Both parties deserve blame for the humanitarian crisis on our southern border and our government is actively involved in making the problem worse, according to a longtime immigration official the solution is as simple as enforcing the existing laws.
Tens of thousands of people have flooded the southern border this year, exponentially more than any other full year in recent memory. Many observers expect the numbers to swell into the hundreds of thousands.
Michael Cutler served many years as an immigration official, with what was then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) combating drug trafficking, human smuggling and terrorism. He calls himself a lifelong Democrat, but says this is a political problem where both parties are to blame.
“Most politicians, from both the Democrat and Republican parties, are thrilled to have foreign nationals surge across our borders. This isn’t an accident. This is something they have been doing everything in their power to encourage,” said Cutler, who says politicians are largely acting on the wishes of their donors.
“Campaign contributions are nothing more than legalized bribes. The politicians are taking the money and the people giving them the contributions have an expectation. As a federal agent for 30 years, I was not allowed to accept a cup of coffee. If you’re concerned that a cup of coffee might influence an agent’s objectivity, what do you think thousands of dollars does when given to a political candidate?” asked Cutler.
He also points to the failure of the government to enforce border security laws is a key factor because people entering the nation illegally know they probably won’t be sent home.
“If you’re on a highway that has EZ-Pass or a tollgate, and they were to suddenly create a third lane that says, ‘Free. No Speed Limit,’ what would it say about someone’s intelligence or state of mind if they would wait to pay a toll when all they have to do is drift into that third lane where there’s no speed limit and no toll,” said Cutler.
Cutler says the federal government not only wants this to happen, but officials are breaking the law to make it happen. He says reports this week suggesting the Department of Homeland Security is hiring escorts to move illegals around the country is absolutely true.
“They’re actually using agents to bring these aliens into cities across the country,” said Cutler. “What the government is now doing is taking over the job of alien traffickers. If you go to the immigration laws, aiding, abetting, encouraging, inducing, harboring, shielding or transporting are all felonies. This is no longer a matter of what the president would call prosecutorial discretion and I call prosecutorial deception. We are now becoming the competition for the alien smugglers once they get to the border of the United States.”
“The starter’s pistol has been fired, and, for aspiring illegal aliens around the world, the finish line is the border of the United States of America,” he said.
Much hand-wringing continues in Washington about how to solve the crisis unfolding along the border. Cutler says it’s really pretty simple and he cautions Americans not to believe that every unaccompanied teenager is an innocent child in search of the American dream.
“Enforce the law. And we keep saying ‘young people.’ As an agent, I’ve encountered gang members who were thirteen and fourteen years old. We’ve seen kinds get involved with carrying out murders for hire at age thirteen because they knew they wouldn’t go to jail for a significant period of time. We have to be careful who we’re letting in,” said Cutler.
He says the current mess in the southwestern U.S. is ample evidence that Obama administration claims of much tighter border security are largely fiction. He says the explosion in drug trafficking clued him in a long time ago.
“The real way of determining border security is to look at the price and availability of heroin and cocaine. Those chemicals are not produced in the United States. They are purely smuggled in. We are in the midst of a heroin epidemic. Our border is nothing more than a speed bump,” said Cutler.
“That heroin is behind a lot of the crime that we’re seeing. So while everyone’s talking about limiting how many bullets we should be putting in our guns and how we need to cut down in salt and sugar, why is no body addressing the issue of the damage that narcotics trafficking and narcotics use has on America and the crime rate?” he said.
Not surprisingly, Cutler is staunchly opposed to any sort of comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
“Comprehensive reform does not address the problem. It would exacerbate the problem. It would give people lawful status. The argument is we can’t deport eleven million people. No one is talking about deporting eleven million. when you have drunk drivers, nobody says, ‘The numbers are too great. Let’s just forget about it.’ You enforce the law as effectively as you can. The answer is deterrent,” said Cutler.
