Did the Accused Ohio Terrorists Commit Immigration Fraud?

By Michael Cutler

While much has been made about a need to secure the physical borders of the United States, especially the border that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico (and clearly does not), the way in which we fail to properly adjudicate applications for immigration benefits for aliens in the United States is no less critical in its impact on the security of the United States. I apologize for being repetitious, because I know that I have made this point a number of times before, but I believe that it is important to remind you that it has been said that a good spy (or terrorist) is someone who would not attract the attention of a waitress at a "greasy spoon" diner. Maintaining a low profile is critical for the bad guys to operate within a country. When we grant resident alien status or, even worse, United States citizenship to a terrorist we facilitate his/her ability to keep a low profile and not call attention to himself. Lawful alien status and to a greater extent, United States citizenship not only enables terrorists to embed themselves in our country, permitting them to hide in plain sight, it also enables them to travel far more easily to other countries around the world.

This article and the DOJ press release on the Ohio indictments are reminders that there are terrorists operating within our country. It is not a matter of if there are terrorists operating in our country, only a matter of how many are here and what are they doing to undermine our security and the security of our allies. What is disturbing is that all three suspects made use of the immigration system in order to embed themselves in our country. Two of them are identified as being naturalized United States citizens, while one is a resident alien. While the indictment does not mention immigration law violations, I am quite certain that their immigration files are being scrutinized to determine if they committed fraud in the manner in which they secured resident alien status and United States citizenship. This was a responsibility I had as an INS agent when I worked jointly on investigations with other agencies such as the DEA and FBI.

It is crucial that we restore meaningful integrity to the system by which applications for various immigration benefits including the conferring of resident alien status and United States citizenship upon aliens. In essence these are the "keys to the kingdom." If we made our border utterly impervious to illegal aliens but then fail to secure this system, we are simply providing the bad guys with a way of circumventing anything we might do to secure our nation's borders. Studies that have been conducted concerning the issue of fraud in this critical area have found it to be a pervasive problem and virtually nothing has been done to provide real resources to uncover fraud. In fact, a Temporary Worker Amnesty Program such as the one being advocated by the President will make restoring integrity to this program virtually impossible.

Perhaps now that a terror suspect has been indicted, in part, for threatening the life of the President, Mr. Bush will see the light and end his outrageous calls for that Temporary Worker Amnesty Program!

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