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The Macon Telegraph (Ga.) : August 11 , 2007 -- by Rosemary Jenks
(NumbersUSA)
To fully appreciate the gift Congress just sent al Qaida, recall the
Christmas season of 2001. On Dec. 22 of that year, American Airlines
Flight 63 was somewhere over the Atlantic, carrying 197 passengers
from Paris to Miami, when a stewardess noticed a man lighting matches.
As strange as it seemed, it looked like he was trying to set his
shoelaces on fire. When she tried to stop him, he bit her.
Fast-moving passengers - 9/11 fresh in their minds - flew to the aid
of this stewardess. They subdued the match-lighter and lashed him to
his seat.
Ten months later, Richard C. Reid - aka the "shoe bomber" - stood in a
federal court and defiantly admitted attempting to blow Flight 63 out
of the sky. "I'm a member of al-Qaida," he said. "I pledge to Osama
bin Laden and I'm an enemy of your country, and I don't care."
Who gave this murderous fanatic a U.S. visa? Truth be told, no one.
Under a loophole in the immigration law called the Visa Waiver Program
(VWP), all Reid needed as a British citizen to put himself in a
position to murder a plane-full of Americans was to purchase a ticket
on a U.S.-bound flight.
According to The London Daily Telegraph, a laptop captured in
Afghanistan contained evidence indicating al-Qaida clearly understood
the benefits of Reid's citizenship. "His British passport was
described as perfect cover," the paper said.
Reid was not the only al-Qaida terrorist who exploited VWP. "In
addition," said a 9/11 Commission staff report on terrorist travel,
"Zacarias Moussaoui, an al-Qaida operative suspected of being primed
as a possible pilot in the 9/11 plot, entered the United States Feb.
23, 2001, from London England using a French, 'visa waiver' passport."
Moussaoui was arrested in Aug. 2001 for staying longer than the 90
days he was routinely granted when he arrived in Chicago with this
French passport. As Moussaoui later admitted in court, he sat in jail
for three weeks declining to warn U.S. authorities of the attacks that
were about to happen.
Congress started VWP as a pilot program in 1986. It was designed to
facilitate tourism and reduce the workload of State Department
consular officers who vet foreign nationals applying for visas.
Originally, it applied to only eight countries, but was eventually
expanded to 27. In 2000, Congress made VWP permanent.
Even though VWP aided al-Qaida terrorists Reid and Moussaoui,
President Bush announced last fall that he wanted to expand the
program and use it to reward our allies in the war on terror with visa-
free travel to the United States.
Not surprisingly, that decision flabbergasted former Department of
Homeland Security Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin. "We ought to be
ending this visa-waiver program, not expanding it," he told USA Today.
"There's a reason why terrorists are keen to obtain passports from
visa-waiver countries: They don't have to undergo extensive background
checks."
Last week, Congress sided with Bush. It sent him a bill, ostensibly
designed to fulfill the remaining recommendations of the 9/11
Commission, which includes provisions making it easier for countries
to join the visa-waiver list.
The bill vastly increases the acceptable "visa-refusal" rate for
countries added to the visa-waiver list. Under current law, a country
cannot have had 2 percent or more of its nationals refused U.S. visas
if it wants to be added to the list. That jumps to 10 percent under
this bill.
That's nuts. If Congress is serious about protecting America against
terrorist attacks, the Shoe-Bomber Loophole should be closed.
Rosemary Jenks is with NumbersUSA, an immigration reform group.
Contact Congress!
We the Legal Citizens don't owe foreign vistors our nation's security
for their convienient travel!
Please Contact your U.S. Senators and U.S. House Representative
Today.
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