Divestiture for Iran and stopping terrorists

Recently I've been made aware of the project to have the State of California divest public retirement funds that have investments in foreign companies with ties to Iran. Assemblyman Joel Anderson (R - El Cojone) has page on that and it is an important step forward in slowly removing the American Public's funds from those companies that have no compunction in working with regimes that support terrorism and not abiding by their Treaty agreements. The State of Missouri is also doing this and it is a vital role in marginalizing the capability of companies to gain US funds with which to give aid and succor to a regime that subjugates its own people, fields Foreign Legions of terrorists in many Nations and seeks to destabilize its neighbors.

The US Dept. of State has issued a federal warning against some companies that actually do business with Iran and Syria, both WMD proliferation regimes. One of these is the Aerospace Logistics Services (Mexico). There is quite a long listing of other companies around the globe helping Iran and Syria, but it would be a good idea to pay particular attention to one right on the southern border of the US. Two other companies are on the Excluded Parties List forbidden to gain any federal money from the US, these due to their connections with the Narcotics Trade:

Name -- MULTISERVICIOS DEL NOROESTE DE MEXICO, S.A. DE C.V.

Address(es) --
Address Tijuana, Baja California, MX


Name STRONG LINK DE MEXICO, S.A. DE C.V.

Address(es) --
Address Flores Magon 8013, Esquina Ninos Heroes, Zona Central, Tijuana , Baja California, MX

It might be a good idea for the States to NOT invest in these companies, either, so as to help out the Union a bit.

That said there is another problem that needs to be addressed about Iran: infiltration into the United States.

This from an AP report (so buyer beware), as no better source can be found, via the Sierra Times on a cafe owner in Mexico, Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, report dated 04 JUL 2005:

Smuggler pipelines channel illegal immigrants into U.S. from nations with terror ties

Associated Press

TIJUANA, Mexico -- The men flocked to the cafe under the sign with the cedar tree, symbol of their Mideast home. Here, in this alien border land, it was the beacon that led to an Arab "brother" who would help them complete their journey from Lebanon into America.

They would come, sometimes dozens a month over a three-year period, to find Salim Boughader Mucharrafille -- the cafe owner who drove a Mercedes and catered to some of Tijuana's more affluent denizens, including workers at the U.S. consulate only a short stroll away. His American customers were unaware that the savvy boss of La Libanesa cafe ran a less reputable business on the side.

Until his arrest in December 2002, Boughader smuggled about 200 Lebanese compatriots into the United States, including sympathizers of Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. One client, Boughader said, worked for a Hezbollah-owned television network, which glorifies suicide bombers and is itself on an American terror watch list.

[..]

A report released by the Sept. 11 commission staff last year examining how terrorists travel the world cited Boughader as the only "human smuggler with suspected links to terrorists" convicted to date in the United States.

But he is not unique.

After Boughader was locked up, other smugglers operating in Lebanon, Mexico and the United States continued to help Hezbollah-affiliated migrants in their effort to illicitly enter from Tijuana, a U.S. immigration investigator said in Mexican court documents obtained by the AP.

Another smuggling network that is controlled by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebel group -- a U.S.-designated terror organization -- tried sneaking four Tigers over the California-Mexico border en route to Canada not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigator Steven Schultz said. The four were caught along with 17 other Sri Lankans, all posing as Mexicans, attempting to enter ports at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa.

An AP investigation found these are just some of the many pipelines in Central and South America, Mexico and Canada that have illegally channeled thousands of people into the United States from so-called "special-interest" countries -- those identified by the U.S. government as sponsors or supporters of terrorism.

Even when caught, illegal immigrants from those countries and other nations are sometimes released while awaiting deportation hearings, then miss those court dates, according to the AP's investigation, which also documented deep concerns about security threats along the lightly patrolled, 4,000-mile U.S.-Canada border.

The AP reviewed hundreds of pages of court indictments, affidavits, congressional testimony and government reports, and conducted dozens of interviews in Mexico and the United States to determine how migrants from countries with terrorist ties were brought illegally to America -- and how the smugglers they hired operated throughout the world.

[..]

Lebanese carpenter Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, smuggled in over the California border, admitted spending part of his time in the United States raising money to send back to his country to support Hezbollah -- at least $40,000, according to an FBI affidavit. Kourani, court records said, told the FBI that his brother is the group's chief of military security in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is widely admired as a resistance force.

U.S. homeland security officials maintain they know of no cases of al-Qaida operatives using smuggling operations to enter the United States via traditional routes over the northern or southern boundaries, though they have warned that recent intelligence suggests the terror group is eyeing the borders as a way in.

At least one al-Qaida-linked man smuggled himself over the border. Nabil al-Marabh, a now-deported Syrian citizen once No. 27 on the FBI's list of terror suspects and accused by Canadian authorities of having connections to Osama bin Laden's network, was caught sneaking from Canada into New York in the back of a tractor-trailer in June 2001 with a fake Canadian passport.

"Several al-Qaida leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry," Jim Loy, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional committee in February. Further, he said, "entrenched human smuggling networks and corruption in areas beyond our borders can be exploited by terrorist organizations."

[..]

The Boughader case and others show just how easy it would be -- even now, nearly four years after Sept. 11.

Just weeks ago, a federal grand jury in Phoenix indicted an Iranian tailor on charges of attempting to bring illegal immigrants from his native country over the Arizona-Mexico border.

"Today they could be smuggling people, tomorrow weapons," said John Torres, deputy assistant director for smuggling and public safety investigations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. "The vulnerability there is a criminal or terrorist organization could take advantage of that existing infrastructure."

What the records reveal is a labyrinth of networks, which use established routes frequented for years by migrants of many nationalities.

Smugglers employ recruiters and facilitators in such "special-interest" countries as Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Pakistan. One immigrant, in testimony against a now-convicted smuggler, described a "market of passports" in northern Iraq where individuals could illegally purchase documents to aid travel to America.

These smugglers use staging areas and transportation coordinators in such places as Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; Cali, Colombia; and Guatemala City. They pay foot guides, drivers and stash-house operators in Mexico and the United States.

They have moved people by plane -- into suburban Washington, D.C., Florida, California. And they have crossed clients in vehicles or on foot into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and over the Canadian border, then helped deliver them to destinations across America.

They have partnered with other smugglers transporting Mexican or Central American migrants, sometimes swapping clients and transferring immigrants from "special-interest" countries and other migrants in the same loads.

"This is really a word-of-mouth business," said Laura Ingersoll, an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., who has prosecuted at least a half-dozen smugglers who moved illegal immigrants from Egypt and Iraq into the United States.

[..]

"A Mafia," is how one of Boughader's clients, Roland Nassib Maksoud, once described the business.

Maksoud, a liquor distributor, traveled from Lebanon to Mexico on a legal visa in late 2000, he told investigators, according to Mexican court documents. In Mexico, he said, he met two compatriots who passed along the name of a restaurateur in Tijuana who smuggled Lebanese into the United States. They had gotten the name, Boughader, from a Beirut vendor who charged them $2,000 each for their visas to Mexico.

[..]

Other people-couriers use altered passports to fly clients to the United States. One of them, convicted smuggler Mohammed Hussein Assadi, schooled his Iraqi customers to carry nothing identifying them as Arab while traveling. He advised one migrant to shave his mustache, another to dye her hair blonde, still another to get a "European" haircut, U.S. court records showed.

Central and South America are popular transit points because of their proximity to the United States and the relative ease with which migrants from countries with terrorist ties can obtain tourist visas there -- either legally or through bribery. Assadi, an Iranian, worked from Ecuador, sometimes using the alias Antonio Roosevelt Choez Arreaga. He spoke Spanish in addition to Farsi and Arabic.

Bribery is another common tool for the organizations.

[..]

In May, the former director of immigration in Honduras was arrested, accused of selling hundreds of Honduran passports to migrants from Lebanon, China, Cuba and Colombia -- possibly to aid their entry into the United States. The investigation continues.

Maximiano Ramos, a former Los Angeles supervisor with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, admitted taking $12,500 to smuggle immigrants from the Philippines, home of the al-Qaida-linked militant group Abu Sayyaf. From 1996 to 2002, at least 40 migrants were diverted from connecting flights at Los Angeles International Airport and escorted out by security guards while Ramos was on duty.

Linda Sesi, an assistant ombudsman for the city of Detroit, is awaiting trial on charges of conspiring with four others to smuggle more than 200 migrants from Iraq, Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries into the United States from 2001 up until her arrest last September. The defendants allegedly charged clients more than $6,000 for tourist visas to South America and then, using falsified documents, flew them to Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C.

Some, including prosecutor Ingersoll, discount human smuggling as "a risky road" not likely to be traveled by terror operatives. But a former Sept. 11 commission counsel, Janice Kephart, said smuggling already is a chosen transportation mode for such groups.

Intelligence suggests that since 1999 human smugglers have facilitated the travel of terrorists associated with more than a dozen extremist groups, according to the Sept. 11 commission's terrorist travel report Kephart helped write. Prior to Sept. 11, al-Qaida employed smugglers to get jihad recruits into Afghanistan for training, the report said.

Terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, "use human smugglers and document forgers to a great extent," Kephart said. "They know their value. It only makes sense that they would transfer that to infiltrate the United States."

[..]

Kourani, who helped raise donations for Hezbollah, entered the United States via the Lebanon-Tijuana pipeline, paying $3,000 in Beirut to get a Mexican visa, according to federal court documents. On Feb. 4, 2001, he and another man were smuggled into California in the hidden compartment of a vehicle.

Last month, Kourani was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist group. His lawyer, William Swor, said Kourani is not a member of Hezbollah and hasn't spoken in years with the brother who has a leadership role in the group. Prosecutors alleged the brother directed Kourani's U.S. activities.

ICE spokesman Manny Van Pelt refused to confirm that Boughader smuggled Kourani. Boughader himself couldn't specifically recall Mahmoud Kourani, though he noted he moved a number of people with the last name "Kourani" who were from Mahmoud Kourani's hometown of Yater, Lebanon, a longtime Hezbollah outpost.

Boughader acknowledged transporting a Lebanese man who worked at al-Manar, a global satellite television network owned and operated by Hezbollah. The U.S. State Department added al-Manar to its Terror Exclusion List in 2004, meaning anyone associated with the station may be refused entry or deported from the United States.

"For us, Hezbollah are not terrorists," said Boughader, a Mexican of Lebanese descent, echoing the feelings of most Lebanese. "I regret that what I was doing is against the law, but I don't regret what I did to help people."

That is only the LEAD-IN to the article, a few excerpts to get the idea of what is in store. But notice the Transnational Terrorism and melding of International Organized Crime. I have some news for the 'open borders' folks: it is an invitation to terrorism. Hezbollah is funded and run by Iran and Syria, executes politicians it disagrees with all the way up to the highest level of government, stages illegitimate attacks upon Sovereign Nations and fosters terrorism abroad. The actual people in Lebanon who have Hezbollah hanging around no longer want them, but the Lebanese Armed Forces are too pathetic to expel them and the UN 'peace keeping' force gives cover to them.

After the dust-up with Israel last summer, Hezbollah really cannot be considered the following, even WITH having seats in parliament: Peaceful, Legitimate, Purely Political. They are as 'peaceful' and 'legitimate' as the Wiemar Era Communists or National Socialists in Germany, and can use force to coerce people to vote and vote for them. Their purpose is NOT to defend Lebanon, or else they would have melted away when Israel LEFT. They did just the opposite under the blind eye of the UN and built up stores of equipment and weapons, and then fully utilized the hospitals they had built as supply bases, ammo dumps and even to help their wounded. That is *not* a civilian utilization of a hospital and wholly illegitimate under the Geneva Conventions.

On the ground in Texas we get this from a Cybercast News Service report, interviewing a local Sheriff on 21 AUG 2006:

Texas Sheriffs Say Terrorists Entering US from Mexico
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 21, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The chief law enforcement officers of several Texas counties along the southern U.S. border warn that Arabic-speaking individuals are learning Spanish and integrating into Mexican culture before paying smugglers to sneak them into the United States. The Texas Sheriffs' Border Coalition believes those individuals are likely terrorists and that drug cartels and some members of the Mexican military are helping them get across the border.

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County, Texas told Cybercast News Service that Iranian currency, military badges in Arabic, jackets and other clothing are among the items that have been discovered along the banks of the Rio Grande River. The sheriff also said there are a substantial number of individuals crossing the southern border into the U.S. who are not Mexican. He described the individuals in question as well-funded and able to pay so-called "coyotes" - human smugglers - large sums of money for help gaining illegal entry into the U.S.

Although many of the non-Mexican illegal aliens are fluent in Spanish, Gonzalez said they speak with an accent that is not native.

"It's clear these people are coming in for reasons other than employment," Gonzalez said.

[..]

Some of the more high profile pieces of evidence pointing to terrorist infiltration of the U.S. have been uncovered in Jim Hogg County, Texas, which experiences a high volume of smuggling activity, according to local law enforcement.

"We see patches on jackets from countries where we know al Qaeda to be active," Gonzalez explained.

The patches appear to be military badges with Arabic lettering. One patch in particular, discovered this past December, caught the attention of federal homeland security officials, according to Gonzalez and local officials familiar with the investigation.

Sheriff Wayne Jernigan of Valverde County, Texas, told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in March about one patch that read "midnight mission" and displayed an airplane flying over a building heading towards a tower. Translators with DHS have said some of the various phrases and slogans on the items could mean "martyr," "way to eternal life," or "way to immortality."

Gonzalez told the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation in July that the terrorists are getting smarter.

"To avoid apprehension, we feel many of these terrorists attempt to blend in with persons of Hispanic origin when entering the country." Gonzalez stated. "We feel that terrorists are already here and continue to enter our country on a daily basis."

Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County, Texas, told Cybercast News Service that he believes some Mexican soldiers are operating in concert with the drug cartels to aid the terrorists.

"There's no doubt in my mind," he said, "although the Mexican government and our government adamantly deny it."

[..]

Local authorities are particularly concerned about illegal aliens arriving from Special Interest Countries (SICs) where a radical version of Islam is known to flourish. Perry's office cites Iraq, Iran, Indonesia and Bangladesh among those countries. A Tancredo spokesperson said the list also includes Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

[..]

The border security report delivered by Perry's office focuses attention on the "Triborder region" of Latin America, which spans an area between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

"The Triborder Region is a focal point of Islamic extremism," the report states. "Al Qaeda leadership plans to use criminal alien smuggling organizations to bring terrorist operatives across the border into the U.S."

In that lovely, pre-1920 era of open immigration to the US, the 'open borders' crowd forgets one very important thing that WAS done: quarantine. That is why Ellis Island is an important site, as it formed as a stop-over to protect against infectious diseases. Part of the deal with NAFTA is *not* to allow Mexico to export its unemployment problem North but to deal with it at home. Now this lax attitude has seen the local 'coyotes' hooking up with the International Organized Crime syndicates, Human Trafficking Syndicates *and* Transnational Terrorist groups like Hezbollah and al Qaeda. Even in the most blithe of 'open borders' miasma, that must be a major sticking point unless they actually *do* want to be associated with Organized Crime, International Human Traffickers and Terrorist organizations.

Also note the increasing influence in South America where Islam is being spread from the Arab ex-pat communities. Soon you will have people that look Hispanic, have Hispanic names and are affiliated with Hezbollah, al Qaeda and Hamas. Those are *not* good people and if the border is left wide open they will just walk across it even if there IS some euphonious 'guest worker program'. Mind you we still have unemployed Citizens in the US, so the actual *need* for 'guest workers' when we have perfectly respectable folks looking for jobs is in very large question.

From Davick Services this extract from the House Committee on Homeland Security - Interim Report on the situation can be found. One of the pages of the report contains an overview of just this problem:

A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY - Interim Report

Vulnerability to Terrorist Infiltration

The number of aliens other than Mexican (“OTMs”) illegally crossing the border has grown at an alarming rate over the past several years. Based on U.S. Border Patrol statistics there were 30,147 OTMs apprehended in FY2003, 44,614 in FY2004, 165,178 in FY2005, and 108,025 in FY2006. Most of them were apprehended along the U.S. Southwest border.

The sheer increase of OTMs coming across the border makes it more difficult for Border Patrol agents to readily identify and process each, thereby increasing the chances that a potential terrorist could slip through the system. Moreover, there is no concrete mechanism for determining how many OTMs evade apprehensions and successfully enter the country illegally.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pays particular attention to OTMs apprehended by the Border Patrol who originate from thirty-five nations designated as “special interest” countries. According to Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar, special interest countries have been “designated by our intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism.”

[..]

From FY2001 to March 2005, 88 percent of Special Interest Alien apprehensions for both the Southwest and Northern borders occurred in Texas. During that same period, 75 percent of Special Interest Alien apprehensions on the Southwest border occurred in the Laredo, McAllen, and Del Rio Sectors. Since September 11, 2001 to the present hundreds of illegal aliens from special interest countries (such as Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Cuba, Brazil, Ecuador, China, Russia, Yemen, Albania, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan) were apprehended within the South Texas region alone.

The data indicates that each year hundreds of illegal aliens from countries known to harbor terrorists or promote terrorism are routinely encountered and apprehended attempting to enter the U.S. illegally between Ports of Entry. Just recently, U.S. intelligence officials report that seven Iraqis were found in Brownsville, Texas in June 2006. In August 2006, an Afghani man was found swimming across the Rio Grande River in Hidalgo, Texas; as recently as October 2006, seven Chinese were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas.

[..]

On January 28, 2006, Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar was asked by a reporter from KGNS television station in Laredo, Texas, about the outcome of the investigation of the jacket. Chief Aguilar responded that the patches were not from al Qa’ida but from countries in which al Qa’ida was known to operate.

According to ICE testimony, on September 8, 2004, ICE agents arrested Neeran Zaia and Basima Sesi. The human smuggling organization headed by Zaia specialized in smuggling Iraqi, Jordanian, and Syrian Nationals and was responsible for the movement of more than 200 aliens throughout the investigation The investigation was initiated when a confidential informant familiar with the organization reported ongoing smuggling activities by Zaia, who had been previously convicted of alien smuggling. Investigative efforts revealed that the aliens were smuggled from the Middle East to staging areas in Central and South America. Once in these staging areas, the conspirators would arrange to smuggle the aliens from these sites into the U.S. or its territories.

Members of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization, have already entered to the United States across our Southwest border. On March 1, 2005, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani pleaded guilty to providing material support to Hezbollah. Kourani is an illegal alien who had been smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border after bribing a Mexican consular official in Beirut for a visa to travel to Mexico. Kourani and a Middle Eastern traveling partner then paid coyotes in Mexico to guide them into the United States. Kourani established residence among the Lebanese expatriate community in Dearborn, Michigan and began soliciting funds for Hezbollah terrorists back home in Lebanon. He is the brother of the Hezbollah chief of military operations in southern Lebanon.

[..]

Statements made by high-ranking Mexican officials prior to and following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks indicate that one or more Islamic terrorist organizations has sought to establish a presence in Mexico. In May 2001, former Mexican National security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, reported, that “Spanish and Islamic terrorist groups are using Mexico as a refuge.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller has confirmed in testimony “that there are individuals from countries with known al-Qa’ida connections who are changing their Islamic surnames to Hispanic-sounding names and obtaining false Hispanic identities, learning to speak Spanish and pretending to be Hispanic immigrants.

These examples highlight the dangerous intersection between traditional transnational criminal activities, such as human and drug smuggling, and more ominous threats to national security. Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez summed it up this way: “I dare to say that at any given time, daytime or nighttime, one can get on a boat and traverse back and forth between Texas and Mexico and not get caught. If smugglers can bring in tons of marijuana and cocaine at one time and can smuggle 20 to 30 persons at one time, one can just imagine how easy it would be to bring in 2 to 3 terrorists or their weapons of mass destruction across the river and not be detected. Chances of apprehension are very slim.

Furthermore, according to senior U.S. military and intelligence officials, Venezuela is emerging as a potential hub of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, providing assistance to Islamic radicals from the Middle East and other terrorists.

General James Hill, commander of U.S. Southern Command, has warned the United States faces a growing risk from both Middle Eastern terrorists relocating to Latin America and terror groups originating in the region. General Hill said groups such as Hezbollah had established bases in Latin America. These groups are taking advantage of smuggling hotspots, such as the tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and Venezuela’s Margarita Island, to channel funds to terrorist groups around the world.

Venezuela is providing support—including identity documents—that could prove useful to radical Islamic groups, say some U.S. officials. The Venezuelan government has issued thousands of cedulas, the equivalent of Social Security cards, to people from places such as Cuba, Columbia, and Middle Eastern nations that host foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. officials believe that the Venezuelan government is issuing the documents to people who should not be getting them and that some of these cedulas could be subsequently used to obtain Venezuelan passports and even American visas, which could allow the holder to elude immigration checks and enter the United States. Recently, several Pakistanis were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexican border with fraudulent Venezuelan documents.

[..]

Given all that is happening in Chavez’s Venezuela, some American officials regret that terrorism is seen chiefly as a Middle East problem and that the United States needs to look looking to protect its southern flank. A U.S. intelligence official expressed concern that “Counterterrorism issues are not being aggressively pursued in this hemisphere.” Another intelligence official stated terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay are not being interrogated about connections to Latin America. The bottom line, when it comes to terrorism so close to U.S. shores, says the official, “We don’t even know what we don’t know.”

Islamic radical groups that support Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamiya Al Gamat are all active in Latin America. These groups generate funds through money laundering, drug trafficking, and arms deals, making millions of dollars every year via their multiple illicit activities. These cells reach back to the Middle East and extend to this hemisphere the sophisticated global support structure of international terrorism. While threats to our nation from international terrorism are well known, lesser known threats spawned by narcoterrorism reach deeply into this country.

That is why Hugo Chavez is *not* a direct military threat via National Armed Forces but IS a distinct threat and haven for terrorism, also serving as a touchstone for FARC, from Columbia. The illegal drugs you buy today may help kill an American Soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, not indirectly but DIRECTLY. I am neither here nor there on the concept of illegal drugs, but when anyone purchases things illicitly they should recognize that it is not harm to themselves that matters, but the aid and support to that organization that they are buying from.

Suddenly, to get anywhere on terrorism about Iran, one must also hold NAFTA companies accountable and NAFTA signatories. But when you do *that* you also have to recognize the problem facing the US about its National Sovereignty being violated by illegal aliens. Saying that they are 'just here for work' does not obviate the fact that while most *are* there are some that are *not* and who have some connection to organizations practicing asymmetrical warfare. Asymmetrical warfare *against* the United States. Those that come here illegally actually *do* have human rights, but the rights of the Nation that they are violating supersede those. The internal Sovereignty Rights of the US make it a Nation that can sign up to the very treaties that allow for international human rights. Our Right as a People to have a secure Nation come before that of anyone here illegally who must obey the Laws of Nations first.

International lawlessness does, indeed, begin with individuals. Seeking to put non-Nationals above the Right of a Nation State to internal autonomy and Right to decide who does and who does not enter the Nation and *how* erodes the concept of Nation State. Terrorists break with the Laws of Nations and with the Treaties on human rights by conscious decision. Similarly those taking conscious decision to break the Laws of Nations and Treaties on the regards to their Rights within their Nation, means that entering another Nation without legal authority to do so puts them at the mercy of that Nation and outside of the framework of the Treaties which they have also broken. Their human rights end at the Nation's borders. Theirs and Ours.

We forget that there are civilized limits to this at our collective peril, both as a People of the United States but also within the larger community of Nations. It is those very agreements made that allow us to have civilized interaction between Nations so that fair and just means to solve problems together can be performed. When people decide to break the Sovereignty of Nations and step from those Treaties, they put themselves in danger. Terrorists do it to erode the will of People to have a Nation. Illegal aliens do it to erode the economy they head to and put in danger the well being of that Nation by participating outside the bounds of law.

Not only the internal law of the Nation.

But the Right of a People to HAVE a Sovereign Nation without outside interference that is not agreed upon.

Because that is the most basic of human rights. So that we may come together and have something greater for ourselves and have it *respected* by other peoples. Anything less is anarchy ripe for a warlord or tyrant to impose will by force of arms.

Please, do divest from companies working with Iran.

All of them.

Including ones from Mexico.

Because they are not helping the situation one bit in securing the Nation nor upholding their end of NAFTA. Or of being a good neighbor to the US. That goes for their companies and the Nation as a whole.

I am not against immigration by any means. Legal and lawful immigration to help reinforce the Nation is always helpful.

Open borders and letting anyone in is asking for trouble and, apparently, it is already here. That lovely day and age is over now, just like the pre-1920's immigration era. Times change and it is better to support the laws and have a Nation, than to let it be eaten away until there are no basis for having a Nation. And the rights it affords to its legal Citizens.