To find the 6,000 foreign nationals that the Department of Homeland Security says it has lost track of, the Obama administration needs to hire more immigration agents, says former Immigration and Naturalization Service agent Michael Cutler.
"You need agents," Cutler told J.D. Hayworth and Francesca Page on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV on Wednesday. "At the end of the day, you need people on the ground."
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"New York [City] has a small army and close to 40,000 police officers just in the city of New York," he explained.
"We have fewer than 10 percent that number of immigration agents making certain that the immigration system throughout the entire country has any integrity," he said.
Six thousand foreign nationals in the United States on student visas can't be located by the Department of Homeland Security, officials told
ABC News.
In addition, immigration officials said 58,000 students have overstayed their visas over the past year.
Student visa holders have been linked to terrorist activity in the past, as 26 have been arrested on terror-related charges since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"I don't even know why we bother telling people how long they can stay in the United States, because if they overstay, the only action this administration is likely to do is to give these people lawful status," the former INS agent said.
"It's more than dysfunctional, and the 9/11 Commission was so clear about it," said Cutler, who testified before the 9/11 Commission.
"The commission noted that immigration fraud, benefit fraud, the ability to enter our country in the first place, with the primary tools of the terrorists, not only enter the country, but embed themselves, and the response has been an overwhelming zero," he explained.
"Nobody from either party is talking about hiring more agents and empowering them with all the support they need to do an effective job," he said.
"We're setting ourselves up for the next disaster."
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