Candidate Martin O’Malley’s Position on Immigration Would Undermine National Security and Public Safety : Michael Cutler
http://www.progressivesforimmigrationreform.org/candidate-martin-omalleys-position-on-immigration-would-undermine-national-security-and-public-safety/
Today I will focus on the newest of the announced Democratic candidates for the Presidency, Maryland’s former governor, Martin O’Malley who announced his candidacy for the Presidency on Saturday, May 30th and began his speech by taking on big banks and the de facto oligarchs of the United States – those whose wealth is so off the charts that they wield incredible political power.
Because immigration was an integral component of his speech, I will divide my analysis of his position into two parts. Because Mr. O’Malley began by focusing on the American Dream and economics – indeed his podium was festooned with a poster that in addition to his name bore the phrase “Rebuild the American Dream,” we will begin by considering the national security implications of Mr. O’Malley’s stance on immigration.
This focus is particularly appropriate because just one day after announcing his candidacy, the Senate conducted a highly unusual Sunday session to debate provisions of the Patriot Act that addressed the collection of data by the NSA. So split was the Senate that by midnight the Senate failed to achieve a compromise. Consequently, NSA’s collection of metadata was suspended at the stroke of midnight. My soon to be published follow up article will focus on Mr. O’Malley’s stance on immigration and economics and the impact on American families and the American Dream.
Immediately after O’Malley spoke about his support for the DREAM Act and for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, he talked about the need for “forward-looking” approaches to national security.
Whenever I hear politicians discuss national security without addressing the immigration components of national security I feel the overwhelming urge to ask if they have ever read The 9/11 Commission Report and its companion document, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.” I would love to know if Mr. O’Malley has read both reports.[1]
The United States immigration laws, as comprehended under the Immigration and Nationality Act, constitutes America’s first line and last line of defense against international terrorists and criminals. The inspections process conducted at ports of entry is not optional, and is supposed to prevent the entry of aliens engaged in terrorism and criminal activities. The 9/11 Commission made recommendations to improve this vital layer of security to address national security concerns.
Our immigration laws are utterly and totally blind as to race, religion, and ethnicity. The enforcement of our immigration laws is not about preventing the entry of any aliens because of those factors. To suggest otherwise is a reprehensible lie and constitutes a vicious form of profiling – yet this is the myth spewed by politicians and pundits who discuss immigration from an open borders perspective.
The inspections process is conducted by CBP (Customs and Border Protection) inspectors who are charged with enforcing our immigration laws and with preventing the entry of aliens that are noted in one of the sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182. This section of law enumerates the categories of aliens who are to be excluded. Among these categories are aliens who suffer from dangerous communicable diseases or extreme mental illness, convicted felons, human rights violators, war criminals, terrorists and spies, as well as aliens who would seek unlawful employment thus displacing American workers or driving down the wages of American workers who are similarly employed and aliens who would likely become public charges.
It is therefore unfathomable how any political leader, especially anyone seeking to become the next President of the United States, could advocate for providing lawful status and indeed, United States citizenship, to unknown millions of aliens who evaded that inspections process altogether. It was recently disclosed that when our Navy SEALS conducted its raid to take out Osama bin Laden, among the documents recovered in his compound in Pakistan was a copy of the 9/11 Commission Report and, perhaps even more disturbing, a copy of an application for United States citizenship. It is clear that bin Laden understood the value of naturalization for embedding terrorists in the United States. If only U.S. politicians from both parties understood this critical issue!
The 9/11 Commission identified immigration benefit fraud and visa fraud as being tools used to great advantage by the 9/11 terrorists as well as other terrorists the Commission identified as having operated in the United States in the decade leading up to the attacks of 9/11. I addressed this issue in two of my recent commentaries.[2]
There is an ongoing debate between political conservatives and political liberals about the mission for the federal government. No matter how rancorous the debate may have become, all reasonable Americans, regardless of political orientation expect our government to ensure the safety and well-being of its citizens. This is, in fact, the primary mission of America’s armed forces.
I began by saying I would love to know if Mr. O’Malley has read the 9/11 Commission Report or the 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel. I will end my article with a question I would also love for Mr. O’Malley to answer – this question served as the title for my March 5, 2015 article for Front Page Magazine, “What Are You Really Willing to Do to Stop Terrorists from Entering the U.S.?”
[1] Consider this excerpt from Chapter 12 of the 9/11 Commission Report:
Before 9/11, no agency of the U.S. government systematically analyzed terrorists’ travel strategies. Had they done so, they could have discovered the ways in which the terrorist predecessors to al Qaeda had been systematically but detectably exploiting weaknesses in our border security since the early 1990s.
We found that as many as 15 of the 19 hijackers were potentially vulnerable to interception by border authorities. Analyzing their characteristic travel documents and travel patterns could have allowed authorities to intercept 4 to 15 hijackers and more effective use of information available in U.S. government databases could have identified up to 3 hijackers.
Looking back, we can also see that the routine operations of our immigration laws-that is, aspects of those laws not specifically aimed at protecting against terrorism-inevitably shaped al Qaeda’s planning and opportunities. Because they were deemed not to be bona fide tourists or students as they claimed, five conspirators that we know of tried to get visas and failed, and one was denied entry by an inspector. We also found that had the immigration system set a higher bar for determining whether individuals are who or what they claim to be-and ensuring routine consequences for violations-it could potentially have excluded, removed, or come into further contact with several hijackers who did not appear to meet the terms for admitting short-term visitors.
Our investigation showed that two systemic weaknesses came together in our border system’s inability to contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks: a lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a part of border security and an immigration system not able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support counterterrorism. These weaknesses have been reduced but are far from being overcome.
[2] On May 19, 2015 FrontPage Magazine published my article, “Terrorists Value U.S. Citizenship More Than Our Politicians Do »The dangerous lack of scrutiny of those gaining legal status to the U.S.”
On May 22, 2015 Californians for Population Stabilization published my article, “Bin Laden, The 9/11 Commission Report and Immigration.”
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