On September 18, 2017, roughly one week after the 16th anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the LA Times reported on California's "sanctuary state" bill-SB 54 that would ostensibly “expand protections for immigrants” by preventing officers from questioning and holding people on immigration violations.
To understand the ominousness of this measure, we must look back to the 9/11 Commission's official “9/11 and Terrorist Travel” report, which focused on the multiple failures of the immigration system that enabled the 9/11 terrorists and other international terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves as they went about their deadly preparations.
This explicit paragraph explains how sanctuary policies that confound DHS efforts to enforce immigration laws undermines America’s counterterrorism operations:
Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations were missed.
This is why each and every illegal alien, irrespective of whether or not he/she has a criminal record, must not be shielded from detection by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
However, commonsense regarding the need for proper immigration law enforcement is being overshadowed by the manipulations of proponents of immigration anarchy. The LA Times article’s very headline -- referring to "immigrants" -- highlights the insidious manipulation of language that has made honest discussions about immigration virtually impossible. The process was initiated long ago by the Carter administration, which demanded that the term “Illegal alien” be stricken from the lexicon of INS employees and replaced with the term “undocumented immigrant.”
The removal of that single word -- alien -- from the vernacular has had a huge impact on the entire immigration debate, causing many decent and otherwise sensible Americans to be deceived into believing "sanctuary cities" exemplify altruism when quite the opposite is true.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the term alien simply means, “any person, not a citizen or national of the United States.” There is no insult in the term “alien” -- only clarity. In fact, the title of the DREAM Act actually includes the verboten term “alien" (the DREAM Act is an acronym for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act).
Going back to the LA Times headline, in reality, lawful immigrants have absolutely no need for protection from immigration law enforcement officers. The only aliens who are at risk from adverse actions being taken against them by ICE agents are those aliens who either entered the United States illegally or, following lawful entry through a port of entry, either violated the terms of their admission into the United States or have committed criminal offenses in the United States.
Lawful immigrants do, however, have serious need for protection: they need protection from criminal aliens who lurk in their ethnic immigrant communities, plying their criminal trades. These individuals pose the greatest threat to the immigrants among whom they live irrespective of their ethnicities or countries of birth.
“Sanctuary cities” and “sanctuary states” such as California, which shield illegal aliens and the criminals and terrorists among them from immigration law enforcement authorities, create a life and death nightmare for the residents of the towns, cities and states that attract aliens who face deportation from the country.
During his administration, President George W. Bush attempted, fortunately without success, to create a “guest worker” program for millions of illegal aliens. Bush also played the “name game” and frequently called for “making immigrants legal” while he was, in actuality, calling for a massive amnesty program for unknown millions of illegal aliens.
Back then, Senate Bill S. 2611, legislation that would have created such an amnesty program, attracted the ire and concern of House Republicans who understood the dangers that such an ill-conceived program would create for America’s national security. Consequently, on July 27, 2006 a hearing. called by the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims addressed the dangers inherent in such a program.
During my testimony at this hearing, I stated that any member of Congress who would vote to provide lawful status and identity documents to millions of illegal aliens should be given the "MVP Award" by Al-Qaeda.
