THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA
THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA
by Michael Cutler
November 6, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
I have just read an editorial in the New York Times. The editorial glosses over many facts where illegal immigration is concerned. In fact, had Al Gore not written a book about global warming entitled "An Inconvenient Truth," that title would serve this debate quite aptly.
It is important to understand that the folks who advocate for open borders and essentially uncontrolled immigration use two primary tactics to further their agendas. They resort to an Orwellian "Newspeak" or, alternatively, they accurately define a problem that presents a significant problem but then propose a solution that makes no sense and may well exacerbate the problem, but enables such deceptive individuals with the opportunity to push a "solution" that furthers their goals.
In considering the first tactic of using false language to obfuscate an issue I would point to former President Jimmy Carter who began this process where illegal immigration is concerned, by demanding that INS employees stop using the term "Illegal Alien" and replace it with the more genteel and clearly deceptive term "Undocumented Worker." The current occupant of the White House, George W. Bush has offered to "Legalize the immigrants," a statement that is amazing when you consider that this is the equivalent of offering to "Make water wet!" Immigrants are legal, they have green cards and they are on the path to United States citizenship. They can bring their immediate family members legally to the United States as immigrants in their own right. They can take virtually any job they are qualified to do. How much more legal would the President make them? In point of fact, he was really saying that he wanted to make illegal aliens legal but understood the reaction to such an offer would have been swift, overwhelming and rancorous.
When I raise these issues when I participate in debates my opponents often criticize the use of the word "alien" because they claim it sounds as though aliens came from another planet. The reality is that the term alien is as old as the Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act, the body of laws that govern the entry and presence of aliens in our country, defines an alien as simply being any person who is not a citizen or national of the United States. Period. There is no insult to this definition. This is not in any way, shape of form similar to the "N" word. In fact, when we, as Americans travel to other countries, those countries will refer to us as being aliens! And they will have no compunctions against using that word!
The Online Merriam Webster Dictionary defines "Illegal" as follows:
:not according to or authorized by law: unlawful, illicit; also: not sanctioned by official rules
The second tactic, that of providing supposed "solutions" to a critical problem that makes no sense can be seen in statements made by Vice President Dick Cheney who stated that there are millions of undocumented workers in this country. We don't know who they are, where they are or what they are up to and that is why we need a "Guest Worker" program! This statement was made by the Vice President several years ago and it astounded me to hear (and see it) when I was a guest on the Lou Dobbs Tonight program on CNN. The staff at CNN had brought me out on the set to be interviewed by Lou Dobbs and as they hooked up my microphone, I noticed that Lou appeared particularly riled up. I asked him why he was upset and he told me that he wanted me to see a video clip of the Vice President that had enraged him. He told me that he wanted to get my reaction to the Vice President's statement. Of course I wondered what was going on and was utterly astonished to see the video, once we were on the air, of the Vice President standing before a town hall meeting, wireless microphone in hand, making that outrageous statement! I immediately understood Lou's outrage- indeed, I shared it!
How would providing millions of illegal aliens with authorization to work in our country deter future illegal immigration? It was, in fact, in my judgement, the Amnesty of 1986 that resulted in the massive of influx of illegal aliens into our country who had been encouraged and emboldened to violate our borders and our immigration laws with the expectation that they would be rewarded for such illegal conduct. More importantly, there is no way that our bureaucrats at USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) could possibly determine the true identities of million of undocumented aliens. They would not even be able to confirm the nationalities of many of these undocumented aliens. How would providing individuals whose identities are unknown and unknowable with official identity documents in whatever name they claimed was theirs make us safer? The reality is that this would put us at a far greater risk because this is the precise tactic that terrorists and criminals use in order to hide in plain sight. They create false identities for themselves to make tracking their movements and activities all but impossible for our law enforcement agencies. This is why the 19 terrorists who so savagely attacked our nation on September 11, 2001 used a total of 364 aliens and variations of names and other identifiers in order to embed themselves in our country and hide in plain sight among us as they prepared to carry out what would be the most devastating attack ever launched against our nation within our borders.
The "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill" that was prepared behind closed doors in the dead of night by a few legislative thugs in Washington headed up by Senator Ted Kennedy several months ago kept me awake at night. My fears were articulated in a commentary I wrote that the Washington Times published. In that commentary I referred to that legislative abomination as being the "Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007."
On three separate occasions, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama quoted from my commentary on the floor of the United States Senate during the time that the bill was being debated. You can read one of those instances.
George W. Bush and other advocates for open borders also distort the facts. A good example of such distortion can be found when President Bush had stated repeatedly that our nation had tried an "enforcement only" approach to immigration but that such an approach failed because it did not provide for the illegal aliens in our country with an opportunity to legally work in our country! In point of fact, there are currently only about 4,000 special agents at ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) who are dedicated to enforcing the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States. To put this in proper perspective, the City of New York has just over 8 million residents. This teeming city covers some 400 square miles and enjoys the lowest crime rate of any major city in the entire United States. This is most probably attributed to the fact that New York City has a well trained and equipped police department that has nearly 38,000 police officers carrying out their duties. The United States has perhaps more than 20 million illegal aliens who are scattered across a third of the North American continent and a law enforcement agency that has roughly one tenth the number of agents as the NYPD has police officers!
It is also important to know that the job of the special agents at ICE should require that they do more then simply look for the ever increasing number of illegal aliens and especially those among them who become involved in serious criminal activities. These agents should also be conducting investigations into alien smuggling, aliens who become involved in immigration benefit fraud such as gaining residency based on sham marriages to United States citizens and resident aliens, and those who furnish false and altered identity documents. These agents are also badly needed to assist other agencies such as the FBI and DEA in task forces that target terrorist and narcotics trafficking organizations whose members include aliens. (I spent nearly half of my career working in conjunction with other such agencies to identify, investigate and ultimately dismantle narcotics trafficking organizations. In New York, when I was assigned to the Unified Intelligence Division of the DEA, I determined that roughly 60% of the individuals who were arrested by the DEA in NYC for drug-related crimes were, in fact, identified as being "foreign born.")
So this then begs the question, what constitutes an "enforcement only" approach to immigration law enforcement that President Bush talked about? In point of fact, this was about creating an illusion of enforcement and it was the illusion of enforcement that failed to control illegal immigration. Providing illegal aliens with the opportunity to acquire lawful status in our country will do nothing to deter illegal immigration and would, in fact, encourage still more illegal immigration.
The author of the editorial I have attached below presumably well understands what I have set forth above. He is obviously following in the well-worn path trod by those who for one reason or another, want to erase our nation's borders and blur the distinction between what it is to be lawfully present in our country and what it is to be present illegally in the United States. As I have often stated, the difference between an illegal alien and an immigrant is the difference between a burglar and a houseguest! I sincerely doubt that if Mr. Downes, the author of the editorial, returned home from work only to find an intruder sitting on his couch watching his television that his first thought would be to offer him a meal and a job! Nor would he invite the intruder to have his family join him!
Let us make a couple of points clear. Every nation is defined by its borders. Think back to the study of geography in high school or college. This was about borders. Virtually every nation on the face of this planet enforces its borders. The Mexican government has resorted to extreme measures where its southern border is concerned but then criticizes the United States if we even dare attempt to secure our borders. Politicians in the United States on both sides of the political aisle have been largely unwilling to secure our borders because, to put it succinctly, the Democrats see in the flood of humanity potential voters and the Republicans see massive campaign contributions by those unscrupulous employers who want to hire the cheapest and most compliant labor force possible. Labor is a commodity and the more you flood the labor market with cheap labor, the more you reduce the price of labor. This is wonderful for those who sit at the top of the economic food chain at these corporations but is absolutely a disaster for those of us who actually have to work for a living!
Mr. Downes does not like the term illegal aliens and goes on to make it appear that illegal aliens are committing a violation that is probably no more serious than a motorist who fails to drop a couple of quarters in the basket as he drives across a toll bridge. In point of fact, the job of the inspector, a job I am amply familiar with, having begun my career with the INS in 1971 as an immigration inspector assigned to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, is to keep out aliens who pose a threat to our safety and well being. Inspectors are supposed to prevent the entry of aliens into the United States who have criminal histories or suffer mental illness which would cause them to do harm to our citizens. The inspectors are supposed to keep out drug addicts and those who harbor dangerous diseases. Inspectors are supposed to keep out terrorists and violent gang members. They are supposed to keep out those who would become public charges and take the jobs of Americans and those who have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence.
Having done the job of immigration inspector, adjudications officer and having spent some 26 years as an INS special agent, I can definitively tell you that there is no way of knowing why an alien circumvents the inspections process in entering our country without inspection. He (she) may simply want to get a job and send money home (Last year some 45 billion dollars was wired from the United States to Latin America and the Caribbean by illegal aliens- that was the 'visible' money that was sent out of our economy, negatively impacting the United States, still more money moves surreptitiously). It is also possible that the alien who enters our country without being inspected is a fugitive in another country wanted for some serious crime. Such an alien might also be a terrorist who is attempting to gain entry in preparation to launch another attack on our country and our people. Think back to Dick Cheney's statement: "We just don't know who they are, where they are or what they are up to!"
Furthermore, illegal aliens often commit other crimes such as identity theft in order to work illegally. By working illegally they may be undercutting American workers who can no longer afford do their jobs because illegal aliens will work for substandard wages under what are often illegally dangerous conditions.
Driver's licenses for illegal aliens not only enable illegal aliens to drive but to create credible and potentially false identities for themselves, a strategy employed by terrorists and criminals.
Yet Mr. Downes would make the emotional claim that he only wants to help illegal aliens who want to go to college and provide them with benefits and incentives that we do not provide to United States citizen children. This is the equivalent of offering to subsidize your neighbor's child's education while telling your own kids that they are on their own and will have to work their way through college!
What part of the word "Reality" doesn't Mr. Downes understand?
The reality is that, as I have stated on numerous occasions, "A nation without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!" If we want to do what is morally right, then the United States should make it clear that we will not enter into trade agreements with any country that fails to meet the needs of its citizens by providing universal education to its citizens with real economic opportunities to live decent lives within their own country. Poverty and human suffering pervades the world. The United States cannot have all of the worlds poor come here; the United Nations estimates that some one billion human beings are so poor that they do not have access to safe drinking water! There is a saying, "If you give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you will feed him for his lifetime!" It is time that the United States took that concept to heart and made Americans first within their own country! This would be in the best interests of We the People and would, at the same time, provide better lives for people around the world!
http://www.newswithviews.com:80/Cutler/michael17.htm
