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.