Michael Cutler -- Terrorists Embed Themselves in Countries They Attack

I received the disturbing news article a couple of hours ago from a former high-ranking official of the former INS. He held a position within the investigations program for the INS and we have been friends for many years. He and I are greatly concerned about the situation our nation is in today.

The news report should be considered in conjunction with a commentary that I wrote just last week about an ABC News report about the identity of a suicide bomber, Shirwa Ahmed, who was identified as being a "naturalized United States citizen."

Consider this quote from the ABC News report filed last week:

The officials believe Shirwa Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, blew himself up in a suicide bombing in northern Somalia Oct. 28.

You have to wonder how Mr. Ahmed managed to acquire United States citizenship. Was he one of the 111,000 aliens whose immigration files were "lost" in 2005 and then had their applications for various benefits, including United States citizenship adjudicated without the file or was it simply a matter of the general state of dysfunction and incompetence that we have seen reported upon in government report after government report?

The most recent news report fails to identify Ahmed or even note that he was believed to have been a "suicide bomber."

What the news report does note, however, is the fact that there are concerns today that the group of some 20 to 40 Somalis who had been living in the United States had gone "missing" and may have left the United States to receive terrorist training.

Here is the real question: If the fears are justified and those 2 dozen or more young men have, in fact, gone off to train in terrorist tactics, will they then seek to return to the United States to take up there lives in various communities around our nation as they await orders to carry out an attack in the United States or once again leave our country to participate in an attack in another country?

Here is another question of concern: Are members of this group of young men now United States citizens who could easily cross international borders to enter a country allied with the United States to carry out a terrorist attack there?

The problem we have with individuals who are involved in terrorism is that when they naturalize they may still retain their foreign passports and then alternate using their passport from their country of birth with their United States passport to cover their tracks as they cross international borders.

As we saw with the devastating terrorist attacks staged in Mumbai, India last week is that the terrorists needed to get to India from Pakistan in order to carry out their massive attacks in India. The 911 Commission similarly noted the need terrorists have to travel internationally and then to embed themselves in the country that they attack.

I have detailed these issues in a previous commentary in 2006.

What you should also consider is the lunacy of a statement of Michael Chertoff, the soon-to-be former Secretary of Homeland Security when he touted the doubling of the number of Border Patrol agents while decrying the failure of the Congress to pass a massive legalization program for the estimated 20 million illegal aliens currently living in the United States.

Chertoff and the administration have absolutely failed to even discuss the disastrous situation where immigration fraud is concerned. Additionally, the extremely dangerous Visa Waiver Program is now being expanded although that program should have been brought to a screeching halt the morning after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Meanwhile the advocates for open borders are licking their chops in anticipation that the new administration will do the unthinkable- provide millions of illegal aliens whose identities, backgrounds and affiliations and intentions are unknown and unknowable, with United States citizenship.

The immigration lawyers who anticipate a windfall in millions of new clients have taken to the tactic of renaming Comprehensive Immigration Reform "CIR." Of course, CIR are the initials for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The politicians who are supposed to represent the best interests of our nation and our citizens know that Americans are absolutely opposed to comprehensive immigration reform so they apparently plan to jam it down our throats by renaming it and sliding it past us in the dead of night!

I have written this article to try to alert you to the challenges confronting our nation. Now it is up to you, the citizens of this nation, to contact your elected representatives and demand that they represent you and your family and to protect our nation. This is the burden all Americans must bear.

Many years ago there was a clever campaign mounted by the American Red Cross. They hung signs in buses and subway cars in New York City that were aimed at those New Yorkers who would fail to donate blood by saying, "Remember, to the other guy, you are the other guy! This certainly applies in this situation.

The safety of our nation begins at its borders. It is therefore essential that our borders be secured and that our immigration bureaucracy honor those who abide by the laws and seeks to weed out those who would commit fraud and those who would assist them.

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

Michael W. Cutler graduated from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1971 with a B.A. in Communications Arts and Sciences. Mr. Cutler began working for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in October 1971 when he entered on duty as an Immigration Inspector assigned to John F. Kennedy International Airport. In August 1975 he became a Criminal Investigator (Special Agent) for the INS at NYC.

He rotated through virtually every squad in the Investigations Branch. From 1988 until 1991 he was assigned as the INS representative to the Unified Intelligence Division (UID) of the DEA in New York. In 1991 he was promoted to the position of Senior Special Agent and was assigned to the Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) which required that he work with members of other law enforcement agencies including the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Customs and local and state police as well as law enforcement organizations of other countries including Israel, Canada, Great Britain and Japan, to conduct investigations of aliens involved in major drug trafficking organizations. He retired from the INS in February 2002, after a career that spanned some 30 years.

Finally, Michael Cutler has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including Lou Dobbs, Fox News, MSNBC and many other television and radio news-oriented programs to discuss the enforcement of immigration laws.