should be granted resident alien status based on being married to a spouse who was either a resident alien or a United States citizen. I encountered aliens from nearly every country in the world.

Part of the training I received when I was hired by the INS was training in the Spanish language. This training was particularly helpful because it was estimated that some 80% of the illegal aliens in the United States were Spanish speakers, and it is difficult to investigate people with whom one is unable to communicate. (Note today: I was more than a bit befuddled when I found out that since the creation of DHS and the creation of ICE, CBP and USCIS - all spun off from the former INS - that the Spanish language requirement that drove me nuts during my training was not only no longer a requirement for new ICE special agents, but was dropped entirely from the curriculum. But I digress.)

While the majority of illegal aliens who are present in the United States come from Latin America, my responsibility was to enforce and apply the immigration laws equally where any alien was concerned. The only nationality that received special treatment were citizens of the United States. Period.

During my first year as an INS special agent, I stumbled across a terrorist plot to attack an oil refinery in Israel and destroy it by planting explosives. I notified the FBI and the Israeli National Police through the officials at the Israeli Consulate in New York. We all worked cooperatively and, fortunately, the attack was averted and the Israelis were able to apprehend the 6 terrorists who were preparing for the attack. As you might imagine, the Israelis were extremely happy at this outcome and as a result, I enjoyed a close working relationship with their law enforcement authorities that endured for the balance of my career. As a result of that relationship, they would often notify me when there were Israeli citizens who’d fled to the United States to avoid being arrested for committing a variety of crimes, including one Israeli who had committed a murder. I arrested more Israeli citizens than any other agent. I assure you I am not anti-Semitic; in fact, I am of the Jewish faith. The violations of law committed by these culprits.

There was a time I’d sworn out an arrest warrant for a citizen of Jamaica whom I’d previously arrested on immigration charges several times and who was deported several times. I once told him that I would get him to do "life on the installment plan" if he continued illegally to re-enter the United States! He failed to heed my warning and I think I wound up arresting this guy about 3 or 4 times during the course of my career. He had an extensive criminal history and he was believed to have been involved in a cold-blooded murder. He would have been prosecuted for that murder except that the only eye-witness to the shooting mysteriously vanished. Because of this, it was decided that he should be charged simply with re-entry after deportation and then dealt with administratively to be deported, yet again. This guy was truly a one-man crime wave!

Believe it or not, the last time I arrested him, the public defender who represented him at his arraignment got onto the same elevator with the assistant United States attorney who worked with me on this case. The elevator was crowded with lawyers and a couple of federal judges. This defense attorney glared at me as the doors to the elevator closed and she blurted out that I had arrested the defendant because I was a racist! She flat out told me that I arrested him because he was black. She knew about this guy's criminal history and also knew that he had been previously deported. I couldn't resist the temptation to slam her verbally, so I calmly turned to her and said that I had helped draw up the indictment charging her client with unlawful reentry after deportation. Then I said to her, "I don't recall seeing that allegation (that the defendant was black) in the indictment. Do you recall what number that charge was in the indictment? Do you recall what section of law relates to that allegation?" After a moment of silence the other occupants in the elevator including the judges applauded and several of them shook my hand. She immediately hit the buttons on the elevator and got off at the next floor even though she had intended to get off on the first floor.

It seemed that no matter the nationality of the illegal alien I arrested, there would almost always be someone who would accuse me and my colleagues of demonstrating discriminatory enforcement of the immigration laws. In the beginning I was angered and offended. Over time I came to expect these allegations. The words always stung, but less acutely over time.

Someone once said that when a lawyer goes to court and he is strong on the facts but weak on the law he pounds the facts. When he is strong on the law and weak on the facts, he pounds the law. When he is weak on both the law and the facts, he pounds the table! It seems that the folks who advocate for open borders realize that their arguments are weak on law, facts and commonsense: all they can do is pound the table! The race card represents table pounding.

When an alien evades the inspection process he is violating our laws, he is trespassing. The inspections process is more than a mere formality, it is a process that is meant to keep out aliens who are statutorily ineligible to enter the United States because of approximately 30 reasons. These reasons include criminal histories, mental illness, membership in terrorist organizations, dangerous communicable diseases, a desire to accept illegal employment, likelihood of becoming a public charge, likelihood of intending to reside permanently in the United States even though the alien in question is not entitled to an immigrant visa…on and on.

These issues all relate to the wellbeing of United States citizens and resident aliens. Some of these issues relate to national security. You cannot tell a good guy from a bad guy without a "score card" and aliens who run our borders or provide false identity documents have no "score card". This is perilous under ordinary circumstances. As we mark the passage of the 6th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 we should remember that the terrorists who wrought so much death, destruction and suffering were able to do so because we failed to keep out such people. There were many irregularities in the way that they were admitted into our country and in the way our immigration laws were enforced even after they entered.

Of course the politicians in Washington and, on the local level as well, know that they have virtually nothing to fear about being charged with violating the immigration laws because none other than the President of the United States has made enough statements that have induced so many illegal aliens to get away with showing abject disregard for our nation's borders and immigration laws. Yet they use this safety cushion to cry “racism!â€