Recent news reports regarding what have to be considered overt and bold efforts on the part of the Chinese government to spy against America should be treated as a call to action rather than just a series of unfortunate events that this country has no control over.  Yet, from the reports being published by even those in the media who consistently defend the current administration and its actions, it is clear that our government is doing little more than watching, documenting, and wagging a proverbial finger at China and asking that they not do it “any more.”

If anyone in the administration were allowed to speak without being required to invoke the tried and true “we have no comment” because “it is classified” or “it is under active investigation,” they would likely tell you that no action is being taken because it is, in essence, just too difficult to effectively address large-scale espionage in this country’s legal system. Such officials might tell us that proceeding with such efforts might put human or other intelligence resources at risk. Or that proceeding with such actions would reveal sensitive investigative techniques. Finally, they might say that even if they could proceed, such factors as the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) would make prosecuting all these spies just too difficult, cumbersome, and even perhaps risky, a process.

Arguably, they would be correct in their assumptions. But only if they were shortsighted, lacked zeal, and/or were ignorant of the greatest tool that this country has in its arsenal for dealing with those who come from elsewhere with a desire or mission to harm us -- the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).  

If we really wanted to send a clear signal to the Xi Jinping and his intelligence services, we would have already put together a working group, perhaps within the existing Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs), or one run centrally out of the FBI’s Headquarters Foreign Counterintelligence (FCI) Division, a working group of agents, analysts, lawyers, and support staff from at least three federal agencies, the FBI, the CIA, and DHS/ICE.  

Using all available sources of information, to include National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and friendly third-country intelligence services, they could develop electronic, signals, and of course human source information to formulate a clear and effective plan of action by which to move on almost every suspected foreign agent without too much fanfare, without almost any risk, and with likely maximum results in actual enforcement as well as disruption efforts.

This would be nothing new. It has been done before, with great effect and with processes and procedures developed to ensure the protection of classified information, procedures, and human assets, against the Cuban Intelligence Service (CUIS) which was engaged in very similar efforts to access military installations and even infiltrate the U.S. government.  Active cases had been looked at by the FBI and the CIA for some time, but had been deemed unprosecutable by certain officials within the Department of Justice. In re Jorge Luis Rodriguez, a published decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, was the result.  

It is still good law.  It allowed many future actions of the same sort and to the same effect to be taken.  It served as the basis for the training that was provided to a multitude of American counterespionage agents on how to use the INA to effectively do their job.

Perhaps somebody in the current administration can take a look at it and have somebody in one of its agencies look up the notes and PowerPoint presentations that must still be in some archived files within the U.S. government. Once they do, perhaps they can get everyone to work together and actually, at least in regard to this select front involving foreign national incursions, do something to protect the American public against those who seek to diminish or destroy us.

Dan Vara is retired from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He has extensive experience working with such agencies as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency in combatting espionage and terrorism through the use of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

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