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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tadsamillionaire who wrote (8922)	12/30/2001 8:56:33 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

INS Seeks Law Enforcement Aid in Crackdown Move Targets 300,000 Foreign Nationals Living in U.S. Despite Deportation Orders By Mary Beth Sheridan Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A25 U.S. immigration authorities announced yesterday that they have enlisted the help of law enforcement agencies in a crackdown on more than 300,000 foreign nationals who have remained in the country illegally after they were ordered deported. James W. Ziglar, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the names of as many as 314,000 such foreigners would be entered in a national FBI crime database so police can help identify them. Previously, the government did not pursue most people who ignored orders to leave the country. Ziglar said the move was part of an effort to tighten domestic enforcement of immigration laws, an area of concern for lawmakers since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "This isn't a sweep" of illegal immigrants, Ziglar said. These are "people who have been on the lam, who have been accorded due process," he told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce luncheon. The order applies to foreigners who were in the United States illegally and have either skipped their deportation hearings -- resulting in an order to leave the country -- or turned up to receive deportation orders but subsequently vanished while out on bond. Their names will be placed in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, a list of millions of records consulted by more than 80,000 law enforcement agencies ranging from local police to the Secret Service. The new measure would allow even a local police officer writing a traffic ticket to determine that a violator is subject to a deportation order. Previously, only foreign nationals sought on criminal charges, as opposed to immigration violations, were entered into the FBI database. INS spokesman Joe Karpinski said that local or state police who discovered deportees would turn them over to the INS, which would return them to their home countries. He estimated the new system would lead to the discovery of up to 10 percent of the missing deportees each year. The rest, he acknowledged, might manage to stay in the country undetected. Karpinski said it would take about a year to gather the names of as many as 314,000 people from INS offices and log them into the FBI database. Ziglar's announcement represented a shift for the INS, which has devoted little attention to people, known as "absconders," who disappear after deportation orders. Spokesmen said the agency has lacked the staff to go after many of the 7 million to 8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and has focused on a few high-priority groups, mainly criminals and immigrant smugglers. Some of the hundreds of thousands of "absconders" disappeared after receiving a final deportation notice, which is known in immigrant communities as a "run letter" because that is what it prompts many to do. But enforcement has been so limited that many deportees do not bother hiding, said Susan F. Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. "They don't even run anymore. They know the INS won't go to their house to pick them up," she said. Ziglar said his announcement was not part of the government's anti-terrorism campaign, but instead was aimed at making the INS "more effective." Still, it comes after alarm from legislators over the government's lax enforcement of immigration laws. Three of the 19 men blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes had stayed in the United States illegally beyond the limits imposed by their visas. Ben Ferro, an immigration consultant and retired INS district director, said the crackdown was long overdue. "Up until now, the INS had placed these absconders in the lowest possible priority," Ferro said. "It's courageous because he [Ziglar] is going to catch some flak over this" as people are removed from jobs, homes and families and sent back to their native countries. Even some pro-immigration activists seemed unfazed. "What's important to know about these folks [is], they did have their day in court," said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington group. "In the post-September 11th context, we've seen a lot of people's constitutional rights trampled on. It's those people I'm much more worried about." Staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report. © 2001 The Washington Post Company

To: Tadsamillionaire who wrote (8922)	12/30/2001 8:58:36 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

James W. Ziglar, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the names of as many as 314,000 such foreigners would be entered in a national FBI crime database so police can help identify them. Previously, the government did not pursue most people who ignored orders to leave the country. It is about time the INS cracked down on people who were ordered to leave the country.

To: Tadsamillionaire who wrote (8922)	12/30/2001 9:04:02 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Flight School Warned F.B.I. of Suspicions Instructor Said Airplane 'Can Be Used as a Bomb' The New York Times December 22, 2001 THE SUSPECT By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 - An instructor at a Minnesota flight school warned the F.B.I. in August of his suspicion that a student who was later identified as a part of Osama bin Laden's terror network might be planning to use a commercial plane loaded with fuel as a weapon, a member of Congress and other officials said today. The officials, who were briefed by the school, said the instructor warned the Federal Bureau of Investigation in urgent tones about the terrorist threat posed by the student, Zacarias Moussaoui. Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Morrocan descent, was indicted last week on charges of conspiring in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Representative James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, who received the briefing and is the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, said the instructor called the bureau several times to find someone in authority who seemed willing to act on the information. Mr. Oberstar said the instructor's warnings could not have been more blunt. The representative said, "He told them, `Do you realize that a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb?' " Mr. Oberstar described the instructor as "an American hero" whose actions resulted in Mr. Moussaoui's arrest and might have prevented another suicide hijacking. Congressional officials said the account by the school, the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, outside Minneapolis, raised new questions about why the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies did not prevent the hijackings. Officials said the Arizona branch of the school alerted the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year after finding that a student spoke little English. The Saudi student, Hani Hanjour, has been described as being at the controls of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. The instructor in Minnesota has not been identified. But Congressional officials said he was a former military pilot who grew suspicious after encounters in which Mr. Moussaoui was belligerent and evasive about his background and because he was so adamant about learning to fly a 747 jumbo jet despite his clear incompetence as a pilot. Mr. Moussaoui, 33, was arrested in August on immigration charges. But despite the urging of the school and federal agents in Minnesota and despite a warning from the French that Mr. Moussaoui was linked to Muslim extremists, F.B.I. headquarters here resisted a broader investigation until after Sept. 11. Last week, he became the first person indicted for involvement in the events of Sept. 11, charged with conspiring with Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Mr. Moussaoui faces the death penalty. Some federal law enforcement agents said they believed that Mr. Moussaoui was intended to be the 20th hijacker. Until now, the bureau and the flight school have been unwilling to provide details on what raised suspicions about Mr. Moussaoui. But several weeks ago, the school offered to brief a handful of House members and their aides who were involved in aviation. Two lawmakers were from Minnesota, Mr. Oberstar and Martin Sabo, a fellow Democrat, and they first discussed the briefings today in The Star Tribune in Minneapolis. In interviews today, Mr. Oberstar and a spokesman for Mr. Sabo said the lawmakers were alarmed by what they heard. They withheld information from the public about the briefings until this week, they said, because they did not want to interfere with the inquiry that led to Mr. Moussaoui's indictment. Mr. Sabo, ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, was traveling today. His chief of staff, Michael S. Erlandson, who was at the briefing, said the flight academy's account was scary. "The Pan Am people," Mr. Erlandson said, "are heroes who worked very diligently to make themselves heard at the F.B.I." He said Mr. Moussaoui raised the suspicions in a first encounter, when he told the instructor that he was from France but refused to converse in French with the instructor, who also spoke it. The suspicions grew, Mr. Erlandson said, when Mr. Moussaoui repeatedly proved himself incapable of understanding basic flying techniques but still insisted on learning how to fly a 747, the largest commercial jet. Mr. Erlandson said the flight school had arranged the briefings. "They called up," he said, "and said that they were constituents and that they had an almost unbelievable story they would like to share." A spokeswoman for the academy did not return calls for comment. Spokesmen for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Federal Aviation Administration also had no comment. Mr. Oberstar said he was also troubled by the F.A.A. response to the Phoenix instructors' concerns about Mr. Hanjour, who enrolled speaking little English, which is required for all commercial pilots. According to the school, it contacted the F.A.A. this year to ask what it should to do with Mr. Hanjour. Mr. Oberstar said the agency offered the services of one of its employees to help tutor Mr. Hanjour. nytimes.com

To: Tadsamillionaire who wrote (8922)	12/30/2001 9:04:50 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

"Congressional officials said the account by the school, the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, outside Minneapolis, raised new questions about why the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies did not prevent the hijackings." nytimes.com The above is an excerpt from the article, " Flight School Warned F.B.I. of Suspicions Instructor Said Airplane 'Can Be Used as a Bomb' in The New York Times December 22, 2001 By PHILIP SHENON ........................................................................................................................................ The Director or Head of the FBI should be fired. The FBI falls under the Justice Department so John Ashcroft, the Attorney General ,should be censored or fired for this lapse of security. JMOP- Mephisto