RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the “Wild West” America’s pioneers who were heading west would employ a simple but effective strategy when they came under attack. They circled their wagons to form what was hopefully an impenetrable perimeter.

Further back in history, castles were protected by high walls and often moats were created to offer a buffer beyond the walls, requiring draw bridges to enable those who wanted to traverse the moat to either enter or leave the castle compound.

It is more than ironic, as we about to see, that Obama himself drew that very same analogy about border security concerning a moat. For good measure, he even threw in alligators to fill that moat.

Of course he used that language derisively to insult and ridicule anyone who dared suggest our borders are not secure, but that those borders must be made secure.

Considering the threats that America and Americans face by international terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations, if ever their was a time that our borders should be secured, this is the time. Of course the Obama administration has very different plans. Virtually from its first days, the Obama administration has lied about the failures of the immigration system to secure our borders and carry out its missions that are intrinsic to national security and public safety.

On July 27, 2015 Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) posted my article, “Heroin Epidemic: The Real Metric for Determining Border Security.” The point I made in that article is that inasmuch as Border Patrol arrest statistics are as massaged as are the unemployment statistics, and that many of the illegal aliens who are present in the United States did not run the southern border, a more reliable metric needs to be used to determine just how secure our borders are — because of how much this issue impacts our nation and citizens in so many ways.

From its first days, the Obama administration has done more and more to make our borders less and less secure while falsely claiming our borders have never been more secure.

The reality is the precise opposite. The incontrovertible evidence involves the lives of American children.

Let us remember that in a very real sense, our borders are our first line of defense and last line of defense against our enemies and against international terrorists and transnational criminals and smugglers.

Not long ago I wrote about my concerns that police officers around the United States were being provided with the antidote to heroin overdoses. This certainly is a strong indicator that our borders and efforts to secure out borders are abject failures. Remember, heroin is not produced in the United States and is an illegal substance. Therefore every gram of heroin in the United States provides graphic evidence of a failure of border security.

As noted on the official DHS website, the budget for the DHS for Fiscal Year 2015 included 23,871 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and the overall budget for CBP was for 12.8 billion dollars. This raises the very reasonable question: “What are we getting for all of the money?”

It is absolutely disconcerting that heroin addiction has become so pervasive a problem that police officers across the United States are being provided with the antidote and training to use it. However, now there is shocking information that the antidote to heroin overdoses is now being provided in our schools.

Imagine the future of young drug addicts and what this means to the students in those schools who have no involvement in drugs. How does this impact their safety?

Most gangs thrive on the proceeds of drug-related crimes.

On April 9, 2015 CBS News Radio in New York City reported, “New York Approves Use Of Heroin-Overdose Antidote At Schools.”

Here is an excerpt from the article:

School nurses in New York will now be allowed to administer Narcan to students who suffer seizures from an overdose of heroin or painkillers.

As part of the new state budget, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature approved the use of the medicine, also known as naloxone, that reverses the effects of an overdose, as well as $272,000 in funding, WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall reported.

“By making this investment to provide naloxone kits and training for schools, we are continuing to save lives in the fight against opioid use and addiction,” Cuomo said in a news release. “This is an epidemic that disproportionately impacts young New Yorkers and has caused far too much needless tragedy in every corner of the state.”

Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn applauded the move.

[…]

“This epidemic is everywhere. And our schools have to be able to address it should it happen on campus,” Hahn added.

The use of heroin has been skyrocketing in recent years. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the number of heroin overdose deaths increased fivefold from 2003 to 2013, the last year for when statistics were available.

In response, more municipalities have been equipping first responders with Narcan kits and training on how to administer it.

On July 13, 2015 the Washington Post reported, “Obama commutes sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders.” Of course I make this statement with my tongue firmly embedded in my cheek, however, there would seemingly be no shortage of work for these drug traffickers should they make the horrible decision to go back to their previous careers.

This disaster has been a long time in the making.

On August 2, 2012 Fox News Latino posted my Op-Ed, “Opinion: Drawing The Line On National Security.” In my article I took on the issue of border security and the false claims made by Obama about how secure America’s southern border actually was when he addressed a crowd in El Paso, Texas on May 10, 2011. That event and the President’s remarks, including a video, were the subject of a Fox News report, “Obama: Republicans Want a ‘Moat’ With ‘Alligators’ on the Border.”

Mr. Obama’s sarcastic and, indeed, caustic remarks included the unforgettable and unforgivable statement that those who are not satisfied with the state of border security perhaps would want a moat with alligators to be installed along the border.

Here is an excerpt from my commentary:

On May 10, 2011, President Obama addressed a crowd in El Paso, Texas, a city that’s located just north of what is arguably Mexico’s most violent city, Ciudad Juarez, where he said in part:

“…We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done. But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I suspect there will be some who will try to move the goal posts one more time (someone in the crowd yells ‘racists!’).”

“They said we need to triple the border patrol. Or now they’ll say we need to quadruple the border patrol. Or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they’ll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat! They’ll never be satisfied, and I understand that. That’s politics. But the truth is the measures we’ve put in place are getting results.”

In the years since that infamous speech, the administration has done everything it could to attract a human tsunami of illegal aliens from Central America that overwhelmed the Border Patrol and other components of the immigration system.

An award-winning documentary that was produced last year, “The Border States of America,” provided graphic evidence as to just how dysfunctional and porous our dangerous southern border truly is. I am proud to appear in that film. That film is available online for free by going that link posted above.

Of course, there is far more to border security than the U.S./Mexican border. Any state with an international airport, access to America’s tens of thousands of miles of meandering coastline or lies along our northern as well as our southern borders raises immigration issues.

I began my career with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) as an Immigration Inspector assigned to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City in 1971. Even back then we had a problem with narcotics being smuggled into the United States through that airport, as did all other ports of entry. Of course the demand for drugs back then was minuscule compared with the ever-growing appetite for those poisons today.

The drug trade and drug addiction are linked to the great majority of violent crimes across the United States. Additionally, the huge profits found in the proceeds of the drug trade fill the coffers of criminal and terrorist organizations.

I became an INS Special Agent/Criminal Investigator in 1975. In 1978 I was assigned to the first Anti-Smuggling Unit of the INS. My first-hand experiences with alien smugglers convinced me that of all criminals, alien smugglers are among the lowest form of criminal scum imaginable. We encountered smugglers who actually held the dead body of a smuggled alien hostage, demanding that the family of the victim pay to have his body returned. When they paid the money, the smugglers actually dropped the dead body on his family’s lawn in the middle of the night.

The family awoke the next morning, making the gruesome discovery when they opened their front door.

In the early 1980’s I was assigned as the Marine Intelligence Officer for the New York District Office of the INS. I routinely joined Customs agents in boarding ships in New York and New Jersey seeking stowaways, ship-jumpers and contraband.

In 1988 I became the first INS agent who was ever assigned to the Unified Intelligence Division (UID) of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration. During my second year in that assignment I decided to do an analysis of DEA arrests in New York City and nationally to see who was being arrested for drug-related crimes.

I knew that many times aliens were engaged in drug trafficking, but the arrest statistics for those charged with drug crimes by the DEA in NYC were astonishing. Roughly 60% of those arrested were identified as being “foreign born.” There is no record created as to immigration status of those arrested, so the best I could do was look at whether or not the defendants who were arrested were born in the United States or in other countries.

Nationally, those statistics indicated that approximately 30% of all defendants arrested by the DEA were “foreign born.”

I continued tracking those stats for several years afterwards and they remained essentially constant.

While the U.S./Mexican border is heavily involved in smuggling activities, it is important to know that narcotics are also smuggled in the huge containers carried by cargo ships and is smuggled as cargo on airliners as well as by airline passengers and flight crew members.

On July 7, 2014 FrontPage Magazine published my article, “Border Security and the Immigration Colander.”

The point to that article was to consider all of the failings of the immigration system, comparing each dysfunctional component of the immigration system to a hole in a colander. Similarly, you can think of all of the elements to our border as being holes in the colander.

In both situations, the goal must be to seal each and every hole. The future of our nation, our citizens and our children hang in the balance.