| While Washington buzzes over President Bush's homeland security
plan to secure America's borders, untold numbers of foreigners continue to
pour into our country illegally through limitless unsecured cracks and
crevices.
Joining the ranks of the estimated 9 million to 11 million
illegal aliens already in the United States -- most of whom Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner James Ziglar has said he has no
interest in removing -- are four Pakistani nationals who jumped ship on
Sunday near New Orleans. Amad Khan, 26, M. Ilyas Khan, 33, Waheed Khan, 25,
and Ali Shah, 22, were working aboard a grain ship docked on the Mississippi
River. They received instructions not to leave the ship as "part of a
standard INS order," according to the Associated Press.
But as with so many standard INS orders, rules and regulations,
the toothless instructions to stay on board were ignored with impunity. The
crewmen simply skipped out of their morning roll call and hailed a taxicab,
which dropped them off at a bus station. They were reportedly headed to
Houston, but local, state and federal officials had found no trace of them
as of this writing.
Law enforcement authorities would like us to believe that these
four illegal aliens from al Qaeda-friendly Pakistan, who furtively bailed
from their vessel and eluded four armed security guards, pose no danger to
the American public. "We did some extensive background checking and there is
nothing that indicates that they are involved in any type of subversive
activity at all," Border Patrol official Michael Gonzales said. Never mind
their brazen subversion of our laws and our national security.
"These appear to be bona fide crewmen who decided to jump ship,"
Gonzales insisted. He described the incident as "another garden-variety
crewmen desertion."
Oh, yeah. No need to worry, folks. This is just another
"garden-variety" group of young, Middle Eastern male fugitives from the law
who have vanished into thin air. Happens all the time, say the locals around
New Orleans. Cynthia Portera, owner of Portera's Bakery in St. Charles
Parish, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that she often sees foreign
seamen wandering through her neighborhood. "They're just a constant
problem," she said.
And once they're in, the chances are virtually nil that they'll
be caught.
Recall that four months ago, four Pakistani, five Mexican and
four Turkish crewmembers all escaped from cargo ships after docking in
Norfolk, Va. The INS admitted that at this one port alone, crews of 40
foreign cargo vessels were allowed ashore without proper authorization since
December 2001. Despite "heightened" security, the Pakistanis were able to
abandon ship and catch taxicabs and buses to cities across the country. The
Mexicans and Turks slipped off separately soon after. As of last month, only
two of the Pakistanis out of this bunch of ship-jumpers had been caught.
Also recall that in May 2002, the U.S. Coast Guard alerted
federal, state and local law enforcement officials that it had received
intelligence information that "25 Islamic extremists" linked to the al Qaeda
network had entered America on prominent commercial cargo vessels through
the ports of Miami, Savannah, Ga., and Long Beach, Calif. According to Sen.
Bob Graham of Florida, the suspects allegedly dressed as stevedores, wearing
orange vests and hard hats to avoid detection. Graham's office told me this
week that it has not been made aware of any apprehensions involving the 25
suspects.
And now for the really good news: If they can hang out long
enough undetected, these fugitives may be eligible for the kind of illegal
alien amnesty favored by Sen. Tom Daschle and President Bush, erstwhile
champions of homeland security. As I've noted before, the so-called Section
245(i) program specifically allows foreign crewmen who jump ship -- among
many other kinds of illegal aliens -- to find an employer or spouse and pay
a $1,000 fee in order to secure legal permanent residence without having to
return to their native countries for background checks.
As long as we tolerate and reward massive, "garden-variety"
illegal immigration, all the reshuffling of boxes on a Byzantine government
organization chart in the name of national security is a wash.
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