Deportation of MWL Director Proves Importance of Immigration Enforcement in Terrorism Fight

By Michael Cutler

I came across this article in today's Washington Times, which clearly shows how critical the enforcement of immigration laws can be to the "War on Terror." I find it interesting and perhaps a bit flattering that a spokesperson for ICE has resorted to using an expression I have stressed for quite some time, "...the need to restore integrity to the nation's immigration system." Now if only our nation would take that concept really seriously.

The President has consistently repeated the mantra that we are fighting the terrorists in the Middle East so that we will not have to fight them over here. According to this article and many, many other like it, we are fighting them here. Thankfully we have not engaged in violent confrontations with them within our borders since the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, but make no mistake, the terrorists are indeed operating within our borders. They are engaging in fund raising, which includes criminal activities that range from the sale of narcotics, to the commission of mail fraud and identity theft to all sorts of criminal activities to fund the activities and objectives of terrorist organizations. They are also using supposedly legitimate activities to conceal fund raising for terrorist organizations. Charitable organizations have been another favorer method of raising money to enable them to carry out terrorist operations. Terrorists and their cohorts are, no doubt, engaged in conducting surveillances within our country as well, to be prepared for the next attack they may well attempt to carry out here.

The arrest of the two individuals that are detailed in the Washington Times article makes it clear how useful the enforcement of immigration laws can be to thwarting these heinous activities. Immigration law enforcement can be thought of as taking two forms. Administrative law enforcement for which the ultimate goal of the effort is the removal of an alien from the United States and the criminal component of immigration law enforcement which has as its goal, the criminal conviction of an individual who is guilty of violating immigration laws. Often when aliens are convicted of violating criminal statutes they may well be sentenced to serve jail time and then face removal from the United States upon the completion of their criminal sentence. This dual perspective can enable our law enforcement officials to remove aliens from our nation who are a threat to our security and well being.

The article discusses by the prosecution of these two aliens and the fact that one of the two aliens, Abdullah Alnoshan, pleaded guilty to one count of immigration fraud, was sentenced to time served and as part of his plea bargain arrangement agreed to be removed from the United States to his native country of Saudi Arabia. His accompliss, Khalid Fadlalla, a Sudanese citizen was arrested in July in New York and charged with conspiring with Alnoshan to commit immigration fraud. Several points are worth pointing out in conjunction with the usefulness of conducting fraud investigations. First of all, it is important to remember that the easiest way to describe fraud is a lie put on paper to achieve a goal or attain an objective that would otherwise not be possible if all facts were known. From the description of the activities of the terrorists as indicated in the article, they went to great lengths to conceal there true immigration status and to make use of fraudulent employment documents to enable them to work in the United States and keep a low profile to enable them to hide in plain sight. This is why I am so pleased that as I pointed out in an earlier e-mail, Rep. Jackson Lee, the ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims proposed an amendment to H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, that would establish a task force on fraudulent immigration documents and that this measure, with the approval and concurrence of her Republican counterparts, especially Representatives Hostettler, the Chairman of that subcommittee, and Representative Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is part of that important piece of legislation that will be voted on by the entire House of Representatives later this week. The bipartisan spirit evidenced by this cooperation is very encouraging.

However, there are other issues to consider in reading this article. Immigration benefits fraud is another area of vulnerability that must be addressed if we are to truly restore integrity to the immigration system. There are far too few special agents who are assigned to enforcing the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States. At present, I have read that only some 2,300 special agents are currently employed for the entire United States of America to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

Additionally, we have a Visa Waiver Program (VWP) which allows aliens from some 27 countries plus Canada to seek to enter the United States without first applying for a visa. Although I have raised this issue on previous occasions, I believe it is important to briefly review this situation once again. There are three basic benefits that can potentially accrue by requiring that aliens seeking entry into the United States for our country. First of all, this represents another layer of security by providing our consular officials with an opportunity to better screen aliens seeking entry into the United States. A recent CRS (Congressional Research Service) report issued on April 6, 2004 makes the point that the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) makes it easier for aliens with stolen passports to succeed in entering the United States. This could potentially include terrorists. I am pasting a paragraph from that report that appears on page 10 of that report below that talks about the potential security risks inherent in the VWP (click on picture):

This is an area of vulnerability that must be addressed. The entire report can be found here (Acrobat file).

Additionally, beyond offering an additional layer of security, when an alien prepares and application for a nonimmigrant visa, the information contained in that application can be extremely helpful to an agent conducting and investigation of the alien whose application can be retrieved. Finally, as we see in the article, when fraud is committed by an alien, it becomes an easy way to enable law enforcement agents to get their "hooks" into a suspected terrorist. Also bear in mind that when it can be shown that an alien committed visa fraud in conjunction with narcotics trafficking, the penalty for that fraud is increased to a maximum of 20 years in custody. When the fraud is committed in conjunction with terrorism, the penalty is increased to a maximum of 25 years. When an alien enters the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program, none of the above applies.

Next we need to consider the issue of the Guest Worker Program. For the purpose of this article I will limit my comments to the potential national security implications of such a program, although as you probably know, I am opposed to a Guest Worker Program for a multitude of reasons. At present, there are an estimated 10 million to 20 million illegal aliens residing in the United States. There is also a current backlog of millions of applications for a variety of immigration benefits. With the crush of humanity that would suddenly materialize on the doorstep of USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) the beleaguered bureaucrats who work for that agency would be put in the position of having to most likely issue official identity documents to aliens in any name that they claim since they are "undocumented aliens." This goes back to the issue of a lack of integrity to the immigration system. Terrorists would be able to show up at an immigration office and be given official identity documents in a false identity, aided and abetted by the agency responsible for a component of enhancing the security and integrity of the immigration system. If the terrorists discussed in today's article were eager to obtain false immigration documents, how thrilled would they be to have officially issued identity documents? A Guest Worker Program is absolutely the wrong way to deal with the illegal immigration crisis and at the top of the list for reasons not to do this is this national security issue.

Final point: In order to win a war you need to have an adequate number of soldiers. I believe it is clear that the war on terrorism is being fought in one way or another within our nation's borders. Among those waging this war are the special agents of ICE. 2,300 special agents currently on duty would be far too meager a number of agents under ordinary circumstances. At a time of war, the circumstances are anything but ordinary. Our nation needs to hire many more special agents to contribute to this effort, upon which hangs the future of this great nation. When I was assigned to work with other law enforcement agencies whether it was DEA, the FBI, ATF of local or state police, one of my responsibilities was to make use of my expertise in seeking to bring whatever immigration law violations I could find when we identified potential targets of criminal investigations including drug traffickers and terrorists. If we had more ICE agents 'out there' it is reasonable to believe that more such bad guys might be found. The "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terrorism" requires that we have enough special agents who can make certain that we win these critical wars. In addition to hiring many more agents, we also need to provide them with resources and training, such as language training, an issue I have raised at a number of Congressional hearings. The success of the arrests discussed in the article should make it clear to everyone that much more needs to be done to enforce the immigration laws, not just on the border, but from within the interior of the United States as well.

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