A former special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service told Newsmax TV a federal court effort to deep-six President Donald Trump's executive order banning immigrants from seven mostly Muslim countries is a major threat to the safety of Americans.
"This is about keeping out criminals, terrorists, aliens with dangerous diseases, and so forth," Michael Cutler, a 30-year-veteran of the INS, told Newsmax's John Bachman on Wednesday's "America Talks Live."
The president has brought [in his] authority, because let's face it, aliens have no inherent right to enter the United States."
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The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is currently weighing whether to reinstate the ban after U.S. District Court Judge James Robart of Washington blocked it over the weekend — prompting a furious Trump to brand Robart a "so-called judge."
Cutler said he began his career as an immigration inspector at New York City's JFK International Airport and had the authority and the requirement to inspect aliens, but only examine Americans.
"This may sound like semantics, but here's the takeaway: Americans may not under any circumstances be denied entry into the United States, but aliens have to prove that they are not coming here to violate the law," Cutler said.
"And so what we are looking at is a situation where the courts are trying to override the law that's supposed to protect us, making it sound as though aliens have every right to be here. They don't.
"The law is crystal clear: the president has the authority as commander in chief not only of the armed forces but also civilian law enforcement for the federal government to deem aliens who pose a threat to national security as excludable from the United States."
Cutler also dismissed the allegation by those who oppose Trump's order he is discriminating solely against Muslims.
"Aliens again don't have the absolute right to enter even when they have green cards, but why are those countries being portrayed as Muslim majority countries?" he said.
"If the president's goal was to keep out all Muslims, you should've started with Indonesia, the most populist Muslim country on the planet. The list was done by [President Barack] Obama."