Cutler: Aliens to Citizens, The Immigration Crisis (Part 2)

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL W. CUTLER, SENIOR SPECIAL AGENT, INS (RET.) FOR INCLUSION INTO THE RECORD OF HEARING “OVERSIGHT OF U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES” CONDUCTED BY THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ON MAY 11, 2010

(For Part 1 of this statement, click here)

When you park your car in a garage where attendants park the car for you, there are almost invariably signs posted warning patrons to not leave any keys other than the ignition key.  The obvious first concern is that you don’t want to have a larcenous employee of that garage rummaging through your glove compartment or trunk and possibly steal any of your valuables.  Additionally, the potential exists that a dishonest garage employee might make a copy of your house key and be able to determine your address by running your license plate.  Such criminals would not have to force their way into their victim’s home but would be able to simply walk through the front door with a key they were able to produce.

Many such burglary rings have, in fact, operated out of parking garages over the years.

Recently police in an affluent community north of New York City discovered that electronic garage door openers had been stolen from expensive cars.  The thieves only stole the garage door openers.  This was an obvious variation of the tactic employed by the dishonest parking garage employees- the goal being to find a way of gaining access into a victim’s home without having to use force.

Several weeks ago my car was broken into and my son’s backpack was stolen.  It contained the keys to our home and his backpack had documents that included our home address.  Out of an abundance of caution and commonsense, we immediately had the locks on our house changed.

Time and again news reports have detailed how aliens from countries all over the world have been able to game the immigration bureaucracy in order to gain visas and/or acquire lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship by committing fraud.  Time and again the GAO and the OIG have provided reports issued pursuant to investigations that disclosed the ways in which criminals and terrorists, including individuals engaged in espionage have easily gamed the immigration bureaucracy of USCIS to acquire resident alien status and then even United States citizenship as an integral component of their strategy to acquire a job that involved a security clearance or provided access to a secure location.  We have seen where an alien who committed marriage fraud was able to ultimately secure a job as an FBI Special Agent and then went on to secure a position at the CIA.

In November of 2006 the GAO issued a report that included the incredible lapse of judgment, or worse, where purportedly some 111,000 immigration alien files were reportedly lost and yet each and every application for an immigration benefit that related to those missing files were adjudicated without those critically important files, including 30,000 aliens who were naturalized even though the adjudications officers were not provided with those files when they adjudicated those applications.

In January 1993 a citizen of Pakistan by the name of Mir Amal Kansi stood outside the main gate of the Central Intelligence Agency and opened fire with an AK-47 on the vehicles being driven into parking lot by CIA officials arriving for work that winter morning.  When the shooting stopped, two CIA officers were dead and three others were seriously wounded.  Kansi had managed to game the bureaucracy at the old INS and was granted political asylum even though he had committed fraud.

The very next month, the World Trade Center was attacked by aliens who had also gamed the immigration bureaucracy at the old INS.

On September 1, 2006 I was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”

Here is an excerpt from my prepared testimony that illustrates the seriousness of immigration benefit fraud that was not addressed by the INS:

“A notable example of such a terrorist can be found in a review of the facts concerning Mahmud Abouhalima, a citizen of Egypt who entered the United States on a tourist visa, overstayed his authorized period of admission and then applied for amnesty under the agricultural worker provisions of IRCA. He succeeded in obtaining resident alien status through this process. During the 5 year period he drove a cab and had his license suspended numerous times for various violations of law and he ultimately demonstrated his appreciation for our Nation’s generosity by participating in the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 that left six people dead, hundreds of people injured and an estimated one-half billion dollars in damages inflicted on that iconic, ill-fated complex.

America had opened his doors to him so that he might participate in the American dream and he turned that dream into our worst nightmare. The other terrorists who attacked our Nation on subsequent attacks, including the attacks of September 11, 2001, similarly exploited our generosity, seeing in our Nation’s kindness, weakness, gaming the immigration system to enter our country and then hide in plain sight among us.”

Time and again we have seen how ineptitude at the INS and now at USCIS creates major vulnerabilities for our nation and our citizens.

I previously noted how an individual by the name of Kansi had managed to game the system to gain political asylum before he attacked CIA officials.  You would think that the lessons should have, by now, been learned.  Immigration fraud is not a victimless crime.  Yet consider that recently ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) issued a press release into the arrest and prosecution of a 23-year-old man from Eritrea.

Please consider this excerpt from that press release:

“According to plea documents, from at least June 2007 until approximately January 2008, Fessahazion was the Guatemalan link of an alien smuggling network that spans East Africa, Central and South America. Specifically, Fessahazion illegally entered the United States at McAllen, Texas, on March 20, 2008. He applied for asylum on Sept. 30, 2008, claiming in his application that he was traveling across Africa in 2007 and 2008, fleeing persecution in Eritrea. However, Fessahazion was actually in Guatemala during that period facilitating the smuggling of East African aliens to the United States.

Fessahazion was granted asylum by the United States on Nov. 13, 2008.”

Clearly our officials know that immigration benefit fraud has figured prominently in a number of terrorist attacks or thwarted terrorist attacks.  Aliens have managed to game the system by claiming “credible fear” and thus being granted political asylum.  In some instances this has enabled terrorists to embed themselves in our country.  Yet Mr. Fessahazion was easily able to violate our nation’s porous borders numerous times and then game the immigration bureaucracy in 2008 to acquire political asylum.  It should be presumed that he was easily able to cross the border between the United States and Mexico with his immigration document provided by USCIS less than 2 years ago.  His application for asylum was processed in under six weeks.  This certainly raises many questions starting with the most fundamental- how thoroughly was his claim of “credible fear” investigated?  The false claim he made about credible fear concerned a country on the other side of the planet and in less than six weeks his false claim was rewarded when he was granted political asylum.

I would remind you that Kansi’s attack on the CIA occurred more than 14 years before Fessahazion filed his fraudulent application for political asylum.  This apparently illustrates that the lessons that should have been learned by a government agency that has clear national security implications were not.

This case is only one of a long list of cases in which immigration benefit fraud provided opportunities for criminals, terrorists and spies to embed themselves in our country and conduct operations that were detrimental to the security of our nation and the safety of our citizens.

In listening to the testimony and the responses of USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas to questions posed by Senator Orin Hatch, it became clear to me that many of the issues concerning the adjudications process and the integrity of the system still lacks the resources and the abilities to create a system that has real integrity when it has been made abundantly clear that immigration fraud has facilitated terrorist attacks that were committed on American soil and other attacks that were thwarted by effective work by our law enforcement officials while still other attacks failed because of the ineptitude of the terrorists.  As I noted in a recent commentary I wrote, “If hope is not a strategy then dumb luck is not a success.”

We should never take comfort when our enemies fail because of their ineptitude.  The most recent attack at Times Square is a good example of such a failure of the terrorist who, but for the failure of his explosives, might have killed many and wounded still more.

Having touched on the national security implications of the immigration benefits program I think it is worth considering another issue; the H-1B temporary visa program that has also failed in its mission to protect the jobs of American workers.  Faisal Shahzad, the “Times Square Bomber” had on multiple occasions apparently gamed the immigration benefits program including the fact that he had secured an H-1B visa as an accounting clerk.  This also points out another fundamental failure of this program.

Prior to the Second World War, the enforcement and administration of the immigration laws was the responsibility of the United States Labor Department.  The concern was that the influx of massive numbers of foreign workers might have an adverse impact on the jobs, salaries and working conditions of American workers who were supporting themselves and their families.  The underlying concept of what came to be called the “American Dream” was that each generation of Americans, in providing greater educational opportunities for their children would enable each succeeding generation to live more successful lives than did their parents. (Part 3 will be posted on StateBrief.com  Monday, May 24)

Michael W. Cutler

Michael W. Cutler spent thirty years with the INS, including eleven as a senior special agent. An authority on the nexus between immigration and national security, Cutler has testified before more than a dozen Congressional hearings since 9/11/2001. He appears frequently on radio and television programs, including Lou Dobbs Tonight, Your World With Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck and the O’Reilly Factor. michaelcutler.net