MIKE CUTLER: A COUNTRY WITHOUT SECURE BORDERS CAN NO MORE STAND THAN A HOUSE WITHOUT WALLS
I just came across this ICE Press Release that was issued earlier today, April 15th.
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1104/110415chicago.htm
ICE deports suspect wanted in Mexico for murdering a 4-year-old boy
Here are a couple of points I want you to consider in reviewing this press release.
First of all, the individual who was arrested by special agents of ICE, Juan Manuel Salazar-Ramos was arrested at a significant distance from the US/Mexican border- he was arrested in Chicago, Illinois. While it is likely that he gained entry into the United States by running the border he was found halfway across our nation. This reenforces one of the major issues I have been hammering away at ever since I decided to “go public” about the many failings of what should be a coherent “immigration system” namely the fact that immigration is not a border issue but is a major issue for Americans throughout our nation no matter where they live.
Next, I want to make note of something that should be commonsense, but as is all too often the case, commonsense has little or nothing to do with the immigration crisis. The advocates for open borders and sweeping amnesty programs are often quick to claim that illegal aliens do not commit crimes other than the offense of unlawful entry into our country. I have debated members of the ACLU, La Raza and other such organizations on numerous occasions who steadfastly claim that anyone who accuses illegal aliens of committing crimes is xenophobic, or worse!
I contend that all too often aliens who run our nation’s borders are involved in serious criminal activities and may, in fact, be fugitives from justice in their country of citizenship or some other country where they committed serious crimes and then fled in an effort to evade law enforcement authorities. Mr. Salazar-Ramos is a clear, case in point example of such a fugitive.
Next I would like to debunk the oft-claimed charge that those of us who call for secure borders that block the entry of illegal aliens are racists, xenophobes and somehow evil. The open borders advocates refer to themselves as being “Pro-Immigrant” while those who agree with my perspectives are vilified as being “Anti-Immigrant.” I will tell you that it is my view that in actuality, those who want our borders to remain wide open are actually “Anti-Immigrant” while I am, in fact “Pro-Immigrant!”
If you wonder how I could make this statement- here is my perspective; while it was not stated in the press release that I have provided to you with this commentary, I can all but guarantee you that Juan Manuel Salazar-Ramos was hiding out in the United States by living in a neighborhood that was likely heavily populated by aliens who came to the United States both legally and illegally from Mexico and, perhaps, other Latin American countries. While I do not have specific information about this- as I said the press release did not disclose any information about the neighborhood where Salazar-Ramos was living at the time of his capture by ICE, in my 3 decades of experience with the former INS, I have found that illegal aliens tend to live in communities in which they are comfortable. They want to live among people who speak their language, eat in restaurants or purchase food from stores that can provide them with meals that they are accustomed to. For a fugitive it is even more important to blend into the community to make it less likely that they will be discovered. Such fugitives also count on members of the community to not cooperate with law enforcement as a sense of “us against them.” This is especially true in certain communities where the aliens come from countries where the police back home are corrupt and not to be trusted. Mexico could be a “poster child” for countries whose police cannot be trusted!
By now you must be wondering about my assertion that I am being “Pro-Immigrant” because I believe in securing our border against the unlawful entry of aliens into our country. Please consider that if, Juan Manuel Salazar-Ramos is, in fact, responsible for the horrific and senseless crime of beating a defenseless four year old child to death with a hammer- would you want him living next door to you? Would you feel that your own children- presuming you have young kids, would be safe around such a violent thug?
I think we all know how any reasonable person would feel about having such a monster in their midst! Think about how most people feel when they find out that a registered sex offender has moved into their neighborhoods!
Because our borders are little more than speed bumps to smugglers and illegal aliens, and because most illegal aliens- including, especially those with criminal histories and/or criminal intentions generally move into immigrant communities, whose lives are most likely threatened by the presence of such transnational criminals and international fugitives?
Clearly the residents of immigrant communities are therefore far more likely to have such sociopaths and criminals living in their midst! This is not only where the immigrants are from Mexico or even Latin America but for immigrant communities whose citizens have come from the four corners of the globe! When I was an INS special agent on the hunt for criminal aliens, my colleagues and I would head for those communities of immigrants that had become the home to immigrants from the country of the individual we were searching for.
Another threat that the members of immigrant communities face is the fact that transnational criminals who live among them are able to threaten their family members back in their home countries if they cooperate with law enforcement authorities or if they do not assist the criminals who demand that they help these criminals conduct their felonious activities in the United States. The tragedy is that many of these immigrants wait years to come here legally and then when they get here, excited that they will now begin to realize their “American Dream” they find out that the same thugs that kept them awake at night in their home countries have literally followed them here, inside the United States of America and their nightmares continue!
The alleged child murderer who is the focus of the press release below is only one of God knows how many thousands of other such pernicious criminal aliens who are, at this moment living in communities across our nation.
This is commonsense and reality- two words that are almost as disturbing to the open borders / pro-amnesty advocates as is the word “Alien!”
As I have often noted, the term “Alien” is not a pejorative but is simply a legal term that defines an alien as simply being any person who is not a citizen or national of the United States! I defy anyone to tell me where the insult is in accurately noting that a foreign national who is living in our country is an alien? In point of fact, if you want to know what it feels like to become an alien you simply need to head for some foreign country- indeed, any foreign country and by the mere act of entering into that foreign country, you will become an “alien” and I can assure you that the country into which you will have entered will have no problem referring to you as being an “alien” or refer to you by a comparable term- as well they should!
The open borders advocates hate the word alien- not because it is the pejorative they falsely claim it is, but because that term is problematic for them. It provides clarity! By invoking the term “Immigrant” they then like to say that “We are a nation of immigrants!” This provides semantical cover for their falsehoods! Here is a bit of clarity about the deceptive use of language-
The difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien is comparable to the difference between a houseguest and a burglar!
There is one final issue I want to take the time to quickly cover. The press release did not provide any information as to when, where or how Salazar-Ramos entered our country. All that the article did note was that he has been accused of carrying out that horrific murder approximately ten years ago. The press release did not mention if he had been arrested by police at any time in the United States since he entered the United States. The issue of possible alternative identities or false aliases was also never raised. In my experience, illegal aliens in general and those wanted for serious crimes in particular use false names- often a number of false names, as a means of hiding in plain sight or, in the parlance of the 9/11 Commission- as a means of embedding themselves in a community. This is one of the reasons that identity theft has become such a pervasive problem throughout our country. Anyone who has experienced having his (her) identity stolen will tell you that this is anything but a “victimless crime!” It has been, in fact, identified as being the fastest growing white collar crime in the United States!
Currently the are a number of politicians on all levels, ranging from the President, to members of both houses of Congress to local political “leaders” who are calling for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” to place unknown millions- perhaps, tens of millions of illegal aliens whose true identities are unknown and unknowable, on a “pathway to United States citizenship” all but declaring that running our nation’s borders should be a virtual prerequisite for naturalization! There are a list of reasons I am adamantly and completely opposed to any such blanket amnesty program. (Forget what the liars who advocate for Comprehensive Immigration Reform claim- this would be an amnesty program!)
At the very top of that list is the reality that there would be absolutely no way to properly determine the true identity of the vast majority of these illegal aliens. This means that there would be no way of knowing if they were fugitives in their own countries. There would not even be a mechanism for determining, with complete certainty, the true citizenship of many of these illegal aliens. The open border advocates like to refer to illegal aliens as being “undocumented.” The term undocumented means that there are no official identity documents that can be found that establish their true identities!
The claim has been made that they would all be subject to a “security check.” A security check does not involve any field investigation. All that a “security check” consists of is running the name the alien claims relates to him through a computer database along with his fingerprints. Many of the terrorists whose names appear on the various “No Fly” and terror watch lists do not have any relating photographs or biometric identifiers. Often our computer databases do not have the fingerprints on file of aliens who are wanted in another country or have been convicted of crimes in another country. If an alien criminal or terrorist lies about his (her) name on an application for amnesty and manages to keep a low enough profile to have never been arrested or fingerprinted in our country- a criminal alien, a fugitive alien or an international terrorist would be easily able to game this system.
The 19 terrorists who attacked our nation on September 11, 2001 used multiple false identities as a means of embedding themselves in our country.
This is why I have come to refer to Comprehensive Immigration Reform as being the “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act!”
On June 22, 2007 the Washington Times published an Op-Ed I wrote about this concern in a commentary I entitled, “Immigration Bill a ‘No Go’ “
Here is a link to my commentary:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jun/22/immigration-bill-a-no-go/print/
If you wonder what all of t his has to do with the case of Juan Manuel Salazar-Ramos- he may well have managed to hide in plain sight in the United States for many years. In my experience he most likely used one or more- perhaps many more, false aliases.
If Comprehensive Immigration Reform was enacted, it must be presumed that many criminal aliens including members of pernicious transnational gangs and drug trafficking organizations among them as well as terrorists would avail themselves a golden opportunity to embed themselves in our country and acquire lawful status under assumed identities. This would render our various “No Fly” and terrorist watch lists worthless! This would enable these malevolent players to secure identity documents that would provide them with access to airliners, government and corporate office buildings and jobs that have clear national security implications. Ultimately they would be able to travel to foreign countries under assumed identities that we would have unwittingly provided them to facilitate their criminal or terrorist objectives!
Our government has still not done anything to truly address this lunacy. Consider, for example, that on Novermber 29, 2006 the Washington Post ran an article entitled:
“Citizenship Agency Lost 111,000 Files”
You can read the article at:
Incredibly the applications that related to those 111,000 files were all processed without the relating immigration files including the 30,000 aliens who were naturalized by adjudications officers who were not provided with the critically important immigration files relating to the aliens who applied for United States citizenship. This travesty took place more than 13 years after Kansi gamed the system to acquire political asylum and opened fire of CIA officers. Just one month later other terrorists from the Middle East who launched the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and had also committed visa fraud and immigration fraud in order to facilitate their plans to attack our nation and kill our citizens. Those 111,000 files were lost and the application adjudicated more than five years after the Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Yet the system has never possessed integrity and still possesses no integrity!
On July 27, 2006 I was invited to testify before a hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration Border Security and Claims on the topic:
“WHETHER THE ATTEMPTED IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REID-KENNEDY IMMIGRATION BILL WILL RESULT IN AN ADMINISTRATIVE AND NATIONAL SECURITY NIGHTMARE”
My concerns and remarks back then are every bit as relevant today!
Here is a link to the transcript of that hearing, in its entirety:
Here is a link to a video segment of my testimony at that hearing:
My goal is to get our elected representatives to finally, for once and for all- especially in this extremely perilous era, secure the borders of our nation against the unlawful entry of those whose presence represents a threat to our well being and the security of our nation and create an immigration bureaucracy that has real integrity that not only protects our nation and our citizens but also honors the countless millions of lawful immigrants who, since the founding of this great nation, built this nation for themselves, for their descendants and for us.
Is not my demand for secure borders “Pro-Immigrant” as well as “Pro-America?”
The open borders crowd even demand that local police officers not cooperate with ICE to seek the removal of aliens who have criminal convictions!
Is this a position that is consistent with the best interests of the residents of immigrant communities? If those who take this position want to refer to themselves as being “Pro-Immigrant” then all I can say is that with “friends” like this, the immigrants of our nation do not need enemies!
Finally, as I have noted in many previous commentaries that addressed specific aliens who had entered our country illegally- if these aliens could run our borders then our borders must not be secure- no matter what Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Surrender may have to say about this! If these aliens could embed themselves in communities clear across our nation and even Ms Napolitano, the head of the Department of Homeland Surrender concedes that at least 230 cities from coast to coast and border to border have become infested by members of the Mexican drug cartels while additional cities play “host” to criminal and terrorist organizations from across our planet- then DHS needs to do more than focus on the border and ignore those aliens who get past the Border Patrol or those millions of aliens who manage to get themselves lawfully admitted into our country and then, in one way or another, violate the terms of their admission into the United States thereby rending them deportable (subject to removal) as well!
In the 1974 thriller, “Marathon Man,” Dustin Hoffman’s character is repeatedly asked, “Is it safe?”
I would ask Napolitano and the other open borders advocates the same question- but we already know the answer, don’t we?
The effective enforcement and administration of our nation’s immigration laws are, arguably, among the most important of all missions that are supposed to be carried out by our federal government.
Nothing less than the security of our nation and safety of our citizens hang in the balance!
A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!
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