Washington insiders aiding terrorists?

By Michael 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.” 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."

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." 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.