“VISA – for Where Terrorists Want to Be” ~ On The Right Side

“It’s difficult to immigrate, unless you’re an Islamic terrorist!”

Yesterday was “yard sale day”. My wife and I like driving around looking at our neighbors’ stuff, and make it some of our stuff. It’s getting to be a problem because we are getting older and should be getting rid of stuff, not acquiring more! But we just love a good bargain. One of these days we’ll have our own “mother of all yard sales” to get rid of it! But not just yet.

I met a group of Indians from Bombay who were also looking for yard sale bargains. As recent immigrants, they needed everything. It reminded me of when my family moved to Germany in 1981.We frequented the yard sales until we had acquired just about everything we left behind. We sold that stuff seven years later before we came back to America. (Much cheaper than shipping!)

I got to know a bit about the Indians, what they were doing here, and family status. They were pleased with my friendliness and talked eagerly about themselves. I learned that all are Hindu and that I don’t need to travel far to find a good mission field.

The Indians were here because they were sponsored by a large corporation that needs their computer skills. Otherwise, they would have had a difficult time getting into America, especially since September 11. You see, our State Department no longer wants a poor person who could be looking for a job or an opportunity to permanently improve his life, especially “third world” immigrants who want in.

One group that does not concern our State Department is Saudi Moslems. In fact, visas to America are streamlined for Saudi’s. There is no waiting, no background checks, no embarrassing interviews about their plans for us.

According to Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries, Saudi Arabia is training and issuing visas to one group of permanent visitors whose work we may regret – Islamic Jihad clerics. They are working inside our prison system with violent young black men, harnessing their anger against society. Many of these young men are now being groomed, trained and funded as homegrown al-Qaida terrorists. When they are released, America will reap the harvest that is now being sown. Such a far cry from the hope and love of the Christian workers of Prison Fellowship.

I got a letter from a gifted Christian columnist this week regarding visas to Christians. Quite different from the welcome to Saudi’s. Roberta Updegraff of Linden, PA wrote the following:

“Paco Orozco and Fabiola Juarez, 17 and 15 respectively, were scheduled to come to our presbytery as good-will ambassadors from Honduras this summer.

Our church group works closely with them and their fellow Hondurans, attempting to clean up the still massive amount of wreckage caused in 1999 by Category 5 Hurricane Mitch.

Paco and Fabiola are young people who love their native land, who are working toward their vision of a healed Honduras, and are dedicated to raising money and support for their village and their country. Toward that end, we asked them to come to Pennsylvania for a series of talks and meetings this summer.

We had arranged the entire trip for Paco and Fabiola. They called for their obligatory visa interview with the State Department in January, and were given an appointment in late June. Meanwhile, our church group bought them round-trip tickets, and arranged for their supervision every moment of their trip, including people who would fly with them from Honduras and back again.

They were due to arrive here July 3. On June 14, the State Department denied their visas, giving as their rationale that many Hondurans have no reason to return to their ravaged country. The Imigration and Naturalization Service (INS) wrote that in order to grant the visas to the applicants, it would need to see strong “social and economic ties”—read houses, businesses, land, etc.—all of which were, of course, destroyed by the hurricane.

It is ironic that I received word of this denial on the same day that The National Review ran an editorial entitled “The Visa Affair.” It reported that three of the 9/11 hijackers had obtained their visas through a Saudi Arabian website called VisaExpress.com. All 19 terrorists had legal visas. This service is offered only to Saudi residents, or non-residents who are in Saudi Arabia.

VisaExpress.com facilitates the application process of non-immigrant visas through private Saudi Arabian travel agencies. The applicants simply submit a short form and a photograph to the travel agent, and wait to receive their visa in the mail. The American consulate is supposed to review the applications it receives from the travel agencies; however, these Saudi applicants rarely come into direct contact with a U.S. citizen until they step onto American soil. The Saudi travel agents, therefore, act as de facto immigration officers.

Through VisaExpress.com, the hijackers who piloted Flight 11 into the North Tower and Flight 77 into the Pentagon bypassed, with one click of a computer mouse, the same interview process by which the INS protected our soil from the likes of Paco and Fabiola.

I would like to understand why the residents of one country (Saudi Arabia), which is a known harbor for terrorists, enjoy such status with the INS, and the residents of our ally Honduras would be the object of the most intense scrutiny by the same organization. Could it be that our government, many of whose members are friends and beneficiaries of large oil interests, has a policy which denies those who may be of superior character and yet are poor, and rewards its rich friends with the most minor obstacles to entry?

This week, the Senate angrily rejected the notion that our Pledge of Allegiance should not have God mentioned in it. Both sides of the aisle renounced the idea that our country should not be viewed as having a religious ethic as one of our intrinsic guiding principles. And yet, what exactly is the spiritual component in rewarding wealthy associates while denying those who would help their ravaged homeland? Does that not ring of “One nation, under obligation to those who can do us the most favors?”

Since September 11, we are living with the horrible consequences of choosing our visitors on the basis of political clout and financial wealth over character and family loyalty.

Yet, VisaExpress.com is still in operation. And the INS further granted Mohammed Atta’s visa renewal, three months after he’d blown up himself and 3,000 other people.

Meanwhile, Paco and Fabiola must wait until next year to see if they then are granted permission to come speak on behalf of the country they love; and bring us, as they had planned, the condolences of their countrymen for the tragedy of 9/11.”

Thanks, Roberta. But regarding sanity in the INS - don’t hold your breath