PROMISES TO KEEP: The ‘Law and Order’ President hits the ground running

During his campaign for the presidency Donald Trump frequently disdainfully scowled when he spoke about how most politicians were “All talk and no action.”

Candidate Trump promised that immigration would be a primary focus of his administration.

President Trump has indeed focused on multiple aspects of the immigration crisis that go well beyond building a wall along the U.S./Mexican border.

His selection of Senator Jeff Sessions to be his Attorney General was the best possible choice for this important position.

Sessions had chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.

Consider that on February 25, 2016 that subcommittee conducted a hearing on the topic, “The Impact of High-Skilled Immigration on U.S. Workers.”

When the Obama administration conducted meetings for “Stakeholders” on the immigration issue corporate leaders were invited to attend as were immigration lawyers representing illegal aliens and special interest groups that advocate for illegal aliens.

However, no one in attendance represented the “average American.”

Even the union leaders representing the Border Patrol, ICE agents and the adjudications officers were barred from participating in those meetings.

On February 9, 2017 President Trump held a news conference in the Oval Office to conduct a public swearing in ceremony of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Immediately after Vice President Pence swore in Jeff Sessions, President Trump signed three executive orders:

  1. Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking
  2. Presidential Executive Order on Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers
  3. Presidential Executive Order on a Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety

President Trump promised to be the “Law and Order” President and he has certainly hit the ground running.

His executive order to prevent violence against law enforcement officers is tangible evidence of his keeping his promise to look out for law enforcement officers.

Let’s next consider how he articulated the purpose for his executive order on enforcing federal laws to attack transnational criminal organizations:

Section 1.  Purpose.  Transnational criminal organizations and subsidiary organizations, including transnational drug cartels, have spread throughout the Nation, threatening the safety of the United States and its citizens.  These organizations derive revenue through widespread illegal conduct, including acts of violence and abuse that exhibit a wanton disregard for human life.  They, for example, have been known to commit brutal murders, rapes, and other barbaric acts.

These groups are drivers of crime, corruption, violence, and misery.  In particular, the trafficking by cartels of controlled substances has triggered a resurgence in deadly drug abuse and a corresponding rise in violent crime related to drugs.  Likewise, the trafficking and smuggling of human beings by transnational criminal groups risks creating a humanitarian crisis.  These crimes, along with many others, are enriching and empowering these organizations to the detriment of the American people.

A comprehensive and decisive approach is required to dismantle these organized crime syndicates and restore safety for the American people.

That statement underscores his understanding of how important immigration law enforcement and border security are to combatting transnational criminals.

What is unfathomable is how many politicians who have to understand this issue have opposed Trump at every opportunity.  Only they can explain their conduct.  However, I have to conclude that those who would oppose President Trump’s efforts to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws are siding with the cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

This certainly apply to mayors of “Sanctuary Cities” and governors who want to create “Sanctuary States.”

Sanctuary Cities should be called “Magnet Cities” because they attract criminal aliens including members of transnational gangs, fugitives and international terrorists.

The politicians’ claims that by shielding vulnerable illegal aliens from immigration law enforcement they would be willing to come forward when they fall victim to criminals is a blatant lie that ignores that Sanctuary Cities Endanger – National Security and Public Safety.

Sanctuary policies attract more violent criminals who are likely victimize members of the ethnic immigration communities.  However the false narrative serves to vilify valiant ICE agents who go in harms way every day they report for duty, seeking to protect national security and innocent lives.

Statutorily, U Visas are available for victims of human trafficking and other crimes if they come forward and assist with law enforcement efforts to apprehend the criminals.  Similar visa programs are available for illegal aliens who provide assistance to criminal investigations.

If those duplicitous politicians really wanted to assist illegal alien victims of crimes they would bring them to immigration offices and urge them to cooperate with the investigations of their criminal assailants.

That way everyone would win.

But then the politicians would not get their campaign contributions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a host of special interest groups, and who know who else, who are literally and figuratively making out like bandits by exploiting the immigration system.

In continuing to consider Trump’s executive order on trafficking I call your attention to two of the key elements of this executive order are proverbial “music to my ears.”

(e)  develop strategies, under the guidance of the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, to maximize coordination among agencies — such as through the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), Special Operations Division, the OCDETF Fusion Center, and the International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center — to counter the crimes described in subsection (a) of this section, consistent with applicable Federal law; and

(f)  pursue and support additional efforts to prevent the operational success of transnational criminal organizations and subsidiary organizations within and beyond the United States, to include prosecution of ancillary criminal offenses, such as immigration fraud and visa fraud, and the seizure of the implements of such organizations and forfeiture of the proceeds of their criminal activity.

I speak from extensive experience when I say that this task force approach to identifying, investigating and dismantling international drug trafficking organizations is extremely effective.  I spent the final ten years of my career with the INS as a Senior Special Agent assigned to the OCDETF program in New York City.

As for immigration fraud and visa fraud, these two issues are elements of “Extreme vetting” that Trump promised when he campaigned for the presidency.

On May 18, 2004 I testified at a hearing by the House Immigration Subcommittee on the topic of Pushing the Border Out on Alien Smuggling: New Tools and Intelligence Initiatives that addressed the issues of visa fraud and also the strategy of providing visas for illegal alien informants.

On May 20, 1997 I testified before the House Immigration Subcommittee on the topic, Visa Fraud And Immigration Benefits Application Fraud.

That hearing was predicated on two deadly terror attacks carried out in 1993 at the CIA and first World Trade Center Bombing.

In one way or another, all of those involved with those attacks had gamed the visa system and/or the immigration benefits program.

The Clinton administration’s failures to address these vulnerabilities of visa fraud and immigration fraud that enabled these two deadly attacks to be conducted on American soil literally and figuratively, left the door open to the deadly terror attacks of 9/11.

The report, “9/11 and  Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” included this excerpt found on pages 46 and 47:

In addition, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the attack, and Ahmad Ajaj, who was able to direct aspects of the attack despite being in prison for using an altered passport, traveled under aliases using fraudulent documents. The two of them were found to possess five passports as well as numerous documents supporting their aliases: a Saudi passport showing signs of alteration, an Iraqi passport bought from a Pakistani official, a photo-substituted Swedish passport, a photo-substituted British passport, a Jordanian passport, identification cards, bank records, education records, and medical records.6

“Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida.” Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.

In the years since the terror attacks of 9/11 more terror attacks were carried out in the United States while other attacks, for one reason or another, failed.  Most of those attacks involved aliens who committed visa fraud and/or immigration fraud.

Trump’s executive orders address our immigration vulnerabilities and Attorney General Sessions will provide the legal horsepower.

All Americans should be thrilled that this President is keeping his promises.

RELATED ARTICLE: Federally-funded refugee resettlement contractor, HIAS, organized NY rally against Trump

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine.

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