Posted on 05/22/2007 8:41:32 PM PDT by Valin
The four part series I noted below is must reading for every senator considering amendments to the draft immigration bill which, at its unveiling, made no provision for treating illegal aliens from countries with known jihadist networks differently from Mexican or Central American immigrants.
Some amazing graphs from part 2:
[Though most who cross America's borders are economic migrants, the government has labeled some terrorists. Their ranks include:
Mahmoud Kourani, convicted in Detroit as a leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah. Using a visa obtained by bribing a Mexican official in Beirut, the Lebanese national sneaked over the Mexican border in 2001 in the trunk of a car.
Nabel Al-Marahb, a reputed al-Qaida operative who was No. 27 on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list in the months after 9-11, crossed the Canadian border in the sleeper cab of a long-haul truck.
Farida Goolam Mahammed, a South African woman captured in 2004 as she carried into the McAllen airport cash and clothes still wet from the Rio Grande. Though the government characterized her merely as a border jumper, U.S. sources now say she was a smuggler who ferried people with terrorist connections. One report credits her arrest with spurring a major international terror investigation that stopped an al-Qaida attack on New York.
The government has accused other border jumpers of connections to outlawed terrorist organizations, some that help al-Qaida, including reputed members of the deadly Tamil Tigers caught in California after crossing the Mexican border in 2005 on their way to Canada.
One U.S.-bound Pakistani apparently captured in Mexico drew such suspicion that he ended up in front of a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
"They are not all economic migrants," said attorney Janice Kephart, who served as legal counsel for the 9-11 Commission and co-wrote its final staff report. "I do get frustrated when people who live in Washington or Illinois say we don't have any evidence that terrorists are coming across. But there is evidence."
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehension numbers, agents along both borders have caught more than 5,700 special-interest immigrants since 2001. But as many as 20,000 to 60,000 others are presumed to have slipped through, based on rule-of-thumb estimates typically used by homeland security agencies.
"You'd like to think at least you're catching one out of 10," McCraw said. "But that's not good in baseball and it's certainly not good in counterterrorism." ]
There is much more to digest in these articles, including Mexico's cooperation in halting the flow of "special aliens," and details of the corrupt visas-for-cash operations run by some consulates in the middle east. This series is really newspaper journalism at its finest, and represents an extraordinary achievement that occured because of extraordinary effort. Explains the paper in a note following part three:
[ To document the hidden world of special-interest aliens, San Antonio Express-News reporter Todd Bensman and photographer Jerry Lara traveled to Damascus, Syria; Amman, Jordan; throughout Guatemala; the southern border state of Chiapas, Mexico; Brownsville and elsewhere along the Texas border; and Michigan. Bensman documented routes used by smugglers to move immigrants from Islamic countries, including a popular one from Syria to Texas traveled by Iraqi refugee Aamr Bahnan Boles.
The Express-News hired Arabic language interpreters in Syria, Jordan and Texas, where Boles was first interviewed extensively. Bensman obtained materials from overseas smuggling investigations and hundreds of daily intelligence summaries reflecting Texas border crossings. He interviewed U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials in both countries, and examined U.S. court records from a dozen federal smuggling prosecutions. Some dialogue and scenes described in this series were reconstructed based on interviews with Boles and, when possible, others who were present. ]
You can congratulate the reporter via e-mail at tbensman@express-news.net
“Breaching America”
Posted by Hugh Hewitt | 2:50 PM
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/66418989-d98c-4761-ab2b-d32ed60fdbd6
(Click above for links)
The San Antonio News Express has a four part series on illegal aliens from “countries of interest” —read countries with jihadist networks. From part 1:
Because all but a tiny fraction of those arrested crossing the southern border are Mexican or Central American, issues of border security get framed accordingly and cast in the image of America’s neighbors to the south. Right or wrong, in this country the public face of illegal immigration has Latino features.
But there are others coming across the Rio Grande, and many are in Boles’ image.
People from 43 so-called “countries of interest” in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa are sneaking into the United States, many by way of Texas, forming a human pipeline that exists largely outside the public consciousness but that has worried counterterrorism authorities since 9-11.
These immigrants are known as “special-interest aliens.” When caught, they can be subjected to FBI interrogation, detention holds that can last for months and, in rare instances, federal prison terms.
The perceived danger is that they can evade being screened through terror-watch lists.
The 43 countries of interest are singled out because terrorist groups operate there. Special-interest immigrants are coming all the time, from countries where U.S. military personnel are battling radical Islamist movements, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and the Philippines. They come from countries where organized Islamic extremists have bombed U.S. interests, such as Kenya, Tanzania and Lebanon. They come from U.S.-designated state sponsors of terror, such as Iran, Syria and Sudan.
And they come from Saudi Arabia, the nation that spawned most of the 9-11 hijackers.
Here are the links for part 2, part 3, and part 4.
Incredibly, the draft immigration bill contains no provisions that I could find dealing with illegal aliens who have made it into the U.S. from “countries of interest.”
Thanks to e-mailer MC for the pointer to this series.
bookmark
Audio
http://www.townhall.com/MediaPlayer/AudioPlayer.aspx?ContentGuid=02a477b5-17d4-4c93-a25f-00c8dde37a66
Todd Bensman
Hewitt: Hour 2 - Hugh spends the hour with the San Antonio Express News’ Todd Bensman over his excellent series on who exactly is crossing the border illegally
Ping
BTTT
This is what some people have been calling us liars for when we suggested what this article proves? The border is an ignored national security disaster.
And even Rumsfeld put out the warning! (2005) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/16/ldt.01.html
DOBBS: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is warning of the threat of terrorists entering this country through the same routes as those used by illegal aliens. Secretary Rumsfeld, traveling in South America, warned that enemies look for weaknesses and take advantage of them.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The risk is that some of these human-smuggling routes into our country from this hemisphere could be used just as easily for terrorists.
DOBBS: And three million illegal aliens are estimated to be entering this country this year.
Secretary Rumsfeld also said the United States has to be, as he put it, smarter and quicker in securing our borders. The federal government’s failure to secure those borders is leading individual states to take action. Arizona’s Proposition 200, which limits state benefits for illegals, passed overwhelmingly two weeks ago. Now at least half a dozen other states are considering similar measures.
Consider the following 5 statements by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson given at a Senate Floor Speech 16 March 2005
to President George.W. Bush (page S 2828).
1. “In Detroit, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani was indicted in the Eastern District of Michigan on one count of conspiracy
to provide material support to Hezbollah. Kourani was already in custody for entering the country illegally
through Mexico and was involved in fund raising activities on behalf of Hezbollah.”
2. “...the capture of terrorist suspect Jose Padilla. The Justice Department says Padilla and an accomplice planned
to enter the United States through Mexico to blow up apartment buildings in major cities such as New York.”
3. “Or the case of suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent Mohammed Junaid Babar, who told investigators of a scheme
to smuggle terrorists across the Mexican border. He is tied to a terror plot to carry out bombings and
assassinations in London.”
4. “Intelligence reports suggesting that 25 Chechen terrorism suspects have illegally entered the United States from
Mexico have refocused attention on a porous border from which many believe the next major attack on
Americans could come.”
5. “Also last July, an Egyptian man United States authorities described as one of their most wanted smugglers of
humans was arrested on charges of operating a ring that illegally brought people from Egypt and other Middle
Eastern countries to the United States. The indictment says Abdallah and his associates would direct people
seeking to reach the United States to travel to one of several Latin American countries, and from there to
Guatemala. They would then be transported to America through Mexico in return for payments of thousands of
dollars in smuggling fees.”
It is blatantly obvious even to the most casual reader that Islamic terrorists have been, and continue to, cross the
U.S./Mexico border into America.
http://www.rlsinternationalsecurity.com/sites/southernborder.html
Marking
Evenin’, AuntB. Mind if I use your post to ping from? You always have such good stuff to share!
bttt
thanks, bfl
I saw this reporter on the O’Reilly Factor last night; it was much better with Michelle Malkin guest hosting. You can’t help but be impressed with him, and I have to say that if his reports are on the square, then we’re going to have a huge problem on our hands when terrorist leaders give the signal to start shooting.
As if we needed more problems on top of the “new world order” sellout politicians we have now. Out of some 300 million people, Lindsey Graham and John McCain are the best we can do? Give me a break.
bump
“The Border is an ignored National Security disaster”.
Isn’t it passing strange that we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq while throwing open our Borders to the same Terrorists we are fighting in Iraq?
Indeed. We are spending more time, effort, money, and lives protecting the Iraqi border than our own.
I’m glad this is finally getting heard, but Hugh Hewitt acts like he just discovered gold. World Net Daily has been writing about this for a long time.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
bttt
BTT
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