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On March 20, 2013, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the topic of “Building an Immigration System Worthy of American Values.” I concluded my prepared testimony for that hearing by saying,
Law enforcement is at its best when it creates a climate of deterrence to convince those who might be contemplating violating the law that such an effort is likely to be discovered and that if discovered, adverse consequences will result for the law violators. Current policies and statements by the administration, in my view, encourages aspiring illegal aliens around the world to head for the United States. In effect the starter’s pistol has been fired and for these folks, the finish line to this race is the border of the United States.
Back when I was an INS special agent I recall that Doris Meissner who was, at the time, the commissioner of the INS, said that the agency needed to be “customer oriented.” Unfortunately, while I agree about the need to be customer oriented what Ms. Meissner and too many politicians today seem to have forgotten is that the “customers” of the INS and of our government in general, are the citizens of the United States of America.
As bad as things were 15 months ago when I testified before that Senate hearing, things have gotten far worse. A human tidal wave of young illegal aliens is now crashing on America’s southern border each and every day. They have been spurred on by the clear messages being sent to aspiring illegal aliens from around the world that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an agency that is charged with protecting our homeland, has been reduced to providing concierge service for aliens who violate our borders and violate our immigration laws.
It has been said that we only get one opportunity to make a first impression. Generally speaking, the first laws foreign nationals encounter when they deal with the United States are our immigration laws. The statements of the president and high-ranking members of his administration could not provide more encouragement to people from around the world that our borders and our laws do not matter.
When Congress repeatedly refused to go along with the DREAM Act, the president acted unilaterally invoking what he deemed “prosecutorial discretion” to provide hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who may be as old as 31 years of age with temporary lawful status, including employment authorization, if they claim to have entered the United States before their 16th birthday. I purposely used the term “if they claim” because these hundreds of thousands of un-inspected aliens will most likely not be interviewed nor will agents be made available to conduct investigations into the applications that they file. This is a virtual open invitation to fraud.
On June 17, 2012 Fox News Latino published my op-ed “Obama Invokes Prosecutorial Discretion to Circumvent Constitution and Congress,” in which I raised my concerns about this ill-conceived program initiated by the president to do an end-run around Congress, the legislative process and, indeed, the Constitution.
It is vital to note that the 9/11 Commission identified immigration fraud as a key tool used by terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves in the country, yet the issue of the 9/11 Commission, its report or the companion report issued by the 9/11 Commission staff known as The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel, are almost never raised by politicians from either side of the political aisle.
Here is the way that the preface of the staff report on terrorist travel begins:
It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.
This paragraph is found on page 98 under the title “Immigration Benefits”:Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.
While advocates for comprehensive immigration reform refer to aliens who evade the inspections process as simply being “undocumented” in an obvious attempt to minimize the true significance of how they violated our laws, the hard truth is that they are un-inspected. The term my colleagues and I used at the former INS to describe this method of entering the United States is EWI (Entry Without Inspection).
On June 3rd I was interviewed by Andrew Wilkow on his program on the Blaze TV Network about the crisis on our border created by our own government.
As I noted during my interview, no rational person would get on board an airliner if he (she) saw fellow passengers get onto that airplane after sneaking past the TSA personnel at an airport. Today, however, Americans in every town and city across this vast nation are being forced to live among unknown millions of foreign nationals who evaded a similar inspection process conducted at ports of entry.
One of the sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) is Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182 which enumerates the categories of aliens who are to be excluded. Among these classes are aliens who suffer from dangerous communicable diseases or extreme mental illness. Additionally, convicted felons, human rights violators, war criminals, terrorists and spies are excluded as well as aliens who would seek unlawful employment or become public charges.
While many Republican politicians may publicly decry the failures of the administration to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws, in point of fact they take no meaningful action because they also want to see a massive influx of aliens into the United States to satisfy the demands of their wealthy campaign contributors. They see the current disaster on our border as a win/win. They can make all of the statements that they want criticizing the president and yet, without lifting a finger, their contributors get what they want. Meanwhile the Republicans don’t leave any fingerprints at the “scene of the crime.”
Indeed, what is taking place is a crime, apparently violating the provisions ofTitle 8 USC § 1324 – Bringing in and harboring certain aliens, a section of law that is comprehended within the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The law states that it is a felony to aid, abet, encourage or induce aliens to enter our country illegally or remain in our country illegally.
Here is an excerpt from that section of law:Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to aliens. Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection 1324(a)(3).
Harboring — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals harbors, shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.
Encouraging/Inducing — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) makes it an offense for any person who — encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.
Conspiracy/Aiding or Abetting — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(v) expressly makes it an offense to engage in a conspiracy to commit or aid or abet the commission of the foregoing offenses.
Time and again we hear how our educational system needs to be improved. Now the administration, aided and abetted by politicians from both sides of the political aisle, is encouraging hundreds of thousands of young illegal aliens to run our borders. They are not being deported but being re-united with their illegal alien relatives in the United States and will, undoubtedly be enrolled in schools across the United States, flooding classrooms that are already overcrowded.
Furthermore, studies conducted by the Congressional Office of Management and Budget have shown that it costs 20% to 40% more to educate students who lack English proficiency.
Senator Jeff Sessions, one of the few “good guys” in the United States Senate, wrote an opinion piece for Breitbart that was published on June 9, 2014,“Exclusive–Sen. Jeff Sessions: Obama ‘Committed to Escalating’ Lawlessness at Border.”
Here is how his article began:There is now an unprecedented crisis unfolding at the border. The flow of illegal immigrant youth across the southern border is on track reach 130,000 next year—a projected increase of more than 2,000% from 2011. The White House estimates the cost of “resettling” these illegal immigrants in the United States will reach $2.3 billion in a single year.
This crisis is a direct and predictable result of the President’s sustained and deliberate campaign to dismantle immigration enforcement. His administration has announced to the world that our nation’s immigration laws will not be enforced and that, in particular, they will not be applied to foreign youth.
The world has heard and heeded the president’s message. A wave of illegal immigration has overwhelmed authorities, producing a completely preventable humanitarian crisis—and further diminishing the integrity of our national borders. And there is but one way for the crisis to end: for the president of the United States to declare to the world: “Do not attempt to come here illegally. Our border is no longer open. Our laws will be enforced.”
Overwhelming our resources impacts America and Americans across the country and undermines national security, public safety, public health, education, healthcare and a host of other issues. It also leads more desperate people from around the world to head for the United States.
Rahm Emanuel, a close political ally of President Obama and currently the mayor of Chicago, Illinois has been quoted as saying:
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
The current crisis found along our southwest border was carefully manufactured by the administration and the president must be made to answer one key question, “Why?”
