Terrorist Pilots' Student Visas Arrive

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

[I'd be curious to know if the INS information security staffers are 
as asleep at the wheel as the rest of the organization? :)  - WK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16787-2002Mar12.html

By Dan Eggen and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 13, 2002; Page A01 

Exactly six months after terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi
flew two jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Florida flight
school that trained the men received paperwork showing that their
student visas had been approved.

The two suicide hijackers had applied for the visas through their
flight school, Huffman Aviation International, in August 2000. But
because of backlogs and an antiquated processing system at the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, notification of the approval
did not arrive at the Venice, Fla., flight school until Monday.

The belated receipt of the documents underscores the chronic problems
that continue to plague the beleaguered INS -- the target of strenuous
reform efforts since the Sept. 11 attacks -- and prompted howls of
outrage yesterday from Capitol Hill.

"This shows once again the complete incompetence of the immigration
service to enforce our laws and protect our borders," said U.S. Rep.  
F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who has co-sponsored legislation
to break up the agency. "If you look at the chronology of this, it
shows why the INS has to be dismantled and put back together again."

INS and Justice Department officials acknowledged yesterday that the
delayed mailings were embarrassing, but stressed that the change to
student visas for Atta and Alshehhi was actually approved last summer.  
The pair had entered the United States on tourist visas.

[...]



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