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[Unclassifi ed]

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Interview with Michael William Cutler, former Senior Special Agent, lNS
Type of event: Interview at GSA
Date: September 26, 2003
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Janice Kephart-Roberts
Team Number: 5
Location: GSA
Participants - Non-Commission: Michael William Cutler
Participants - Janice Kephart-Roberts, Joanne M. Accolla
Documents entered into the record by JKR:
Mike Cutler's bio
Cutler's Congressional testimony
Cutler's "testimony" written for the Commission
Unclassified

Background:
B.A. Communications, Arts & Sciences, Brooklyn College, NY
Oct. 1971 - INS - Immigration Inspector, JFK
1973-74 - I130s - those seeking LPR status as spouses of citizens or spouses of legal aliens.
1975 - Criminal Investigator (now called Special Agents) - investigated fraud, criminal aliens,
anti -smuggling
1988 - INS representative to Unified Intelligence Office of Drug Enforcement Office, NY
1992 - Senior Special Agent, DBA Task Force - investigations of every nature, fraud, aliens,
terrorism. For last 15 years, involved in drug trafficking investigations.

Counterterrorism experience. Had his first terrorist case in 1976 while he was with the
fraud unit. An alien from Israel tried to enter at JFK with an altered visa. Cutler was told to go
get some experience and take a shot at taking his deposition. The alien continued to call Israel
"Palestine." Mr. Cutler contacted the Israeli Consulate and they came to interview alien. Mr.
Cutler noticed something strange in the way the alien's shirt lay, so he asked the alien to open his
shirt. Sewn in the inside of the alien's shirt was a pocket. Mr. Cutler took a paper out of the
alien's pocket. It was a diagram of the Israeli oil fields - it was a plan to blow up the oil refinery
in Israel. The alien then decided to cooperate. Six people were arrested in Israel; they had been
coming to the US for money and supplies. A good working relationship with Israeli security was
the result of this incident. The Israelis subsequently helped him with some drug cases.

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In 1989, he worked on a Colombian drug case. Involved in Polar Cap - major money laundering
"case DEA worked against Los Priscos, a drug gang found with bomb detonators in a car near
• where a public figure was about to make an appearance.

Another case - Mr. Cutler arrested Michael Early, member of the IRA, in the late 1980s. He was
sending materials to Ireland to detonate bombs remotely. Ajudge and his pregnant wife were
kil1ed by one of these bombs. Jury found him not guilty; Mr. Cutler thinks he is still living in
New York.

Mr. Cutler was asked if he ever became aware of drug cartels using money for terrorism. He
said he read reports to that effect. He said that a common way to move large sums of money was
for these people to sell their businesses, buy drugs with the money, .... The Palestinians and
Iranians were known for this activity. He was not assigned to counterterrorism work per se. FBI
wanted to detail him to their NY counterterrorism section in late 1980's, but INS said no ..

Opinion of INS.

His opinion of INS: never seemed to have the gumption to be as effective as it needed to be. He
described the INS as "the agency who refused to take itself seriously."

INS never wanted to be held responsible. Border patrol mentality permeates the agency. INS
did not want prosecutions, only administrative immigration cases,.,1 ras the worse
thing that happened to INS. .:

• INS Overall Structure .

When agents lost morale. Mr. Cutler wasasked what he believed the INS priorities
were as far as he could-tell from his vantage pointin NYC in the early 1990's. His answer: in
the 1980's things got crazy. Two agents, Alexandre and Gentile, were arrested. Gentile was
charged with falsifying papers to keep an alien in the country, and Alexandro was sent to jail for
4 years for involvement in ABSCAM. The supervisor for both agents gets a
promotion, even though in was clear he was not supervising eith,eragent a equa~~~"-WiII'"
the~ got wind that bei?g a poor employee makes you due f.0.r-apromotion. Th",n
anct
...
I made It a "hell Qote.~'
.,'
//
•• "
",.,/ ...-._-_
.» ••••
..

~::'the late 1970' s early 1~86;'s there were abo"9t'2S'Oagents i~,.NYC~"By September 11,[2001 ]
the attrition was down toabout approximately 100 agentsvAgents kept leaving because of the
.environment of the NY office. The agents wantedtoget involved in criminal prosecutions, but
,i:Doris Meissner didnot. Field agents wantedtodo a decent job and accomplished their
:/ assignments despite management. Jack-Shaw was Associate Commissioner for Enforcement
(now retired) head of investigationsin headquarters in early 1990's; Greg Bednarz (retired)
was .Shaw's DeputyAssociateCommissioner for Investigations (now retired) - both decent guys.
But there was no-real chain of command from headquarters, no sense of leadership. Joe Greene
is thecurrentenforcement
, . .0-,
commissioner equivalent. '

// ",,'<>EV'~lution of INS priorities. INS priorities were employer sanctions, fraud schemes,
: <,:;>::anti~smuggling, OSADEF, JTTF (but did it ~icking and screaming). However, INS never really
• :>" devoted the resources or manpower to make 1t happen .
.',.-

9/11 Personal Privacy

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 9/11 Personal Privacy . COMMISSION SENSITIVE

Mr. Cutler was asked how INS priorities changed after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,
both overall and in NYC. He said nothing really changed. Agents wanted in on the battle but
•••••••••• there was no sense of leadership coming out of management. The District Director ran the show.
Only outcome of 1993 WTC bombing were some JTTF details.

Mr. Cutler was asked if anything changed in the New York field office after PDD~39 in 1995.
He said more jobs were posted for JTIF. He said Dan Molario, NYC IN'S District Director, was

~--~~~~~~~~~~~----~~------------~~ Mr. Molario .met with

regularly in D.C. with Doris Meissner to discuss counterterrorism (he is now sidelined at
JFK as a liaison with Customs).

Mr. Cutler was asked what he thought INS priorities were in the late 1990's. He responded that
he was out of work on disabi Iity late in 1998. He believed the interior enforcement strategy,
JTTF, fraud, employer sanctions, anti-smuggling. Citizenship USA came along in under
Clinton, and was a disaster. Many criminal aliens received amnesty under this program. During
this time too, employer sanctions began to fade as a priority.

Mr. Cutler was asked if there were any significant changes after the African bombings in 1998.
He said there were no significant changes.

Interior enforcement Mr. Cutler described the mission of interior enforcement as: I)
administrative side (remove illegal aliens); 2) criminal side (prosecute reentries after
deportation); 3) fraud prosecutions; and 4) smuggling cases. There were a couple of guys
• appointed for anti-smuggling; he was not aware of anyone with counterterrorism background.

Mr. Cutler described immigration enforcement as a tripod:

1. Border Patrol
2. Inspectors
3. Special Agents
However, on this tripod, the legs were not of equal stature. INS had 2000 'or fewer INS Special
Agents as compared to approximately 10,000 Border Patrol and ~,OOO Inspectors. Resource-
wise, there was a discrepancy. They could not fulfill their mission because of resources.
Impressions of internal enforcements vs. border patrol. "We felt interior enforcement was step
child of INS, with INS a step child to the Justice Department. "

Mr. Cutler was asked were he through Internal Enforcement fell in the agency. He said it was .an
after thought. He feels this way because they never recei ved the resources they needed to do the
job. We always felt that no one cared about what we needed in order todo our job effectively.

New York field office agents were often given assigrunents as utility players, especially in the
early 1990s. If there were immigration benefits backlogs, agents were assigned to do that work.
If drivers were needed, did that work too.

The FBI was jealous of INS' Title 8 authority, as it was very effective where traditional law

•
enforcement was not; ie remove on immigration grounds when can't or don't want to prove a
criminal case. That's why the FBI wanted him to join their office (especially after the Israeli
case described above) in the late 1980s, but the INS didn't want to have anything to do with it

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and wouldn't permit the detail. Cutler would've been the first INS detailee (of which he's
aware) to a pre-JTTF ifit had been permitted.

He said it was terrible in New York - it was a fiefdom issue. Manpower, funding and training-
no one asks what do you need so that you can be more effective.

Intelligence and technology. Agents were hampered in the job performance because
they didn't have the supporting technology or intelligence they needed. Agents couldn't link
information because of ineffective computers. They were never asked what they needed by
techies. It was a persistent problem. It was hard to get shared information from other agencies
because INS management provided no back up. Internal Enforcement offices ran independently
of each other- then it came under the District office - they worked with blinders.

He was asked about INS' intelligence capability. He said there was one analyst in New York but
. information was never disseminated to the agents nor were they ever asked for intelligence.
They did not have the technology, bureaucratic structure and lack of information, not possible to
share information. Dan Molario ran the office for 10 years and ran it into the ground. He had a
close relationship with Doris Meissner.

Mission in counterterrorism. Mr. Cutler was asked if there was a feeling within INS
that INS held a mission in counterterrorism. He said yes; the agent population was fired up
about it. But their bosses never made a significant case on their behalf to use Title 8 to go after
terrorists.

Student Tracking. Mr. Cutler was asked about student tracking. He said if the INS had
the technology and commitment, it was doable. However, under the resource restrictions on the
number of agents they had at the time, INS would've had a ton of information but the inability to
follow through on the leads created.

Fraud. He said fraud is a "whole agency" problem: document fraud, marriage fraud,
labor certification fraud, application fraud. Mr. Cutler was asked about INS fraud strategy. He
said he was not aware of one on paper.

Neil Jacobs is running the new fraud strategy out ofBCIS. Is a good choice, but doubts he'll get
the resources he needs;

DHS. Mr. Cutler was asked about his views on bifurcation of Internal Enforcement
(ICE) from inspectors (CBP) at DHS. He doesn't think Customs and INS should be together-
different areas of the law.

Mr. Cutler asked what he would do ifhe could change it. He said he would put Inspectors,
Border Patrol and Special Agents under Bureau of Immigration Enforcement. Border security
needs to be seamless; needs to coordinate better and more smoothly. Immigration benefits
(BCIS) folks need compliance agents to act as a liaison with ICE, so as to not have direct
enforcement powers but have access to such power through compliance agents. Give separate
structure with 181Os.

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"There is enough work for 10,000 Special Agents. Even with SEVIS and Biometrics, there
would still be the need for agents to investigate."

Biometrics. Mr. Cutler was asked about biometrics. He said it would be a quantum leap
if it were available. Tool would be a force multiplier.

9/11. Could the INS have helped prevented 9111? Yes. The terrorist knew that our
border security was our soft underbelly, and wholly exploited it. INS bears responsibility for
their entry.

[Classification]

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