HOMELAND SECURITY? WHAT HOMELAND SECURITY?
By Michael Cutler December 11, 2008 NewsWithViews.com The Boston Globe article is important because it deals with nothing less than the security of our nation and the safety of our citizens. This is literally a news report about life and death. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 the administration which had just taken office began to implement the biggest re-organization of the federal government in many decades. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was supposed to protect our nation from the continuing threat of future terrorist attacks. It certainly provided the illusion that the administration was determined to secure the homeland. Some of the measures that were implemented were useful. However, as those of you who have read my commentaries, read my Congressional testimony or heard me speak on television and radio programs and at conferences I have attended around the United States know that I am extremely dissatisfied with the progress (or lack thereof) in truly protecting our nation and our citizens. I have been so angered and frustrated that I have, on occasion suggested that the DHS should be renamed the Department of Homeland Surrender! How in blazes can the administration and our nation's "leaders" honestly speak about "Homeland Security" when there are millions of foreign citizens in our country in violation of law? We have no reliable way of knowing the identities of these millions of illegal aliens. We don't even know, with certainty, what their nationalities are. We don't know about their possible criminal histories or affiliations with criminal or terrorist organizations. We don't know what their intentions are and there are so many of these illegal aliens in our country that if we were to somehow gather them into one place and drew a chalk line around them, they would constitute the 2nd or 3rd most populace state in our country! Even legal immigration is so mishandled that the fraud rate stands at some 90% in some areas where aliens are granted lawful immigrant status! Report after report issued by the Office of the Inspectors General of several agencies and the GAO (General Accountability Office) paint a horrifying picture of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance by USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). Incredibly, when DHS was created a wall was erected between the components of the immigration administration and enforcement program. As bad as the former INS was, the creation of two distinct agencies, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) included the interior enforcement elements of the old INS. This includes the special agents of the INS and the officers of the Deportation and Removal Branch, the administrative equivalent of the probation department. Additionally, ICE also folded in special agents of Secret Service and the U.S. Customs Service. It also included the GSA police that are charged with protecting federal buildings. Finally, TSA employees were also folded into this unwieldy bureaucracy. CBP (Customs and Border Protection) included the U.S. Border Patrol, another former component of the INS along with from Legacy INS, Legacy Customs and the U.S. Agriculture Department. Finally, as I noted above, USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) became a "stand alone" agency that adjudicates all of the various applications filed by aliens seeking everything from a change in immigration status and extensions on their authorized period of admission to the acquisition of lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship. Many of the managers at ICE and CBP came from Legacy Customs. They have little or no background in the enforcement of the immigration laws and just as little interest in enforcing those critical laws. I have heard from some of the disgusted employees at those agencies that their bosses are more concerned with counterfeit designer luggage and jeans than they are about counterfeit passports! The first director of USCIS was a guy by the name of Eduardo Aguirre. You would have imagined that the director of an agency that had such serious national security implications would bring a wealth of experience in law enforcement with him to this important component of Homeland Security. In point of fact, he had previously been the director of the private bank of the Bank of America. Yes, that Bank of America- the bank that encouraged illegal aliens to apply for credit cards and accepted Mexican Matricula Consular cards and ITIN's instead of SSN's. His successor, Emilio T. Gonzalez had an impressive military background, but the job he had immediately before being assigned to USCIS was to work for a law firm that specialized on lobbying activities, Tew Cardenas. I testified at several hearings before various committees on the topic of the merger of those dissimilar agencies. To succinctly sum up what I had to say, the merger of Legacy Customs and Legacy INS plus several other agencies constituted a "shotgun" wedding that I predicted would never be consummated! On May 5, 2005 I provided testimony at a hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on the topic: "NEW ''DUAL MISSIONS'' OF THE IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES" You can read the transcript of that hearing by clicking here. Add to all of this the fact that the potentially deadly Visa Waiver Program is being expanded when, in fact, it should have been terminated on September 12, 2001. What is astounding about all of the discussions about the "War on Terror" is that there is absolutely no mention of the role of immigration law enforcement in conjunction with efforts aimed at preventing terrorists who want to enter our country and embed themselves within our country to enable them to attack our nation! While Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff boasts about how the administration has doubled the number of Border Patrol agents so that there are now purportedly more than 18,000 such agents, there is absolutely no mention made of how many special agents are at ICE. In fact, I have been told that the number of ICE special agents is considered national security information! Supposedly the rationale is that they don't want the terrorists to know how many agents are "out there." I believe that they don't want the American citizens to know how few agents are enforcing the laws for our nation. I believe that there are about 6,000 special agents at ICE and somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 ICE special agents are dedicated to enforcing the immigration laws for the entire country. This is an outrage! New York is the safest big city in the United States. With more than 8 million residents, the city of New York has more than 36,000 police officers. It was recently announced that an additional one thousand cops were to have been hired but won't be because of the downturn in the economy. Immediately concerns were raised about the potential that this loss of one thousand additional cops would have on crime rates! Meanwhile, there are somewhere between two and three times as many illegal aliens scattered across the entire country as there are residents living in the city of New York. Yet the number of ICE agents is just about 10% the number of police officers who protect New York City! It must also be noted that ICE special agents are supposed to conduct many investigative and enforcement missions in addition to seeking to arrest illegal aliens. They are supposed to enforce sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. They are supposed to work cooperatively with other agencies in narcotics, organized crime and terrorism investigations. These agents are supposed to conduct investigations into fraud document vendors and those who concoct fraud schemes to circumvent the immigration laws. They are supposed to conduct investigations into alien smuggling. When was the last time you heard anyone in a leadership position even talk about thee critically important missions? The news article below, did not even talk about the enforcement of the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States! I regularly speak at a seminar conducted in Washington, D.C. involving employees of various intelligence agencies and the military. Not long ago, while doing my presentation a young lady at the rear of the room seemed to be upset with my discussion about illegal immigration. I stopped speaking and turned to her and asked her what was bothering her. She told me that many members of her family had been immigrants and that she was uncomfortable with what I had to say about the risks of having millions of illegal aliens in our country. I told her that my mother was also an immigrant, but the difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien was equivalent to the difference between a houseguest and a burglar. I decided that an analogy might help her to understand my perspective so I asked her what she would do if that evening she decided to grab a midnight snack before going to sleep. To flesh out the scenario I asked her how would she react if she went downstairs to the kitchen from her bedroom and in passing the living room on her way to the kitchen, if she saw a half dozen people milling about in her living room she did not recognize, what would she do? I asked her, "Would you simply pour yourself a glass of milk, grab some cookies and head to your bedroom?" On the other hand, I asked her if she thought it would make more sense to call the police. Without hesitation, as you might expect, she said she would call the police. I responded by telling her that the United States has the equivalent of millions of strangers milling about our country in communities from coast to coast and border to border. I asked her, "How safe could that possibly make you feel?" After my presentation was completed she came over to me and told me that the analogy I provided her with helped her to gain a new perspective. I hope that this works for you as well. We the People must make our voices heard! Right now the administration and members of Congress are moving forward with their plans to create an amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens currently living in our country in violation of law and we know absolutely nothing about them. The open border advocates are providing hefty campaign contributions for the politicians and making their voices heard. They are determined to foist Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) on this country and our citizens. If they succeed, there will be no way to undo the damage or reverse the process. |
Ms Burriesci - Homeland Security in front of Congress..
DHS Official Gets Blindsided by Trey Gowdy and Her Response Will Make You Say ‘DAMMNNN’
BY MIKE MILLER (1 DAY AGO) | NATION During an excruciating exchange before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), grilled Department of Homeland Security official Kelli Ann Burriesci over the Constitutional rights of American citizens. At issue for Gowdy was the lack of due process afforded to citizens before they are placed on the government’s secret terrorist watch list. When it was over, Ms. Burriesci was literally, yes, literally, speechless, before finally muttering: “I don’t have an answer for you, sir.” Yeah, this one was over at the coin toss. ___________________________________________  http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/06/lhohmann_avatar.jpg
DHS CAUGHT BUSING IN ILLEGAL SOMALIS FROM MEXICAN BORDER Immigration official: 'Asylum' is the new password
Published: 2 days agoimage: LEO HOHMANN DHS buses carry immigrants from the border to detention centers where they are processed, given a court date and released. The U.S. is bringing in 100,000 Muslims every year through legal channels such as the United Nations refugee program and various visa programs, but new reports indicate a pipeline has been established through the southern border with the help of the federal agency whose job it is to protect the homeland. They are coming from Somalia and other African nations, according to a Homeland Security official who was caught recently transporting a busload of Africans to a detention center near Victorville, California. Somalia is the home base of al-Shabab, a designated foreign terrorist organization that slaughtered 147 Christians at a university in Kenya just last month. It executed another 67 at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2013, and has put out warnings that it will target malls in Canada and the U.S. Dozens of Somali refugees in the U.S. have been arrested, charged and convicted of providing support to overseas terrorist organizations over the past few years. Libya is also awash in Islamist terror following the death of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. ISIS beheaded 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach in February. So when Anita Fuentes of OpenYourEyesPeople.com posted a video of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security bus pulling into a Shell station in Victorville, on the night of May 7, admitting he had a busload of Somalis and other Africans who had crossed the southern border, it raised more than a few eyebrows among those concerned with illegal immigration and national security. A man who appeared to be a Customs and Border Patrol agent was filmed at the gas station at 10:30 p.m. When questioned by Fuentes, he informed her that his large touring bus was full of Somalis and other Africans being transported to a nearby detention center. The tour bus had the U.S. Homeland Security logo, and the agent appeared calm and professional. The windows to the bus were covered. When asked if he was transporting illegal immigrants, the driver said, “No, we ended up taking some people to a detention facility. Somalis and all the Africans.” Watch video clip of border officials admitting they are bringing in Somalis and other Africans from the southern border. “A detention center over here?” Fuentes asks. “Yeah,” he said. Victorville is about 161 miles from the Mexican border. “Is that because they’re crossing the border?” Fuentes asked. “Well they’re coming in asking for asylum,” he said. “That’s what it is, that special key word huh? That’s a password now?” Fuentes said. “That’s what the password is now,” he responds. The flow of information stopped when Fuentes asked about the presence of ISIS near the border, a story which the watchdog agency Judicial Watch reported last month. “ISIS being at the border?” she asks. “I’m not going to talk to you when you’re recording me, ma’am,” the agent says. “Any information you want ma’am, go ahead and look it up online.” A small part of a larger story More than 100,000 Somalis have been brought to the United States legally since 1991 through the U.N. refugee resettlement program. Close to half of them have been resettled in Minnesota, with the rest dispersed throughout Ohio, Maine, California, Texas, Idaho, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia and several other states. The Somali community in Minnesota has had well-documented problems assimilating, running up a troubling record of crime and radicalization. Scores of Somalis have been arrested and charged with providing material support to overseas terrorist organizations such as al-Shabab, al-Qaida and ISIS. Others have left the country to fight for al-Shabab and ISIS, including six from Minnesota last month who were arrested after making repeated attempts to leave the country to join ISIS. That prompted the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Andrew Luger, to admit in a April 20 press conference that “we have a terror recruitment problem in Minnesota.” At least two Somalis in Columbus, Ohio, have also been arrested on terrorism charges. While most of the Somalis have been brought into the U.S. by the U.S. State Department in cooperation with the United Nations, exactly how many Somalis may be entering the country illegally and applying for asylum is difficult to ascertain. According to official DHS data, 688 Somalis entered the U.S. as asylum seekers between 2004 and 2013. Asylum seekers from other African countries with radical Muslim populations are also showing up at the border. According to DHS data, 139 Libyans crossed into the U.S. between 2011 and 2013, while only 20 had made the risky trek between 2004 and 2010 when dictator Moammar Gadhafi was in power. The number of Eritreans and Ethiopians showing up at the U.S. border and seeking asylum is also growing: 1,495 came from Eritrea between 2004 and 2013, and 5,863 came from Ethiopia. The Washington Times, among other publications, has published stories about the harrowing journeys some Somalis have been willing to endure to get to the U.S. They make their way across the Horn of Africa, cross the Atlantic by stowing away in cargo ships before landing at a port in Brazil or Argentina. From there they travel by land through Central America and Mexico to arrive at the U.S. border. Until last year, at least some of them were deported. Now, word is spreading that U.S. border policy has changed so more are showing up with the one word they know of English – “asylum.” Numbers likely higher A Customs and Border Patrol agent, who asked not to be identified, told WND that many more Africans and Middle Easterners are likely crossing over the Mexican border than what DHS is willing to admit. “You’re not going to get an honest number, because they all want to look good and get promotions from the people in D.C.,” the border agent told WND. “I’m absolutely confident that is happening.” That’s why the video is raising eyebrows, because the agent appears unfazed, as though transferring busloads of Somalis and Africans to detention facilities is a routine task. Once at the detention facility, asylum seekers are often asked to fill out legal documents, given a court date and set free. “There’s an ICE facility up that way, so that’s where that bus was likely heading,” the Border Patrol agent said. “That doesn’t surprise me. My guess is those are probably coming through Arizona because Arizona is still the biggest pure hole in the southern border we have. The Casa Grande area of Arizona is just the wild West. It’s on an Indian reservation, and they’ve been battling the Border Patrol forever. There are no barriers, not even a barbed-wire fence. But this administration’s done everything they can do to shut down ICE from doing its job.” Asylum seekers are required to show they belong to a group of individuals who are suffering from a “pattern and practice” of persecution, either from their native country’s government or from non-government entities that the government is unable or unwilling to control. The Obama administration has decided to spend $2 million to hire attorneys for alien minors seeking asylum in the U.S. this year, Judicial Watch reported. After filming the busload of African asylum seekers in Victorville, Fuentes posted on her YouTube account that they were being taken to a detention center in the high desert, thumb printed, and let go. “My friends, many Somalians are Muslim and many Africans especially in the northern region of Africa are radical Islam terrorists. Lord have mercy,” wrote Fuentes, whose husband, Ignacio, is a pastor. William Gheen, president of the Americans for Legal Immigration, or ALIPAC, said the word “asylum” has indeed become the password for foreign nationals showing up at the border. They will be taken to a detention center to be processed and given a court date along with contact information for an asylum attorney and a religious charity that will help them find housing, food and clothing. “And they will even be given instructions on how to get their Obamaphone,” he said. “And that video is further clear evidence that Obama and his administration is involved in a conspiracy to overthrow America’s defenses, laws, borders and republic by flooding America with as many people as possible who will be dependent on the system and the socialists who helped them,” Gheen told WND. “He’s going for broke because he knows that (Mitch) McConnell, (John) Boehner and the other sell-out Republicans won’t stop him. “In fact, many of those Republicans are now voting for his Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and trying to get him more bodies, more non-Americans, into America. The name of the game is to get as many non-Americans with alien perspectives and principles into America so that America’s condition becomes terminal.” After announcing his plans on Nov. 20 to unilaterally grant amnesty to more than 5 million illegals, Obama created the White House Task Force on New Americans. The task force released its long-awaited report last month. It contained 70 pages of goals, guidelines and strategies that involved using 16 federal agencies, including DHS, to build “welcoming” communities across the U.S. that would work to “integrate” the record numbers of new immigrants and refugees. “We’re fighting against every avenue we can, but our fight right now is to try to slow them down and try to save every life we can and every job we can,” Gheen said. “Tens of thousands more lives and jobs will be lost if we lose this fight.” The U.S. allows 1.1 million immigrants into the country annually through legal channels, and another 486,000 crossed the southern border illegally in 2014, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Taken together, that’s 1.6 million new immigrants each year, which is at historically high levels even for the U.S., which is known as a “nation of immigrants.” “That’s more than any other nation on earth,” Gheen said. Read more at ___________________________________________ |
