Posted on 09/22/2007 2:07:58 PM PDT by camerakid400
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 10,000 people from countries designated as sponsors of terrorism have entered the United States under an immigration diversity program with relatively few restrictions, a report released on Friday said.
The report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the State Department's inspector general warned in 2003 that the Diversity Visa Program posed a significant risk to national security and recommended it be closed to people from countries on the U.S. list of state terrorism sponsors.
But four years later, the program remains open to people from those nations and little is known about what becomes of them once they enter the United States, the GAO said.
From 2000 to 2006, the program allowed 3,703 people from Sudan, 3,164 from Iran, 2,763 from Cuba and 162 from Syria to enter the United States and apply for permanent legal resident status, the report said. That totals 9,792 new immigrants.
"We found no documented evidence of ... immigrants from state sponsors of terrorism committing any terrorist acts," said the GAO, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.
"However ... the Department of Homeland Security, terrorism experts and federal law enforcement officials familiar with immigration fraud believe that some individuals including terrorists and criminals could use fraudulent means to enter or remain in the United States."
The report quoted a U.S. security officer in Turkey as saying it would be possible for Iranian intelligence officers to pose as applicants and not be detected if their identities were not already known to U.S. intelligence.
The GAO said the State Department expressed disappointment with the report's findings and rejected recommendations that the department compile more comprehensive data on fraud activity and formulate a new strategy for combating it.
The Department of Homeland Security did not comment on the report, the GAO said.
The Diversity Visa Program was created by the Immigration Act of 1990 and provides up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year to people from countries with relatively low rates of immigration to the United States. People from 179 countries are eligible to participate this year.
The program has enabled more than half a million immigrants -- mainly from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia -- to gain permanent legal status in the United States.
But unlike most U.S. visa programs, the diversity program does not require applicants to have family members or employers in the United States to petition on their behalf.
Applicants from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism normally are granted non-immigrant visas under limited circumstances. But the GAO report said no parallel restrictions exist for diversity visas.
A bipartisan liberalism alert.
Thank you President Bush.
I know W is getting ready to open up the windows, gates, seas and shores for more Iraqis to come in. Anyone know the numbers? I last read 7500 were allowed in each year and the UN is wanting us to take in 100K plus.
2008 can’t come fast enough for me! I’m sick of all of them!
US out of the UN, UN out of the US.
Diversity, eh? What, between Sunnis and Shias? I'm sure the St. Dept. is lobbying for more Wahhabis.
We may as well give each of them 10 free jumbo jet flight lessons and a gross of box cutters as welcome to America gifts.
More cheap labor—don’t ya know? Of course, it gets pretty expensive when we have to surveil and track their activities, not to mention clean up the damage. But hey, its all in the name of diversity, so its okay.
My sister lives in Honduras and had wanted to bring the woman who has worked for them for many years (almost 12) with her when they visit the states at Christmas. The US consulate in Honduras won’t grant the woman a visa. She’s a grandmother, has children, and grandchildren in Honduras, is not a flight risk, will be staying with my sister the entire time she’s in the states, yet she’s not allowed in (supposedly because she doesn’t have enough money in the bank...duh, the woman is widowed and lives in a third world country...she doesn’t have a lot of money.)
We let in the rich Muslims who want to go to school here, we don’t do anything to stop illegals, but when a US citizen requests a short term (10 day) visa for her friend and worker...it’s refused...go figure.
Thanks Government for putting us in hell.
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If this government admits to 10,000, you can bet they've allowed in 100,000 plus from countries that sponsor terrorist.
The business of America is business & to hell with everything and everybody else.
The only thing Stalin got wrong was who we'd sell the rope to.
They must all be in Detroitistan along with those who came here and illegally never left.
Maybe it’s insane, maybe it’s not. “Terrorism states” also persecute their own citizens. Admitting Christians (or Jews or Zoarastrians) persecuted by Muslim or Communist government is humanity not insanity. I’d have to see the balance between member of groups persecuted in their country of origin and others admitted from those countries to judge.
President Bush is happy.
Piss on this Congress, and on the bushes located in front of 1600 Pennsylvania ave.
As if it weren’t insane enough in 1990, let alone 2007.
Condi has disappointed me greatly. First she claimed and supposedly tried not to take positions as NSA, now she has largely backed the liberal establishment within the State Department and the fault of many decisions rests with her.
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