My Congressional Testimony at Ellis Island on Future of Immigration - Michael Cutler
March 30, 2007 12:32 PM
I testified today before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law on the subject, "Past, Present, and Future: A Historic and Personal Reflection on American Immigration." The hearing was held at Ellis Island, through which my mother first set foot on American soil a few short years before my grandmother and millions of others died in the Holocaust. Here is a segment of my testimony, and you can read all of it here in a file.
I testified today before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law on the subject, "Past, Present, and Future: A Historic and Personal Reflection on American Immigration." The hearing was held at Ellis Island, through which my mother first set foot on American soil a few short years before my grandmother and millions of others died in the Holocaust. Here is a segment of my testimony, and you can read all of it here in a file.
. . .
"Ellis Island was a facility that provided immigration inspectors, public health officials and others the opportunity to screen those aliens who were seeking to enter the United States to enjoy a far better way of life than was possible in their native countries. Simply arriving here was no guarantee of being admitted to the United States. Ellis Island was, in effect, America’s waiting room. If there was a doubt that the arriving alien might harbor a dangerous communicable disease, that person was kept here as long as necessary, until public health officials could determine if that applicant for admission posed a health risk to our citizens. Similarly, Ellis Island provided law enforcement officials with adequate time to identify those who might be fleeing criminal prosecution in their homelands. In those days there were no computers that could assist with this vital issue.
Today when aliens run our nation’s borders without being inspected, the potential exists that these aliens may carry diseases. These aliens may be fugitives from justice in their home countries who have extensive criminal backgrounds. In this perilous era, the potential also exists that these aliens may be involved directly or indirectly with terrorism. This is not a matter of xenophobia; it is a matter of commonsense. Our nation needs to know who is entering or seeking to enter our country. At present it has been estimated that there are from 12 million to twenty million illegal aliens in our country whose true identities are unknown and ultimately unknowable. Because they are undocumented, we can not be certain of when they entered the United States and in fact, we cannot even be certain as to their true nationalities. The President has called for legalizing illegal aliens which would require our beleaguered adjudications officers at USCIS to suddenly have to confront many millions of applications for amnesty filed by aliens whose identities can not be verified. I fear that terrorists and criminals would seize this opportunity to acquire official identity documents in fictitious names in conjunction with such a guest worker amnesty program and use those documents as breeder documents to create new identities for themselves, obtaining driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and other such documents. They could then use these officially issued documents to embed themselves in our country and also circumvent the various terror watch lists and so-called no fly lists."
"Ellis Island was a facility that provided immigration inspectors, public health officials and others the opportunity to screen those aliens who were seeking to enter the United States to enjoy a far better way of life than was possible in their native countries. Simply arriving here was no guarantee of being admitted to the United States. Ellis Island was, in effect, America’s waiting room. If there was a doubt that the arriving alien might harbor a dangerous communicable disease, that person was kept here as long as necessary, until public health officials could determine if that applicant for admission posed a health risk to our citizens. Similarly, Ellis Island provided law enforcement officials with adequate time to identify those who might be fleeing criminal prosecution in their homelands. In those days there were no computers that could assist with this vital issue.
Today when aliens run our nation’s borders without being inspected, the potential exists that these aliens may carry diseases. These aliens may be fugitives from justice in their home countries who have extensive criminal backgrounds. In this perilous era, the potential also exists that these aliens may be involved directly or indirectly with terrorism. This is not a matter of xenophobia; it is a matter of commonsense. Our nation needs to know who is entering or seeking to enter our country. At present it has been estimated that there are from 12 million to twenty million illegal aliens in our country whose true identities are unknown and ultimately unknowable. Because they are undocumented, we can not be certain of when they entered the United States and in fact, we cannot even be certain as to their true nationalities. The President has called for legalizing illegal aliens which would require our beleaguered adjudications officers at USCIS to suddenly have to confront many millions of applications for amnesty filed by aliens whose identities can not be verified. I fear that terrorists and criminals would seize this opportunity to acquire official identity documents in fictitious names in conjunction with such a guest worker amnesty program and use those documents as breeder documents to create new identities for themselves, obtaining driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and other such documents. They could then use these officially issued documents to embed themselves in our country and also circumvent the various terror watch lists and so-called no fly lists."
posted by jillosophy at 3/30/2007 02:43:00 PM
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