I will be on Neil Cavuto's program this afternoon, Thursday, April 18th at 4:00 PM Eastern Time

Hi Gang:

Later today, Thursday, April 18th, I will be a guest on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News program, “Your World With Neil Cavuto.”
His show airs on the Fox News Network at 4:00 PM Eastern Daylight Saving Time.  
We will be discussing the fact that among the onerous provisions of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation that the Senate’s Eight Gangsters have cobbled together is a provision that will include the number of countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program.
Here are some links to articles that address aspects of Comprehensive Immigration Reform:
You will notice that Senator Chuck Grassley, the Ranking Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee is (rightfully) concerned about fraud in the immigration system.
I have provided you below, with a copy of a recent e-mail in which I discussed the Visa Waiver Program which, in my judgement, ignores the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and imperils national security.
Any member of Congress who is willing to sacrifice national security to curry favor with the Chamber of Commerce should be given the MVP Award by Al-Qaeda!
I hope you will be watching Neil’s excellent program!
-michael cutler-
Hi Gang:
Before I go further, I ask that if you find what follows is helpful to you- please forward it to as many folks as possible and ask them to do the same- I am attempting to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”
My focus today is a commentary I wrote for CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) blog that was posted earlier today on their website.  The predication for my commentary was a UPI news reported that was posted on the GOP-USA website on March 11, 2013 that was titled:

This report raised some disturbing issues but what I subsequently found out was that the version of the UPI report was incomplete.  The Los Angeles Times ran the same UPI report but unlike the GOP-USA version, the LA Times version that was entitled:  

When you read the article, you will notice that there is a poll question to be answered- I ask that you provide the Los Angeles Times with an answer to their poll question.

This LA Times version was twice as long and twice as disconcerting as the version published on the GOP-USA website!
Consider this excerpt from the UPI report that appeared in the LA Times:

Business groups and Silicon Valley companies have pushed for more H1B visas for software engineers and other high-skilled employees, for example, while labor unions have warned that too many immigrants would undercut qualified Americans seeking high-tech jobs in a weak economy.

Unless the group designs a visa program that ensures a robust labor force, Rubio told reporters, “What you’re going to have is people coming into the country illegally or overstaying visas.”

Clearly the unions representing American high-tech workers was truly representing their members but just as clearly, Mr. Rubio, the Senator from Florida was not.  In fact, it was startling that he has basically taken the position that the solution to aliens who violate our nation’s laws is to provide as many foreign workers who would want to come to the United States to be permitted to do so legally, even if it would do harm to American workers!
It is stunning that his “solution” to illegal immigration is to create a visa program that, in his words, “ensures a robust labor force.”
WOW!
So much for America’s immigration laws protecting the jobs of American workers!
Is it not remarkable that Rubio did not even hint at a more reasonable approach, especially considering the debacle that was the Amnesty of 1986 under President Ronald Reagan, that provided pathways to citizenship for nearly 4 million illegal aliens and never dealt with the other part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 by providing sufficient resources to penalize employers who intentionally hired illegal aliens?  This failure created a huge incentive for the most massive onslaught of illegal immigration the United States has ever witnessed.
To combat drunk driving, New York City and many other cities across the United States mounted a highly visible effort that included “sobriety check-points” and when impaired drivers are found to be driving, their cars are impounded and the motorists arrested.  No one suggested that perhaps the solution would be to raise the legal blood alcohol level from .08 to perhaps 2.0!
To combat motorists who speed, police departments often erect highly visible signs that register the speed of approaching vehicles and back up the sign with police cars to chase down and issue summonses to motorists who are foolish enough to ignore the signs.
No one would suggest that the “solution” to motorists who speed would be to raise the speed limit on roads, especially where public safety is of concern.
However, we now have Rubio proposing a “solution” that parallels the idea of making it harder to violate the laws by ignoring the best interests of American workers!
Mr. Rubio could expand his “solution” and have all criminal laws declared null and void.  Then he could claim that America was “crime free” because no laws will have been violated!
The UPI news report also raised the issue of the need to track the entry and departure of aliens who enter the United States.
Consider this quote:

Negotiators also have hit a roadblock on whether the government should keep track of who is leaving the country and how to do so.

Under current law, U.S. immigration authorities do not keep a record when tourists and other foreign visitors leave the country. So the government doesn’t know whether they have overstayed their visas, as thousands do each year.

The Senate group has tentatively agreed to create a system to check visas against an immigration database at international airports and seaports but have not determined whether it is feasible at much busier border crossings. The task is potentially huge: U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada are the most highly trafficked in the world, with 250 million crossings each year.

Some lawmakers warn that checking visas as people leave the country would be expensive to implement, further clog busy border crossings and slow crucial commerce.

Someone should tell these “leaders” that the 9/11 Commission mandated that such a system be created and it was- although it does not do a good job os tracking the departure of aliens entering the United States.  This program is known as US-VISIT.
This is the link to this program that appears on the official DHS website:

http://www.dhs.gov/us-visit-office

Check out this article that bore the title:


Accenture wins $10 billion US VISIT contract

Here is the link:

http://www.govexec.com/defense/2004/06/accenture-wins-10-billion-us-visit-contract/16822/

Here is how this 2004 news report begins:
The Homeland Security Department on Monday announced a potentially $10 billion deal over the next five years with Accenture for a new program to track foreign visitors entering and exiting the United States, but one key Democrat expressed skepticism.

“By harnessing the power of the best minds in the private sector, we have taken a major step toward accomplishing our goals of enhancing the security of our country while increasing efficiency at our borders,” said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security.

The department awarded Accenture the contract on Friday and announced the deal on Tuesday. It covers the next five years with five, one-year options beyond to resign the deal, and it has a minimum value of $10 million and a maximum value of $10 billion. Accenture would provide a wide range of services including strategic support, design and integration activities, technical solutions, deployment activities, training, and organizational change management, according to a department statement.

The department awarded Accenture, whose parent company is based in the Bermuda, the contract over two other bidders, Lockheed Martin and Computer Sciences Corp. 

Here are two more links to two more recent stories about how Accenture formerly a subsidiary of the Arthur Andersen Accounting firm of Enron notoriety, has been awarded an additional 71 million dollar contract because it still has not gotten the job done:  (Accenture is, incidentally, an off-shore company that had been headquartered in Hamilton Bermuda when it got its first contract but then subsequently moved to Ireland.)

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20111223-accenture-wins-71-million-contract-for-us-visit

http://www.informationweek.com/government/security/dhs-expands-us-visit-biometric-capabilit/232300942

I have a hunch that there is a reason that Accenture has not been able to track departures- one of the key components to the Visa Waiver Program was to have a low overstay rate for the citizens of member countries as well as a low (3%) visa refusal rate.  The Chamber of Commerce has been spending gazillions of dollars to persuade (coerce) support for a program known as the Discover America Partnership.  As I have noted in some of my previous commentaries, al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have already discovered America!  On September 11, 2001 I believe that there were 26 countries that participated in the Visa Waiver Program- as of November 2012 that number had climbed to 37 with Taiwan having been added on November 1, 2012.
Here are two links concerning the Discover America Partnenship:
By not completing the half of US-VISIT that effectively tracks the departure of foreign visitors, this component for membership in the Visa Waiver Program is no longer a factor.

Here is the list of the 6 benefits that the visa requirement provides to national security and that the Visa Waiver Program denies our nation:

 

1.  By requiring visas of aliens who seek to enter the United States, this process helps to screen potential passengers on airliners that are destined to the United States.  Richard Reid, the so-called “Shoe Bomber” was able to board an airliner to come 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 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 relate 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 leads.  You can check out the application for a nonimmigrant (tourist) visa by clicking on this link:

https://evisaforms.state.gov/ds156.asp

 
4.  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 the alien has committed visa fraud when there is fraud involved in the visa application.  Indeed, terror suspects are often charged with 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.  You can arrest the alien who commits visa fraud for that violation of law and not for other charges that might make it clear that the investigation underway is targeting a criminal or terrorist organization.

6.  Even when an alien applies for a visa and his application is denied, the application he filed remains available for law enforcement and intelligence personnel to review to seek to glean intelligence from that application.

Many of the Congressional hearings at which I have testified focused on the nexus between immigration and terrorism.  One such hearing was conducted before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on International Relations on May 11, 2006 on the topic
VISA OVERSTAYS:
CAN WE BAR THE TERRORIST DOOR?

Here is the link to the transcript of this hearing:

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa27480.000/hfa27480_0f.htm

Here is a link to a CNN report that was titled, “Tracking Down Visa Violators:”
Casey Wian and his producer, Sara Weisfeldt interviewed me for this report and I appear briefly on screen.
On May 10, 2010 I was interviewed by Daniel Gonzalez, a reporter with the Arizona Republic for an news report titled, “U.S. not cracking down on immigrants with expired visas.” Here is the link to the news report in which I was quoted:

On July 13, 2011 the Washington Times published a news report that drew a clear nexus between visa violators and vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks:

Visas reviewed to find those who overstayed

Aim is to find any would-be terrorists

Here is the link to this news report:
How in the world can ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) attempt to identify and perhaps seek to locate and arrest aliens who violate the terms of their admission if there is no effective system in place to track the arrival and departure of nonimmigrant (temporary) alien visitors?
Immigration is truly a system and, as I have noted on many occasions, each component that fails is the equivalent of a hole in the bottom of your boat.
The obvious question is, “How many holes do you need in the bottom of your boat for it to wind up at the bottom of the lake?”
Clearly there are times when compromise is necessary.  This is how consensus building is accomplished.   HOWEVER- while politicians must compromise in order to achieve progress- national security should never be compromised!
Immigration is not a single issue but a singular issue that impacts nearly every challenge and threat confronting the United States today!  

Our armed forces are charged with securing America’s borders externally while the DHS is supposed to secure those same borders from within.  The failures of the DHS to live up to its half of the equation are undermining the efforts, valor and incredible sacrifices of Americas men and women who serve in our military!The immigration laws are supposed to achieve two primary goals- to protect American lives and protect Americans’ jobs. 

Our nation is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world.  However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations!

It is also vital that American workers never be made to compete with foreign workers for their jobs!  (This requirement is a component of the Immigration Laws that are not being enforced today!)

If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws that are intended to protect our nation and our citizens concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation! 

I also ask that you pass this e-mail along to your friends and neighbors- I am attempting to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”

We the People must make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!

We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.

This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!

You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!


-michael cutler- 

Please check out my website:

https://www.michaelcutler.net/

       

Also please check out my website at AND Magazine:



On Friday evenings from 7:00 PM until 8:00 PM Eastern Time, I host my show, “The Michael Cutler Hour” on the USA Talk Radio Network on Blog Talk Radio.

Call in and join the conversation!  The phone number is 310-982-4145

I hope you will be listening!  (Please tell your friends and neighbors!)

Here is a link to the program:

http://www.usaradionetwork.com/cutler.htm


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