Did Immigration Loopholes Contribute to the Attacks?

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One month after the terrorist attacks that rocked our nation, the word is shocked that lax immigration laws may have been at fault. Will the reigns be getting tighter? 

Once upon a time two men entered the United States on tourist visas then proceeded to attend flight school, a non-tourist activity, where they learned to navigate the type of airliners they would soon hijack and slam into the Twin Towers in New York City.

The hijacker who plowed another jet full of civilians into the Pentagon was trained as a pilot in the USA after coming from Saudi Arabia on a student visa for an English course in California. His total cost was $110 for the application and he had to show evidence that he had a couple of thousand dollars to support himself during his stay. No one followed up on whether he attended the English class, which of course he did not.

Inundated with visa applications, Consular officers claim that they cannot thoroughly investigate applicants for visas, nor can they follow up on their whereabouts in the States. Once they have entered the country, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the State Department and law enforcement generally have no idea whether the visa holder is complying with any of the terms of his or her visa.

Critics and opponents of immigration have long bemoaned a system that they say is riddled with holes and inconsistencies which result in dire consequences for this country's security. After September 11th, 2001, people are taking these complaints a bit more seriously. 

Like airport procedures, the temporary visa and visa waiver process has been designed to ease and promote commerce, tourism, business travel and even political agendas, lending itself to convenience and putting safety and security in second place on the list of priorities.

Unbelievably, the State Department manual for consular officers states that while
conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, or the execution of the same would bar a foreigner from securing a visa (duh), simply being a member of a terrorist organization or even applauding terrorism would not necessarily disqualify someone from entering the United States.

Initial investigations indicated that Mr. Atta, the ringleader of September 11th events, was a known member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which is affiliated with Osama bin Laden. He also reportedly met with Iraqi intelligence officials not long before the attacks. Despite all this, he entered on a valid visa on more than one occasion, even after an overstay on one visa, and moved about the country freely. Yes, in the land of the free, even terrorists have rights.

A Frenchman, Zacarias Moussaoui, was suspected in France of engaging in terrorist activities yet he too entered the United States on a student visa. Only when he made suspicious comments at a Minnesota flight school was he arrested.

It may not seem so to the many immigrants who struggle with immigration forms and laws, but for those with know how and money, the United States is essentially a country without borders.

With millions of people entering the country every year on a variety of visas, the government concedes that filtering out all terrorists is a virtual impossibility. Some of the worst terrorists in this country were on expired visas and there is currently no way to ensure that it won't happen again.

The INS is so backlogged that schools are not informed of a new student's entry into the United States. Furthermore, the schools are not required to check a visa before accepting a foreigner for enrollment.

Background checks are sometimes performed, but in a haphazard manner that is further complicated when terrorists use fake or stolen passports and visas. There is no global tracking system of lost and stolen immigration documents.

In 1993, after the first attack on the World Trade Center, Congress strove to improve tracking of foreign visitors, businessmen and students. Stiff resistance due to these new inconveniences resulted in endless delays.

Hindsight is always crystal clear, and lawmakers are scrambling to tighten the immigration reigns so that such loopholes cannot continue to facilitate the type of terror this country saw on September 11, 2001. How far they go and who will be effected remains to be seen.


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10/12/01