I think we’d all agree that the lack of security at our nuclear plants is a major concern, but is not being addressed by the Bush administration.

From Bill West, retired Chief of the Nat’l Security Section for the INS in Miami, Fla., a counterterrorism consultant, and contributor to the Counterterrorism Blog:

The [A.P. and WaPo] today reported that sixteen suspected illegal alien construction workers with false immigration documents were able to enter and work in the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant near Knoxville, Tenn.

The report identifying the security breach was issued by the Dept. of Energy Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and stated that “official use only” documents were found in the construction trailer on the Y-12 site where the workers had access. The report indicated the cases … were referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) …

This [is] another example of the facade of security [for] some of our most critical infrastructure facilities … While it is likely none of the sixteen suspected illegal aliens with false documents were anything other than illegal workers working illegally [at] one of America’s most sensitive nuclear weapons sites, can this country afford to take that chance even once? …

And this is not the first such incident. … More below:

More from Bill West’s blog post today:

After the 9-11 attacks, the INS and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) created a Domestic Security Task Force within Florida to respond to potential security threats within the state. One of those investigations, working with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) in Jacksonville, identified a group of illegal aliens working for a contractor servicing one of the Navy’s nuclear powered aircraft carriers in port in Jacksonville. Those illegal alien workers, who had access to the ship, also had false immigration documents that gained them employment with the contractor. Thanks to aggressive agents and forward thinking Federal prosecutors, all the aliens were criminally prosecuted, convicted and eventually deported …

And this is nothing new. In my early INS career in Baltimore during the late 1970s and early 1980s, we routinely arrested illegal aliens who were … security guards working in Federal buildings in the Maryland suburbs of DC. We even arrested several illegal Nigerian aliens employed [as Correctional Officers at Maryland state prisons] … they had gone through the entire hiring and training process undetected, using false documents. …


West, now a consultant for the Investigative Project, a Washington DC-based counterterrorism research institute, offers suggestions to provide help to ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement):

.. ICE cannot possibly cover the entire potential critical infrastructure within the US such as chemical plants, water treatment facilities, power plants, hospitals and many others. However, as the Y-12 and Jacksonville Naval Station incidents have shown, there should certainly be a strong and coordinated multi-agency investigative focus on the critical infrastructure facilities that are owned and/or controlled by the U.S. Government.

At least with those facilities, the investigative resources of other Federal agencies might be tapped to augment the limited agent manpower possessed by ICE. …


Read the full post.

See my May 15, 2005 story, “Will We Bust Gangs Or More Civil Rights?,” for more suggestions on how to improve ICE’s capabilities and supervision.

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