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Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores
By Michelle Malkin
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Chapter 1 (Continued)
What Would Mohamed Do?
The visa-vending machine
In the six months following the attacks, the State Department issued more than fifty thousand new tourist, business, and student visas to non-Israeli visitors from the Middle East-and another 140,000 new visitor visas to individuals across southern Asia, a haven for al Qaeda.
In addition, more than nine thousand people born in the Middle East (excluding Israel) and more than nineteen thousand from South Asia received immigrant visas between September 2001 and February 2002. In the last five years alone, nearly 1.5 million visitors and immigrants from fifteen nations where Osama bin Laden's network has a large presence streamed into the United States.
Between January 2000 and November 2001, nearly 4,800 Arab and Muslim young men from al Qaeda strongholds entered the United States legally on temporary visas issued by the State Department. After the September 11 attacks, the Justice Department was able to track down fewer than half of those men for questioning. Welcomed with open arms, thousands more of these Middle Eastern guests continue to walk through the front door and disappear without a trace.
Now, suppose a known bin Laden operative brazenly tried to apply for a visa today under his true identity. Would you believe he might still have a chance of getting in? State Department form DS-156-the official nonimmigrant visa application-asks the following questions: "Do you seek to enter the U.S. to engage in export control violations, subversive or terrorist activities, or any other unlawful purpose? Are you a member of a terrorist organization as currently designated by the U.S. Secretary of State?"
According to the form, "A YES answer does not automatically signify ineligibility for a visa." That's right. "Mere" membership in a terrorist organization is no bar to coming to America for pleasure, education, business-or bloody subversion.
After September 11, it seemed America might get serious about stemming the flow of visitors from al Qaeda-friendly countries. "Arab, Muslim Men to Get Tougher U.S. Visa Screening," announced the Washington Post. The new security measures introduced in November 2001 included longer wait times for FBI background checks on Arab and Muslim male applicants from twenty-five countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
But even as the security measures were being introduced, American diplomats in Saudi Arabia rushed to assure Middle Eastern tourists that visa eligibility criteria had not changed. The State Department stressed that a supplemental application form for young Arab and Muslim males aged sixteen to forty-five was temporary. And despite the fact that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia, and three of them skipped the usual interview process through the Visa Express program so prevalent there, the program remained in place nine months after the attacks.
If the next Mohamed Atta can't get the overseas visa-vending machine to work by legal means, foreign-born officers working in American consulates are ripe targets for bribery. United States consular officer Arcelia Betansis, a Mexican-born, naturalized American citizen stationed in Juarez, Mexico, was convicted in April 2002 for accepting bribes and gratuities in return for expediting visa approvals for 497 people, including drug traffickers. Yemeni national Abdullah Noman, who was arrested in October 2001 and pled guilty in May 2002, used his position as a United States consular officer in Saudi Arabia to sell false visas to hundreds of illegal immigrants from the Middle East. Federal authorities have no idea where these immigrants are.
Said Assistant United States Attorney Lee Vilker: "Once they slip into the country, it's almost impossible to track them down." In July, the State Department disclosed that federal authorities were seeking twenty-nine aliens suspected of bribing U.S. embassy workers in Qatar for visas. The scheme allegedly involved a total of seventy-one Middle East nationals and at least two U.S. embassy workers (one a Jordanian national, the other a U.S. citizen). Also among the alleged participants: two bogus visa-holders who reportedly lived with the September 11 hijackers the summer before the attacks.
A Heinz 57 variety of visas
Attention terrorists: Are you having a hard time getting into England? How about France? Or even Canada? Tired of being turned down for a visa? Why not try the United States of America, where our motto is: "No visa, no problem"? We have already given out thousands of visas to people who can't get admitted to other countries. Terrorists like you. And you. So what are you waiting for? Yes. Whether you're a suicide bomber, a shoe bomber, or even the big man himself-you can't be denied. U.S. visas: Everywhere you terrorists want to be.
That was how comedian Jay Leno spoofed America's lax entrance policies earlier this spring. He and his sketch-writers are closer to the truth than they could possibly imagine. We peddle visas and green cards (for permanent legal residents) like used cars: cheap, quick, and sleazy. In 2000, 10 million visitors arrived on short-term tourist visas, while another 2.5 million traveled here on business visas, and millions more obtained longer-term visas and green cards.
In April 2002, the INS proposed eliminating the minimum six-month stay guaranteed to tourists with B-1 business and B-2 pleasure visas (which eighteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers had legally obtained to gain initial entry into America). But as Cleveland immigration lawyer Jeffrey Moeller asks: "Whether you give them thirty days or six months, who cares? Once they've crossed the border they have the capacity to disappear."
With a total of fifty-seven categories of immigrant and nonimmigrant visas-many of which are for sale to the highest foreign bidder-bin Laden-funded terrorists have myriad paths to choose from. Here are just a few:
Buy a high-tech ticket
Data from the United States Department of Labor reveals that four Muslim charities under federal investigation for ties to terrorism applied for high-tech, or H-1B visas, on behalf of at least sixteen workers over the past few years. Three of the charities-the Global Relief Foundation of Bridgeview, Illinois, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Richardson, Texas, and the Benevolence International Foundation of Palos Heights, Illinois-had their assets frozen by the Treasury Department after the September 11 attacks. The fourth, Islamic Relief Worldwide in Burbank, California, accepted $50,000 from an alleged bin Laden front group at its British office, according to Treasury officials.
The H-1B program grants nonimmigrant visas to nearly 200,000 "temporary" foreign workers every year to fill high-tech positions. The cost to applicants is $1,000 per visa, which allows a foreigner to stay in the United States for up to six years-and later apply for permanent residency. Applicants are required to have at least a bachelor's degree in a field related to their proposed employment. This foreign employment program, launched in 1992, has quickly evolved into another all-purpose visa giveaway. Fashion models, artists, and "essential support personnel" for foreign entertainers or athletes are among the "highly skilled" workers eligible for H-1B status.
Leaving aside the questionable rationale for such a large foreign-worker program at a time when the technology industry is undergoing layoffs, H-1B fraud is out of control and poses a substantial national security threat in the War on Terror. The GAO found that the INS had no reliable system for tracking _H-1B applications. As a result, immigration officials exceeded the legal cap on H-1B visas by untold thousands.
INS employees told the GAO that "because of pressure to adjudicate cases quickly, they did not routinely use investigations staff to look into potentially fraudulent applications because doing so would take more time and reduce the number of applications they could complete." In addition, H-1B workers from China were recently charged with conspiring to steal sensitive technology from American companies and selling it to firms in their native land.
The Bush administration has no plans to bar H-1B applicants from terrorist-friendly nations, or otherwise to curtail the program.
Diversity lottery: Play to win
Thanks to Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, tens of thousands of foreigners can gamble for a shot at one of America's highly coveted permanent resident immigrant visas ("green cards") every year. Senator Kennedy essentially championed the visa lottery as a way for Irish illegal immigrants to gain amnesty. But it has become yet another way for individuals from al Qaeda-friendly nations to get their foot in the door.
During the past five years, 7,409 lottery visas were awarded to applicants from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Afghanistan. In June 2002, the State Department announced that in the most recent lottery, terrorist-friendly Saudi Arabia and Egypt drew 38 and 1,551 lucky winners respectively; al Qaeda stronghold Yemen had 44 diversity lottery recipients. Afghanistan claimed 45 winners; official state sponsors of terrorism Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, and Syria clinched a total of 2,259 lottery winners.
Egyptian immigrant Hesham Mohamed Hadayet underscores the danger of blindly granting visa lottery tickets to foreigners from America-hating regions of the world. On July 4, 2002, Hadayet shot two people to death and wounded three others at the El Al Israel Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport. How did he get here and stay here? He entered legally in July 1992 on a six-month visa. After overstaying, he filed for permanent residency, but was denied in 1996 for reasons that the INS says are "unclear." The INS began deportation procedures, but in 1997 the gunman won permanent residency status through his wife-one of the thousands of lucky winners from the Middle East who obtained a visa through the Diversity Lottery program.
The next Visa Lottery drawing is scheduled for fall 2002. A spokeswoman told me the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs has no plans to bar entrants from terrorist-sponsoring nations. Good luck, Mohamed.
The so-called "Diversity Visa Lottery," part of the 1990 Immigration Act, is conducted by the State Department and allots up to 55,000 such visas to individuals from mostly non-Western countries around the world, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and Sudan, and other terrorist havens across Africa and Asia.
There is no application fee or special application form. The only eligibility rules are a clean criminal record, a clean bill of health, and a high school diploma/equivalent or two years of work experience. Illegal immigrants in the United States are eligible. Winners can apply for residency for family members. Despite photo and signature requirements, fraud is rampant.
Study with the enemy
September 11 terrorist Hani Hanjour and 1993 World Trade Center bomber Eyad Ismoil entered America legally with F-1 student visas, then dropped out of sight after failing to enroll or complete their required coursework. Among the more than one million foreigners who now hold student visas in the United States, how many others are sleeper terrorists who have slipped through the cracks and disappeared?
In May 2002, federal prosecutors cracked down on a separate student visa fraud ring involving 130 foreigners accused of paying substitutes to take English-language proficiency exams to meet their visa requirements. Nearly sixty Middle Eastern men and women in thirteen states were arrested. One of the suspects had flight manuals, photos of people outside the World Trade Center, and a date book with only one entry: September 11. Another suspect also had apparent flight training materials in his car. Yet another alleged bogus test-taker linked to the ring, Saudi national Saleh Ali Almari, came here on a student visa and enrolled at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, in the fall of 2000, but did not take classes.
Between 1989 and 1995, nearly one hundred Middle Easterners paid bribes to community college teachers and administrators in San Diego-the home base for at least two of the September 11 terrorists-in exchange for counterfeit admission papers and grades, which allowed them to get student visas. The mastermind of the scheme, Iranian-American businessman Sam Koutchesfahani, pled guilty to visa fraud in 1998, along with officials from six colleges. But the whereabouts of his "students," who poured a total of $350,000 into the plot, remain frighteningly unknown.
Elite U.S. colleges and universities continue to help train students from America's most hostile enemy countries. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Sudan-all listed by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism-sent nearly ten thousand students to the United States on academic visas between 1991 and 1996.
Many of these students enrolled in programs that could be used to build biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Not until May 2002 did the federal government announce plans to intensify screening of foreign student visa applicants seeking to study nuclear and missile technology, aircraft propulsion, information security, and marine technology. In addition to these thousands of students from official state sponsors of terrorism, al Qaeda-friendly countries send thousands more. In the 2000-2001 school year, Saudi Arabia sent more than 5,000 students; Mohamed Atta's native Egypt sent nearly 2,300.
The lack of a comprehensive, mandatory tracking system to ensure that foreign students show up at their designated schools and leave after graduation makes the F-1 program a wide portal for terrorists. To this day, the government has no idea how many of the one million foreigners admitted into America on student visas are actually going to school in compliance with their visas.
In May 2002, INS commissioner James Ziglar and Attorney General John Ashcroft trumpeted the launch of a new Internet-based foreign student tracking system scheduled to be implemented in July 2002. But participation in the system by more than seventy thousand American schools-many of whose leaders oppose the tracking system as an administrative nuisance-will be voluntary. The INS is hoping for full mandatory participation by the end of January 2003. But just a few weeks after the ambitious announcement by Ziglar and Ashcroft, the Justice Department's Inspector General raised "serious concerns about the INS's ability to fully implement" the system on time.
Two wings and a prayer
As with every other major visa category, terrorists and other individuals with ties to terrorism have slipped through the religious worker visa program. Among those in the United States with religious-based visas: 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, and four Palestinian men who worked for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine-both Muslim charities that have been tied by the State Department to the terrorist organization Hamas.
The religious worker visa program allows thousands of foreigners to fly to America to fill domestic shortages among ministries, nunneries, and other religious professionals. In 1998, some eleven thousand foreigners received these "R" visas. In 2000, the GAO highlighted persistent lapses in policing applications for fraud during the past decade. "Neither INS nor [the] State [Department] knows the overall extent of fraud in the religious worker visa program," the GAO reported. Federal investigators discovered fraud rings involving churches and other religious institutions based in Colombia, Fiji, and Russia.
There are no plans to prevent the R visa program from being used in the future as a Radical Muslim Cleric Immigration plan.
Cashing in
Foreigners from some al Qaeda-friendly countries (including Egypt and Pakistan) can enter the U.S. if they fork over a $150,000 investment and agree to manage U.S.-based businesses. Well-funded terrorists would be wise to choose this visa option. These E-2 "investor treaty" visas take as little as two days to process and can be renewed indefinitely. Investors can bring their spouses, children, and key employees with them.
In March 2002, an INS internal memo noted that $300 million was transferred into the United States illegally under another investor program, and that "open questions remain as to the background of the vast majority of the alien beneficiaries of this program." This EB-5 immigrant investor visa law allows up to ten thousand wealthy foreigners and their families each year to buy immigrant visas in exchange for business investments. The law says the down payment must be at least $500,000.
But former INS officials-turned-private-consultants-such as former INS general counsel Paul Virtue-successfully lobbied for loosened financial rules. Supposedly, the EB-5 program uses the promise of citizenship to attract substantial overseas investment to aid struggling American businesses.
But the benefits of this economic development plan have gone mostly to former immigration officials, who formed lucrative limited partnerships to cash in on their access. Immigrant investors paid token fees to these partnerships. The partnerships secured promissory notes for the remainder of the foreign investments, which were forgiven after investors received their permanent green cards. Former INS employees, working for these partnerships, aggressively lobbied their old colleagues to accept the dubious financial arrangements. As a result, aliens were paying a fraction of the required minimum investment, and almost all of the monies went to the general partners and the companies who set up the limited partners. A Baltimore Sun investigation found "only a tiny fraction of the money ever made it to the companies seeking assistance."
Worse, the INS admitted in a report to Congress that it "is unable to quantify the incidence of fraudulent activity in the EB-5 program."
Despite recent reforms, the scam continues around the world. The program is well known in the Middle East. Here is what one immigration firm, Acker Choquette Advocates, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, promises immigrant investor applicants on its Web site: "Financing is available, with low initial cash investment of US $136,000.00. Minimum physical presence in the US is all that is required, along with the intent to remain a permanent resident."
No visa necessary
Jay Leno was joking, but it's the truth: American visas are everywhere terrorists want to be. For those terrorists who can't get a visa, though, there's still no need to despair. You can leave home without it and still fly into our country legally.
Travel without a visa
The "Transit Without a Visa" program was created in 1952 to help with the resettlement of World War II refugees, most of whom had no identity or travel documents to obtain visas. But half a century after its inception, this obsolete humanitarian program has morphed into a lucrative marketing gimmick for the travel industry. The program waives visa requirements for passengers who are ostensibly passing briefly through the United States on their way to final destinations abroad. During the past three years, more than 5 million airline passengers-accounting for roughly 5 percent of all foreign nationals entering the country through airports-were routed here under the Transit Without a Visa program.
Airlines are responsible for guarding and escorting passengers in transit, and are supposedly liable for damages when they cannot confirm that program participants have actually departed the country. But since the INS does not keep arrival and departure records on a majority of these passengers, the airlines are unaccountable.
In fact, FBI and INS agents suspect that private guards hired by major airlines at Los Angeles International Airport smuggled visa-less Middle Eastern passengers elsewhere into the United States as part of organized rings. In June 2002, a federal immigration inspector and two private airport security guards were arrested and indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly taking part in an alien-smuggling conspiracy that allowed travelers transiting from the Philippines (where al Qaeda has spread) to slip out of Los Angeles International Airport without visas.
A report by the Justice Department Inspector General after the September 11 attacks warned of continuing lapses in the transit program and concluded that the agency "must take immediate action...to enhance national security." But representatives of the transportation industry argued that terminating the program would be "inconvenient to the traveler" and would result in a loss of business for the airlines. As of July 2002, no action had been taken to curtail the Transit Without a Visa program.
Visa Waiver program
Another 17 million visitors to the United States didn't need to bother with visas last year. Pushed vigorously by the hurry-up-and-move-'em-through lobby (the airline, travel, and tourism industries), the Visa Waiver program allows tourists from twenty-eight countries to come to the United States for tourism or business for ninety days or less without obtaining the key entry document used to screen out foreign threats.
To "facilitate low-risk travel" to the United States, foreign participants in the program need only bring valid passports. Before the ninety-day time period is up, many travelers simply apply for an extension of their stays-or illegally overstay-then settle in comfortably for permanent visits. As with every other "low-risk" visa program created to ease entry into the country, fraud is rampant and largely unchecked. Some 100,000 passports issued by Visa Waiver countries have been stolen in recent years. Belgium has more lost or stolen passports than any other Visa Waiver program participant but has retained its eligibility.
Worse, federal investigators found that even after September 11, INS inspectors at four international airports-Miami, Dulles-Washington, D.C., Honolulu, and John F. Kennedy in New York City-were failing to check for stolen and fraudulent passports; they were also failing to check visa-less passengers' names on terrorist watch lists.
So, America-haters abroad: Just follow in the footsteps of suspected al Qaeda members Zacarias ("20th hijacker") Moussaoui and Richard (the Shoe Bomber) Reid, and get yourself a passport from France or the United Kingdom. Or one of the other twenty-eight approved nations: Japan, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Australia, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Singapore, Uruguay, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra, Brunei, and San Marino.
That's the ticket.
Remember the spiritual exhortation that the terrorist hijackers were instructed to recite before their deadly mission: "Oh God, you who open all doors, please open all doors for me, open all venues for me, open all avenues for me."
One year after the September 11 attacks, Mohamed's prayer is still being answered. From our consular offices to our airports, seaports, and land borders, and from our visa policies to our asylum policies to our naturalization policies and deportation policies, every front, back, and side door to America has been left swinging in the wind. Our government remains ill-equipped, incapable, and unwilling to keep out, track down, and remove foreign law-breakers. We remain paralyzed by political correctness, greed, and schizophrenia about enforcing our immigration rules.
Before the next Mohamed traipses through the door and leads more hordes of America-haters on another mission of death and destruction, we must decide once and for all:
Will we stop putting tourism dollars over national security?
Will we stop putting diplomatic interests over national security?
Will we stop putting customer service over national security?
Will we stop putting ethnic votes over national security?
Will we stop putting alien rights over national security?
Only when we put national security first can we defeat the Mohamed Attas of the world.
From Invasion by Michelle Malkin. Regnery Publishing
Used by permission.
Click here to buy the book
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