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Posted on 11/16/2001 1:21:20 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK

How to Keep Terrorists Out of the USA
Accountability for the Past
Security for the Future

By Robert H. Goldsborough, President, AIC

On September 15, just a few days after the terrorist attack on America, Secretary of State Colin Powell made the astonishing admission that, "the enemy is very often right here within our own country."

Indeed, according to federal investigators, most - if not all - of the nineteen terrorist highjackers had been in and out of the United States for more than a year attending various flight schools in Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma, California and elsewhere. They apparently had no difficulty getting visas: some of the Islamic fanatics were here under their own names; others were using aliases; some even used school-supplied visa forms to attend flying schools.

America's intelligence agencies knew from the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center that al Qaeda terrorists had already infiltrated the United States. As Mike Cherkoski, former federal prosecutor of some of those terrorists said, "We have a war in the U.S." Muslim terrorists have been at war with America even before the 1993 attack, but that deadly bombing should have been a final wake up call for America, for President Clinton and for Congress. For more than fifteen years, American Immigration Control has been telling Congress and the President that America has inadequate security at ports of entry and border crossings. Repeatedly, AIC has warned about the real threat of alien terrorists entering our country.

America's security was never a top priority for the Clinton administration, and consequently, terrorists bombed not only the World Trade Center in 1993, but also our embassies in Kenya, Tanzania and the USS Cole. However, Justice Department and its agencies (FBI and INS) did not sit around idly, for the Clintons used them for their own political purposes - i.e. the White House travel office scandal, collecting FBI dossiers on Republican appointees etc.

The most outrageous misuse and abuse of the above agencies began in 1995 when President Clinton ordered the crash project to naturalize 1 million immigrants in time to register and vote in the 1996 presidential election. The FBI had neither the time nor the manpower to perform the required back-ground checks and so, in thousands of cases, alien felons were naturalized and registered to vote. The whole sordid story of how the Justice Department and its agencies were used illegally for partisan purposes and how then-Attorney General Janet Reno covered it up, is documented by David Schippers in his book Sell Out ( Regnery Publishers). Democrat Schippers, chief investigative counsel of the House Judiciary Committee's investigation of unethical partisan activities by the Justice Department, wrote "We received no cooperation from either the Justice Department or the INS. Instead we received nothing but complaints.... we reasoned that if criminals were given citizenship in 1996, at least some of them had probably continued their criminal activity in the two years since." FBI files revealed rapists, child abusers, murderers, drug peddlers, and at least "one criminal who was actually in jail at the time he was naturalized...thousands of criminals are now citizens of the United States because it was assumed they would vote for Bill Clinton and Al Gore."

The Clinton Justice Department headed by Janet Reno was kept so busy turning criminal aliens into voting citizens that the FBI and the INS had minimal time to track down and arrest the alien terrorists who had already bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. When the FBI warned the INS to stop one of the suspected terrorists if he tried to enter the U.S., the INS said he was already in the United States. Neither the FBI not the INS could find him. There needs to be a congressional investigation to assign accountability for what has happened.

Quite possibly, the mindless carnage of September 11th might not have happened had not the following terrorists entered the United States during the Clinton/Gore/Reno administration:

• Khalid al-Midhai, who took flying lessons in California and crashed the Boeing commercial jet into the Pentagon, had a valid business and an expired student visa;
  
• Marwan al Shehhi who crashed a commercial jet into the World Trade Center had a tourist visa;
  
• Hani Hanhour who helped crash the airliner into the Pentagon used a student visa to enter the U.S. but never showed up at the language school for English.

  In order to protect the security of America in this age of terrorism, the INS and the entire immigration process must be re-organized:

  1. A modern computer system must link the INS, the FBI and the State Department (which issues visas) so that known offenders won't get visas and all visa holders can be tracked during their stay in America.
  2. All visas must contain a tamper proof picture and thumbprint.
  3. All visa holders must register with the INS every three months.
  4. The INS must be given the authorization and budget to hire internal security officers who can locate illegal immigrants including those who overstay their visa. All of these illegal immigrants and visa violators must be deported and never allowed to re-enter or to apply for residency.
  5. There must be no more amnesties - the very nature of rewarding law breakers with amnesty undermines the rule of law.
  6. The annual legal immigration quota must be reduc ed to a manageable level of 200,000 including all categories and refugees so that the FBI investigative process is not overwhelmed.
  7. Every foreign truck must be inspected at the border and not permitted more than 25 miles into the U.S.

  We must immediately implement these changes so as to make America safe again.

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