Michael Cutler on London Attacks and Our Lack of Immigration Enforcement

By Andrew Cochran

Michael Cutler asked me to post his full comments:

A lack of jail space plus a lack of special agents to enforce the critical immigration laws from within the interior of the United States are enabling aliens from virtually every country in the world to head for the interior of the United States with little fear of interference by the agency that is charged with enforcing the immigration laws. London fell victim to a series of bombing this morning, committed by terrorists who once again have clearly demonstrated an absolute disregard for human life. How more clearly must the message be driven home to our nation's leaders before we see an end to the madness known as "Catch and Release?"

The Associated Press did a great job of compiling the statistics about the lunacy known as the "Catch and Release" program in which the Border Patrol arrests illegal aliens who are citizens of other than Mexico and consequently are referred to as OTMs (Other Than Mexican). These aliens are processed and given a document that is referred to in the article as a permiso but is officially known as a Notice To Appear or NTA, telling them to show up at an immigration office when they get to the city to which they were destined. The NTA is essentially comparable to a traffic summons given to a motorist that requires the person to show up for a hearing. Because of a lack of resources dedicated to the interior enforcement of the immigration laws at least 85% of the aliens given these NTAs fail to show up, leading cynical Border Patrol Agents to refer to these documents as Notices to Disappear! I would refer to it as a free pass, a free pass to ignore our nation's borders and laws.

Believe it or not, quoting Congressional testimony given by the GAO at a recent hearing, "...In 2003, ICE headquarters issued a memo requiring filed offices to request approval from ICE headquarters prior to opening any worksite enforcement investigation not related to the protection of critical infrastructure sites, such as investigations of farms and restaurants. ICE officials told us that the purpose of this memo was to help ensure that field offices focused worksite enforcement efforts on critical infrastructure protection operations. Field office representatives reported that non-critical infrastructure worksite enforcement is one of the few investigative areas for which offices must request approval from ICE headquarters to open an investigation and also reported that worksite enforcement is not a priority unless it is related to critical infrastructure. In addition, some of the representatives, as well as immigration experts we interviewed noted that the focus on critical infrastructure protection does not address the majority of worksites in industries that have traditionally provided the magnet of jobs attracting illegal aliens to the United States..."

The only real question is whether or not our leaders will do what should have been done immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993. (How many people recall that the first attack on the World Trade Center that resulted in the loss of 6 lives and injuring of many people. The damage to the complex at that time was estimated at some one half billion dollars?) Many people have forgotten that date because it was eclipsed by the attacks of September 11, 2001. What keeps me awake at night is the concern I have, as to the attack that might, God forbid, eclipse the attacks of 9/11.

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