The collective media – mainstream, social, and fake – are all over this pizza guy arrest at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn by ICE. Every open borders rallying cry since 1986 is being trod out by any progressive, liberal, and democratic politician that can find a podium, to vilify ICE and laud illegals with a stunning distortion of language and facts. The politicians so want this to be a case of racial profiling by capricious guards instead of competent security on a federal installation that they would almost prefer to err on the side of slaughter.
The news accounts available on line are so disjointed and poorly annotated as to be worthless in determining what we know, let alone what we don’t know. The most coherent of them that I’ve seen is an AP report cited here:
In time, more facts will come to light and more factoids dismissed, but there is an unforgiveable omission in all of these initial reports that is so dispiriting as to make one ponder permanent withdrawal to the wilderness.
The thwarted attack on Fort Dix, NJ in 2007 was to be perpetrated by (you guessed it) undocumented immigrants, that is, men who entered the country illegally via Mexico. Much as pizza man Pablo Villavicencio illegally entered the country from (you guessed it) Mexico in 2010. In a touch of coincidental irony worthy of O. Henry, one of the convicted Fort Dix plotters knew the layout of Fort Dix from (you guessed it) delivering pizzas there.
Now, had this Fort Hamilton security guard waved Villavicencio through (as other guards had reportedly done on past deliveries), and Pablo subsequently shot up the place, we’d all be sending thoughts and prayers, drawing parallels to Fort Dix, and be wondering why-oh-why couldn’t we see this coming? We’d be castigating the intelligence community, the failure of base security, and the NRA, just because.
I hope these hive-dwelling second-guessers that are spouting how ICE is in the wrong and the undocumented immigrant, who is purported to actually be documented by virtue of his municipality-issued NYC ID card, has been unconscionably mistreated and his family victimized.
In what will one day morph into a verifiable narrative of the event, but is far from that as of this writing, we are being told Pablo is married to an American citizen. Sandra Chico emigrated from Columbia and says she’s a citizen, so it is reported as fact. She says Pablo has applied for his permanent green card as the spouse of a citizen, but the paperwork hasn’t been completed. Well then, that would still make him not a citizen. That would still make him undocumented, NYC ID card notwithstanding. It would still make his being here illegal.
We are told politicians are very concerned why he was detained and why his immigration status was questioned, and why a background check was conducted. It is reported that he was detained because there was an ICE detention-hold issued in 2010 after Pablo failed to appear for his immigration hearing. We shall see. We are told his immigration status was questioned because he could not produce a driver’s license (imagine that? a deliveryman) and stated he had previously been admitted off his DeBlasio card. This guard thought otherwise and eventually Pablo’s immigration status became known. Whether he was asked, whether it was allowed to ask, whether he volunteered it, whether they beat it out of him and stole his pizza, I’m sure we’ll find out in some fashion. It is further reported that Pablo signed some sort of document agreeing to a background check as a condition for entering the base. Through the background check, the detention order from 2010 was learned. Whether he was tricked into signing the waiver, whether he didn’t connect the dots as to what the background check might reveal, whether he failed to comprehend that stepping on to federal property, an army base no less, entails what one might call enhanced identification protocols, maybe put in place following the Fort Dix plot, is all conjecture at this point.
One thing that is certain, there is a sign at the gate advising all persons they are about to enter a restricted area and all persons and vehicles are subject to search. It’s quite possible your sanctuary city-issued NYC ID card may not cut it. Imagine trying to gain entry on to a military base in Mexico or Ecuador without credentials, while in the country illegally and skipping out on a court date.
But this penchant for political exploitation to paint a narrative of a poorly done-to Ecuadorian, who came here in search of the American Dream, married a naturalized citizen from Columbia, fathered two daughters, and is a devoted family man waiting for his green card to legalize his status.
As opposed to, here we have a guy who snuck into the country, was apprehended and released having given his word to appear before an immigration judge to make his case that he be allowed to stay, and just blew it off. Whether he married this Sandra and fathered her children and applied for a green card is a big “who knows” at this point. What they want you to believe is that Pablo is a victim of racism, a victim of Trump-induced bigotry, a victim of an overzealous military, and a victim of home-wrecking ICE policy. His wife and children are also victims. The pizza parlor owner is a victim.
May I respectfully point out that the Fort Dix plot was averted solely by FBI infiltration; every other safeguard – border security, customs & immigration enforcement, gun control, and access to the base – were all compromised to some degree. The system did not work (a regular occurrence) and disaster was only prevented through good federal police work.
But in the Fort Hamilton case, where you have a vigilant guard on the gate who dared challenge someone seeking access without credentials – again, directly resulting from the continued failure to protect the border and enforce immigration law – the media and the opportunistic politicians put the bull’s eye on the one agency tasked with cleaning up our dishonest immigration policy. I hope ICE and base security is vindicated, and I’m not rooting for a cache of weapons to be found in Pablo’s trunk, but it would be nice if we were all to reflect on what has gone wrong in the past, and God forbid, be proactive in preventing it in the future.
Maybe when those gas bag politicians and op ed nitwits are through with their next solemn post-disaster critique that ends with “….so this never happens again”, maybe this is what it takes to get there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Fort_Dix_attack_plot
• The Duka family entered the United States illegally through Mexico in October 1984. In 1989, the father Ferik Duka applied for asylum with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and acknowledged the family’s illegal entry into the country.[8]
• November 28, 2006 – Serdar Tatar, who had delivered pizza to Fort Dix before, obtains a map of the Fort Dix military installation through his employer’s pizza delivery restaurant, which serves the military base.[39]
• The men tried unsuccessfully to purchase weapons from an FBI informant, including AK-47s, M16s, semi-automatic SIG Sauer 9 mm handguns, and a Smith & Wesson 9 mm. The informant stated that the weapons were to come from an underground military dealer from Baltimore, Maryland, who had recently returned from Egypt
• According to news reports, five of the men arrested intended to attack the Fort Dix military base and kill as many servicemen as they could.[2] In a conversation that was recorded by the informant, Shnewer told the FBI informant “My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers. You hit four, five or six Humvees and light the whole place [up] and retreat completely without any losses”.
• The Duka brothers are currently being held at the Federal Detention Center, Philadelphia pending an appeals hearing.
• Mohamad Shnewer is serving his life sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute, a medium-security facility in Indiana.[35]
• Serdar Tatar is serving his 33-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Memphis, a medium-security facility in Tennessee, and is scheduled for release in 2036.
• Agron Abdullahu was released on March 24, 2009.
But, no. Let’s just step aside and let the pizza guy in. What’s the worst that can happen?