Look, Ma, Hands Off!

By Dan Cadman on May 8, 2014

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has written a remarkable letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson. It is remarkable — but welcome — because it demands answers to some pressing terrorism-related questions that arose when internal e-mails leaked showing exchanges between Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees regarding an apparent "hands off" policy for certain terrorists.

The circumstances laid out by the e-mails, which are cited in the letter, are sad and dispiriting: CBP officers routinely inspected and admitted a man who believes in the right to beat one's wife and who actively maintains membership in the Muslim Brotherhood and alliances with several U.S. government-designated terrorist organizations, including HAMAS, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In other words, a man who maintains the medieval beliefs of a radical fundamentalist who cannot believe in, and does not accept, the premises of the civilized world surrounding him and, confronted with such a dilemma, condones hate, divisiveness, and violence as a response.

Beyond sad, and into the realm of dismaying, however, is the fact that the federal government has apparently maintained its no-touch policy for the individual in question, as well as a number of others. Here is a part of the e-mail chain, as cited by Sen. Grassley:

I'm puzzled how someone could be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, be an associate of [redacted], say that the US is staging car bombings in Iraq and that [it] is ok for men to beat their wives, question who was behind the 9/11 attacks, and be afforded the luxury of a visitor visa and de-watchlisted. It doesn't appear that we'll be successful with denying him entry tomorrow but maybe we could re-evaluate the matter in the future since the decision to de[-]watchlist him was made 17 months ago.

There is also an implication in the e-mail exchanges that perhaps one reason for the delicacy in handling this man, who apparently continues to come to the United States again and again, for reasons one can only imagine, is that he is prone to sue the federal government.

Whether or not that is true, the ineffectuality of the federal government in this case is disturbingly reminiscent of the way such cases were often handled by the Justice Department in a pre-9/11 era – before DHS even existed. It is well to remember that DHS came into being specifically as the result of recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission after its examination of the tragedies that fell out of the sky that day. It is stunning to think that, nearly a decade and a half later, Secretary Johnson's DHS and its component agencies are no better at dealing with such cases than their predecessors.

Sen. Grassley did receive a response, not from Secretary Johnson, but rather from his subordinate CBP commissioner. The response letter begins, "Thank you for your recent letter to Secretary Johnson requesting information about documents you provided that is [sic] redacted internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) e-mails regarding a specific individual."

One would think that a letter signed by the CPB commissioner could at least use grammatically correct English. But putting aside the inadequate syntax, we find little of substance in the letter:

I am pleased to provide general information regarding U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) screening of individuals seeking entry to the United States, however, absent further information regarding the case mentioned in the document, I am unable to provide specific information.

On its face, this statement makes no sense whatsoever. There is little ambiguity in anything Sen. Grassley wrote or provided. What is more, the phrase "absent further information" is absurd: It is the agency that possesses the information, after all, and that is what Sen. Grassley is seeking. And then there is this:

Using a risk-based approach, CBP is better able to determine which individuals require more attention and may pose a threat.

Confronted with an egregious and inexplicable circumstance, the commissioner trots out the same tired old phrase often used by DHS and its component agencies. What, exactly, is a "risk-based approach" and how does it work? Specifically, how much risk is DHS willing to entail on behalf of the public it serves, and whose members will be the ones who come to harm from poor decision making (as happened with the Tsarnaev family of Boston Marathon bombing infamy)? And, finally, what has a risk-based approach got to do with enforcing the immigration laws and excluding from the United States a man who associates with and supports designated terrorist organizations?

Has September 11, 2001, in fact been forgotten in any meaningful way? Is it now just a reason for our political leaders to bow their heads in silence and bloviate in stentorian terms on one particular day a year, while otherwise routinely ignoring the lessons of that day?

Every day Americans submit to limitations on their freedom -- think NSA metadata collection, airport security measures, routine subjection to personal searches and magnetometers in public buildings, and blanketing police presences at sporting and other mass events. We have accepted it all in the name of counterterrorism and public safety. But to what end have we done all that if, behind the closed doors of the sterile international inspection areas of our ports of entry, the U.S. government is going out of its way to protect and coddle the very people we have given up our freedoms to be protected from?