RUTHFULLY YOURS

For decades, discussions about the failures of the immigration system focused almost exclusively on securing our southwest border but ignored not only the legal entry system, but the solution to the failures of both the legal and illegal means by which aliens – including terrorists and transnational criminals – enter the United States: the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the U.S.

Let’s be blunt. There is no way to prevent all illegal entries of aliens. Our nation’s southwest border is 1,900 miles long, and the border that separates the U.S. from Canada is more than 5,000 miles long. Our coastline runs approximately 95,000 miles.
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The vetting process conducted by consular officials who issue visas will always suffer failures. The Visa Waiver Program further erodes the ability to vet aliens who enter the U.S.

Finally, politicians and journalists now are acknowledging that failures of the immigration system are not limited to the millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. but that there is a threat posed by aliens who were admitted through the legal process, but not adequately vetted. In fact, the 9/11 Commission noted that the great majority of terrorists entered the U.S. through international airports.

Nezar Hamze is a leader in the Hamas-related Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). He is also a Deputy Sheriff in the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO), in Broward County, Florida. This background has given him the opportunity to exploit his position in law enforcement to assist his Islamist friends in their desire for weapons training. This month, he did so at a Tampa Bay, Florida mosque that partners with designated terrorist organizations.

CAIR was established in June 1994 as part of the American Palestine Committee, a terrorist umbrella group headed by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. Marzook is currently residing in Egypt as second in command of Hamas. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the US Justice Department a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Since its founding, a number of CAIR representatives have served jail time and/or have been deported from the US for terrorist-related crimes.

Nezar Hamze is the CEO and Regional Operations Director for the Florida chapter of CAIR or CAIR-Florida. In July 2014, CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami, where rally goers shouted, “We are Hamas” and “Let’s go Hamas.” Following the rally, the event organizer, Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, wrote, “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!” In August 2014, CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly wrote, “Israel and its supporters are enemies of G-d…”

When Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik murdered 14 people in San Bernardino on December 2, the first response of the White House was to invoke “workplace violence.” Two days later, against pressure from the Justice Department, the FBI declared the attack a case of terrorism. Now another 2015 terrorist attack is being properly labeled, and the victims at last gaining recognition.

On July 16, Kuwaiti-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24, attacked a Navy Operational Support Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The attacker fired 35-40 shots from an AK-47, killing five members of the U.S. military: Carson Holmquist, Randall Smith, Thomas Sullivan, Squire Wells, and David Wyatt, 37. Abdulazeez also wounded Marine recruiter Demonte Cheely and police sergeant Dennis Pedigo.

Police killed Abdulazeez, who also deployed a 9mm handgun and attacked a second recruiting station. Despite the profile of the shooter, the nature of the target, and the multiple fatalities, federal authorities declined to call the attack terrorism. That changed on December 16, two weeks after the San Bernardino attacks.