On Monday, December 19th Berlin was rocked by a deadly terror attack that killed 12 innocent victims and injured 48.  A December 21, 2016 CNN report, “Berlin attack: Police hunt Tunisian suspect after finding ID papers” named 24 year-old Tunisian, Anis Amri as the prime suspect who drove a stolen truck into pedestrians visiting a Berlin Christmas market.

The body of the truck’s driver was found in the truck.  He was shot and stabbed, likely by Amri.

This attack is reminiscent of the terror attack carried out in Nice, France on July 14, 2016 by a 31 year-old Tunisian, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel.

According to the CNN report, Amri had entered Italy without documentation and was subsequently convicted of committing violent crimes in Italy and spent four years on prison.

Italian authorities attempted to deport him back to Tunisia but Tunisia refused to accept him because he had multiple identity documents in false at least six false names and Tunisian authorities claimed to not have any reliable records to identify him.

He is then believed to have entered Germany illegally.  He unsuccessfully applied for political asylum in Germany, his application was reportedly denied, at least in part, because of his ongoing relationship with radical Islamic organizations.

Here is an excerpt from the CNN news report:

Before Amri was publicly named, Ralf Jaeger, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, told reporters the suspect was known to German security services as someone in contact with radical Islamist groups, and had been assessed as posing a risk.

One German security official told CNN the suspect had been arrested in August with forged documents in the southern German town of Friedrichshafen, on his way to Italy, but a judge released him. The suspect also came onto the radar of German police because he was looking for a gun, the official said.

However, while Germany refused Amri’s asylum application because of known terror ties, they permitted him to remain at large where he continued to pose a threat, a threat that became all too clear when he mowed down his victims.

Given the string of successive deadly terror attacks across Europe, the United States and other regions of the world, you would have thought that German officials, including the judge who released Amri, would err on the side of caution to protect German citizens.

To everyone’s relief, Amri was killed in a shootout with police as reported on December 24th by the New York Times, “Berlin Attack Suspect Is Killed by Police Near Milan.”

Amri fled to Italy in an attempt to evade law enforcement by disappearing through the “trapdoor” frequently used by international terrorists and transnational criminals.  That “trapdoor” involves crossing international borders.  Unsecured borders facilitates this movement of criminals and terrorists so that they can carry out attacks and/or crimes or flee from such actions after the fact.

That shootout occurred during a “routine” police ID check as described in this excerpt from the beginning of the N.Y. Times article:

SESTO SAN GIOVANNI, Italy — It was a routine identity check, the kind Italy has relied more on to stem the flow of illegal migration deeper into Europe. But the man stopped by two police officers around 3 a.m. Friday outside the northern city of Milan was anything but an ordinary drifter.

He turned out to be perhaps Europe’s most wanted man, Anis Amri, the chief suspect in the deadly terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 people. Asked to show his papers and empty his backpack, he pulled a gun, shot one officer, and in turn was shot and killed by another.

“Police bastards,” Mr. Amri, who turned 24 this week, shouted in Italian before dying, according to the account given by Antonio De Iesu, director of the Milan police, at a news conference.

One of my earliest and most important lessons as a federal agent is that there is no such thing as a “routine” stop in law enforcement.  When a law enforcement officer encounters an individual there may be no immediately apparent way of knowing who that individual is or the threat he/she may pose.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

The notion of only deporting aliens who have serious criminal histories is a dangerous strategy.  While criminals should certainly garner the greatest attention by law enforcement, arresting immigration law violators who have not immediately discernible criminal histories is important to maintain the integrity of the immigration system and to also potentially interrupt criminal and terrorist operations.

Criminal and terror watch lists are important but are of limited value.  Successful terrorists attempt to keep low profiles and often have no criminal histories.

The day before an attack a terrorist may go to his mundane, nondescript job or attend classes.

Therefore all violations of borders and immigration laws must be taken seriously.

Time and again countries around the world, including the United States, have been attacked by radical Islamist terrorists who managed, in one way or another, the find vulnerabilities in border security and the immigration systems of those countries, to carry out deadly attacks.

Globalist national leaders refuse to see in those attacks lessons from which to learn how to prevent future horrific terror attacks.

Obama’s refusal to accept the nexus between border security / immigration law enforcement and national security, is paralleled by Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel who has admitted hundreds of thousands of refugees who cannot be vetted.

Obama has ignored clear warnings voiced by members of his own administration and national security experts.  On February 12, 2015 ABC News reported, “U.S. Officials Admit Concern Over Syrian Refugee Effort.”

Merkel has similarly ignored indisputable facts.  For example, the Taiba mosque in Hamburg, Germany, believed to have been the meeting place for some of the 9/11 hijacker/terrorists, was according to a report published by the BBC, shuttered in 2010 because it was continuing to be used by radical Islamic jihadists.

Consider this excerpt from the BBC report:

“We have closed the mosque because it was a recruiting and meeting point for Islamic radicals who wanted to participate in so-called jihad or holy war,” said Frank Reschreiter, a spokesman for Hamburg’s state interior ministry.”

About a year ago I wrote an extensive analysis comparing the findings and recommendations and findings of the 9/11 Commission with the policies of the Obama administration, citing in my analysis numerous examples of the nexus between immigration and national security including the November 20, 2013 ABC News report, “Exclusive: US May Have Let ‘Dozens’ of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees” and the July 13, 2011 Washington Times article, “Visas reviewed to find those who overstayed / Aim is to find any would-be terrorists.”

I began my paper with a quote from Sir Winston Churchill contained in his eloquent speech he delivered before the House of Commons on May 2, 1935, in which he voiced his frustrations and consternation about missed opportunities and failures to learn from history, as the storm clouds of war were gathering on the horizon:

“When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong–these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

The famed playwright, George Bernard Shaw’s lament more succinctly parallels Churchill’s perspectives:

“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.”

My dad used to tell me that in life there are no mistakes, only lessons, provided that we learn from our errors.

Clearly Obama is not alone in his willful blindness to the lessons that history should have taught him about how essential secure borders and effective immigration law enforcement is to national security in spite of a long list of terror attacks carried out throughout Europe and, indeed, the world, by terrorists who entered the countries that they attacked by exploiting failures of border security.

Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has also pushed for the admission of huge numbers of refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries who cannot be vetted that parallel the admission of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and refugees from other parts of the world who cannot be vetted or even reliably identified.

Obama’s refusal to secure our borders also provides criminals and terrorists with a means of entering the United States not only without vetting, but without detection. Indeed, Entry Without Inspection = Entry Without Vetting.

While President-Elect Trump certainly understands this issue, incredibly, mayors of “Sanctuary Cities” ignore this very obvious nexus between Terrorism, Enclaves And Sanctuary Cities and how sanctuary cities facilitate the growth of terror enclaves in America.

Memo to mayors of Sanctuary Cities: insanity has been defined as doing the same things the same way and expecting a different outcome.