Terrorism Since Early 90’s Essay Example for Free

Terrorism Since Early 90’s Essay United States of America has constantly remained as one f the greatest nations in the whole world. As if it is the Promised Land, USA was gifted with resources and maintained its high economic status. This country has all access to basic education, enough food, health and welfare, while the remaining majority is desperately trying to reach those resources. Through the years, people would do anything in an attempt to stay and make a living in the perceived promise land. So the majority is divided into two categories: Some of them start to think of flying to developed countries, where they can meet their basic needs; others begin to believe that the reason of all their problems is rich peoples wealth, healthy ones health and educated ones awareness; so they try to destroy all those people and all those resources. Unfortunately, the well off living of the citizens of the United States have encouraged millions of illegal immigrants, overstaying and undocumented that such situation encouraged and became an ideal ground for terrorism. Robert W. McChesney, S. J. , (2001) the director of the Jesuit Refugee Service Immigration Detention Program in Los Angeles has sited several terrorist attacks since the early 1990’s. On Jan. 25, 1993, a lone gunman ambushed motorists waiting at a red light outside the main entrance to the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va. Two C. I. A. employees were killed, and three other people were wounded as they sat innocently in their cars. The following month a 28-year-old Pakistani immigrant by the name of Mir Aimal Kansi was charged with capital murder, subsequently found guilty and sentenced to death. As it turned out, he had come to the United States in March of 1991 on a business visa and eventually was issued a work permit. He perpetrated the terrible crime while awaiting disposition of his application for political asylum. One month after the C. I. A. murders, an explosion rocked the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six people, wounding more than a thousand and sowing widespread fear. The following year, four Muslim fundamentalists were convicted of the crime. Each was sentenced to 240 years in prison. One had applied for political asylum, while another perpetrator had overstayed a student visa. Still later in 1993, an old cargo steamer ran aground on a sandbar in the surf off New York City. The Golden Venture dumped her human cargo of 286 undocumented Chinese into the water. They swam the last few hundred yards to shore, then were arrested and detained. The Golden Venture quickly became the national news obsession of the day. Every television station in the country played and replayed scenes of what some tabloids described as a â€Å"sea invasion of illegals. † An already nervous public mainstream was now confronted with stark images of drenched Chinese nationals huddling under blankets on a windy New York beach, staring in confusion at the television cameras. After three major incidents within six months, unscrupulous elements of the press found increasing profit in sensationalizing a story of immigrant hordes and terrorists breaching permeable borders to attack the fabric of American society. The immigration and criminal terrorist story lines blurred and became conflated. Popular discourse was virulent and fearful, and politicians took notice. The solution seemed all too obvious: close the borders to â€Å"illegal† and imprison or deport those already here. Perhaps the most infamous event of this period occurred on April 19, 1995, when a Ryder truck parked outside the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City exploded. The potent mix of fertilizer and fuel oil blew half the nine-story building into oblivion, killing 168 innocent people, including 19 children, and injuring another 500. According to initial press reports, â€Å"Middle-Easterners† were reportedly seen in the vicinity of the crime and were initially regarded as possible suspects. Two days after the blast, however, a Caucasian U. S. military veteran, Timothy McVeigh, was picked up and subsequently convicted of the heinous capital crime. Legislative reaction to the sluggish economy and high-profile crimes and incidents had begun at the state level. In November of 1994 California passed Proposition 187, which placed onerous restrictions on legal and illegal immigrants. The courts subsequently overturned the initiative, but its popular political resonance remained potent.