It is hard to believe that it has been 16 years since four passenger airliners were used as de facto cruise missiles to carry out the most horrific terror attack in the history of the United States.
That attack was against the entire United States of America, however, for those who were in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on that day, the attack was also personal — all too personal.
I will never forget the sight of the ashes from the conflagration at what came to be known as “Ground Zero” fluttering down on my neighborhood in Brooklyn on that day. I will never forget my neighbors screaming and wailing as they watched the televised coverage of that act of violence and destruction playing out just miles from our homes, knowing that their loved ones and friends went to work only an hour or two earlier at the World Trade Center, or in one of the buildings near the World Trade Center complex.
I will never forget what I came to think of as the “stench of death,” the horrible, sickening odors emanating from the smoldering debris at Ground Zero that lasted for months, permeating the air in New York City.
So many of us still suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. How could we not?
Today the death count from 9/11 continues to climb as more people, especially first responders, slowly and torturously succumb to the diseases that were caused by their exposures to and ingestion of the toxins released when the World Trade Center collapsed.
In fact, the expenses associated with the massive number of those who were sickened by those toxins will be borne through the passage of legislation known as H.R.1786 – James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Reauthorization Act. That bill was named for NYPD Detective James Zadroga, one of the first responders who perished because of his exposure to those toxins.
For nearly every year since the attacks of 9/11 I have written retrospectives to lay out how both the Bush administration and especially the Obama administration failed to take the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission into account, particularly where the issue of immigration was concerned.
I provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission about the nexus between the terror attacks of 9/11 and multiple failures of the immigration system.
Last year my article, “Reflections On 9/11’S Vulnerabilities” made my frustrations with the Obama administration crystal clear.
My 2014 article The 9/11 Commission Report and Immigration: An Assessment, Fourteen Years after the Attacks provided and in-depth analysis of the many ways that the Obama administration had not only not acted in accordance with the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, but actually acted in direct opposition to those findings and recommendations.
Today, thankfully, Donald Trump is the President of the United States and the Attorney General is not Loretta Lynch but Jeff Sessions.
Trump and Session are both clearly committed to enforcing our immigration laws, securing our nation’s borders and addressing the immigration failures and vulnerabilities that the 9/11 Commission identified.