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Immigration: The Saudi charged in a plot to bomb U.S. targets entered the country under the same student visa deal we knocked President Bush for brokering with Saudi King Abdullah. We warned in a series of editorials starting in November 2005 that the generous Saudi immigration program would import potentially more terrorists into the country. How right we were — Bush himself was one of the targets of Khalid Aldawsari. The FBI last week arrested the 20-year-old Saudi college student in Lubbock, Texas, for allegedly plotting to bomb the ex-president's Dallas home, as well as nuclear plants and several other...

The Russian Foreign Ministry warns of a possible mirror response to the recent Canadian changes in visa application form for Russians. The Russian Union of Travel Industry has complained to the Ministry that the new Canadian form contains too inquisitive questions. In particular, Canada wants a Russian applicant to specify not only the fact of service in the army, police or intelligence, but also the term of service, military branch , unit number, its location, the rank of the applicant and his duties as well as surname, first name and patronymic of the unit commander. The union considers that a...

EW DELHI: India is confident of resolving a visa restrictions issue with the United States outside the WTO framework, a senior government official said on Thursday. India had objected to US legislation passed this month to strengthen security along the border with Mexico, funds for which will be raised through a hike in visa fees that may affect Indian companies like Infosys Technologies and Wipro. India's trade secretary, Rahul Khullar, said last week the move was not compatible with World Trade Organisation rules. The Indian government is speaking to the US government on the issue. Members of the apex Indian...

While securing the border remains the focus of national attention, the government continues ignoring millions of illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. legally but never left when their visas expired like several of the 9/11 terrorists. Nearly half of the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants fall into this category yet few are ever caught because it’s simply not a priority for the government, according to an Arizona newspaper report that provides alarming statistics on the matter. Border Patrol presence along the U.S.-Mexico border has doubled in the last five years, but there has been no effort to increase the...

Note: The following text is a quote: May 6, 2010 ICE deports Iraqi national with ties to Al Qaeda operatives SEATTLE - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today announced that an Iraqi citizen, who had ties to an Al Qaeda leader and was deemed a national security risk by a federal immigration judge, an administrative appeals court and a federal appeals court, was recently removed to his native country. Sam Malkandi, 51, was living in Kirkland, Wash., in 1999 when he attempted to fraudulently obtain a U.S. visa for Tawfiq bin Attash to travel here and purportedly receive medical...

An immigration proposal circulated by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would make it easier for foreign fashion models to work America’s catwalks. Just don’t bother asking Schumer’s office how it got there. Or why it’s now out of the bill. POLITICO put the question to Schumer’s office five times. The main response: The provision won’t be in the final version of the bill. So does that mean that the next Gisele Bundchen might have to wait in line with other foreign workers for visas?

For Mexicans seeking refuge in the United States from crime-related violence in Mexico and for many Mexicans already in the United States, there is a new hurdle. The State Department quietly changed its policy recently on many of its visas for Mexicans — mostly those who own, or want to own, businesses and houses here and who do not intend to immigrate. It reduced the amount of time those visas are valid from the three to five years that had been common to just one year. San Antonio immigration lawyer Nancy Shivers, of the Shivers & Shivers law firm, said...

In a new and ridiculous policy, the US is denying Israeli scientists who work at the Dimona reactor site an opportunity to refresh their knowedge, Joshua Pundit reports: Ma'ariv reported today that the Israeli government was stunned when every nuclear technician at Israel's Dimona reactor who had submitted visa requests to visit the United States for ongoing university education in Physics, Chemistry and Nuclear Engineering had their visa applications summarily rejected, specifically because of their association with the Dimona reactor.

SNIPPET: "Following the attacks of September 11th one of the immediate concerns was the millions of people who had entered the United States with legal temporary VISAS and had "somehow" become lost or misplaced. This was known as the VISA overstay problem. It is still estimated that as many as 30% of the people living illegally in this country have overstayed their temporary VISAS (nearly 200 million temporary visitors come to this country each year). Today, the problem of VISA Overstay remains unsolved . Last year, 39 million foreigners entered the United States, and using paper logs, DHS has confirmed...

Higgens was paid by dozens of foreign students -- mostly from the Middle East -- who were paying him to sit in class, take exams and write papers for them so their student visas would remain valid. Investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the demand was so great that he hired employees, including a blond woman who they believe posed as an Middle Eastern man to take a test. Agents are continuing to investigate the case and believe Higgins had several co-conspirators.

Federal authorities have arrested a Virginia man for allegedly helping hundreds of Somalis, possibly including ones with terrorist ties, enter the United States illegally. Anthony Joseph Tracy, 35, was arrested earlier this month, after admitting to U.S. authorities that he helped about 272 citizens of war-torn Somalia come to the United States illegally, according to documents filed in federal court. Tracy allegedly set up a business in Kenya, Noor Services Limited, that procured fraudulent Cuban travel visas for Somalis, who would then travel from Kenya to Cuba and, ultimately, to the United States, according to court documents. He allegedly traveled...

China's giant sovereign wealth fund revealed it has accumulated stakes totalling $US9.6 billion ($A11.1 billion) in major US companies including Coca-Cola, Apple and Goodyear following a buying spree last year. Most of the stakes are small, reflecting China Investment Corp's strategy of avoiding politically sensitive acquisitions. But they highlight its growing presence in global markets as it invests a portion of Beijing's $US2.4 trillion ($A2.78 trillion) in foreign reserves. The holdings were disclosed Friday in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that listed shares traded in the United States. CIC, one of the world's biggest investment funds,...

Note: Contact info deleted by me. # Note: The following text is a quote: Secretary Napolitano Designates 11 New Countries as Eligible for H-2a and H-2b Nonimmigrant Visa Programs Release Date: January 22, 2010 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano this week designated 11 new countries as eligible to participate in the H-2A and H-2B nonimmigrant visa programs, which allow U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary or seasonal jobs for which U.S. workers are not available. The 11 newly designated countries—Croatia, Ecuador, Ethiopia,...

Forget about no-fly lists, full-body scanners and air marshals. All the loud recriminations about who should have done what to stop the underwear bomber from boarding a plane to Detroit on Christmas Day miss a more fundamental point: Young, single, rootless foreign Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should never, ever have received a temporary visa into our country in the first place. No visa, no plane ticket. No ticket, no passage to airline jihad. Even absent the intelligence we had on this al Qaeda-trained operative before his fateful trip, Hillary Clinton's State Department was required to know better

A president who gives shout-outs to native Americans before taking his sweet ass time to respond to the biggest attack on a military base in US history that led to thirteen dead and 21 wounded ....... Fresh on the heels of that unprecedented show of cold blood and contempt for American life........ after initially lying by denying that they had received British intelligence, Obama officials last night finally admitted that they received British intel information on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, as reported here at Atlas. The thing is, Americans will be killed, slaughtered in these terror attacks. What is terrifying is...

Click here to find out more! Top of the Ticket Politics and commentary, coast to coast, from the Los Angeles Times « Previous Post | Top of the Ticket Home | Next Post » Boy, now he's in real trouble; Obama administration revokes U.S. visa of accused Nigerian bomber January 6, 2010 | 4:00 am Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab Under the category of looks-like-about-12-days-too-late, the State Department has announced it is revoking the U.S. visa for suspected Nigerian underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. That will show him and who knows how many others that the Obama administration really means business. The...

(CNSNews.com) –The State Department has awarded 1,011 special “diversity visas” allowing Yemeni nationals to immigrate to the United States since 2000, the year 17 U.S. sailors were killed when the U.S.S. Cole was attacked by terrorists in the Yemeni port of Aden. The "diversity visas" are designed to encourage immigration from countries that do not otherwise send significant numbers of immigrants to the United States. The State Department roster of all countries whose nationals have received "diversity visas" to immigrate to the United States in 2010, for example, shows that 2 of these immigrants will be from Luxembourg, 3 from...

The Nigerian suspected in the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner had stayed on in Yemen illegally after his visa expired three months ago and should have been stopped by authorities from leaving the country, Yemeni security officials said Thursday.

A few weeks ago, Houston immigration attorney Jay Aiyer started to see sure signs that the economy is rebounding: More of his clients requested work visas for professional foreigners and the government finally ran out of H-1B visas. “If we're seeing business visas start to be used up, it means that the overall economy is in a growth pattern,” Aiyer said. “They're not going to be bringing folks in from abroad during a recession.” For the last few years, it would have been futile for employers or their attorneys to submit H-1B applications past April, when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration...

You let a dude from a Muslim country and no luggage on a U.S.-bound plane with NO passport?! Hellooooo . . .?: While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, ‘He’s from Sudan and we do this all the time.’” Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab’s lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee. The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to...