Bureaucrat ‘Insiders’ Working for Islamofascists?

Bureaucrat ‘Insiders’ Working for Islamofascists?
by FSM Contributing Editor Mike Cutler
There is an article appearing in the August 15 edition of the Washington Times that should alarm every citizen of the United States. According to Washington Times reporter, Sara Carter:

“A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

“The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated ‘due to lack of resources’ in the agency’s internal affairs department.”

Carter went on to quote an internal document obtained by the Times that two District Adjudications Officers are allegedly involved with “known Islam terrorist members,” whose identities were redacted for security reasons.
As a former INS senior special agent and as someone who was also detailed to the division of the former INS that adjudicated applications for residency based on marriage to United States citizens and resident aliens, it gives me no pleasure to write this commentary. I hate to see instances where those in positions of national trust violate the trust that their positions automatically imply. The sad thing is that this story has to infuriate the many honest employees who must feel, as I do, a particularly keen sense of betrayal.
I have often heard various people talk about the need for border security and I have countered by saying that simply securing the border will achieve little if the other components of the immigration system lack meaningful integrity. In order to hammer this point home, I have stated that even if our government could borrow the “deflector shields” from the Starship Enterprise and install them along our nation’s borders, little will have been accomplished if USCIS then provides criminal and terrorist aliens with resident alien status, and especially United States citizenship, because these gifts represent the “Keys to the Kingdom.”
It would be the equivalent of hiring locksmiths and contractors to install gates on the windows and door of a home, put in the most secure locks and erect tall gates around the perimeter of the house and then hang the key to the locks on the outside doorknob!
I want you to consider a statement made by the Director of USCIS, Emilio T. Gonzalez that appears in the Times article:
USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez in March told Congress that he could not establish how many terror suspects or persons of special interest have been granted immigration benefits.

“While USCIS has in place strong background check and adjudication suspension policies to avoid granting status to known terror risks, it is possible for USCIS to grant status to an individual before a risk is known, or when the security risk is not identified through standard background checks,” said a statement provided to lawmakers.

“USCIS is not in a position to quantify all cases in which this may have happened. Recognizing that there may be presently known terror risks in the ranks of those who have obtained status previously.”

This is an area of frustration for me that I have addressed at a number of Congressional hearings concerning the failings and limitations of USCIS to know who would receive official identity documents if a Guest Worker Amnesty program such as the one recently defeated in the United States Senate was to have been implemented. There is a world of difference between a background check and a background investigation.
The background check Mr. Gonzalez refers to would simply require that an applicant’s name and fingerprints be run through computer databases to determine if the prints or the name relate to a known terrorist or criminal.
Terrorists understand that in order to be effective they need to do everything in their power never to be fingerprinted in the United States before making any application for an immigration benefit. Then they provide a false name to immigration with clean fingerprints. Since the name and the fingerprints result in “No hit,” that is to say no matches are found, the terrorist alien in question will receive an official identity document in the false name he (she) provided to USCIS.
Clearly Mr. Gonzalez has no idea as the scope and magnitude of the corruption and incompetence at an agency that hands out the “Keys to the Kingdom.” I also want to make it clear that this inept and corrupt agency would administer any Guest Worker Amnesty Program that our government would implement if such “leaders” as Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the President of the United States had their way.
A true background investigation such as that which I was required to undergo every 5 years because I had a “Top Secret” clearance required that investigators actually went out into the street with my photo and knocked on doors and interviewed neighbors, relatives and others to determine if I was known by any other names or if I was conducting myself in a suspicious manner. They also checked into my finances and other relevant avenues of inquiry.
The bottom line is, as the article noted, a terrorist needs to obtain official immigration status as a means of embedding himself in our country to be able to hide in plain sight.
For years the emphasis at USCIS is to make the rapid adjudications of applications the priority and not to uncover fraud. The GAO has issued a number of reports about this issue.
Last Year USCIS claims to have “lost” more than 110,000 immigration alien files relating to aliens seeking a wide variety of immigration benefits including 30,000 alien applicants who applied to naturalize. Incredibly, according to the GAO, those aliens were naturalized even though the adjudications officers had no access to the relating immigration files!
I have no way of proving this, but I could not imagine losing 110,000 jellybeans or paper clips. I suspect that USCIS management simply decided that it would take too long to have the adjudicators review those files and so they simply claimed to not be able to find them. (The bureaucratic version of “Don’t ask; don’t tell.”) To my knowledge not a single employee was fired or even disciplined for “losing” 110,000 files!
There are three ways that a job is not done properly. There is nonfeasance, which simply means that the job is not done. There is misfeasance which means that the job is not done properly and then there is malfeasance which means that the job is not done properly because of corruption. It seems that all three issues are involved in the disastrous situation at USCIS today.
I wrote several months ago concerning the leadership at USCIS since its creation roughly 4 years ago as a result of an article that appeared in the Washington Post on May 28 of this year entitled, “Immigration Agency Mired in Inefficiency.”
The thesis of my commentary concerning that article illuminates the climate at USCIS today, which in turn probably contributed to the wide-scale corruption found at that component of DHS which I have come to refer to as the Department of Homeland Surrender:
There is a Yiddish expression that says that when a fish goes bad, it smells from the head. Let us consider the two men who have served as the director of USCIS. The first director of USCIS, Eduardo Aguirre is currently the United States’ Ambassador to Spain.
Let me say that two things immediately stand out in his bio. First of all, as he himself testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims and is now noted in his official bio, as the director of USCIS he listed his priorities as being “first, to eliminating backlogs, second to improving customer service and finally third, enhancing national security.”
You simply cannot make this stuff up! Next it is worth noting that Aguirre had previously been the President of Bank of America’s International Private Bank. Yes that bank! – the one that issues credit cards to illegal aliens!
According to his official biography, Gonzalez worked for the Miami based international law firm of Tew Cardenas. It is important for you to know this because Tew Cardenas offers many services to its clients. The service of interest to me is that it offers services as a lobbying firm. It is, in fact, registered as representing the foreign governments of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama as a lobbyist for those countries.
While both the previous director of USCIS and the current director have had distinguished careers, I find it interesting that these two leaders did not come from a background of law enforcement, notwithstanding Mr. Gonzalez’s background as a military officer.
Frankly I am concerned that a former banker and a former attorney with a lobbying firm would wind up in charge of an agency that has such a strong national security component to the work that is conducted by its employees. Certainly the scathing reports that have been issued by the GAO and OIG have done nothing to dispel my apprehensions. This is an issue that warrants revisiting and ongoing attention.
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!

Wild Thing’s comment…….
I have read this man’s articles several times and they are always excellent. The more complex this whole thing is I have to wonder if it can ever be resloved. I loved the way Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico . Shipping every last one of them no matter how many right out of the country.But we don’t seem to have that kind of strong leadership now that would do such a thing, instead they want to be PC about every thing they do.