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Many members of Congress have taken an interest in NR's current cover story that details how State violated the law in issuing visas to all 15 of the 9/11 terrorists whose visa applications were obtained by NR. For its part, State wishes that the whole mess would go away.
State staked out its position — "we did nothing wrong, but we've changed things so that it won't happen again" — early and has stuck to it since. When pressed at his daily briefing on Thursday as to why State has refused to take an official position about whether or not the visas should have been issued, State's press spokesman, Richard Boucher, replied: "The law says the applicant has to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the consular officer. That's the standard. That was the standard, that given the information that was presented and the lack of any other information that contradicted it, that's the standard that was met." Boucher actually states the correct standard under the law — that the applicant has the burden to prove his eligibility for a visa to the consular officer — but then he clouds the issue. Notice the following line: "and the lack of any other information that contradicted it." It is a red herring. Boucher's claim about a lack of contradictory evidence is irrelevant, because a consular officer doesn't even consider negative information unless the applicant otherwise has proven his eligibility for a visa — something that clearly did not happen in the case of the application forms of the 9/11 terrorists. Since there's no evidence to suggest that the consular officers had extra information at their fingertips to find the terrorists qualified for their visas, they didn't need "contradictory information" in order to have denied the visas. There is a possibility that the terrorists provided supporting documentation to prove visa eligibility, thereby at least doing the bare minimum to at least be considered eligible for a visa under the law. But assuming that happened — and there's no indication on the forms that this was the case — then the consular officers violated their own procedures by not recording on the application form the receipt of supplemental paperwork. Either way, the law was not followed. But even if all the necessary additional documentation was submitted, it is still unlikely that the visa applications would have qualified under the law. The reason is simple: Pre-9/11 law makes visas most elusive for the people most likely to be recruited by al Qaeda (including the 9/11 terrorists) — young, single, unemployed men. Even before 9/11, visa applicants had the burden of proof to show consular officers that they were eligible for a visa, because of a provision in the law known as 214(b). That law requires an applicant to show strong roots in his home country — such as a house, a spouse, and/or employment — in order to prove that he would be likely to return home when his visa expired. Young, single, unemployed men are the people most often refused visas under 214(b) (when it is actually enforced) for the very reasons that al Qaeda recruits them so heavily: They are shiftless and have very little to stop them from packing up and moving to a new country. There's also, sadly, very little to prevent them from committing terrorist attacks. Boucher implied last week that State would have needed "20/20 hindsight" in order to deny visas to the terrorists. But State didn't need hindsight to deny the visas to the terrorists; they needed sight — of the law. If the State Department continues to insist that the terrorists couldn't have been denied visas because their names weren't on State's watch list, then the department still has a profound misunderstanding of the law. The watch list is simply one reason a visa can be denied, but certainly not the only one. In fact, the watch list is really just the last hurdle that should be cleared — one that is unlikely to nab the many al Qaeda operatives with no criminal record. And for the reasons mentioned above, 214(b) is far more likely to screen out al Qaeda's sleeper agents than the watch list is. State still doesn't get it, but hopefully Congress does — or at least will. Congress needs to act because State's words don't exactly inspire confidence that it has accepted responsibility for its actions and moved to prevent history from repeating itself. Boucher's best defense Thursday should hardly provide comfort: "We wish the visas had not been issued." Don't we all. — Joel Mowbray is an NRO contributor and a Townhall.com columnist. |
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epresentatives
of the State Department headed to Capitol Hill on Friday morning to convince
staffers that they should ignore extensive evidence that at least 15 of
the 19 9/11 terrorists received visas that should not have been issued
under the law.
