It is estimated there are currently anywhere from 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants in America. While the millions of illegal Mexicans in America may not be a national security threat, they help create a need for false documentation and identities. This underground network is a great asset to those who are threats to us.

Julie L. Myers, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE made a profound statement in June of 2006, following the arrest of twenty-two illegal immigrants who worked for a company that provided services for Camp Pendleton. She said, “Those who use fraud or false documents to gain employment mask not only their true identities, but also their motives. Moreover, they could be open to exploitation by terrorists or other criminals.”

The examples of illegal immigrants found working on military installations or for companies that provide services on military bases is incredible.

• In October 2005, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Defense arrested dozens of illegal immigrants at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and Navy, Marine and Army bases in California and Louisiana.
• One month later, ICE arrested a batch of illegal immigrants and their employers. This crew was working in San Diego at Naval Air Station North Island.
• In February 2006, nine illegal immigrants were arrested by ICE at the Dugway Proving Grounds. The nine were arrested “inside the perimeter of the highly sensitive site, which serves as a major chemical and biological testing center for the Department of Defense.”
• When June rolled around, ICE arrested fourteen illegal immigrants working at Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, Maryland. For those who don’t know, “the base designs, tests and manufactures explosive warheads and propellants and propulsion systems for guns, missiles, rockets and ejector seats in military aircraft.”
• In July of the same year, ICE arrested fifty-eight illegal immigrants trying to enter Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Furthermore, “Ft. Bragg safety officials have detained more than 150 persons attempting to gain access under false pretenses. The vast majority of the detainees were construction workers detained at gates to the installation.”
• A month later, 15 illegals were arrested in Roswell. They were there to paint military aircraft, including the C-130. Some were actually painting the aircraft when they were arrested.
• In January 2007, ICE arrested two men who were conspiring to hire illegal immigrants to work on Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. One of the men, Juan Martinez, had been deported once already, but re-entered the country illegally again. They arrested “14 undocumented workers…in Virginia, three at the Quantico Marine Base, three in Fredericksburg and eight at the apartment complex in Dumfries.”
• ICE also arrested two illegal immigrants at Creech AFB in Indian Springs, Nevada. One of the men was “a member of MS-13, considered to be one of the most dangerous gangs operating in America. “
• Twenty-one illegal immigrants were arrested when they tried to enter Fort Benning in January of 2007. They were working on the soldier’s barracks.

The threat to military installations is real. There have been more than enough illegal aliens arrested in connection with our military installations to know that sooner or later someone with enough drive will end up killing someone on a base somewhere.

It doesn’t have to be an infiltration of a highly secured facility either. That wasn’t the goal of the Fort Dix Six. They wanted “to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers … This is exactly what we are looking for. You hit four, five or six Humvees and light the whole place [up] and retreat completely without any losses.”

Military installations are not the only areas at risk. Illegal immigrants have been arrested in some of our most prominent airports also. For example, fourteen illegal immigrants were arrested at Logan Airport in 2005. They were working for a contract company that provided the janitorial services and had badges that allowed them to go past where the passengers were screened and even up to the boarding gates.

At the time, ICE wrote:

To date, ICE agents have conducted investigations at 196 airports and audited more than 5,800 businesses as part of Operation Tarmac. As a result, more than 5,800 unauthorized airport workers have been identified, more than 1,000 unauthorized alien workers have been arrested, and 775 criminal indictments have been issued.

That was almost three years ago.

In June of 2006, ICE stopped buses of construction workers as they were being driven to a construction area at Dulles International Airport. After inspecting everyone’s immigration documents, they arrested fifty-five illegal immigrants, one of whom had an airport security badge that gave him access to the tarmac.

A little over a year later, in November of 2007, ICE made a huge arrest.

According to separate criminal complaints unsealed today in U.S. District Court against the two Ideal Staffing managers, more than 100 temporary workers employed by the agency were in possession of fraudulently obtained airport security badges, issued by the Chicago Department of Aviation. These green color-coded badges allowed the workers to enter secure areas while loading pallets, freight and meals for companies doing business at O’Hare, including some commercial airlines.

The complaint affidavits allege that Ideal Staffing managers told workers they needed to have identification, but that the documents need not be legitimate. At times, Ideal Staffing managers allegedly provided some workers with deactivated airport security badges issued in other names, allowing them to bypass the appropriate security screening.

The two managers were Mary Gurin, 36, and Norinye Benitez, 24. Benitez was an illegal immigrant. Gurin knew this when she signed her airport badge application. One of the complaints described an incident where Benitez “told a temporary worker who was cooperating in the investigation to look through a box containing approximately 20 airport security badges and pick one with a picture that most closely resembled his own likeness. This individual later used one of those badges to gain access to work at an airline cargo facility and was never fingerprinted, as required by the Aviation Department, before being hired by Ideal Staffing and sent to work within a secure area of the airport.”

When you see all these situations where illegal immigrants were doing jobs in areas that they should not be, it should give you pause. But when you take that and connect the dots as FrontPage Magazine did, it becomes apparent why the border must be secured:

Once we connect these dots, it becomes obvious that the presence of thousands of Arab terrorists in two separate areas of South America and the illegal entry of hundreds of Arabs via the Mexican border portend massive terror assaults against American and other targets in South America and within this nation.

It does not require much imagination to foresee that the many current Arab terror sleeper cells scattered throughout the USA and Canada today are being re-enforced with the influx of Arab terrorists from South America, an influx of such numbers that normal ports of entry cannot be used.

In October of 2005, the Houston Chronicle reported that of the 47,600 other than Mexican (OTM) illegal border crossers they caught, 42,000 of them were released. Released to an underground that has been created to recreate the identity of the illegal immigrant. And you have seen what can be done with those forged documents.

Even if half of 1% of those 42,000 OTMs are terrorists, that is equal to 210 enemies of the state running free in the shadows of America’s underground. Running free to join up with the other terrorist cells already established in the United States.

It is for this reason alone that the border needs to be secured.

This is part 1 of a 5 part series on Illegal Immigration
Part 1: Illegal Immigration and National Security - It Is Worse Than You Know
Part 2: The Human Cost - Part 1: Coming to America
Part 3: The Human Cost - Part 2: Out of the Shadows, Into the Morgue
Part 4: The Human Cost - Part 3: Importing Pedophelia
Part 5: Secure The Border. Then What?