Transnational terrorism and the al Qaeda model: Confronting new realities

Parameters, Summer, 2002 by Paul J. Smith

Porous Borders and the Vulnerable State

On 30 November 2001, a US federal judge sentenced a former Mexican immigration inspector, Angel Salvador Molina-Paramo, to 30 months in federal prison for his role in a global human smuggling ring spanning several continents. Molina-Paramo's partner and the chief of the smuggling operation was George Tajirian, an Iraqi-born human smuggler accused of trafficking hundreds of illegal immigrants from the Middle East across the US-Mexican border during the 1990s. US authorities had arrested Tajirian in 1998 and, following a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 13 years in US federal prison. Prosecutors alleged that the ring smuggled Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, and other illegal immigrants through Mexico to the United States. The smuggling operation "included smuggling stations in Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Greece; and staging areas in Greece, Thailand, Cuba, Ecuador, and Mexico." (35)

With the sentencing of Molina-Paramo coming just weeks after the 11 September attacks in the United States, the obvious question surrounding this case was whether any of the migrants--most of whom were smuggled between 1996 and 1998--were possibly terrorists. Mr. Tajirian did not appear to be operating a terrorist-funneling operation; however, it is also clear that Tajirian was not particularly fussy about any criminal or terrorist background of his migrant clients. During his prosecution, authorities introduced evidence that Tajirian had smuggled into the United States "persons with known ties to subversive or terrorist organizations as well as individuals with known criminal histories." (36) If a migrant had a known criminal background, Tajirian simply raised the smuggling fees. (37) Overall, US officials believe that Tajirian and his cohorts smuggled more than 1,000 Middle Eastern residents illegally into the United States. (38)

This immigrant smuggling case might be viewed as simply an oddity, perhaps another indicator of the sinister and depraved international underworld of human smuggling. Most traditional security planners would consider the case--and the issue of human smuggling in general--an interesting social or labor migration phenomenon that, though disturbing, bears little relevance to national or international security. But the case of George Tajirian and the ring he led is also arguably one more example of the vulnerability of US border security, a vulnerability which, in an age of international terrorism where modern terrorists must travel to multiple countries to either raise money, cultivate support, or conduct attacks, cannot simply be dismissed as merely an immigration issue or social policy question.

The reality that few US authorities want to publicly admit is that the notion of border security, particularly within the dark and transient world of transnational crime, is largely fiction. For more than two decades, human smuggling syndicates with links to China, India, Albania, and other countries have developed complex and circuitous pathways into the United States, just as they have in Western Europe and East Asia. In the context of international terrorism, porous borders and the rise of human smuggling--and its attendant side industry of document fraud--pose serious security challenges for states. Just as the human body's lymphatic system provides a stream for the spread of lethal cancer cells, so too can the global stream of human smuggling and illegal migration carry the agents of global terrorism. Ironically, despite the publicity regarding vulnerable borders in the United States following the 11 September attacks, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge publicly admitted in February 2002 that US border s "remain disturbingly vulnerable to terrorists." (39) It is precisely this concern that has prompted President Bush to consider fusing US Customs with the troubled Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agency nominally in charge of border enforcement.