THE VALUE OF UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP

By Michael Cutler
December 9, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

A news report "Terror Suspect Failed a Test" appeared in today's edition of the Wall Street Journal.

To millions of lawful immigrants, the acquisition of United States citizenship through the naturalization process represents the realization of a lifelong dream. That was certainly the case for my mother and for my dad's parents. However, not all aliens who seek United States citizenship are eager to share the "American Dream."

A relatively small but nonetheless, important number of those who seek citizenship do so with more nefarious goals in mind. These are the terrorists and criminals who seek to gain easy access to our nation and to the borders of other nations that United States citizenship and the U.S. passport that goes with it that they seek.

In point of fact, the article reports on how a United States citizen, David Headley, aka Daood Gilani, the name he was given at birth, by his Pakistani father and United States citizen mother used his passport in furtherance of his goals as a terrorist.

By virtue of being a United States citizen who took on a nondescript name, David Headley, he was able to easily travel around the world without calling attention to himself. As I have noted on ever so many occasions, this is what "hiding in plain sight" is all about.

While Headley was a United States citizen by virtue of having been born in the United States, the point is that his U.S. citizenship and U.S. passport provided him with the ability to move freely about the world as he scoped out possible terrorist targets.

What is also disturbing to me is the fact that he had a working relationship with a travel agency that dabbled in providing immigration services. As an INS special agent I encountered travel agencies and "visa services" both in the United States and abroad, that became involved in facilitating immigration fraud schemes to aliens from virtually every country on the planet for all sorts of reasons. (Let me make this clear, most travel agencies are law abiding businesses that provide very useful services to their clients. The problems occur when crooks run such agencies to provide assist to those who seek to violate our laws.)

A news report that appears in a newspaper call the Hindu, that details how a citizen of India made apparent use of the services offered by Mr. Headley's immigration firm, the Immigrant Law Centre which operated from the AC Market in Tardeo, Mumbaito, to secure false documents to enable him to immigrate to Canada and the United States.

This makes it clear that a strong nexus exists between immigration fraud and terrorism. This is a point I have been hammering away at since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Yet, our government is not doing nearly enough to combat immigration fraud. Indeed, the massive "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" program being touted by the Secretary of Homeland Security as well as the President and member of both houses of Congress would create millions of opportunities for criminal and terrorist aliens to gain lawful status and, ultimately, United States citizenship through fraud.

This is why I will again state what I have noted on many occasions at many venues, including when I have testified before Congressional hearings, "If our nation is dumb enough to enact "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" those who make it possible should be given the "MVP Award" by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations!

How many more examples can we have of the ways in which terrorists ply their trades around the world and still have our "leaders" ignore all of the warning signs?

My dad used to tell me that in life there are no mistakes but only lessons if we learn from what goes wrong learn from them. To him, and to me, repeating those mistakes is utterly unforgivable!

It is clear that USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) has been utterly unable to weed out most of the fraud that infests so many of the millions of applications for various immigration benefits that they adjudicate each and every year, even without the deluge of paper that "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" would cascade upon the desks of the beleaguered bureaucrats at that inept agency. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act that was defeated in the United States Senate just over two years ago would have required USCIS to process a minimum of 100,000 applications filed by illegal aliens who had absolutely no reliable way of establishing their true identity. Therefore there would have been no way of the adjudicators knowing the true names of those millions of illegal aliens. There would have been no way to know the true nationalities of these aliens, their true background, their true criminal histories or their possible affiliation with criminal or terrorist organizations! There would not even be any way of truly knowing if the aliens who would have filed their applications had arrived in the United States 5 years or 5 days prior to filing their applications!

In order to deal with those millions of applications, the adjudicators would have no choice but to "fly blind" and simply rubber stamp those applications with approval stamps each and every day until God know how many applications are processed!

As I have previously noted on so many previous occasions, this concern is not an empty one. Several years ago, USCIS claimed to have lost the relating immigration files of 111,000 aliens who applied for a wide variety of immigration applications including some 30,000 who applied to become naturalized citizens. The adjudicators at USCIS actually adjudicated those applications without the relating files!

Those adjudicators were indeed, "flying blind" and over some very dangerous terrain!

Here is the link to an article that appeared in the Washington Post approximately 3 years ago that reported on this outrageous demonstration of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance committed by the agency that quite literally is charged with the responsibility of giving out the keys to America's front door that United States citizenship represents:

A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

Any politician who refuses to work to secure our borders and create an immigration system that has integrity is either corrupt or too dumb to keep his (her) job. Any politician, irrespective of party affiliation who favors Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the outrageous betrayal that this would represent given the national security implications that this program would have, should be shown the door at the next election!

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.

Next year each and every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection. Next year more than one third of the members of the United States Senate will have to face their constituents. They need to be reminded that they work for us, We the People!

However, 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 get involved!

Any American who has lost his job certainly has enough time on his (her) hands to get involved!

Any American who fears the loss of his job must make effective use of his spare time to make certain he keeps his job! (Remember, the job save may be your own!)
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!

You need to politely but pointedly, demand to know what they are doing to protect our nation. You need to ask them how they are protecting you and your families. You can also forward this commentary to them.

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

http://www.newswithviews.com/Cutler/michael175.htm