Will NSC Reorg Deal Realistically With Terrorist Threats?

Posted on Counterterrorism BlogBy Michael CutlerI am certain that I am not the only person who wished that our world was not plagued by the threat of terrorism. I am also not alone in my wish that our nation's economy and the economy of many other countries have been shaken to the core or that international criminals and terrorists are on the move around the globe, plying their trades wherever they can, seeking weaknesses and exploiting those weaknesses. The problem is that those critically important challenges confront our nation and most other nations on the face of this planet. Therefore it is imperative that our nation's leaders put political differences aside and stop pandering to the various special interest groups and business interests and make our nation's security the unequivocal number one priority!This news article was forwarded to me by one of the many folks I have been in touch with ever since I decided to attempt to provide my insights concerning immigration in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It appeared in a British-based newspaper, the Telegraph, and addresses two of the many areas of concern I have been hammering away at; the Visa Waiver Program and the lack of resources devoted to enforcing the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.This second article appeared in yesterday's edition of the Washington Post and was entitled, "Obama's NSC Will Get New Power." If the whole point is to seek out and then devise strategies to protect our nation, then our nation's leaders must incorporate the issues of border security and the enforcement and administration of the immigration laws into their national security strategies.Let's start out considering the Visa Waiver Program that the Bush administration, in its final weeks, expanded from 27 participating countries to 34 countries. The travel and hospitality interests hired Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security to be their "talking head" to hawk their program called, "Discover America." As I have pointed out on many occasions, Mr. Ridge and his deep-pocketed friends in the travel and hospitality industries appear to have forgotten that al-Qaeda and other terrorist and criminal organizations have already discovered America! Remember that citizens of Great Britain are eligible to seek to enter the United States without first applying for a visa.Here is a review of the benefits to be gained by requiring visas of all foreign visitors seeking to enter the United States:1. The visas requirement subjects aliens who seek to enter the United States to tighter scrutiny including those alien airline passengers on airliners that are destined to the United States. Richard Reid, the so-called "Shoe Bomber" was able to board an airliner destined to the United States, although he had no intentions of entering the United States. His apparent goal was to blow up the airliner and its many passengers somewhere over the depths of the Atlantic Ocean by detonating explosives he had concealed in his shoes. Because he is a subject of Great Britain, a country that participates in the Visa Waiver Program, Reid did not need to obtain a visa before he boarded that airliner.2. The CBP inspectors are supposed to make a decision in one minute or less as to the admissibility of an alien seeking to enter the United States. The visa requirement helps them to do a more effective job. Their's is a tough job I can certainly attest to, I began my career at the former INS as an immigration inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and worked there for 4 years before I became a special agent.3. The application for a nonimmigrant visa contains roughly 40 questions that could provide invaluable information to law enforcement officials should that alien become the target of a criminal or terrorist investigation. The information could provide intelligence as well as investigative leads4. If an alien applicant lies on the application for a visa that lie is called "visa fraud." The maximum penalty for visa fraud starts out at 10 years in jail for those who commit this crime simply in order to come to the United States, ostensibly to seek unlawful employment or other such purpose. The penalty increases to 15 years in jail for those aliens who obtain a visa to commit a felony. For aliens who engage in visa fraud to traffic in narcotics or commit another narcotics-related crime, the maximum jail sentence that can be imposes rises to 20 years. Finally, when an alien can be proven to have engaged in visa fraud in furtherance of terrorism, the maximum penalty climbs to 25 years in prison. It is important to note that while it may be difficult to prove that an individual is a terrorist, it is usually relatively simple to prove that an alien has committed visa fraud.5. The charge of visa fraud can also be extremely helpful to law enforcement authorities who want to take a bad guy off the street without tipping their hand to the other members of a criminal conspiracy or terrorism conspiracy that the individual arrested was being arrested for his involvement in terrorism or a criminal organization.6. Even when an application for a visa is denied, the application can be maintained to track those who attempt to secure a visa for the United States.These benefits do not apply when aliens are admitted under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program.On May 11, 2006 I was called to testify before a Congressional hearing conducted by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives on the topic, "VISA OVERSTAYS: CAN WE BAR THE TERRORIST DOOR?"As you read about the resources being poured into the development of informants in Great Britain within the Pakistani community I want you to consider another issue of extreme importance. The cultivation of informants is, arguably, one of the most important endeavors of intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. It is certainly extremely important to make use of sophisticated surveillance techniques to keep track of potential terrorists and their plots to attack our nation and our allies, but it is important to understand that the use of informants, especially in conjunction with those high-tech surveillance methods is vital for the successes upon which the security of our nation and the lives of our citizens depend.It is not enough to know the name, for example, of a bad guy who may be involved in a terrorist or criminal plot, it is absolutely vital to be able to put a face with the name. That is where informants often come in to play.Additionally, terrorists and criminals are not stupid. They know that if phones may be tapped or electronic communications may be intercepted, that they may have to resort to low-tech tactics such as using rented mail drops or courier services to communicate. Again, informants who can infiltrate an organization or a community, may well make the difference between a bunch of terrorists being caught before they have the opportunity to strike, or a devastating attack that kills many people.As a former INS special agent, I was intimately involved in "flipping" or cultivating informants. As you may know, I spent nearly one half of my career working with other law enforcement agencies on investigations involving narcotics trafficking. I also worked with fellow law enforcement officers of the FBI and other agencies in several investigations involving terror suspects. One of my primary areas of responsibility was to use the statutory authority I had as an INS agent to help to recruit informants. The INS statutes provide large sticks and juicy carrots when you are dealing with aliens who are involved in criminal activities in the United States.The challenge our country faces is that while much has been made about the security of our nation's borders, a critical issue, to be sure, almost no attention has been paid to the enforcement of the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.Most people seem to think that the interior enforcement of the immigration laws begin and end with the investigation of unscrupulous employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. Certainly this is an important area of concern, but there are precious few resources allocated to going after aliens who commit immigration fraud in order to secure lawful status in the United States, including obtaining United States citizenship by committing fraud on their applications.To make the importance of this aspect of immigration law enforcement simple to understand, you must think of fraud as a lie placed on an application by an alien or a person who files an application for that alien to provide him (her) with a benefit that would not be possible if the truth was known.Informants constitute a vital tool to combat immigration fraud, narcotics trafficking, terrorism and all sorts of other violations of law. In order to help to make this effort as effective as possible, given the high-stakes nature of these efforts, especially when you consider the potential for devastating terrorist attacks, our nation needs to have many more special agents at ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) who can enforce the immigration laws and, in the process, develop informants to act as the "eyes and ears" of our law enforcement and intelligence officers.On May 18,2004, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee who, at that time, was the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, requested that I testify at a hearing that was convened to explore the topic: "PUSHING THE BORDER OUT ON ALIEN SMUGGLING: NEW TOOLS AND INTELLIGENCE INITIATIVES"All too many of our nation's leaders are, at the least, naive in considering the role that immigration can and must play to address these critically important national security threats that confront our nation, each and every day.Several days ago, former Vice President Dick Cheney assailed the current administration and went on about the threat that terrorism poses. Meanwhile, the administration in which he was the number two man, ignored the threat posed by our utter lack of security on our borders. A responsible homeowner would lock his doors and windows, especially if he was concerned about burglars breaking in. The Bush administration did not only failed to lock the back door, but essentially took that door off of its hinges!The previous administration created the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) that merged Customs and Immigration and then split the former INS into three separate and distinct agencies: CBP (Customs and Border Protection), ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). This unwieldy arrangement, in my judgement, hobbled efforts to effectively enforce the immigration laws. This is why I came to refer to the DHS as being the Department of Homeland Surrender!The process by which visa applications are processed obviously need to be understood from a national security perspective. Immigration law enforcement needs to also be conducted with an understanding that not only must our borders be secured against the entry of illegal aliens, among whom may well be criminals and terrorists, but that the entire immigration bureaucracy must be mindful of the potential for so-called "sleeper agents" seeking to enter our country and acquire lawful resident status and even United States citizenship that can then enable spies and terrorists to get sensitive jobs in industry and within the government, itself, to spy on our nation and gain access to critical infrastructure.What also needs to be considered is that critical infrastructure can include many industries that have the potential to harm or kill large numbers of our citizens.Food processing plants can be as significant, for example, as power generating plants. Schools, hotels, malls and hospitals are as important as national landmarks.In our interconnected society, their are many pressure points that need to be protected. The presence of perhaps as 20 million illegal aliens whose identities, backgrounds, affiliations and intentions are unknown and unknowable represents a huge threat to our safety and the survival of our nation.Any massive amnesty program will only make matters worse because any such program has the real potential of providing criminals and terrorists with official immigration status even though their true names are unknown.During the campaign, President Obama promised us, "Change we can believe in."I would love to see an end to the Visa Waiver Program. I would love to see the President, for once and for all, make it clear that illegal aliens will not be rewarded with lawful status after they violated our nation's laws and our nation's borders.Let us remember that each and every year, the United States furnishes more aliens with lawful immigrant (resident alien) status than do all of the other countries of the world combined (more than one million)!Remember, the difference between and immigrant and an illegal alien is comparable to the difference between a houseguest and a burglar.