Immigration 3

I would hope that this excerpt from Cooperative Research (find these entries under their dates in the sections titled, "Saudi Arabia" and "Soviet-Afghan War", respectively) will end all the idiotic coversations of the "status of illegal immigrants" in connection with "terrorism." It was simple for all of the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks to enter this country by fooling the bureaucracy into giving them LEGAL documents, never mind the relative ease of obtaining fake documents. Remember these are people who arrive at airports and must speak face to face with border control agents, not people who risk their lives running through the desert. And, whether or not you are willing to believe that the CIA actually was responsible for getting them into the country, I guess that is taking the discussion in another direction, but you can be sure the relavence of terrorism doesn't have anything to do with whether the guy who delivered your chinese takeout has a green card.

May 2001

The US introduces the “Visa Express” program in Saudi Arabia, which allows any Saudi Arabian to obtain a visa through his or her travel agent instead of appearing at a consulate in person. An official later states, “The issuing officer has no idea whether the person applying for the visa is actually the person in the documents and application.” [US News and World Report, 1/12/2002; US Congress, 10/20/2002] At the time, warnings of an attack against the US led by the Saudi Osama bin Laden are higher than they had ever been before— “off the charts” as one senator later puts it. [US Congress, 10/18/2002; Los Angeles Times, 6/18/2002] A terrorism conference had recently concluded that Saudi Arabia was one of four top nationalities in al-Qaeda. [Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), 6/19/2002] Five hijackers—Khalid Almihdhar, Abdulaziz Alomari, Salem Alhazmi, Saeed Alghamdi, and Fayez Ahmed Banihammad—use Visa Express over the next month to enter the US. [US Congress, 10/20/2002] Even 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will successfully get a US Visa through this program in July (using a false name but real photograph), despite a posted $2 million reward for his capture. [Los Angeles Times, 2/27/2004] Only three percent of Saudi visa applicants are turned down by US consular officers in fiscal 2000 and 2001. In contrast, about 25 percent of US visa seekers worldwide are rejected. Acceptance is even more difficult for applicants from countries alleged to have ties to terrorism such as Iraq or Iran. [Washington Post, 12/1/2001] The widely criticized program is finally canceled in July 2002.

and:

Sept '87-Mar '89

Michael Springmann, head US consular official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later claims that during this period he is “repeatedly told to issue visas to unqualified applicants.” He turns them down, but is repeatedly overruled by superiors. Springmann loudly complains to numerous government offices, but no action is taken. He is fired and his files on these applicants are destroyed. He later learns that recruits from many countries fighting for bin Laden against Russia in Afghanistan were funneled through the Jeddah office to get visas to come to the US, where the recruits would travel to train for the Afghan war. According to Springmann, the Jeddah consulate was run by the CIA and staffed almost entirely by intelligence agents. This visa system may have continued at least through 9/11, and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers received their visas through Jeddah, possibly as part of this program. [Fox News, 8/18/2002; Associated Press, 8/17/2002; BBC, 12/6/2001]