Archive for the ‘Dept. of Homeland Security’ category

DHS shuts down aerial surveillance on border

November 19, 2016

DHS shuts down aerial surveillance on border, Watchdog.org, November 18, 2016

uh-72_optDARKENED OPS: A Texas-based UH-72 helicopter assigned to Operation Phalanx prepares to lift off for the Mexican border.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security quietly shut down Operation Phalanx, an aerial surveillance program that intercepts drugs and illegal crossings along the Mexican border.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, vows to challenge DHS’s move, saying Congress provided “full funding” for 2017.

Cuellar, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Homeland Security Subcommittee, is drafting a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson protesting the shutdown.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Cuellar challenged Johnson last February when DHS reduced Phalanx’s flight operations.

This time, Cuellar is seeking reinforcements from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Reps. Mike McCaul, R-San Antonio, and John Carter, R-Round Rock.

Cornyn sits on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittees on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security and the Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security panel. McCaul chairs the Homeland Security Committee in the House and Carter chairs the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.

Abbott’s office declined to comment; Cornyn and Carter did not respond to requests for comment.

McCaul, who referred questions to the Homeland Security Committee, previously called on DHS to “develop a strategy to gain operational control” of the border.

“Over the last several years, Congress has provided billions of dollars to secure the borders, but without an end goal in mind,” McCaul said in a statement.

McCaul has authored legislation “to require the [DHS] secretary to gain situational awareness through the use of sophisticated technologies and other means, giving our border agents the ability to predict changes in illegal activity. “

DHS, which did not respond to Watchdog’s request for comment by deadline, asserts that illegal crossings have declined along the Texas-Mexico border.

But U.S. Border Patrol reports show that apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley rose 27 percent in fiscal 2016 versus fiscal 2015.

In the smaller Laredo sector, Operation Phalanx accounted for 10,559 apprehensions and 4,007 “turnbacks” from March 2012 to December 2015. Phalanx was credited with seizing 12,851 pounds of narcotics during the period.

President Barack Obama established Operation Phalanx in July 2010 via executive order. The Army National Guard was authorized to provide up to 1,200 soldiers and airmen along the 1,933-mile southwest border to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a DHS agency.

Using advanced UH-72 helicopters, Phalanx flight crews generally consist of three National Guardsmen — two pilots and a sensor operator — and one Border Patrol agent.

Southwest border states of Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico provided the bulk of Phalanx personnel from their local Guard units.

In addition to Texas National Guard manpower and resources dedicated to Operation Phalanx, the Lone Star State has committed nearly $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to border enforcement since 2005.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to appoint more robust leadership at DHS, so Operation Phalanx could be back in business by January.

DHS Provides the Security Islamists Need and Want

September 24, 2016

DHS Provides the Security Islamists Need and Want, Dan Miller’s Blog, September 23, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM) 

However, the Department of Homeland Security does not provide the security the rest of us need and want; instead, it does its level best to diminish it. Providing a reasonable level of security would contradict Obama’s view of Islam, Life, the Universe and Everything.

Refugee Fraud

On September 22nd, members of the U.S. Congress made public an internal Department of Homeland Security memo in which it was acknowledged that Refugee fraud is easy to commit and much tougher to detect:

The U.S. has relaxed requirements for refugees to prove they are who they say they are, and at times may rely solely on testimony. That makes it easier for bogus applicants to conspire to get approved, according to the department memo, which was obtained by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. [Emphasis added.]

“Refugee fraud is easy to commit, yet not easy to investigate,” the undated memo says.

 The memo said there are clear instances where “bad actors … have exploited this program,” gaining a foothold in the U.S. through bogus refugee claims.

The revelation comes just a week after the administration said it was boosting the number of refugees it wants to accept next year to 110,000, up from 85,000 this year. Officials also said they’ll take more Syrians than the 12,000 they’ve accepted so far this year — and they are on pace to resettle as many as 30,000 in 2017. [Emphasis added.]

The President’s decision to increase overall refugee resettlement – and specifically that of Syrian refugees – ignores warnings from his own national security officials that Syrians cannot be adequately vetted to ensure terrorists are not admitted. Revelations about fraud, security gaps, and lack of oversight have demonstrated that the program is creating national security risks,” Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Bob Goodlatte said in a letter to Homeland Security on Thursday. [Emphasis added.]

The Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged that she had never seen the internal DHS memo. Why not? Isn’t ICE in charge of enforcing “our” immigration laws?

Countering Violent Extremism

The video provided above explains how CVE has been implemented thus far.

The head of DHS’s “countering violent extremism” program acknowledged on the same day, September 22nd, that its thus far year-long-in-the-brewing “strategic plan” for “combatting violent extremism” has not yet been completed.

George Selim, director of the Office of Community Partnerships at DHS, was repeatedly asked by members of the House Homeland Security Thursday why he could not provide a document outlining the organization’s $10 million plans for countering the spread of terrorism.

. . . .

Selim finally admitted the plan is not finished, stating that a finalized version is “nearly ready.”

He added that he didn’t want to give the impression that the organization is without any strategy after being up and running for a year, and stressed that he takes the use of taxpayer dollars seriously.

Congress appropriated $10 million in funding to the Countering Violent Extremism initiative, which can issue grants to nonprofit organizations working in local communities to prevent radicalization. [Emphasis added.]

But when asked by Rep. Barry Loudermilk R-Ga., to provide evidence that the program was not a “black hole” for taxpayers, Selim could only answer that he has seen positive changes “anecodally” and could not provide any metrics for success.

“I can’t sit hear before you today and definitively say that person was going to commit an act of terrorism with a pressure cooker bomb, but we’re developing that prevention framework in a range of cities across the country,” said Selim.

When asked whether any of the funding provided to DHS for its “countering violent extremism” was being given to terror-linked groups, Mr. Selim responded that

there is no blacklist of non-governmental organizations prohibited from applying for federal funding in the government. He did not say whether their current vetting process has ever mistakenly funded groups that jeopardize national security when questioned, but argued there is always room for improvement when a program is in its infancy. [Emphasis added.]

Mr. Selim’s reply was not responsive; there may be no Federal blacklist, but that an NGO is not on one should not authorize DHS to fund it. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is, of course, one of the principal Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamist organizations upon which the “countering violent extremism” farce relies. Secretary Johnson recently delivered an address to the Islamic Society of North America, which is similarly linked. The countering violent extremism farce focuses, not on root problem of preventing Islamist terrorism, but on rooting out “Islamophobia.”

Here’s a video of Dr. Zuhid Jasser’s testimony before Congress on September 22nd

on Identifying the Enemy: Radical Islamist Terror. This hearing examines the threat of radical Islamist terrorism, the importance of identifying the threat for what it is, and ways to defeat it.

A transcript of Dr. Jasser’s testimony is available here

Former Congressman Pete Hoekstra also testified:

According to the blurb beneath the video,

Former Congressman and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra at the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency of the House Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress. Congress must ask the Obama administration about PSD-11, which made official the US Government’s outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. [emphasis added.]

In His efforts to push the narrative that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam, Obama has (a) shared His erroneous perception of the Islamic State and (b) tried to suggest that the Islamic State is the only entity which diverges from “true” Islam. His argument as to (a)

is a strawman argument: the real question isn’t whether ISIS “represents” Islam, but whether ISIS is a byproduct of Islam.  And this question can easily be answered by looking not to ISIS but Islam.  One can point to Islamic doctrines that unequivocally justify ISIS behavior; one can point to the whole of Islamic history, nearly 14 centuries of ISIS precedents.

Or, if these two options are deemed too abstract, one can simply point to the fact that everyday Muslims all around the world are behaving just like ISIS. [Emphasis added.]

For example, Muslims—of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political and economic circumstances, in Arab, African, Central and East Asian nations—claim the lions’ share of Christian persecution; 41 of the 50 worst nations to be Christian in are Islamic.  In these countries, Muslim individuals, mobs, clerics, politicians, police, soldiers, judges, even family members—none of whom are affiliated with ISIS (other than by religion)—abuse and sometimes slaughter Christians, abduct, enslave and rape their women and children, ban or bomb churches, and kill blasphemers and apostates.

. . . .

Or consider a Pew poll which found that, in 11 countries alone, at least 63 million and as many as 287 million Muslims support ISIS.  Similarly, 81% of respondents to an Arabic language Al Jazeera poll supported the Islamic State. [Emphasis added.]

Do all these hundreds of millions of Muslims support the Islamic State because they’ve been suckered into its “narrative”—or even more silly, because we have—or do they support ISIS because it reflects the same supremacist Islam that they know and practice, one that preaches hate and violence for all infidels, as America’s good friends and allies, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar—not ISIS—are on record proclaiming? [Emphasis added.]

It is this phenomenon, that Muslims the world over—and not just this or that terrorist group that “has nothing to do with Islam”—are exhibiting hostility for and terrorizing non-Muslims that the Obama administration and its mainstream media allies are committed to suppressing.  Otherwise the unthinkable could happen: people might connect the dots and understand that ISIS isn’t mangling Islam but rather Islam is mangling the minds of Muslims all over the world. [Emphasis added.]

Hence why White House spokesman Josh Earnest can adamantly dismiss 14 centuries of Islamic history, doctrine, and behavior that mirrors ISIS: “That is mythology. That is falsehood. That is not true.” Hence why U.S. media coverage for one dead gorilla was six times greater than media coverage for 21 Christians whose heads were carved off for refusing to recant their faith.

As to (b),

The powers-that-be prefer that the debate—the “narrative”—be restricted to ISIS, so that the group appears as an aberration to Islam.  Acknowledging that untold millions of Muslims are engaged in similar behavior leads to a much more troubling narrative with vast implications. [Emphasis added.]

Conclusions

obamaatun

Obama has what one might wish were a unique world view. However, as Obama has not yet discovered, wishing that something were true does not make it true. He elucidated His world view in His recent address to the United Nations.

U.S. President Barack Obama sang his swan song this week at the United Nations, and seemed baffled by the stubborn refusal of the world to reform itself in his image and on his say-so. [Emphasis added.]

How can there still be “deep fault lines in the international order,” Obama wondered aloud, with “societies filled with uncertainty and unease and strife?”

Shouldn’t his identity as a man “made up of flesh and blood and traditions and cultures and faiths from a lot of different parts of the world” have served as a shining and irresistible example of blended global peace? How can it be that, after eight years of his visionary leadership, peoples everywhere aren’t marching to his tune of self-declared superior “moral imagination”? [Emphasis added.]

It is indeed a “paradox,” Obama declared.

In his preachy, philosophical and snooty address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama expressed deep disappointment with the world. Alas, it seems peoples and nations are just not sophisticated enough to comprehend his sage sermonizing, smart enough to follow his enlightened example, or deep enough to understand his perfect policies. [Emphasis added.]

Why does the world not snap to order as he imperiously wishes and drool in his presence?

. . . .

The words “enemy, “threat” or “adversary” do not appear even once in Obama’s 5,600-word address. They are not part of his lexicon, nor are concepts like “victory” for the West or “beating” the bad guys. He won’t even names foes, such as “radical Islam” or “Islamist terror.”

All this high-minded intellectualizing, self-doubt and equivocation leave the U.S. with little ability to actually drive towards a more ordered world and provide a modicum of global security.

Instead, we have only Obama’s “belief” that Russia’s imperialist moves in Ukraine and Syria, China’s power grabs in Asia, and Iran’s hegemonic trouble-making in the Middle East (and by inference, Israel’s settlement policies in Judea and Samaria) will “ultimately backfire.”

Obama has many such unsubstantiated and illusory “beliefs.” It is very important for him to tell us what he “believes,” and he does so repeatedly. Clearly, he believes in the overwhelming potency of his own beliefs, despite the global security collapse. In fact, the U.N. speech reads like chapter one of the expected Obama memoirs, which surely will be filled with more inane “beliefs” and other ostentation. [Emphasis added.]

Fortunately, Obama will soon leave the presidency.

It falls to Congress and the next president to redirect U.S. policy and hopefully base it less on whimsical, wayward beliefs and more on a hard-nosed, forceful reassertion of Western interests.

Unfortunately, Hillary shares many of not most of Obama’s delusions.

Fortunately, Trump does not and seems to have a pretty good chance of becoming our President.

DHS admits: No strategic plan for $10 million counter-terrorism program

September 22, 2016

DHS admits: No strategic plan for $10 million counter-terrorism program, Washington ExaminerMariana Barillas, September 22, 2016

(This has been the Countering Violent Extremism “strategic plan” until now:

It seems unlikely that any significant changes will be made while Obama remains in office.–DM)

The head of the Department of Homeland Security’s program to counter violent extremism admitted Thursday that the year-old initiative is not yet being guided by a completed strategic plan.

George Selim, director of the Office of Community Partnerships at DHS, was repeatedly asked by members of the House Homeland Security Thursday why he could not provide a document outlining the organization’s $10 million plans for countering the spread of terrorism.

“Why? Because I am testifying before this committee,” said Selim, who repeatedly refused to provide a date for when would present the strategy.

“Don’t be facetious, brother. Either the plan exists or it doesn’t,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in response. “I understand inside the beltway talk. So let’s just make it plain and simple: when can we get the plan?”

Selim finally admitted the plan is not finished, stating that a finalized version is “nearly ready.”

He added that he didn’t want to give the impression that the organization is without any strategy after being up and running for a year, and stressed that he takes the use of taxpayer dollars seriously.

Congress appropriated $10 million in funding to the Countering Violent Extremism initiative, which can issue grants to nonprofit organizations working in local communities to prevent radicalization.

But when asked by Rep. Barry Loudermilk R-Ga., to provide evidence that the program was not a “black hole” for taxpayers, Selim could only answer that he has seen positive changes “anecodally” and could not provide any metrics for success.

“I can’t sit hear before you today and definitively say that person was going to commit an act of terrorism with a pressure cooker bomb, but we’re developing that prevention framework in a range of cities across the country,” said Selim.

When asked whether DHS could prove that the money is not being sent to terrorist or terrorist-affiliated groups, Selim said there is no blacklist of non-governmental organizations prohibited from applying for federal funding in the government. He did not say whether their current vetting process has ever mistakenly funded groups that jeopardize national security when questioned, but argued there is always room for improvement when a program is in its infancy.

“There is not in the federal government, there is not a list of NGOs that are prohibited from applying for a grant from the federal government,” said Selim before deferring to the expertise of law enforcement and the intelligence community in tracking perpetrators of violence.

DHS admits refugee fraud ‘easy to commit’

September 22, 2016

DHS admits refugee fraud ‘easy to commit’, Washington Times, Stephen Dinan, September 22, 2016

(Please see also, Why FBI Suspects Keep Attacking Americans. — DM)

dhssecHomeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson listens at right as President Obama speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Nov. 25, 2015. (Associated Press) **FILE

The President’s decision to increase overall refugee resettlement- and specifically that of Syrian refugees-ignores warnings from his own national security officials that Syrians cannot be adequately vetted to ensure terrorists are not admitted. Revelations about fraud, security gaps, and lack of oversight have demonstrated that the program is creating national security risks,” Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Bob Goodlatte said in a letter to Homeland Security on Thursday.

***************************

Refugee fraud is “easy to commit” and much tougher to detect, Homeland Security officials acknowledged in an internal memo made public by members of Congress Thursday that challenges the department’s own assurances as it seeks to increase the number of refugees from dangerous countries.

The U.S. has relaxed requirements for refugees to prove they are who they say they are, and at times may rely solely on testimony. That makes it easier for bogus applicants to conspire to get approved, according to the department memo, which was obtained by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees.

“Refugee fraud is easy to commit, yet not easy to investigate,” the undated memo says.

 The memo said there are clear instances where “bad actors … have exploited this program,” gaining a foothold in the U.S. through bogus refugee claims.

The revelation comes just a week after the administration said it was boosting the number of refugees it wants to accept next year to 110,000, up from 85,000 this year. Officials also said they’ll take more Syrians than the 12,000 they’ve accepted so far this year — and they are on pace to resettle as many as 30,000 in 2017.

The President’s decision to increase overall refugee resettlement-and specifically that of Syrian refugees-ignores warnings from his own national security officials that Syrians cannot be adequately vetted to ensure terrorists are not admitted. Revelations about fraud, security gaps, and lack of oversight have demonstrated that the program is creating national security risks,” Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Bob Goodlatte said in a letter to Homeland Security on Thursday.

“I have never seen this document before,” ICE Director Sarah Saldana said when shown the document by Mr. Chaffetz at a hearing Thursday.

Why FBI Suspects Keep Attacking Americans

September 22, 2016

Why FBI Suspects Keep Attacking Americans, Front Page MagazineMatthew Vadum, September 21, 2016

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The FBI has indeed been handcuffed in terrorist investigations by President Obama whose administration has worked with terrorist front groups like the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The law enforcement agency has also become increasingly politicized in the Obama era.

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Why does the Obama administration keep failing to thwart Muslim terrorist attacks in the U.S. after receiving apparently good intelligence warning of those attacks?

It turns out that Americans keep turning in budding Muslim terrorists to the Obama administration and the administration keeps on doing nothing. For example, the alleged mastermind of the weekend pressure-cooker bombing in New York City was turned in by his own father but the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to do much of anything about him.

These intelligence failures have become a recurrent theme in the Obama era, with deadly results. Excluding the events of the last few days, there have been 89 Muslim terrorist plots and attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001 and 25 of those have taken place since the beginning of 2015, according to David Inserra of the Heritage Foundation.

Counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka, vice president at the Institute of World Politics, blamed political correctness for the FBI’s inability to do something about Rahami before he acted.

“There are certain sensitivities,” Gorka said on the “O’Reilly Factor” last night.

“A certain political matrix is being forced upon our operators and investigators,” he said. Usually this kind of political pressure originates not from the FBI, but from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, he said.

The FBI is also hindered by inadequate human resources, Gorka said. There are reportedly 900 active terrorist investigations in all 50 states and the bureau can only do so much, he said.

The FBI has indeed been handcuffed in terrorist investigations by President Obama whose administration has worked with terrorist front groups like the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The law enforcement agency has also become increasingly politicized in the Obama era.

The pressure-cooker terrorist was apprehended after he injured a score of New Yorkers on the weekend but not through brilliant police work. He was caught during a shootout with cops.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, a.k.a. Ahmad Rahimi, was charged yesterday with use of weapons of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use. Rahami was born in Afghanistan but became a U.S. citizen.

Prosecutors say Rahami planted a pipe bomb and triggering cellphone Saturday morning in Seaside Park, N.J., before a scheduled U.S. Marine Corps charity run. Later that day he placed a pressure cooker bomb in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan that the complaint states caused injuries and “multiple-million dollars of property damage across a 650-foot crime scene.” Twenty-nine people were wounded. He was previously charged with multiple counts of attempted murder of police officers and other offenses arising from a gun battle when he was captured Monday.

Police also discovered and safely detonated a pipe bomb at a train station in Elizabeth, N.J. Although it is unclear if Rahami is connected to that bomb, his family did sue the city of Elizabeth in 2011 claiming harassment and religious discrimination related to their family restaurant, First American Fried Chicken.

Rahami came to the attention of the FBI two years ago when his father suspected his son was involved in terrorism. Mohammad Rahami told reporters he contacted federal authorities after Ahmad stabbed Nasser, another one of his sons, and attacked another family member, which led to a criminal investigation.

The FBI apparently performed a superficial examination of the case at the time.

“In August 2014, the F.B.I. initiated an assessment of Ahmad Rahami based upon comments made by his father after a domestic dispute that were subsequently reported to authority,” the agency said in a press release. “The F.B.I. conducted internal database reviews, interagency checks, and multiple interviews, none of which revealed ties to terrorism.”

It would seem the fact that Rahami made a three-month trip to Quetta, Pakistan, in 2011, and visited Quetta again during an 11-month trip beginning in 2013, were ignored by the FBI. Quetta is a Taliban stronghold and a hotbed of Salafi jihadism.

About two miles from the Chelsea attack, President Obama gave a speech at the United Nations in which he said the U.S. should take more immigrants like Rahami and implicitly attacked GOP candidate Donald Trump. Obama blamed America for the world’s problems as he jabbed at Trump’s promise to secure the border, crack down on illegal aliens, and change our asylum policies.

“The world is too small for us to simply be able to build a wall,” Obama said. “We have to open our hearts and do more to help refugees who are desperate for a home,” he said. He added, “today a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself.”

Obama also suggested that Americans and Europeans are racist for not wanting to be swamped by outsiders from hostile cultures. “And in Europe and the United States, you see people wrestle with concerns about immigration and changing demographics, and suggesting that somehow people who look different are corrupting the character of our countries,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rahami isn’t the first Islamic terrorist law enforcement agencies have failed to do anything about after receiving tips.

Omar Mir Siddique Mateen, who in June killed 49 innocent victims at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., was reported to the FBI in 2014. The massacre has been called the worst mass shooting in American history and the worst domestic terrorist attack since 9/11. Mateen, shot dead by police during the episode, had been under FBI investigation.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack after it took place. Mateen himself “claimed allegiance to the Islamic State and praised the Boston Marathon bombers,” before being killed by police on the scene, the New York Times reported at the time.

In December 2015, President Obama ignored FBI-procured evidence that the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., was an Islamic terrorist operation and ordered federal officials to mislead the public about the true nature of the assault.

Although the FBI knew immediately that the mass-casualty event was a Muslim terrorist attack, Obama and FBI Director James Comey reportedly clashed over why Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, opened fire Farook’s municipal government workmates, leaving 14 dead. They left a trail of social media evidence that went unused before the attack.

Whistleblower Phil Haney, an investigator who helped to create the Department of Homeland Security, revealed the government shut down a database he created that might have helped to prevent the attack. Haney says he looked into groups that had ties to Farook and Malik as far back as 2012. But civil rights officials accused him of unfairly profiling Muslims, removed his security clearance, and destroyed the data he collected. (Haney tells his story in Trevor Loudon’s powerful new documentary film about leftist and jihadist influence in the U.S. government, The Enemies Within.)

And don’t forget the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev. The FBI had been investigating Tamerlan and Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) warned the Obama administration about his jihadist sympathies.

But Barack Obama doesn’t like reality intruding on his preferred narrative. Islam is a religion of peace, and Muslims have to be given the benefit of the doubt in his view.

Weaponized Immigration

September 22, 2016

Weaponized Immigration, Front Page MagazineMichael Cutler, September 22, 2016

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The United States is at war with international terrorists, who, as the 9/11 Commission noted, must first enter the United States in order to attack it.

Consider the preface of the official government report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United Statesthat begins with the following paragraph:

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.

Furthermore, although much has been made of the lack of integrity with respect to the U.S./Mexican border, the9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel observed that most terrorists had entered the United States through international airports and then committed visa fraud and immigration benefit fraud to embed themselves in the country.

Page 54 of the report contained this excerpt under the title “3.2 Terrorist Travel Tactics by Plot,” which makes these issues crystal clear:

Although there is evidence that some land and sea border entries (of terrorists) without inspection occurred, these conspirators mainly subverted the legal entry system by entering at airports.

In doing so, they relied on a wide variety of fraudulent documents, on aliases, and on government corruption. Because terrorist operations were not suicide missions in the early to mid-1990s, once in the United States terrorists and their supporters tried to get legal immigration status that would permit them to remain here, primarily by committing serial, or repeated, immigration fraud, by claiming political asylum, and by marrying Americans. Many of these tactics would remain largely unchanged and undetected throughout the 1990s and up to the 9/11 attack.

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.

On Saturday September 17, 2016 terror attacks put international terrorism and immigration on the front page of newspapers across the United States and onto the “A Block” of television news programs.

On the morning of that last Saturday of summer, a bomb hidden in a garbage can detonated along the route of the “Seaside Semper Five,” a five-kilometer run and charity event along the South Jersey Shore waterfront to raise money for members of the United States Marine Corps and their families.  Fortunately, because the crowds were much greater than expected, the event was late in starting and so no one was injured.

On that Saturday evening, a bomb, constructed in part of a pressure-cooker, exploded in a dumpster in the Chelsea section of Manhattan where it had apparently been planted.  Shortly after the explosion rocked that trendy neighborhood of Manhattan a second bomb of similar construction was discovered just blocks away.

Both of these bombings and that third, unexploded bomb have been attributed to Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized United States citizen who legally immigrated to the United States from his native Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, on that same Saturday evening, in Minnesota, allegedly Dahir Adan, an immigrant from Kenya, went on a violent rampage in the Crossroads Center shopping mall in St. Cloud, stabbing 9 innocent people.  His rampage ended when a police officer, Jason Falconer, confronted him.  Adan lunged at Officer Falconer who fired in self-defense, undoubtedly preventing a far worse attack.

According to an article published on September 19, 2016 in a local newspaper, the Star Tribune, during the attack Adan was wearing a security guard uniform and asked at least one of the victims if he was a Muslim.  Additionally, Adan was reported to have referred to Allah during the attack.

News reports assert he was 22 years old and beginning his third year at St. Cloud State University and was a member of the tight-knit Somalian immigrant community.

Information about the identity of this apparent terrorist was not provided by law enforcement authorities, but by his father who claimed that his son came to the United States some 15 years ago.

Aliens who enter the United States surreptitiously without inspection could be said to have entered the United States through America’s “back door.”  Most terrorists, however, enter the United States through America’s front doors located at the 325 ports of entry that are operated by CBP (Customs and Border Protection).

Both Ahmad Khan Rahami and Dahir Adan were admitted into the United States through America’s “front door.”

Given the severity of the threats America and Americans face and the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission it is incomprehensible that the failures of the lawful entry system and the systems by which applications for lawful status are adjudicated would face extreme scrutiny with the goal of insuring that these systems have real integrity.  Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Politicians from both political parties have repeatedly called for providing lawful status for unknown millions of illegal aliens whose true identities, backgrounds and possible affiliations with criminal or terrorist organizations are unknown and unknowable.  There would be no way to interview millions of such aliens and certainly no way to conduct any field investigations.  This would create an open invitation to massive levels of fraud.

Should any doubt remain about the abject lack of integrity in the adjudications process, consider that on September 19, 2016 Fox News reported, “Watchdog: Feds wrongly granted citizenship to hundreds facing deportation” that focused on the findings of the Office of Inspector General for the DHS concerning how hundreds of aliens facing removal deportation had, instead, been granted United States citizenship.  These aliens were originally from countries identified as being “Special Interest Countries”- that is to say that these countries are associated with terrorism.

The report noted that of those who were able to game the naturalization process, some went on to acquire jobs, including in law enforcement where U.S. citizenship is a pre-requisite.

Not long ago I wrote an article about a naturalized Somali immigrant who had “made it” to the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists List.” The title of my piece was, “The Immigration Factor –Naturalized U.S. Citizen Added to FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List.”

The FBI is greatly concerned about this individual who is charged with providing material support and resources to al Qaeda and al Shabaab, a Somali-based terrorist organization.  Additionally, he had worked as a cab driver in Washington, DC and has an intimate knowledge of DC’s infrastructure and government buildings.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to admit Syrian refugees who, according to FBI Director, James Comey, cannot be vetted.  Hillary Clinton wants to increase the number of such refugees admitted into the United States by more than 500%.

Clinton wants to provide unknown millions of illegal aliens with lawful status which would require that USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to adjudicate all of these applications.

USCIS is the division of the DHS that is charged with adjudicating all of those applications for various immigration benefits including granting political asylum and conferring United States citizenship upon aliens.  This is the very same inept and and incompetent agency that naturalized hundreds of deportable aliens.

Repeatedly Hillary and her open borders / anarchist accomplices have invoked the issue of “compassion” to justify admitting huge numbers of refugees who cannot be vetted and providing illegal aliens who entered the United States covertly with lawful status, even though there would be no way to verify their identities, backgrounds, affiliations with criminal or terrorist organizations or even determine when they actually entered the United States.

Terrorists have come to see in our compassion vulnerabilities they can exploit and use against us.

The report, “9/11 and  Terrorist TravelStaff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.” included this paragraph:

“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.

It is time for our government to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws and disarm the terrorists who would kill our citizens and destroy our nation by depriving them the opportunities to enter the United States and embed themselves throughout our country.

Homeland Security’s Alarming Message on Immigration-Terror Links

September 2, 2016

Homeland Security’s Alarming Message on Immigration-Terror Links, Counter Jihad, September 2, 2016

Please see also, Droves of African Migrants in Mexico Awaiting U.S. Asylum Under Secret Pact. — DM)

Two former Obama administration officials, Betsey Cooper and David Benjamin, published what is meant to sound like an authoritative rebuttal to the Donald Trump immigration speech.  Instead, it raises questions about whether the Obama administration even understands the dangers facing it on immigration and its link to terrorism.

Of course, in the wake of the Ben Rhodes scandal on the “Iran deal,” we can never be sure if the Obama administration’s allies are serious about what they put forward as ‘authoritative rebuttals.’  Just as with Rhodes’ management of the Iran debate, this may simply be an attempt to set up an echo chamber designed to prevent a real discussion of the risks.  However, if this article represents the real opinion of administration insiders, it shows an alarming failure to understand what is going on with immigration and terror.

Let us go through a few of the major errors of thought on display.  Number one:  Donald Trump, more than the failures of our system, is responsible for public concern.

The inescapable message is that the nation’s $25 billion-a-year immigration system cannot identify and keep out bad actors. And while the killings in San Bernardino and Atlanta have undoubtedly sharpened Americans’ fear of terrorist attack, Trump’s rhetoric is clearly having an impact: A Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll showed that 79% of Republicans favor limiting the flow of refugees and migrants and imposing stricter border controls to help prevent terrorism.

Indeed, major and obvious failures of the system ought to call into question the validity of the system.  It does seem that we are spending a vast amount of money on a system that does, in fact, fail to identify and keep out bad actors.  The response to this that strikes them as the “most obvious counter” is ridiculous:  that the real killers have gone through even more DHS vetting than ordinary refugees and immigrants.

The most obvious counter to Trump’s narrative is to note that not a single terrorism-related death since 9/11 was caused by foreign operatives coming into the country to cause violence—from Fort Hood to Orlando, the killings were all caused by citizens and green card holders.

Why should that make anyone feel better?  The process of getting a green card, or citizenship, is even more invasive than anything involved in getting a visa.  Indeed, the biggest problem of all is the one they merely wink at:

[R]adicalization is not a hereditary affliction—indeed, most parents of extremists have been aghast at their children’s deeds…

In fact, second-generation immigrants are more than twice as likely to become radicalized as their parents.  That being the case, it doesn’t matter how good your vetting of immigrants might be.  It is their children, perhaps not even yet born, who are most likely to turn against a Western system.  This problem has been carefully studied by numerous perfectly mainstream media outlets and scientists, and there is no good solution for it.

That a first generation of Muslim immigrants is often succeeded by a radical second generation has been documented by Foreign Policy, PBS, and by statisticians in Denmark.  The first generation came to America or to Europe for reasons they felt strongly enough to make the move.  They understood they were electing to move to a society that was less Islamic, and accepted the trade off.  Their children, born in the West, did not experience the realities that made their parents leave the old world.  They reject the laws and customs of their new society as being opposed to their Islamic identity.  The Danish statistics found that second-generation Muslim immigrants are 218% more inclined to crime than their parents’ generation.

If the children are the greatest threat, how can vetting the parents even help?  By the same token, if the green card system doesn’t work at identifying bad actors, let alone the process of obtaining citizenship, why should we have any faith in the visa system?  The whole system is a failure, not just the visa process.  Every part of the system of immigration has failed.

That said, the visa process is also a failure.  The visa system has two major problems, neither of which do they acknowledge.  The first one is that all the various steps that they talk about at such length require access to records that do not exist.  “Before prospective visa holders even arrive at a U.S. Embassy or consulate for an interview, their names, photographs, fingerprint and other data such as marriage licenses are first validated,” we are told.  Now, photographs and fingerprints can be validated in the absence of records by taking new ones.  How do you validate a “marriage license” from Syria right now?  Its records have been destroyed in the war, and its few remaining public officials are (a) too busy fighting a war to handle records requests, and (b) no longer in any sense an American partner, as we have long opposed the Syrian regime for waging chemical warfare on its own population.  They have no reason to help us, and even if they wanted to help us, they have no power to help us.

The vetting process on visas is thus completely worthless if there are no records that would identify someone as a problem, nor records against which we can check their claims.  The second problem, though, is that refugees admitted first to Europe won’t require a visa anyway.  Under the visa waiver program, anyone holding a passport from most European nations are admitted with no visa scrutiny at all.  All that happens in these cases is a reference to “Advance Passenger Information and Passenger Name Record information,” databases that depend entirely on what the refugees told their original country of refuge.

What is wrong is not that there isn’t a huge and expensive system with lots of box-checking steps.  What is wrong is that all those steps by all those bureaucrats have no connection to reality.  The connection between terrorism and immigration is undeniable.  It is only made stronger by the fact that the second generation turns out to be more often committed to terror than the original immigrants.  It is only made worse by the fact that the more thorough processes for green cards and actual citizenship show regular failures in identifying bad actors.

The system is a failure.  The only thing that is unclear is whether the Obama administration understands even that it has failed, let alone why it has failed.  We cannot begin to fix it until we acknowledge the problem.

DHS gives Somali Muslims special airport security tours because they felt harassed and profiled

August 4, 2016

DHS gives Somali Muslims special airport security tours because they felt harassed and profiled, Jihad Watch

(Flying lessons next? — DM)

The Obama administration gave Somali Muslims behind-the-scenes tours at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport — the nation’s 17th busiest in terms of passenger traffic — after the group “complained to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson about feeling harassed and profiled.” Johnson has been consistently failing in his department, which is a key part of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts; and engages our worst enemies in a well-practiced strategy of stealth jihadists of a victimology subterfuge.

“The special security tours not offered to any other group” followed round-table dialogue meetings with local Somali leaders to get their feedback for “modifications to practices that would allow for operations to be more culturally sensitive.”

Culturally sensitive? At the expense of public safety? Here’s a little background about the Somalian community in Minnesota:

“The FBI and Congress have launched probes into the radicalization of the Somali American community in Minnesota. Al Shabaab recruits young men in local mosques and ships them off to train and fight in Somalia. Last fall the area’s largest newspaper published a story confirming that Minnesota leads the nation in the number of people who have left or sought to leave the country to fight with terrorists aligned with ISIL or ISIS.”

The round-table events and airport tours were organized by Abdirizak Farah, whose salary jumped from $89,033 to $130,453 in five years.

somali tour“DHS Gives Somali Muslims Special Airport Security Tours after Harassment, Profiling Complaints”, Judicial Watch, August 2, 2016:

The Obama administration gave Somali Muslims behind-the-scenes tours at a major U.S. airport after the group complained to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson about feeling harassed and profiled, government records obtained by Judicial Watch reveal. The special security tours not offered to any other group occurred at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after Department of Homeland Security (DHS) roundtable meetings with local Somali leaders to obtain feedback for “modifications to practices that would allow for operations to be more culturally sensitive.”

On at least two occasions—December 18, 2014 and February 18, 2015—federal authorities granted the unprecedented excursions of the facility’s sterile and secure areas, according to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) records obtained by Judicial Watch. The DHS agency that conducted the expeditions, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), provided the Muslim participants with “an in-depth, on-site tour and discussion of CBP’s airport, including both inbound and outbound passenger processing,” the TSA files state. Besides multiple roundtable meetings between CBP and Somali community leaders including imams, the records show that a luncheon and “cultural exchange and educational brief” also took place between December 2014 and February 2015 so that attendees could ask about the agency’s “specific practices” at the airport.

The roundtable events and airport tours were organized by Abdirizak Farah, who is identified in the records as a policy advisor in the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL). Farah joined DHS in 2010 with an annual salary of $89,033 and by 2015 his yearly pay increased to $130,453, according to a government database. The TSA’s “Somali liaison officer” in Minneapolis, Andrew Rhoades, told Judicial Watch that the special airport tours were organized for Somali Muslims after they complained to Johnson that they felt “harassed and profiled” by CBP at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. The DHS secretary had “a sympathetic ear to that,” Rhoades said, adding that no other group has been granted such airport access by DHS. “Now, I will say we’ve never done that, or we don’t do that, to let’s say the Hmong community living here in Minneapolis, uh, the Christian community, the Catholic community, the Irish… whatever you want to call it. This has been the only one,” Rhoades said.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is the nation’s 17th busiest in terms of passenger traffic, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It gets more than 35 million passengers annually and nearly 200,000 metric tons of freight. The region has a large Somali Muslim community and Somalia is a terrorist nation that’s largely controlled by the extremist group Al Shabaab. In June three Somali-American pals from Minneapolis were convicted by a federal jury of conspiring to commit murder in Syria on behalf of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and to provide material support to the designated foreign terrorist organization. Six of their buddies pleaded guilty and one was charged in absentia, presumed dead in Syria. Back in 2013 a mainstream news outlet reported that the Al Qaeda affiliate that terrorized a Kenyan shopping center and murdered scores of innocent people included Somalis from Minnesota. Among them was 22-year-old Ahmed Mohamed Isse of St. Paul and 24-year-old Abdifatah Osman Keenadiid of Minneapolis.

The FBI and Congress have launched probes into the radicalization of the Somali American community in Minnesota. Al Shabaab recruits young men in local mosques and ships them off to train and fight in Somalia. Last fall the area’s largest newspaper published a story confirming that Minnesota leads the nation in the number of people who have left or sought to leave the country to fight with terrorists aligned with ISIL or ISIS….

Officials Reveal America’s National Security is “Controlled” by the Jihadists

June 20, 2016

Officials Reveal America’s National Security is “Controlled” by the Jihadists, Understanding the Threat, June 20, 2016

(Please see also, Saudis Kept Two Terror Groups Off U.S. List. –DM)

Two former U.S. government officials made explosive revelations on national radio this past Friday including the charge the U.S. government is a “tool” for the jihadi movement here, and that the driving force behind America’s domestic counter-terrorism strategies and our foreign policy is the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

UTT2President Obama with Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas leader (Islamic Society of North America) Imam Mohamed Magid of the ADAMS Center in Sterling, Virginia

The exchange took place on the Sean Hannity radio program between the host, Philip Haney (former DHS law enforcement officer with Customs and Border Protection) and Richard Higgins (a former leader inside the Department of Defense who managed programs at the Combating Terrorism and Technical Support Office (CTTSO) and Irregular Warfare Section).

Both Mr. Haney and Mr. Higgins revealed there is a massive Muslim Brotherhood movement in the United States, and made clear the MB’s influence is so significant they control how the issue of terrorism is discussed and how it is handled at the national security level.

humaHillary Clinton and closest aide Huma Abedin, who is an operative for the MB Movement

When asked about language being scrubbed from the U.S. government Mr. Higgins responded by saying, “What (leaders in the US government) are actually scrubbing is any references to the Islamic doctrine that would allow us to define who is or who is not actually one of our enemies.”

He went on to say, “When you look at the deliberate decision-making process of the United States government as it relates to radical Islam, that deliberate decision-making process is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.  And the way they control it is by prohibiting US national security personnel from ever developing an understanding to the level where Phil (Haney) had it.”

magid_mcdonoughMB/Hamas Leader Imam Magid with the President’s Chief of Staff and Former Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough

More precisely Mr. Higgins said, “To bring it back to the point earlier about the United States being put to work fulfilling the objectives of the Brotherhood:  the Brotherhood was killed en masse by Saddam Hussein – we removed him.  Qaddafi killed the Muslim Brotherhood – we removed him. We asked Mubarak to go. We are their instrument because they control our deliberate decision-making process.”

UTT has written about the willful surrender to our enemies by American leaders here, here, and here.

elibiaryFormer DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano swearing in MB Leader Mohamed Elibiary to the DHS Advisory Committee

With regard to the Marxist/Socialist collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood – as UTT has detailed via the Black Lives Matter/Hamas relationship – Mr. Higgins warned, “Every time one of these attacks happens in the United States, you see the Left in unison with the Muslim Brotherhood immediately respond with direct attacks on the First and Second Amendments.  That is not by accident, and we are going to continue to see that.”

Philip Haney’s story is devastating to hear because he publicly states he was ordered by DHS supervisors to remove the names of terrorists and terrorist organizations from DHS databases which he inputted through the course of investigations he was conducting.

This is a violation of the law.  The names removed included several known Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the U.S.

His story can be found here or here, and his powerful new book See Something, Say Nothing is now available.

Mr. Haney reiterated what UTT has been teaching and publishing for years:  “The gravitational force of the Global Islamic Movement is not radicalization, the gravitational force of the Global Islamic Movement is the implementation of sharia Law.”

It’s all about sharia.

Both Mr. Higgins and Mr. Haney made it clear the jihadi threat to America must be addressed immediately or we will suffer significant consequences for our inaction and for allowing our leaders to surrender their duties to our enemies.

Philip Haney said it best when he articulated, “This is the first and foremost obligation of the U.S. government:  to protect it’s citizens from a threat, both foreign and domestic.  And I can also tell you that if we don’t address it voluntarily with courage and conviction now, we’re going to be addressing it involuntarily, and we are going to be at a much greater disadvantage than we already are right now.”

The full audio for the show can be found HERE and the discussion with Mr. Haney and Mr. Higgins begins at approximately minute 14.

Homeland Security Instructed To Combat Violent Extremism With Political Correctness

June 14, 2016

Homeland Security Instructed To Combat Violent Extremism With Political Correctness, Daily Caller, Peter Hasson, June 13, 2016

Less than a week before Omar Mateen walked into an Orlando gay club and killed or wounded more than 100 people, the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) submitted its Countering Violent Extremism report to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson. The report instructs the DHS not to use any language that might be “disrespectful” to Muslims, including (but not limited to) the words “jihad,” “sharia” and “takfir.”

The report was crafted by an HSAC subcommittee that Secretary Johnson created in November 2015. The head of that subcommittee, Farah Pandith, was appointed by Johnson in May 2015. The subcommittee published the report on June 9.

In addition to combatting violent extremism by reaching out to “gender diverse” Americans and teaching youth “appropriate online etiquette,” the report recommends that the DHS “avoid stigmatizing specific communities.”

The report urges DHS officials to “Reject religiously-charged terminology and problematic positioning by using plain meaning American English.”

For example, the report says the DHS should be “using American English instead of religious, legal and cultural terms like ‘jihad,’ ‘sharia,’ ‘takfir’ or ‘umma.

The report acknowledges that, “There is a disagreement among scholars, government officials, and activists about the right lexicon to use around the issues of violent extremism.”

Nevertheless, the report states, “Under no circumstance should we be using language that will alienate or be disrespectful of fellow Americans.”

“We must speak with honor and respect about all communities within the United States. We should give dignity to the many histories and diversities within our nation and advocate for a consistent whole of government approach that utilizes agreed terms and words. Tone and word choice matter,” the report states.

The report includes other recommendations for countering violent extremism, such as: “Focus on gender diversity of youth through careful attention to the range of push and pull factors that attract individuals of differing gender.”

The report also recommends countering extremism by teaching youth “appropriate online etiquette.”

The report instructs the DHS to “Develop a curriculum in partnership with the Department of Education and education experts and non-profits to disseminate to schools, teaching children appropriate online etiquette to mitigate online hate.”

The DHS website states that HSAC, “Provides organizationally independent advice and recommendations to the Secretary, including the creation and implementation of critical and actionable policies for the security of the homeland.”