August 30, 2005

"Study: Terrorists Exploit Immigration Laws"

The CIS has released a new study written by Janice Kephart, former counsel for the 9/11 commission: "Moving Beyond the 9/11 Staff report on Terrorist Travel".

From the AP report "Study: Terrorists Exploit Immigration Laws":

Suspected or convicted foreign-born terrorists have routinely exploited federal immigration laws over the last decade to enter or remain in the United States illegally...

"The attack of 9/11 was not an isolated instance of al-Qaida infiltration into the United States," the 46-page report found.

"In fact, dozens of operatives both before and after 9/11 - other than the 9/11 hijackers - have managed to enter and embed themselves in the United States, actively carrying out plans to commit terrorist acts against U.S. interests or support designated foreign terrorist organizations," the report concluded. "For each to do so, they needed the guise of legal immigration status to support them."

Overall, 59 of 94 foreign-born nationals who were either convicted or indicted on terror charges broke federal immigration laws to enter or remain in the country between 1993 and 2004, the report found...

The report identified many of the immigrants as affiliated with at least one terror organization, including 40 with al-Qaida, 16 with Hamas, 16 with the Palestinian or Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and six with Hezbollah...

The AP follows that up with a statement from DHS asserting that they're working on it. And, in other news, shoelace production is up 42% in this quarter. Then:

A spokesman for the National Immigration Forum, an immigration advocacy group, did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Monday evening...

I previously provided excerpts of the 9/11 Commission's Staff Report. I don't know what overlap exists between that and this study.

Posted to Immigration_terror at August 30, 2005 08:02 AM

Comments