Point/CounterpointDebate newsworthy and other 'hot-button' topics here. If it can be debated, this is the forum for it. Can't be thin skinned - people will disagree with you. No flaming or personal attacks.
Scores of illegal aliens seized, raising security questions
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Scores of illegal immigrants working as cooks, laborers, janitors, even foreign-language instructors have been seized at military bases around the country in the past year, raising concerns in some quarters about security and troop safety.
The immigrants did not work directly for the military but for private contractors, as part of a large-scale effort by the Pentagon to outsource many routine rear-echelon jobs and free up the troops to concentrate on waging war.
Some worry that this fast-growing practice could make U.S. military installations more vulnerable to security breaches.
“We can’t let down our guard,” said Rep. Robin Hayes, a North Carolina Republican whose district includes Fort Bragg, home of the Army’s Special Operations Command. “The motive of these particular individuals remains unclear. However, my greatest concern is that they were able to gain access to the installation at all.”
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, immigration officials have focused on military bases as well as airports, nuclear power plants and the nation’s power grid. In the past year, they have caught about 150 illegal immigrants at military installations around the country, said Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service in Washington.
No links to terrorists
There is no evidence any of them had any links to terrorists, though investigations are continuing, Zuieback said. She said the agency is concerned that such installations “could be vulnerable to exploitation by someone who has ill intent.”
This month, officials arrested three foreign language instructors at Fort Bragg. Over the summer, authorities apprehended 74 construction workers lacking documentation at Camp Lejeune, the Marines’ major base on the Atlantic Ocean, and caught 49 illegal immigrants at North Carolina’s Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Illegals have also been caught at bases in Idaho and Florida.
Some of them were deported; others were escorted off base and released.
The total of about 150 does not include those working for military contractors off base. The off-base arrests have included hundreds of illegal immigrants hired to prepare field rations by a Texas company that admitted falsifying their employment records. Off-base arrests have also been made in North Carolina, Mississippi and California.
In North Carolina, the military paid contractors $823 million this year and last to perform work at Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune and Seymour Johnson. Such outsourcing is likely to increase, said defense analyst Loren Thompson of The Lexington Institute.
Under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plans for re-engineering the way the military does business, “many, many more activities will be outsourced to contractors,” Thompson said. “There’s hundreds of thousands of them. The potential for abuse will be there.”
Contractors provide the military with civilian instructors in such areas as marksmanship, information management and medical care.
Security reviewed at Fort Bragg
At Fort Bragg, the three foreign language instructors worked at a school run by the Army Special Operations Command, which oversees such elite units as the Green Berets and the Rangers.
But command spokesman Lt. Col. Hans Bush said that the place where the instructors worked is not considered a sensitive location and is used for many unclassified courses.
The instructors worked for Orlando, Fla.-based B.I.B. Consultants. Under Pentagon policy, it is the responsibility of the contractor to verify that an employee is legally able to work in the United States, and B.I.B said its background checks of the three instructors came back clean.
Such background checks usually consist of asking for a driver’s license and a Social Security card.
Security is under review at Fort Bragg, a base that was once an open post where anyone could drive unescorted, even to the commanding general’s front door. Under the Pentagon’s base restructuring plan, Bragg is slated to become home to more command offices and the generals who lead them.
“It’s certainly an attractive target,” Hayes said.
Seems to me Homeland Security is a bit of a misnomer. Not only do we fail to control our borders, seemingly we can not control the inside of our military bases.
Seems to me Homeland Security is a bit of a misnomer. Not only do we fail to control our borders, seemingly we can not control the inside of our military bases.
I agree. If they can't even control who has access to bases, they will never control anything else.
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When he signed the Homeland Security funding bill last week, President Bush vowed to track down illegal aliens inside the United States and enforce the law against employers who hire them.
"If somebody's here illegally, we've got to do everything we can to find them," said Bush. "We've got to crack down on employers who flout our laws."
Well, I have two pieces of information the president might find useful. The first is that I know where he can get excellent intelligence that could help the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents simultaneously find a great many illegal aliens and crack down on employers flouting the law. The second is that if DHS uses this information, it may well end up busting a state government for hiring illegal aliens.
The information is now in the possession of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which believes it is legally prevented from sharing it with DHS other than in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Specifically, SSA has two lists. First, according to the SSA inspector general, SSA develops a list each year of all employers who submit 100 or more W-2 forms -- reporting the wages they have paid to their workers -- that SSA cannot credit to known taxpayers because the Social Security numbers on the W-2s are fake or don't belong to the person named on the form.
Secondly, the inspector general completed a more elite list in October 2004. It ranks the top 100 employers who filed the largest number of bad W-2s from 1997 to 2001. The publicly released version of this list does not name the employers, identifying them only by state, number of bad W-2s they filed and other payroll data.
These two SSA lists would be a gold mine for DHS agents assigned to worksite enforcement of the immigration laws because bad W-2s tend to be filed on behalf of illegal alien workers. Indeed, as then-SSA Inspector General James G. Huse Jr. told a House subcommittee in 2002, "illegal work is the primary cause" of these bad W-2s.
Here's why I suspect DHS might end up busting a state government for flouting the immigration law if it is given these lists: The October 2004 inspector general report said a state government agency was one of the top 100 filers of bad W-2s. "Forty-three of the top 100 employers were in the service industry, 32 were in the restaurant industry, and 20 employers were in the agriculture industry," reported the inspector general. "Four of the remaining employers were in the hotel/retail industry, and one was a state agency."
This means a state agency habitually sent the federal government large numbers of bad W-2s. In fact, the No. 1 employer on the list submitted 131,991 bad W-2s over five years. The No. 100 employer filed 12,951. The state agency, in other words, had to file at least 12,951.
To which state does this agency belong? The top 100 included employers in 27 states. California led with 25. President Bush's Texas placed second with 15. Illinois placed third with 14. Florida and Ohio tied for fourth with 4.
But when I asked the inspector general's office to name the state government whose agency made the list, it refused. The Internal Revenue Code, I was told, prohibits SSA from publicly releasing the names of employers who file bad W-2s, even if it is a state government. SSA cannot reveal the names even to DHS, the inspector general's office said, except in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation.
"The state location and name of the state agency is protected under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code," the office said in written responses to my inquiries. "With the exception of an ongoing criminal investigation, the same disclosure restrictions under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code apply to sharing this information with outside parties, such as DHS."
As far back as 2001, the inspector general recommended SSA take action to deal with this problem. "(W)e recommended that SSA re-evaluate the application of existing disclosure laws or seek legislative authority to remove barriers that would allow SSA to share information regarding chronic problem employers with other federal agencies, such as DHS," said the inspector general's office. But it has not been done.
Taxpayers have a right to know if their state government is filing large numbers of bad W-2s. Stockholders have a right to know if companies they invest in are filing large numbers of bad W-2s. All Americans deserve a secure border.
If President Bush is serious about worksite enforcement of the immigration laws -- and about corporate responsibility and about safeguarding the Social Security system -- he will ask Congress to change the law so SSA can reveal to the public and to Homeland Security which U.S. employers habitually file large numbers of bad W-2s.
Taxpayers have a right to know if their state government is filing large numbers of bad W-2s. Stockholders have a right to know if companies they invest in are filing large numbers of bad W-2s.
Stockholders alone could bust this wide open if they got together and demanded an accounting. If there were no jobs for illegals, there would be no reason for them to come here.
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All Americans deserve a secure border.
Yes, we do and that must have a higher priority than pandering to minorities to get votes. Actually, they should start listening to the huge numbers of legal Hispanic immigrants who are speaking out against illegal immigrants.
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If President Bush is serious about worksite enforcement of the immigration laws -- and about corporate responsibility and about safeguarding the Social Security system -- he will ask Congress to change the law so SSA can reveal to the public and to Homeland Security which U.S. employers habitually file large numbers of bad W-2s.
I don't know that he is serious about controlling our borders. Before the Minute Men started exercising their right to assemble and peacefully patrol our borders, Bush was talking another amnesty program and was quick to label the MM as vigilantes.
Have you heard that some counties on the border are trying to stop the Minute Men but can't so far because they are on private ranchland and by invitation of the owner.
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Point/Counterpoint
10-24-2005, 15:05
Illegal immigrants arrested on military bases 
Non sibi sed patriae 