Posted on 08/13/2006 3:22:59 PM PDT by cornfedcowboy
WASHINGTON -- Immigration officials have now picked up all but two of the 11 Egyptian exchange students who came to the U.S. for a summer course in Montana but never showed up for classes.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tracked three of the students to Des Moines. They were arrested at about 8 p.m. Friday, and are being held in the Polk County Jail.
They will be here until a federal immigration judge decides if they will face charges or be deported. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents won't say what led them to find these students in Des Moines or where they were staying. The students are Ahmed Laket, 19, Mohamed Moghazy, 20, and 18-year-old Moustafa Gafary. Agents are not releasing their pictures.
Others were picked up earlier in New Jersey, Maryland, Chicago and Minnesota. They were part of a group of 17 who arrived in New York July 29 en route to a month-long program at Montana State University in Bozeman. Six reported on time, but the 11 others were no-shows.
Immigration officials said the students are not considered a terrorism risk, but all the no-shows now face deportation.
Montana State contacted Homeland Security officials after repeatedly trying to contact the missing students, under procedures put into place after Sept. 11, 2001, to track foreign students.
Are you sure you're not a Democrat? You seem to be trying to make these guys out to be innocent victims of their own ignorance...and you seem to be bending over backwards doing it. What is so hard about considering the possibility that these guys are part of a group that wants to do harm to Americans? You've managed to come up with more excuses for these guys than they have themselves.
Good question. Somehow I doubt we'll ever be privy to that info.
The fact the FBI is directing them to immigration court suggests that even the FBI doesn't see any problem other than playing games with their visas.
All I'm doing is dealing with the little evidence we have as carefully as I deal with the evidence in the allegations against our troops in Iraq.
Democrats are not at all careful about condemning innocent people to death so watch your mouth.
Remind me not to ask any of these guys the way to the pyramids.
I totally agree. I took my first trip overseas this past May. I traveled to Belgium, Netherlands, France, and the UK. I'm a 59 year old female and traveled by myself. Before I went, I made sure I sat down and looked at maps and books, trying to familiarize myself where things were and how I had to get from point A to point B. I learned a long time ago, the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. I don't speak any other languages, and a lot of the people I dealt with were from countries other than the ones I was visiting, yet I never got lost and never had a problem communicating with anyone during the whole 33 days I was gone. If these guys are as stupid as we're being led to believe, they had no business being allowed to come here in the first place.
You're assuming of course that the Montana School didn't provide them with any instructions or directions in Arabic when they signed up for the course. One would have to believe that the school sent instruction packets to each and every student before they left Egypt for Montana. Why couldn't the packet have been in the language of their country as well as English? And why wouldn't they have to possess some understanding of the English language in order to be enrolled in the English Language/History/Culture program to begin with? It was a month long program. You can't possibly teach someone to speak fluent English or learn the history and culture of this country in such a short time unless they have the ability to communicate at least a bit in English already.
Well we know the guy who got bagged at O'Hare in Chicago didn't have his plane ticket scammed away from him. Somehow he managed to get himself to Chicago from New York. At O'Hare, he was trying to board a plane for Montana with a ticket that required his boarding in New York. For some reason after he heard they were looking for him, he decided he was going to head to Montana. Only problem was that he should have used the ticket in New York instead of taking the scenic route. No word as to how he managed to make it from JFK to O'Hare.
Obviously they're connecting flight to Montana was out of JFK, so why were they even out on the street looking for a cab? Try again.
Because the packet was in English? How's that one. Think about it. These guys were on their way to Montana for English enrichment. Must be a reason for that.
He used to get rides all over the place from people who just wanted someone different to talk to.
Of interest I found many connecting flight go through Las Vegas.
Bozeman is not a really hot destination you know.
You're assuming alot there. You have no idea whether the packet was in English ONLY, or that they had no knowledge of the English language at all. If they were coming here to learn the English language, why would a college send them packets in English ONLY and not provide appropriate instructions through an interpretor for them to follow? You're not a social worker are you?
Obviously he wouldn't have done that if he didn't speak English.
Look, it's pretty clear that even the FBI figured out what was happening right off the bat ~ which is pretty unusual for them.
Like to buy a used car? Excellent way to learn English is to sell used cars. He also sold fleets for Toyota.
I don't think the FBI is revealing exactly what their doing. What they tell us may be quite different than what they believe. There might be more fish out there and these "students" are the bait.
I didn't say they were, but you still haven't told me how he managed to get from JFK to O'Hare in Chicago, then tried to board a flight to Bozeman with a ticket that was valid only from New York. He raised a ruckus at the ticket counter, raising his voice so much, that the police had to be called. No mention that language was a barrier during the heated exchange.
Good point.
Nothing is clear yet, especially with two of them still on the loose.
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