Though I don't exactly get "tons" of e-mail like Athena Kerry (maybe I should post a photo too), the reader comments I receive are starting to get more intense…especially from those in the know about the federal immigration bureaucracy.
For example, I just received these comments last week from a VDARE.com reader whose invaluable insights have been woven into these pages over the years:
"Everyone seems to forget that the same people who mismanaged the disgraceful, inept, incompetent and corrupt INS [the abolished Immigration and Naturalization Service] are now over at the Department of Homeland Security. This message still has not gotten to Congress nor the American public. Please say it loud and clear."
Yes, my friends, the federal agency names have changed, but the stench of the bureaucracy remains.
The newly-named Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) within the Department of Homeland Security still contain mostly the same federal government employees sitting at the same desks, doing exactly the same things they used to do for the roundly-despised INS.
We've now passed the five-year mark since September 11, 2001. So it's not surprising that the level of frustration is increasing.
Specifically, we are no nearer a summary process for actually deporting the 20 million-plus illegal aliens now roaming around these United States.
Another VDARE.com reader commented last week about my reporting the Treason Lobby's meddling with the U.S. Immigration Court judges in the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR): [The Treason Lobbys New Immigration Henchman in Washington – Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and The Treason Lobby's Latest Vendetta—Not Enough Asylum Granted by Immigration Judges]
The VDARE.com reader wrote:
"Thank you for putting the EOIR/Asylum story in proper perspective. I worked as an Asylum Officer for four long years, and I have to say that the program is a complete scam. It is a giveaway program to deceitful aliens by liberal immigration attorneys. The USCIS asylum managers come right out of the illegal alien lobby or private immigration practice.
"The aliens get an asylum interview and when the asylum officer finds that they are not qualified for the benefit [i.e. asylum], the aliens are placed into EOIR proceedings. Once they go before the IJ [immigration judge], they get an automatic de novo [starting afresh] asylum hearing. A second bite at the apple, much more of a right that what a U.S. citizen in criminal proceedings would ever be afforded.
"The IJs who are granting all of the asylum cases clearly have an agenda because EOIR is getting all of the cases that the asylum offices (as liberal as they are) did not approve. The IJs should be removing them all and being quicker about it.
"I have really had enough of what is going on.
"There has been no significant regulatory changes since the 9/11 attacks that make it easier to deny benefits to aliens (whether they are a national security concern or not). The Real ID Act and the Patriot Act beefed up the [federal] regulations in regard to removing terrorists, but most of the time this sort of information is classified so it can't be used in removal proceedings or in written benefit denials."
So things really are as bad as advertised. Since 9/11, the ongoing abuse of the asylum process in the United States hasn't changed one bit.
Among other things, I've been blowing the whistle on immigration benefit fraud, the behind-the-scenes dismantling of summary removal as well as on the mechanics of its asylum-friendly "credible fear review" process for about five years now.
My all-time favorite description of the complete ineffectiveness of the asylum review process was provided by a VDARE.com reader in 2002. I dubbed the piece Credible Fear and Loathing – Real Life in the Airport as Aliens Drop from the Sky.
Unfortunately, it's just as true today. It's still possible that any clandestine Mohammedan Jihadist in the world could simply show up at an American port of entry or airport with no documents, say "asylum", and be allowed to in.
America's federal immigration bureaucracy is the problem. Abolishing it for good—and replacing it with summary removal methods by officers—is the solution.
That's about as loud and clear as a message can get.
Are you listening yet, Congress?
Juan Mann [email him] is an attorney and the proprietor of DeportAliens.com. He writes a weekly column for VDARE.com and contributes to Michelle Malkin's Immigration BLOG.
