By J.M. Phelps (One News Now)
A retired senior special agent with the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) points out the absurdity and the dangers of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants in the Empire State.
Michael Cutler professes New York is “the one place where you would think sanity would really prevail.” The Brooklyn native, who spent 30 years in the INS, tells OneNewsNow he has witnessed his home state being “repeatedly” targeted by terrorists. He cites as examples the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting, the 9/11 attacks, the subway bomb plot in 2009, and the recent stabbing at a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey, NY.
“Time and time again, New York has been the target for terrorists,” he laments, admitting it was “hammered” the worst on September 11, 2001. “If any city should take the threat of terrorism seriously, you would think it would be New York City.”
Interestingly, he says, the 9/11 Commission Report identified “a nexus between identity theft and terrorism,” making it “abundantly clear” that terrorists use false names, multiple identities, and other fraudulent practices to embed themselves within the United States. Cutler is convinced that report has been “largely ignored” across the country.
“New York is actually going in the complete opposite direction,” he adds.
For example, Cutler says the state’s issuance of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants is “utter nonsense,” explaining further that when someone is considered undocumented “the implication is that you don’t have official ID.”
The former special agent contends that when driver’s licenses are being given to people who enter the country illegally, it undercuts the integrity of the country’s legalization process. That’s why Cutler adamantly stands against New York’s new “Green Light Law,” a statute that allows New Yorkers to (1) apply for a driver’s license without providing a Social Security number; and (2) establish their identity with other documents, including foreign passports.
In addition, the Green Light Law blocks two federal agencies – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – from accessing the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) database, effectively preventing an official from either agency from discovering if the owner of a vehicle has a criminal history or a warrant for arrest.
Every state a ‘border state’
Apart from drug smugglers, human traffickers, and other criminals who have breached America’s borders, Cutler points out that almost all terrorists – in order to embed themselves within the country – sought legal status in the United States.
“So, how do you think sleeper agents have embedded or will embed themselves?” he asks. He answers his own question: The process, he says, can begin with a fake ID – or, in New York, with a legal ID. And the result, according to Cutler, is that everyone is endangered.
“We keep hearing about California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, but we are a nation of 50 border states,” Cutler illustrates – but any state with an international airport, or any state that lies along the tens of thousands of miles of coastline or along the northern border, constitutes a “border state,” he says.
Every vehicle a ‘weapon’
He asserts that New York, under its new law, is “giving a gift” to terrorists by essentially making a motor vehicle the “weapon of choice” to be used by terrorists.
“Since 9/11, when was the last time an airplane was used as part of a terrorist attack?” he pointedly asks. “But how many motor vehicles have been used by terrorists to mow down people all over the world?”
And in his opinion, it’s a “bogus argument” to say those individuals who are in the country illegally are going to drive anyway. That tells the world, he says, that “we know you’re going to come to America and you’re going to urinate on our laws” – but that when they do that, “we’ll change the laws so you are no longer doing something illegal.”
The entire ordeal is “like saying we’ll eliminate all the criminal statutes, so that we can claim that we no longer have crime in America,” Cutler remarks.
“If you give terrorists an opportunity to slip through the cracks and get a driver’s license, they can go out and rent a truck,” he says, concluding with this warning: “They can rent a truck in your hometown – not just New York City.”
J.M. Phelps is a Christian activist and journalist based in the Southeastern U.S. He is also editor and publisher of the website Lantern of Liberty.
Originally published by One News Now on Friday, January 10, 2020.
This column is printed with permission. Opinions expressed in columns published by Lantern of Liberty are the sole responsibility of the article’s author(s), or of the person(s) or organization(s) quoted therein, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff or management of, or advertisers who support Lantern of Liberty.
