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Guest commentary: Citizens know security starts at our borders

Sunday, April 7, 2002

By PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY, Special to the Daily News



Is our government doing enough to close our borders to potential terrorists? The polls indicate that the American people don't think so.

The people are way ahead of the politicians on this issue.

The Sept. 11 terrorists weren't violating our immigration laws, they were exploiting them. All 19 hijackers were young Middle Eastern male Muslims who entered the United States legally with visas issued by our government. The visas of three of them had expired and the aliens should have been deported. Most had Social Security numbers. Some had driver licenses.

Six were registered to vote.

If any further proof were needed that our visa-issuing system is in shambles, it came in March when the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) mailed student visa approvals for two of the hijackers who had died in their suicide planes six months earlier. Then the INS fouled up again when it granted "shore leave visa waivers" in Norfolk to four Pakistani crewmen who immediately disappeared and can't be found.

INS Commissioner James Ziglar now says, "The days of looking the other way are over." But why weren't they over by sundown on Sept. 11? It's not enough just to reassign some mid-level bureaucrats.

Attorney General John Ashcroft says he can't find more than 1,000 illegal aliens he is trying to question.

The General Accounting Office reported on Feb. 15 that immigration fraud is so great that it "threatens the integrity of the legal immigration system," and that fraud in the process is "pervasive and significant." The GAO predicted that immigration fraud "will increase as smugglers and other criminal enterprises use fraud as another means of bringing illegal aliens, including criminal aliens, into the country."

President Bush warned us in his State of Union speech that, "Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning." But the Bush administration has yet to clamp down on the promiscuous issuance of student visas, even from countries that sponsor terrorism.

The most visible sign of "homeland security" is the harassment of old ladies who travel on planes. I've had to remove my high-heeled shoes for intensive inspection five times since Sept. 11.

The week before the Super Bowl, the police were all over the radio announcing that they were profiling ticket scalpers. If it's OK to profile people trying to make a couple of hundred bucks, it should be OK to profile men who might murder us.

Student visas are the biggest area of fraud. More than 500,000 student visas are issued each year. Over the past 10 years, U.S. universities have enrolled 16,000 students from states that sponsor terrorism. Hani Hanjour, who helped steer the plane into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, was on a student visa.

In addition to the danger from terrorism, the U.S. health-care system has discovered a major threat from the diseases brought into this country by aliens from the Third World. The present high level of immigrants, visa holders, refugees and illegal aliens makes it next to impossible to screen them adequately for disease, and of course the illegals aren't screened at all.

West Nile virus, an African import never seen in the United States prior to 1999, has now been found in 21 states including Florida. Tuberculosis, which we had virtually eradicated decades ago, is making a comeback. Immigrants and aliens account for 41 percent of TB cases in the United States, and two-thirds in some clinics.

Malaria was eradicated in the United States early in the 20th century, but is also coming back. The United States has been free from indigenous measles since 1998 and the only current cases come in with immigrants.

All cultures are not compatible with American values. Some practice obscene treatment of women, child marriages or punishing people by cutting off their hands. It's up to our immigration laws and regulations to screen out those who have a worldview that includes terrorism, as well as those who have criminal backgrounds, who are carrying diseases, or are smuggling drugs.

We welcome immigrants to the United States who want to be Americans, who come here legally, abide by our laws, respect our Constitution and learn to speak English.

It's up to our immigration laws and agencies to tell the difference between those wonderful immigrants and those who come with hate in their hearts.