Homeland security: red alert (President Bush missing in action on illegal immigration)

Do not be fooled by DHS chief Michael Chertoff's tough-sounding rhetoric. While the Washington muckety-mucks pay lip service to reforming the nation's broken detention and deportation system, catch-and-release of immigration lawbreakers remains the order of the day -- not only at the border, but all across the country's interior.

The rudderless and overwhelmed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency still does not have a new chief. Which is just as well since Bush nominee Julie Myers (a nice Bush lawyer with virtually no immigration or customs enforcement experience who happens to be the niece of recently retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers/wife of Chertoff's chief of staff/former employee of Chertoff and former colleague of outgoing ICE head Michael Garcia) would provide as much leadership and morale-boosting ability as a pair of junior high pom-poms. Her nomination is still pending.

Meanwhile, as illegal immigration continues unabated, the White House has seen fit to honor the chief of the Border Patrol, David Aguilar, with a presidential "Meritorious Executive" award, which comes with a cash bonus, for his outstanding performance. I kid you not.

It's not much better over at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers all immigration benefits, from citizenship applications to asylum requests to work permits, and is responsible for overseeing all amnesty, student visa and marriage visa applicants. The head of the agency, a nice banker named Eduardo Aguirre whose only experience in immigration law was his own personal background as a Cuban refugee, left in June after two years in office to become ambassador to Spain. Aguirre's biography says that under his "leadership," CIS "made significant and measurable progress towards eliminating the immigration benefit application backlog, improving customer service, and enhancing national security."

A new report by the DHS inspector general's office showed that Aguirre's agency has failed miserably to crack down on the estimated 4 million to 8 million foreigners who have overstayed their visas -- a supposed priority in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which highlighted how lax enforcement against visa overstayers has enabled many al Qaeda operatives to stay in the country.

Of the 301,046 leads the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency received in 2004 on possible visa violators, the inspector general found, only 4,164 were formally pursued, resulting in just 671 apprehensions -- few of which will actually result in deportation.

In these trying times for conservatives in Washington, you'd think the last thing the Bush administration might do is send up yet another crony/diversity nominee to fill a sensitive post. But Aguirre's proposed replacement, Emilio T. Gonzalez, is just such an embarrassment. He appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee recently and was endorsed by two Florida Republicans -- Sen. Mel Martinez and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who said Gonzalez would "bring an understanding of national security and my own personal immigration experience to bear."

Gonzalez is a Cuban refugee who arrived in the U.S. at the age of 4, achieved the American dream, and served honorably in the Army for 26 years. This makes him a remarkable success story. It does not make him a good candidate to head the Citizenship and Immigration Services agency in a time of war.

Scouring his resume, one finds no immigration law expertise whatsoever outside his personal experience.

No indication that he has any idea how to deal with those massive numbers of visa overstayers and immigration benefit fraudsters, let alone root out terrorist operatives among them.

And no indication that he would have the ability or willingness to ensure that the millions of "guest workers" under Bush's proposed amnesty plan would be competently screened, registered and deported after their "guest" terms are up.

Recruit the clueless. Reward the failures. Those who abide by the law lose. The con artists, the criminals, the ideological border saboteurs and the terrorists win.

1) I am in favor of the United States government securing America's citizens and believe the most immediate and effective method to accomplish this is by restricting the flow of illegal aliens into the U.S. by the construction of a continuous 24 ft high linear border barrier structure topped with razor wire and to reduce or end the attraction of felon employers by assessing them disabling fines and/or penalties. An additional benefit of such a linear border structure would be to restrict the movement of illegal drugs into the United States from Central America thereby reducing the annual federal expense of drug interdiction.

2) I am in favor of the Fourteenth Amendment being redefined - even if at individual state levels - to clarify that to qualify for birthright citizenship of the United States, a child must have been born of or adopted by a citizen or legal resident of the United States and that at least one parent or legal guardian must have to verify their citizenship or legal status before a birth certificate is issued by any agency. Any child born in the US not of a citizen or legal resident shall be issued a certificate of birth with non-citizen status clearly marked so that birth may not be used to complicate deportations of illegal aliens. I am also for rejecting of and the nullification of any certificates of marriage issued in the United States to any person who is not or was not legally admitted into the United States prior to the certificate's issuance or the application thereof. Persons who marry in other countries and whose non-citizen spouses wish to immigrate into the U.S. must follow current applicable immigration protocol.

3) I'm in favor of developing and implementing a scannable social security card system containing embedded digital information and images which can be electronically compared via network to that of national databases which would help reduce fraud, and the linking of those card ID's to state DMV licenses and state voter registrations. By making the SSI cards scannable and verifiable online, many excuses felon employers and illegal employees now use to circumvent U.S. immigration code would be reduced or eliminated as well as helping eliminate claims of ignorance which complicate successful prosecutions. This system would also help reduce incidents of identity theft, thus providing consumers added security from those with malicious intent as well as adding valuable security in the information off shoring craze taking place where consumers' personal and financial information is being distributed among entities in countries not subject to U.S. courts' jurisdiction.

4) After such ID is implemented, I believe our government should set a firm date whereby all employers will have had to verify and swear out an affidavit to the legal status of all their employees and after that cut-off date, those still intent, charged with, and found guilty of the felony of hiring illegal aliens would be fined $50,000 for each violation of the perjured affidavit or a minimum sixty percent of their annual net revenue. After that date, the government should allow enforcement of our immigration code to the letter and insist on apprehensions by any and all appropriate law enforcement authorities and should tie local governments' receiving federal monies to enforcement compliance. I believe it has become necessary we implement a system of bounties for information leading to both the apprehension and successful conviction of those felons and for the detainment and deportation of illegal aliens. Those states' Attorneys General should be given enforcement capabilities and allowed enforcement discretions within their respective states without hindrances from courts of law obstructing their enforcement duties.

5) I am in favor of taxpayer funded programs which are currently misused to pay able bodied people to not work to either cease to do so through more strict controls, be reduced so as to be considered as supplemental levels only, or be phased out totally. I would propose any agricultural related employer who is found guilty of employing illegal aliens should immediately cease the right to employ persons under the Federal agricultural minimum wage for five years, the standard minimum wage rates would apply for the duration of that term.

6) In order to augment #2, I would push for a mandate that no one but a parent or legal guardian who is a legal U.S. citizen and has contributed to the Social Security trust fund for a minimum of twenty consecutive quarters may apply for taxpayer funded benefits or services on behalf of minor children. Legal immigrants are currently restricted by law from receiving taxpayer funded benefits for a minimum twenty quarters or five years so this requirement is in keeping with applying a measure of fairness for all and may help reduce the attraction of "anchor babies" as a means to circumvent and complicate U.S. immigration code and its enforcement. This measure would also require at least five years of prior gainful and legal employment of any recipient and show proof of their contributions to the Social Security trust fund.

7) I'm in favor of removing immunities for all organizations which knowingly aid and abet illegal and fraudulent activity related to illegal immigration and in favor of aggressively seeking their demise should they insist on continuing to undermine U.S. law. These, by their very nature, are seeking to undermine established U.S. law and deserve prosecution to the fullest extent.

8) I'm in favor of establishing a Federal reimbursement system whereby monetary exchanges or transfers with countries whose illegal citizens "borrow" our taxpayer funded services are assessed, invoices prepared, and duties or taxes levied in percentage proportion by nationality of illegals apprehended as reported annually by our nation's Border Patrol.

9) I'm in favor of hospitals and health care providers being required to disclose publicly, in print, and upon demand, the names of all non-citizens/indigents receiving any medical care which is billed to or paid for by taxpayers along with the costs of those services billed or be penalized by losing reimbursements for any payments due to be paid from taxpayer funds. All hospitals and health care providers should be held openly accountable for how they spend or use public funds and accountable to the citizen first and the illegal alien only in emergency cases.

10) I am FOR the citizens of these United States to remain a sovereign nation and people, rejecting any outside influence of the United Nations into the laws of and upon the internal affairs of the American people. Cooperation from a position of strength is the foremost bargaining chip the USA should bring to the UN's table.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Malkin ping!