Looking back to 1998, the dots were connected -- and then ignored.

The terror attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred nearly 18 years ago yet the impact still reverberates around the world.

It is disconcerting that Americans who are now coming of age to vote were born after the attacks of 9/11 and what they know or don’t know about those attacks depends on what they have been taught by teachers who are not being “Politically Correct” but actually provide lessons that conform to Orwellian Newspeak as does the mainstream media.

On August 30, 2019 The Hill reported, Trial for men accused of plotting 9/11 attacks set for early 2021. That report begins with this excerpt:

The trial for men charged as plotters of the 9/11 attacks was set Friday for Jan. 11, 2021, The New York Times reported.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men are set to be charged for their alleged role planning the 2001 terror attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Mohammed has been accused of being the mastermind behind the strike.

While the media typically attributes the death of approximately 3,000 innocent victims to the attacks, in reality the actual death count is much higher and victims of those attacks continue to suffer and die because of their exposure to the toxins that were released as a result of the attacks.

As we approach the 18th anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 terrorism-related stories are still making news, underscoring the irrefutable fact that the threat of terrorism continues to hang over our heads, not unlike the Sword of Damocles. However, the lunatic Left seeks to leave America defenseless.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks there was no shortage of politicians who stood behind podiums festooned with forests of microphones in front a television cameras and pounded those podiums, demanding the answer to the question, “Why didn’t anyone connect the dots so that the attacks could have been prevented?”

In reality, however, the “dots” had been connected on numerous occasions fears before September 11, 2001 because there had been a number of terror attacks committed by aliens who had gamed the immigration system to enter the United States and embed themselves in communities around the United States so that they could go about their deadly preparations.

In 1993 the United States suffered two deadly terror attacks conducted entirely by radical Islamist aliens who had managed to enter the United States thus enabling them to carry out those deadly attacks.

In January 1993 a Pakistani by the name of Mir Aimal Kansi stood outside CIA Headquarters with an AK-47 and opened fire on the vehicles of CIA officials reporting for work on that cold January morning in Virginia. When the smoke dissipated, two CIA officer lay dead and three other were seriously wounded. Kansi fled the United States and was ultimately brought back to stand trial. He was found guilty and executed for his crimes. He had applied for political asylum.

Just one month later, on February 26, 1993 a bomb-laden truck was parked in the garage under the World Trade Center complex and detonated. The blast nearly brought one of the 110 story towers down sideways. As a result of the explosion, 6 innocent people were killed, over one thousand people were injured and an estimated one half billion dollars in damages were inflicted on that iconic complex of buildings located just blocks from Wall Street.

That attack was also carried out by alien terrorists who managed to not only game the visa process in order to enter the United States and get past the inspections process at ports of entry, but game the immigration benefits program as well. This enabled them to remain in the United States and embed themselves as they went about their preparations to attack the United States and cause massive casualties.

On May 20, 1997 I participated in my first Congressional hearing. That hearing was predicated on those terror attacks and was conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims on the topic: “Visa Fraud And Immigration Benefits Application Fraud."

On February 24, 1998 The Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information conducted a hearing on the topic, Foreign Terrorists In America: Five Years After The World Trade Center.

One of the senators who participated in that hearing was none other than Dianne Feinstein. She discussed a number of issues but then turned to deficiencies in the immigration system and focused on the Visa Waiver Pilot Program (at the time of the hearing the Visa Waiver Program had not yet been made permanent).

Feinstein also identified the dangers inherent in providing visas to aliens who are citizens of countries that are associated with terrorism, providing education to students from such countries with education in STEM courses of study who could then use their new-found skills and education to create weapons of mass destruction and even noted how aliens who had gamed the political asylum program had subsequently gone on to commit crimes.

Some of the information she provided was truly startling.

Here are some of the excerpts of her prepared statement at that hearing conducted more than 21 years ago and more than 3 years before the terror attacks of 9/11.

Consider this excerpt:

There are also a number of glaring loopholes in our immigration laws. As I serve on the Immigration Subcommittee, I just wanted to spend my time touching on some of them.

I have some reservation regarding the practice of issuing visas to terrorist-supporting countries and INS' inability to track those who come into the country either using a student visa or using fraudulent documents, as you pointed out, through the Visa Waiver Pilot Program.

The Richmond Times recently reported that the mastermind of Saddam Hussein's germ warfare arsenal, Rihab Taha, studied in England on a student visa. And England is one of the participating countries in the Visa Waiver Pilot Program, which means, if she could have gotten a fraudulent passport, she could have come and gone without a visa in the United States.

The article also says that Rihab Taha, also known as "Dr. Germ," that her professors at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, speculate that she may have been sent to the West specifically to gain knowledge on biological weaponry.

What is even more disturbing is that this is happening in our own backyard.

The Washington Post reported on October 31, 1991, that U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq discovered documents detailing an Iraqi Government strategy to send students to the United States and other countries to specifically study nuclear-related subjects to develop their own program. Samir AJ-Araji was one of the students who received his doctorate in nuclear engineering from Michigan State University, and then returned to Iraq to head its nuclear weapons program.

Yet the State Department often does not do in-depth background checks on the students, and once they are in the United States, the INS has no ability to track the students to make certain they actually study the subjects they claim to study and to attend the schools they said they would attend.

Between 1991 and 1996, the State Department has issued about 9,700 student visas to students from terrorist-supporting states such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria to attend undergraduate and graduate studies in the United States.

Senator Feinstein went on to note:

The defendants of the World Trade Center bombing are also an example of those coming in through nonimmigrant or employment-based visas or abusing our political asylum process and then committing crimes.

For instance, Nidal Ayyad, one of the defendants in this case, used his position as a chemical engineer for Allied Signal to obtain the chemicals used in the World Trade Center bombing.

There is Gazi Abu Mezer, who was arrested in a suspected terrorist plot to detonate bombs in Brooklyn last year. He came in illegally across the Canadian border to Washington State and attempted to seek asylum, but withdrew his application and agreed to leave the country. Once he was released on voluntary departure, he fled Washington to Brooklyn, NY, where he was arrested for plotting suicide-bomb attacks in Brooklyn.

Finally, consider this excerpt:

Mr. Chairman, under the 1996 Immigration Act, Congress requires the INS to create a pilot project to track information on foreign students — where they are, what they are studying, if they commit any crimes, and if they are studying the subjects they planned to study. The act requires INS to submit a report by 2001. The act also tightens up the asylum process by making it harder for aliens to claim asylum fraudulently, and section 110 of the Immigration Act requires an entry/exit system at all ports of entry by September 1998.

As you know, there is a move on this very committee to essentially remove that.

I know there are concerns over the implementation of international student tracking systems and the entry/exit system required by the 1996 law. And I realize it takes time to build the automation systems and the infrastructure necessary to make the requirements work. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of having the ability to track international students, particularly those from terrorist-supporting countries and having an entry/exit system ability so we know who is coming in and out of the country.

In 1998 Feinstein certainly “connected the dots” and supported them with irrefutable facts that point to the clear nexus between failures of the immigration system and vulnerability to terror attacks.

The 9/11 Commission Report and the companion report, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel identified and connected still more “dots.”

Yet the Democrats create “Sanctuary Cities” and demand the termination of immigration law enforcement while refusing to secure our nation’s vulnerable borders.

On May 5, 2005 the House Immigration Subcommittee conducted a hearing on the topic, New ''Dual Missions'' Of The Immigration Enforcement Agencies. This excerpt from the prepared statement of the then-chairman of that Subcommittee, Republican John Hostettler, will serve as the summation for my commentary today.

The 9/11 terrorists all came to the United States without weapons or contraband—Added customs enforcement would not have stopped 9/11 from happening. What might have foiled al Qaeda's plan was additional immigration focus, vetting and enforcement. And so what is needed is recognition that, one, immigration is a very important national security issue that cannot take a back seat to customs or agriculture. Two, immigration is a very complex issue, and immigration enforcement agencies need experts in immigration enforcement. And three, the leadership of our immigration agencies should be shielded from political pressures to act in a way which could compromise the Nation's security.