Immigration and the Christmas Day Attack - Officials Create Illusions of Safety and Security Leaving Borders Unsecured

By Michael W. Cutler, Senior Special Agent, INS (Ret.)
Volume 20, Number 2 (Winter 2009-2010)
Issue theme: "Timeout! The case for a moratorium on legal immigration."


There is a succinct aphorism that states that, “Hope is not a strategy.” How many times have you heard those who claimed to be leaders talking about what they had hoped? How many sentences have started with someone saying, “Hopefully...”?

To my thinking, when someone uses the word hope, or any variation of that word in conjunction with a life or death situation, you need to make certain your affairs are in order! I don’t want my life or the lives of citizens resting on anyone’s hopes!

Shortly after the attempted destruction of that Delta Airlines flight on Christmas Day as the airliner was descending over Detroit, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano made the unconscionable statement that the system had worked as it should have! This has caused me to create a new aphorism that I think is applicable, “Dumb luck must not be mistaken for success!”

The only reason that the airliner and the passengers onboard had not been reduced to flaming rubble was that the device the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to detonate failed to explode. This is certainly not a success by any reasonable person’s judgment. Napolitano’s statement did, however, provide a window into her thinking and, indeed, the thinking of our nation’s “leadership.” Clearly what our politicians and the people at the top of most federal agencies have been providing the citizens of our nation is the illusion that all is under control, even while time and again the various systems that are supposed to protect our nation and our citizens have demonstrated the inability to do the job. Meanwhile we are constantly reminded by our politicians and other “leaders,” as they whittle away at our expectations of privacy and freedom in the name of “national security,” that the terrorists only have to get it right once while our officials have to be right 100 percent of the time!

Before examining the details of this attack, I want to discuss the immigration crisis confronting our nation today that actually has a bearing on the fortunately unsuccessful terrorist attack this past Christmas.

In discussing the immigration crisis that is confronting our country, I have noted in several appearances that perhaps the time had come for David Copperfield to run for President — at least then we would have a professional illusionist in the Oval Office!

Think about the speeches that we have heard from our nation’s leaders in Washington. The tactics most politicians from both political parties employ have been token statements that appear to meet the demands of average citizens (voters), giving them the idea that their concerns are being addressed, and then these duplicitous politicians make damned certain that, promises aside, they will be able to get away with doing whatever they had intended in the first place while camouflaging their actions in the process.

Let me provide you with a couple of examples. Consider the Secure Border Initiative (SBI). Could you imagine a better title for a system that would create security along our nation’s borders? Those three words make it sound as though they had dug up Gen. George Patton himself and brought that storied general back to life to lead the charge!

In reality, SBI consisted of cameras and sensors that were supposed to alert Border Patrol agents about the entry of illegal aliens sneaking into our country. It turns out that the system often failed to do what it was designed to do, and, with a lack of an adequate number of Border Patrol agents, the likelihood that those illegal aliens would be caught and their entry into our country prevented was essentially a pipe dream — but a costly pipe dream that drained many millions of dollars out of our nation’s coffers but provided the illusion that our border was secure.

This is part of what has been euphemistically referred to as the “virtual fence.” I recall being asked by the hosts of television and radio programs what I thought of the “virtual fence.” I responded by saying that the “virtual fence” would stop virtually no one!

Other enforcement programs such as “Operation Return to Sender” and “Operation Predator,” both of which target aliens engaged in serious criminal activities in the United States, yielded some arrests and headlines. However, when you consider how many hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens are plying their “trades” in our country, it becomes readily apparent that our government is only catching a small percentage of violent aliens whose presence in our country creates a national security nightmare for our nation and places our citizens, especially members of the immigrant community, at risk.

Perhaps our government need not give all of these programs different names. One name would nicely describe all of these programs that may score some successes but leave the majority of the issues untouched: “Operation Back-Rub” would be a more honest name.

Anyone who has ever cared for a young child knows that if that child awakens in the middle of the night, suffering from a nightmare, the best course of action is to sit down next to the child in his (her) bed, perhaps offer a glass of warm milk, rub his back, speak in soothing tones, and console and reassure the child so that he can go back to sleep!

Most of these program that are supposed to deal with various aspects of the immigration crisis, given the incredible lack of resources, are little more than public relations stunts designed to calm the citizens of our country.

While we are talking about the term “immigrant community,” members of which often fall victims to alien gang violence, I believe it would be a good idea to consider the use of the terms “immigrant” and “alien.” Under the “leadership” of President Jimmy Carter, INS employees were counseled against using the term “illegal alien.” We were initially told to use the term “undocumented alien.” Several months later our bosses notified us to refer to illegal aliens as “undocumented workers.” This is undoubtedly a term that is being used today. The term alien is not a pejorative. It is not an insult to describe a person as being an alien but merely describes the status of a person who is present in our country. The term alien, or variations thereof, is used by virtually every country.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) — the all-encompassing body of laws that pertain to the entry and presence of foreign nationals (aliens) in our country that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) enforce and USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) administers — an alien is defined as any person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.

Where is there an insult in that definition?

You don’t need a flying saucer to find out what it is like to be an alien. Just travel to any other country, such as Canada, Mexico, England, France, etc., and unless you are a dual national you will become an alien by virtue of crossing that country’s international border.

Why then is the term alien being stricken from the vernacular? It is my belief that those who seek open borders understand that inasmuch as the laws, facts, common sense and morality are all against what they are attempting to do, they need to obfuscate the issue with verbal blue smoke and mirrors. These are, as you know, the stock and trade of illusionists.

It is not that the illegal aliens are living in the “shadows,” but the truth is being hidden in the shadows by those we elect to represent us and our families. This is nothing short of a massive betrayal!

It is a betrayal of the citizens of our nation and a betrayal of the nation that these elected officials swore to defend and protect!

The author George Orwell, in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, devised what he called “Newspeak.” Orwell noted that in order to eliminate concepts, one must purge the words that pertain to those concepts. Apparently Jimmy Carter and most of his successors have read Nineteen-Eighty Four and are applying the concept of “Newspeak” to immigration and other issues.

By using the term “immigrant” to describe aliens, an image is created that all of the foreign nationals who are present in our country have the right to be here!

President George W. Bush had stated that he wanted to “legalize the immigrants.” I noted in a number of my speeches that offering to legalize immigrants was a bit like offering to make water wet — immigrants are legal and water is already wet!

President Bush understood that the average American would have been outraged had he said he wanted to legalize illegal aliens, so he used the term “immigrant” to describe the illegal aliens in our country. Most Americans are the descendants of immigrants, and so, when the President offers to “legalize immigrants,” it creates the image of a normal process that all immigrants must go through. Once again we were provided with a sort of magic show by the President of the United States.

President Bush also made some other incredible assertions. He stated that we needed to admit those hard-working aliens who simply wanted to work in the United States, freeing up law enforcement officials to go after the terrorists!

Let’s stop and consider what he said. Have you ever read about a terrorist who was arrested while hiding in a hole in the ground or in someone’s attic? In just about every case where a terrorist is arrested, the terrorist was either a student attending school, or, more likely, identified by the job he was doing.

Most terrorists seek jobs that provide them with mobility and camouflage. We have read about terrorists involved in driving an ice cream truck, school buses (which provide the added benefit, as we saw in Toronto, Canada, several years ago, of giving a terrorist access to teenage boys he was attempting to recruit into a terrorist cell), airport limos and vans (which provide the advantage of being able to move freely about an airport where, perhaps, they could easily meet arriving cohorts without calling attention to themselves) and taxis, which enable the terrorists to have clandestine meetings and again be able to move freely around the city without making their movements obvious, even to a surveillance team.

One terror suspect actually operated a coffee stand just blocks from what is now known as “Ground Zero” in New York City.

In point of fact, a couple of days before participating in a terrorist attack, a terrorist is likely to hide in plain sight by going to his job.

Open borders advocates invoke the issue of slavery and civil rights to attempt to gain the sympathy of Americans who are angry about the presence of illegal aliens in our country. They also talk about immigration as being a single issue. Indeed, Janet Napolitano has defined extremists as being people who have a strong reaction to single-issue topics such as immigration. All of this is also about creating illusions.

Illegal aliens are entitled to due process if they are charged with a crime.

Due process is intended to minimize the potential that innocent people will be convicted of crimes they did not commit. The idea that anyone would be wrongly convicted of a crime is disturbing, to say the least. Furthermore, if someone is convicted of committing a heinous crime and sentenced to a period of incarceration or other punishment, law enforcement will obviously stop looking for the perpetrator of that crime or crimes. Meanwhile, the real criminal will remain at large and potentially will attack additional victims. Everyone loses in such a scenario. This is why I believe that anyone charged with a crime should be given the protections afforded under due process.

Civil rights, however, is another matter altogether. Civil rights deals with the issue of making certain that all people who are legally present in our country, such as resident aliens (true immigrants) and U.S. citizens, are given equal opportunities to live their lives in peace with access to jobs that are free of discrimination. That they be permitted to be full participants in the communities in which they live and work. That citizens be permitted to vote, own property and have equal opportunities for success. These laws were promulgated to address the outrages of slavery and then segregation that denied American citizens fair and equal treatment in our country.

It is certainly true that in the vast majority of cases where illegal aliens are intentionally hired by unscrupulous employers, these vulnerable people are terribly exploited — paid substandard wages and often coerced into working under conditions that are so substandard as to be patently illegal. However, illegal aliens are individuals who have no right to be present in our country in the first place!

The difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien is comparable to the difference between a houseguest and burglar.

By using the deceptive language I have noted above, however, it becomes a simple matter for politicians to talk about providing a “pathway to United States citizenship” for aliens who are “living in the shadows” and cloak that outrageous proposition in the mantle of reasonableness.

The open-borders advocates, including many politicians, use the tools of false arguments and deceptive language coupled with the fact that most people don’t want to think of themselves as being unfair, bigoted, or politically incorrect.

The open-borders advocates often attempt to paint anyone who wants secure borders and an immigration system that has real integrity as being a right-wing extremist or worse. Yet, in point of fact, the need for secure borders and an immigration bureaucracy that possesses real integrity is something that all Americans should demand, regardless of political orientation.

Anyone who lives in an apartment or house probably has a door with a peephole or other means of seeing the person who may knock on their front door or ring the doorbell. In fact, that is why there are doorbells and peepholes, to provide the person in that house or apartment with the opportunity to take a good look at anyone seeking to enter. This is nothing more than common sense.

In fact, this is precisely what the purpose of the inspections process is supposed to be. The process is supposed to provide the Customs and Border Protection inspectors with the opportunity to make certain that aliens seeking to enter our country do not pose a threat to our well-being. I am quite familiar with this job; it was, in fact the first job I had when I entered on duty with the INS in October of 1971 and was a job I held for just about four years.

Next, immigration is anything but a single issue. Our nation’s failures to secure its borders and create an immigration system that has real integrity has had a huge impact on just about every significant challenge confronting our nation today. The immigration crisis hammers everything from national security and criminal justice to the economy, the environment, healthcare, and education.

How can you protect our nation against terrorists and criminal aliens (whom I have come to refer to as transnational criminals) when you have extremely porous borders and millions of people wandering around our country whose true identities are unknown and unknowable? Stop and consider that. We have no reliable way of knowing the true names, nationalities, backgrounds, and affiliation of millions of people throughout our vast nation. Therefore there is no reliable way of knowing how, when, or where they entered the United States or what caused them to come here in the first place.

Now imagine if Comprehensive Immigration Reform was to be enacted.

The hapless adjudicators at USCIS, who are unable to keep up with their workload now, would suddenly find a veritable tsunami of applications headed their way with the mandate that they process one hundred thousand of those applications each and every day. (That was what the most recent Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation, defeated in the Senate in 2007, would have required.)

The predicament these bureaucrats would find themselves in would mirror the situation that Lucille Ball and her sidekick, Ethel, in the sitcom “I Love Lucy” of roughly a half century ago, faced when they got a job at a candy factory and were supposed to wrap bonbons. The candy was delivered to them on a conveyor belt and initially they were able to do a pretty good job. However, the belt began to pick up speed and suddenly the belt was moving at warp speed! No matter what they did, they could not possibly keep pace with the candy that came hurtling at them. They tried eating the candy and shoving the tasty morsels down their clothes, but it was all to no avail!

The audience roared and a good time was had by all!

Where the adjudications process is concerned, however, the goal is not to create a hilarious episode for a sitcom but to deal with a serious component of national security.

During the summer of 2007, when the U.S. Senate tried to ram Comprehensive Immigration Reform through the legislative process against the will of the American people, the Washington Times published my op-ed, “Immigration Bill a No Go.”

The title compares the many hearings that various committees and subcommittees conducted about Comprehensive Immigration Reform with the countdown for the launch of the space shuttle. Recall what had happened when NASA failed to take the best advice of some of their experts and launched Space Shuttle Challenger on that cold January morning in 1986, when, some 73 seconds after liftoff, the spacecraft suffered a catastrophic failure resulting in the loss of the seven astronauts on board and the shuttle itself. Comprehensive Immigration Reform would place the lives of all Americans at risk.

In fact, Comprehensive Immigration Reform should be given a more honest and descriptive name: “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007”!

I renamed that fatally flawed legislation because of huge concerns about the national security implications that a massive, sweeping amnesty program would have for our nation, especially in this post 9/11 world.

When an alien runs our borders, we have no record of his (her) entry into our country. We have to believe that the person ran the border because he was unable to obtain a visa in order to enter the United States. It might be that he was unable to get a visa because he lacked the financial wherewithal to apply for one. It might also be that he has a criminal history, is a known member of a drug gang or other criminal organization, has a criminal history in the United States and was previously deported because of that, or is a member of a terrorist organization.

The point is that an alien who runs our borders is not the equivalent of a motorist who fails to pay a toll before crossing a bridge. An alien is someone whose presence in our country violates our nation’s laws — a legal system intended to protect our citizens from detrimental foreign elements.

Furthermore, how outrageous is it that Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and third in line to the succession to the Presidency, has referred to the enforcement of the immigration laws as being “un-American”?

We know from previous instances and information assembled by the 9/11 Commission that terrorists commit fraud in the visa process and in acquiring immigration benefits as a means of entering and/or embedding themselves in our country.

An alien commits fraud by lying on an application for a visa or in an application for lawful status in our country when that lie concerns a material fact. In such instances, the lie is committed because the alien understands that had he answered a particular question honestly, he would not have been entitled to receive the visa or lawful status in our country.

Meanwhile, the General Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the Congress, has conducted a series of investigations and prepared a series of reports on their findings that indicate that fraud runs rampant through the visa process and the immigration benefits program.

There have been instances where an FBI special agent who went on to work at the CIA was discovered to have committed immigration fraud by marrying a man she never lived with in a “marriage of convenience” that was nothing more than a business arrangement. She was discovered when she accessed databases on the terrorist organization, Hezbollah, even though she had no justification to access those databases. (Access to sensitive information has two components — the government employees must have the requisite clearance, and she did, in this instance, but that employee must also have the “need to know,” which clearly she did not. Her employer who had helped her arrange that marriage for money is now a fugitive, wanted for allegedly skimming millions of dollars from the profits of his chain of Middle Eastern restaurants in Michigan and sending that money to Hezbollah!)

There is the story about a naturalized citizen who received his residency and U.S. citizenship through a marriage fraud as well. He subsequently became employed as a translator for the U.S. military in Iraq on the counter-insurgency program by Titan Industries, a private contractor. He was found to be sending highly sensitive documents that he had no right to possess to his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. When his cell phone records were obtained, the authorities determined that he had placed a number of phone calls to suspected al-Qaeda operatives!

These are two of a number of individuals who gamed the immigration bureaucracy to secure U.S. citizenship and thus acquired access to highly sensitive information to spy on our nation on behalf of terrorist organizations and/or foreign governments.

Yet a couple of years ago, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), in response to disturbing information, asked the GAO to investigate allegations that USCIS had adjudicated applications for recipients of all sorts of immigration benefits, including aliens who had been naturalized without the adjudicators being provided with the relevant immigration files.

What the GAO uncovered was nothing short of mind-blowing! USCIS claimed to have lost some 111,000 immigration files, including those relating to 30,000 aliens who applied to naturalize — that is to say, acquire U.S. citizenship. USCIS had their adjudicators process all of those applications without the proper files!

It is important to note that USCIS is the agency that would be called upon to administer Comprehensive Immigration Reform! Given the ineptitude of that overwhelmed agency, having them administer Comprehensive Immigration Reform would be the equivalent of expecting a frail, elderly man lying in a hospital bed on a respirator on death’s doorstep to run the New York Marathon — and expecting him to win!

Now that I have given you a brief overview of the abysmal situation where immigration enforcement is concerned in hopes that you understand just how insane the situation is, let us go back and consider Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the Christmas attack.

Unlike Richard Reid, the infamous “Shoe Bomber” who attempted to detonate explosives concealed in his shoes, Abdulmutallab was required to have a visa in order to enter the United States. Richard Reid, as a citizen of Great Britain, was exempt from the requirement of securing a visa before boarding the airliner he was intent on destroying.

It is because of Reid that all passengers are now required to remove their shoes and have them go through the x-ray machines at airports before they are allowed on airliners. Apparently our “leaders” have figured out that bombs can be concealed in shoes.

The “Shoe Bomber” might never have been issued a visa and would not have been allowed on the airliner in the first place if it weren’t for the visa waiver program. It now includes the citizens of some 35 countries yet is being utterly ignored because the travel and hospitality industries have created a massive public relations campaign known as “Discover America.” They are spending millions of dollars on that campaign to convince our government to throw common sense out the window! These executives are determined to get as many people as possible to come to the United States, fill the seats of the airliners, sleep on the sheets of the hotels that all too often are changed by illegal alien employees, and spend lots of money in the process.

However, executives of the travel and hospitality industries need to remember that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have already discovered America!

Incidentally, Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called “20th hijacker,” as a citizen of France was also exempt from the requirement of applying for and obtaining a visa before entering the United States.

If Reid was able to hide explosives in his shoes and therefore, we are now required to remove our shoes for inspection before boarding airliners, I can only wonder what will ultimately be done by our brilliant “leaders” now that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to hide explosives in his underwear!

Will we undergo “wedgies” administered by TSA officials? Will we have to remove our underwear before boarding airliners?

The question about the visa issued to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is: how thorough was the scrutiny of his visa application? For example, did the consular official who stamped that visa in his passport check to see if Abdulmutallab had admission stamps in his passport indicating that he had traveled to Yemen, the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran or other countries associated with terrorism?

Did officials who issued a visa to Abdulmutallab attempt to verify the information he either provided during questioning or in his responses to the roughly 40 questions contained in the application?

Another area of concern is whether Abdulmutallab claimed he could not speak fluent English (even though he had studied in England and had an engineering degree). Were translators available and, if so, were they from the United States, or did the Embassy or Consulate simply hire local people who might accept bribes from their fellow countrymen to enable terrorists and criminals to obtain visas by deception?

Aside from the fact that Abdulmutallab’s name should have been on the “No Fly” list, especially after his father, the director of the oldest and most important bank in Nigeria, expressed his concerns to authorities, his visa should have been revoked.

Here is something else to consider: we found out about the threat that Abdulmutallab posed to our nation because he unsuccessfully attempted to destroy an airliner in flight. Imagine what would have happened had his goal been to simply enter the United States to participate, one way or another, in the planning of a future terrorist plot.

The likelihood is quite good that he would have gotten through the inspections process as did the 19 terrorists who wrought such devastation on September 11, 2001.

In that case, Mr. Abdulmutallab would now be living in a community somewhere in the U.S., going about what would appear to be a normal life, perhaps even nodding and smiling pleasantly at people he would eagerly obliterate!

Hiding in Plain Sight

It is said that an effective spy (or terrorist) is someone who would not attract the attention of the waiter or waitress at a so-called “greasy spoon” diner. It might, in fact, be that waiter or waitress who is the spy or terrorist!

Abdulmutallab was quoted as saying that many more such bombers are headed our way! This is disquieting enough, but how many are already here, hiding in plain sight?

How do you define a terrorist? Most people would define a terrorist as an individual who would carry out a bombing or other act of violence. My definition is a bit different. Consider how average persons might react if they were told that a neighbor was in the United States Air Force. There are those who might presume that if someone wore the Air Force uniform, that person was a pilot. In point of fact, only a small percentage of Air Force personnel even know how to fly an airplane or perform some other flight-related job in the cockpit of an airplane. Many more members of the Air Force have supporting jobs.

NASA provides an even greater example of this. There are only a relative handful of astronauts at NASA but a veritable army of support personnel who deal with everything from designing and maintaining aircraft and spacecraft to handling the far more mundane administrative jobs that are essential to the day to day operations of that agency that has such lofty goals.

Terrorist organizations are no different. While there are members of terrorist organizations who carry out hijackings, bombings, and other acts of violence and destruction, there are many more who engage in fund-raising, provide apartments, and scope out potential targets as a part time sort of endeavor.

Many years ago, in the early 1980s, I assisted members of the NYPD, the New York City Fire Department, and the ATF in investigating Palestinians who had opened small grocery stores referred to as “bodegas” in New York. They used those stores to commit coupon fraud. Often members of a mosque would be told to clip coupons and bring them to the owner of such a bodega so that they could be redeemed for cash. From what I recall, tens of millions of dollars were generated each year, and that money was sent to the PLO and other terrorist organizations to fund acts of terror committed all over the world.

When the persons operating bodega thought that law enforcement was possibly figuring out what they were doing, they often torched those establishments and sent the proceeds from the insurance companies to fund the terrorist organizations. All too often, innocent residents of the apartments above the stores were badly injured or killed.

These schemes began unraveling when some of the loss prevention officials of the companies that were defrauded started to question how it was that a store that perhaps had sold only a hundred boxes of a particular cereal were redeeming thousands of dollars in coupons.

I would certainly consider the individuals responsible for those arson fires as being terrorists. I would also consider those who perform other such support jobs as being terrorists or, at the very least, terrorist sympathizers.

How many of those individuals are now present in the United States today?

How did they get here?

Is anyone in the administration or Congress even considering these questions?

Perils of False Security

I am not optimistic about finding the answers to these questions, especially when the President and members of his administration including high-ranking officials at the DHS that I have, out of frustration, come to refer to as the Department of Homeland Surrender, talk about what a great idea it would be to implement Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

The only thing worse than no security is false security. If you provide official identity documents to an illegal alien, you are providing that person with a level of credibility that he (she) is not entitled to. What is the point of providing a person with official identity documents if you have no idea of the true identity of the person? Remember, the 19 terrorists who attacked our nation used, in the aggregate, some 300-plus pieces of identity documents as a means of creating camouflage to conceal their true identities and movement around the United States as they prepared to launch the most vicious and violent terrorist act ever committed on American soil.

When “leaders” in the Senate such as Harry Reid (D-NV) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who purportedly “represents” (of all states) the State of New York, the state that was hammered the hardest on 9/11, and who, as chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, can claim that it is now time for Comprehensive Immigration Reform because our nation’s borders are now secured, my gag reflex kicks in!

Clearly our borders are not secure, but this is hardly the only issue to be considered. Nearly 40 percent of all of the illegal aliens in our country did not run our nation’s borders but were actually admitted into the United States through the inspections program, as were the 19 terrorists who savagely attacked our nation on 9/11. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab might well have been admitted had he not attempted to detonate a bomb on that Christmas day airliner.

Fraud committed in conjunction with the visa issuing process and in the immigration benefits program, as I have noted previously, represents a huge vulnerability to national security that has not been addressed in any meaningful way.

Yet so many of the people whose job is to protect our nation and our citizens from terrorists, international criminal organizations, and various drug cartels are blithely ignoring these issues as they begin yet another headlong dash to once again attempt to jam Comprehensive Immigration Reform down our throats!

In my judgment, this legislation should also be called the “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act,” or perhaps we could give it a secondary name — the “Freddy Krueger Act”! No matter how many times the citizens of our country demand that this betrayal not be foisted upon us and our nation, our “leaders” grab for the defibrillation paddles and bring it back from the dead!

There is a term used to describe a persistent young man who refuses to take “No” for an answer when he is out on a date, and forces himself on the young lady he is with; that term is “Date Rape”!

When our “leaders” refuse to take “No” for an answer from their supposed constituents, where Comprehensive Immigration Reform is concerned, we have the rape of a nation and the betrayal of a trust that their elected positions represent, by those politicians who promised to represent those who live within their jurisdiction.

When we go to a restaurant for a meal we are generally quite specific about what we want to eat and how we want it prepared. If the food is not prepared to our liking, we generally send it back. If that doesn’t work, we leave.

We must be no less specific and demanding where our elected representatives are concerned. Far more than a meal is at stake. Nothing less than the survival of our nation and the future of our children and their children are on the line!

Politicians are fixated on getting elected and re-elected. The way that political campaigns are financed is nothing short of institutionally legitimized bribery!

Think about it — a police officer on duty would get jammed up if he was caught drinking a cup of hot coffee on a frigid day if it was given to him by a shopkeeper on his beat. Yet politicians are known to boast about being the most effective fundraisers!

Could you imagine what would happen to a police officer or federal agent who boasts to his colleagues or his boss that he was the most effective fundraiser?

If a police officer or federal agent accepted money from someone they arrested and then released that person, if that law enforcement officer was found out to have done that, he would lose his job and be prosecuted for his act of corruption, and deservedly so!

However, when a politician is given a hefty campaign contribution and in response votes for an amnesty that would permit millions of illegal aliens to be given the “keys to the kingdom” that a green card and especially a naturalization certificate represent, that politician would probably be called a “leader,” while the corrupt cop or agent would be called what he truly was by virtue of his duplicitous conduct — he would be called a crook!

When we park our cars in public garages where an attendant parks the car for us, we are warned to only leave the ignition key. Garages have signs that are usually prominently displayed that tell the patrons to not leave the trunk key or especially the house key with the attendant. This is because it is a known fact larcenous garage employees have been able to make copies of house keys and, by running the license plates on the car that related to the house key, to find the address that the house key related to. It was a simple matter for the crooks to take that house key and walk through the front door of the house they had targeted to burglarize.

A visa to the United States represents the key to the front door to our country; yet in the wake of the Christmas Day terrorist attack, I doubt much will be said about the Visa Waiver Program or the process by which visas are issued to foreign nationals to adequately vet them.

Blue smoke and mirrors may do a great job of distracting the audience at a magic show, but it makes a poor barrier to keep out those who would do us grave harm.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. The citizens of our nation bear the responsibility of getting their voices heard. This should be the New Year’s resolution for all Americans.

About the author

Michael W. Cutler is a Senior Fellow at CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) and a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). He retired from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in February 2002 after a 30-year career span as an INS  criminal investigator and senior special agent.