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September 1, 2009
Exclusive: More Translators Working for ICE Would ‘Translate’ to Fewer Terrorists and Criminals Gaming the Immigration System
This article about the lack of translators hurting the U.S. war on terror is not necessarily about immigration, but has connections to immigration on a number of levels.
First of all, I have made the point on a number of occasions including when I have testified before various Congressional hearings that it is extremely important that employees of both CBP (Customs and Border Protection) and ICE (Immigration and Customs Employment) be given foreign language training.
One of those hearings took place on May 5, 2005 (more than four years ago), when I testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims at a hearing entitled “New ‘Dual Missions’ of the Immigration Enforcement Agencies.”
As you will note in my prepared testimony linked above, since the creation of DHS, the personnel of our government, whose day to day duties require them to interact with foreign nationals, many of whom do not speak English or may be prone to using foreign languages as a means of concealing their activities, are not being given vital foreign language training.
When I was first hired by the INS in 1971 each and every employee who was involved in enforcing the immigration laws were required to undergo Spanish language training because it was recognized that some 80 percent of the alien population of the United States spoke Spanish. Back then, failure to achieve a measure of facility in the Spanish language would cause a trainee to be fired. The theory behind this requirement was that you could not investigate people with whom you could not communicate.
This abysmal situation continues today.
We’ve heard much talk about fighting the terrorists "over there" so that we will not have to fight them here. Sadly, there have been many occasions when federal agents from agencies such as ICE and the FBI have arrested terrorism suspects operating inside the United States. Clearly, these arrests constitute "fighting them here."
The ability to understand the languages used by our nation's adversaries would be advantageous to our agents; yet this training is not being given to the agents of ICE who spend the majority of their time interacting with foreign nationals.
As I have noted in many of my commentaries, hundreds of American cities are infested by members of the Mexican drug cartels, MS-13 and various criminal and drug trafficking organizations from countries from all over the world. They use foreign languages as a means of doing business. As a legacy INS special agent assigned to DEA Intelligence and then as a senior special agent assigned to the Organized Crime,
Drug Enforcement Task Force, I can attest that my rudimentary ability to speak and understand Spanish was indispensable to the investigations my colleagues and I conducted of drug trafficking organizations.
Yet this basic skill is not longer a part of the training process for the special agents of ICE?
Additionally, I would remind you that we are rapidly approaching the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
For comparison, our nation fought and won World War II in less than four years. In order to win, our nation had to devise, design and produce fleets of aircraft that had never flown before. Our nation had to construct fleets of naval vessels possessing all sorts of innovations. Our nation even developed and constructed nuclear weapons with brand new, unproven technology.
Yet today, our borders are still not secure and the immigration bureaucracy has no integrity, enabling criminals and terrorists to easily game the immigration system to acquire immigration benefits including resident alien status (lawful immigrant status) and even United States citizenship.
This issue dovetails perfectly with the Washington Times article linked above.
Generally speaking, the people who possess real fluency with foreign languages are individuals who were born in the foreign countries where those languages are used on a daily basis.
This means that many of our translators are naturalized citizens, making it absolutely vital that the system by which we confer United States citizenship upon aliens must have integrity. Yet the system has no integrity!
There have been a number of reports about how some aliens committed fraud in obtaining resident alien status and United States citizenship and then parlayed their newly acquired United States citizenship and language abilities into jobs at contractors that provide translators for the military and our law enforcement – providing aid to overseas terrorist groups.
Unlike many other countries, the United States draws virtually not distinction between naturalized citizens and native-born citizens. The only two jobs a naturalized citizen are not eligible to hold are the President of the United States or the Vice President of the United States.
Many years ago, aliens who applied for citizenship were investigated by INS agents who would hit the street and knock on doors to conduct what was known as GMC (Good Moral Character) Investigations. It was not enough that an applicant for United States citizenship had never been convicted of a crime – they had to demonstrate that they were decent people. They were, in fact, required to provide two witnesses who would vouch for their character before they could be naturalized.
During the Clinton administration, an ill-conceived program known as "Citizenship USA" or "CUSA" jammed some 1.1 million aliens through the naturalization process and the GAO reported that at least 80,000 of those aliens were ineligible for naturalization. To my knowledge few, if any, of those aliens had their citizenship revoked. It is important to note that this was done some three years after the 1993 terrorist attacks at the CIA headquarters and first World Trade Center incident, where immigration fraud was determined to have facilitated the entry and embedding of at least several of those terrorists.
As I have also noted, the GAO also found that a few years ago, USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) the agency that is charged with adjudicating all applications for immigration benefits, claimed to have lost 111,000 immigration files relating to aliens seeking a wide variety of immigration benefits including some 30,000 aliens who applied for naturalization.
Incredibly, but unfortunately, all too believably, USCIS processed all of those 111,000 without the critically important immigration files. It is my personal belief that the files were never "lost" but simply not sought. If you wonder why they would do this, the answer is easy to figure out – retrieving and reviewing immigration files is time- consuming. If the goal is to move the bureaucratic conveyor belt as quickly as possible, ignoring the files would certainly speed the process. Of course, while the "good news" is that the applications would be processed faster, the "bad news" is that this madness would make it easy for criminals and terrorists to be granted United States citizenship.
Here is the concern that keeps me awake nearly every night: Our government will ultimately hire translators and others to work in sensitive positions – within law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military – who are, in reality, seeking to harm our nation and our citizens. I am greatly worried that there are more individuals similar to Nada Nadim Prouty "out there," seeking the opportunity to do what she did.
Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. There are many naturalized United States citizens who love our country as much as do native-born Americans. Many of them have an even greater appreciation of our nation than do those of us who were born here. They have lived under totalitarian regimes and appreciate our nation. My mom passed away while I was a college student. She was a naturalized citizen. I can tell you that every day she thanked God that she was living in the United States. Her mother and many of her family members were slaughtered in Poland during the Holocaust. She was one of the most patriotic Americans I have ever known. Many of her friends who similarly lawfully immigrated to the United States shared her level of patriotism and level of appreciation for our nation.
Today there are millions of naturalized citizens who are no less appreciative of their lives in our country.
The point is that the system by which we naturalize aliens must possess integrity – this is nothing less than a matter of national security.
My adamant opposition to any sweeping "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" program is based on many reasons, but topping that list is the nations security implications of such a program that would, of necessity, lack even a shred of integrity.
In the days and weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 many of our nation's politicians stood before the cameras and thumped the podium behind which they stood, and demanded to know why no one connected the dots.
Clearly the clock is ticking, and time is not on our side.
Our nation must not only secure its borders against the illegal entry of illegal aliens, but must create an immigration system that has meaningful integrity if our nation is to effectively address the many challenges confronting our country and our citizens.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Mike Cutler is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a recognized authority who addresses the implications of immigration on national security and criminal justice. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
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