Thread: NJ's Legal Presence Requirmnts. Made Diff. in Ft. Dix Plot

NJ's Legal Presence Requirements Made a Difference in the Fort Dix Plot
By Janice Kephart, December 30, 2008

Last week saw a big win for prosecutors and the FBI with the conviction of three illegal immigrant brothers and two permanent legal residents for the plot to commit a terrorist attack against military personnel at Fort Dix. The convictions for conspiring to kill military personnel (but acquitted of attempted murder) indicate that aggressive pursuit of terrorist plots before they happen can result in convictions. Yet no one is talking about the fact that informants were able to infiltrate the group of five in part because they were able to present the conspirators with something most of them didn’t have – a legal form of U.S. identification.

Fort Dix plot 2007

In public acknowledgments that al Qaeda is ready and able to hit the United States again in a display more disastrous than 9/11, Secretary Chertoff acknowledged earlier this year that we have not yet secured our borders nor cut off the means terrorists use to stay here and conduct operations. What is particularly disturbing is that in the midst of such discussion there continues to be debate over secure ID initiatives such as the REAL ID Act. The most dangerous argument goes like this: secure IDs will not help secure the nation.

That’s been proven wrong by the evidence of the Fort Dix case, whose now-convicted defendants were arrested in May 2007 for planning mass killings at the Fort Dix Army base, together with an accomplice. Three were in the United States illegally and under New Jersey state law enacted in 2002, could not obtain an ID. Without an ID, they could not buy weapons legally. Because the men were unable to buy weapons legally, they went outside the cell to buy the weapons, exposing the plot to undercover law enforcement agents. It was at this point – after more than a year of investigation – that the plot had sufficient evidence to be stopped. This is exactly the type of result the 9/11 Commission envisioned when it recommended more secure IDs.

The Fort Dix terror plot spanned three states and included surveillance of the U.S Coast Guard facility in Philadelphia and the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, plus the plotters’ training facilities in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. Two conspirators are legal permanent residents and the three Duka brothers are not, despite living in the U.S. for 23 years. None of the brothers was able to obtain driver’s licenses in New Jersey because they were here illegally. One had earlier managed to acquire a driver’s license, but it had expired in 2003. Meanwhile, in 2002, New Jersey began the process of verifying identity by requiring proof of lawful presence in order to obtain a driver’s license. Had the other two applied for driver’s licenses before New Jersey “raised the barâ€

Our government can not talk to us about how much they care about safety in military post and/or anywhere in America when they will not enforce our immigration laws and protect our country from the illegals invasion.

In public acknowledgments that al Qaeda is ready and able to hit the United States again in a display more disastrous than 9/11,

Well our government is certainly giving them every opportunity to do harm to the citizens of the United States. It's almost as if they can not wait for it to happen!