Posted on 11/06/2001 1:59:32 PM PST by l33t
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The borders and entry points to the United States leak like sieves, offering the nation little or no protection against potential terrorists who can enter the country undetected, immigration experts said on Tuesday.
"It should be universally recognized that our borders are out of control," said Bill King, a retired senior Border Patrol agent and former head of the Border Patrol Academy.
King told a seminar organized by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think-tank, that there were almost 9 million people illegally residing in the United States.
"They can be job seekers, criminals, disease carriers and now they can be foreign agents ... Both our borders (with Mexico and Canada) are sieves. Anyone can cross either border today," he said.
Of the 19 people thought to have carried out the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11 that killed around 4,800 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, at least 13 entered the country as tourists, business travellers or students. The entry of the others cannot be accounted for.
In a recent paper, Steven Camarota and Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, argued that "the current terrorist threat to the United States comes almost exclusively from individuals who arrive from abroad ... Unfortunately, prior to September 11, a portion of America's elite had come to see our borders as little more than an irritant, an obstacle to be overcome by travellers and businessmen."
Peter Nunez, a former U.S. attorney for San Diego, said the Immigration and Naturalization Service suffered from a lack of money, manpower and equipment and low morale. He said special interest groups interested in securing a source of low-paying labour consistently thwarted efforts to control the borders.
DRIVERS LICENSES TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Some states were now issuing drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, which they could then use as identification to board aircraft, Nunez said.
"Why are we allowing people to create false identities to hide in plain sight?" he said.
When Kentucky stopped requiring foreign applicants to take drivers' tests and delivering licenses on the spot in 1996, the number of foreign applicants exploded within weeks, coming from as far away as New York to get licenses.
Last year, 500 million people entered the United States as legal entry points. Close to half were returning U.S. citizens but the rest included millions of tourists and visiting business travellers. The INS believes up to 40 percent of those illegally in the country are people who overstayed their visas and can melt into the population.
Jessica Vaughan, a former foreign service consular officer, said the State Department had forgotten its role in national security when it issued visas. Its officers concentrated on handling the maximum amount of applications in the shortest possible time, rather than trying to weed out those who could be a threat.
Krikorian said visa officers regarded foreign applicants rather than the American people as their primary customers and preferred to keep them happy, rather than keep them waiting.
He also noted that only around 400 agents were responsible for patrolling the 4,000-mile (6,432-km) border with Canada, where "Islamic terrorists are more likely to slip into the country from the sizable Canadian Muslim community that can provide them with cover."
Several speakers noted that the INS and other law enforcement agencies made no effort to keep track of visitors, legal or illegal, once they entered the country.
"If you can sneak past the border, you are home free. Nobody is going to look for you," said Nunez.
"If illegal immigrants can get through the border, then so can drug dealers, so can terrorists," he said.
One of the Sept. 11 hijackers entered the country on a student visa but never attended a class.
Krikorian and Camarota would like to see every applicant for a U.S. visa fingerprinted and their prints placed in an integrated system that could be accessed by every agency involved in the immigration process.
"Visa officers should be empowered to deny visas to people who are clearly enemies of the United States but who have not actually engaged in terrorism," they said.
They also urged greater scrutiny of citizens wishing to come to the United States from countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Students and others from such countries needed to be tracked once they arrived in the United States to ensure they were doing what they came to do and did not overstay their visas.
Your question makes me sick to my stomach. My city clerk (in charge of elections here) says that it is against the law to even ask if the voter is a citizen or a felon.
Illegal aliens flood into our country EVERYDAY.
Do our local, state and federal law enforcement personnel do anything about it - HELL NO!
Law enforcement sits on hands with a thumb up their ass and tolerate illegal aliens walking our streets.
Illegal aliens destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
Fu*k all the supporters of illegal aliens, La Raza, ACLU and other trash organizations.
I tried to find from the elections board how many voters voted (both dem and rep) versus how many registered? They would not tell me! So much for public access to public information.
I have been say that for years..I fear it is already too late. It has been the offical policy of our government to look the other way..they wanted the cheap labor as a payoff for business money to the parties..sadly 9/11 has not yet affected that .The dollar is still the driving force..it will take one more incident before the money changers in Washington decide to do the job that the constitution has given to them!
Does anyone else feel that congress is totally reactionary to every problem. Zero foresight. Sad.....
I agree with whoever said heads should roll at INS!
How can the EU, China, and Russia figure so prominently in prophecy when America is the most powerful nation on earth?
We need to repent as a nation and quit slaughtering our children, quit protecting murderers with unjust laws. Lord have mercy on us.
If God has prophesized that America won't be around in the last days then no amount of praying will save America.
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