ALL of them were in this country legally. Not true. Their visas had expired. And they fraudulently applied for those visas on false pretenses, which is also illegal. There were in this country illegally and most of them would have been found and removed if we were enforcing our immigration laws as they should be enforced.
I believe you are right there. They did, however, ENTER the country legally. Unless Rudy favors not applying the laws to those overstaying their visas, the other poster's comment was a cheap shot and inaccurate.
It looks like I posted too soon. You were wrong, and I was partially right. All but three were in the country legally on 911.
"According to authorities, all of the hijackers who committed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were foreigners. All of them entered the country legally on a temporary visa, mostly tourist visas with entry permits for six months. Although four of them attended flight school in the United States, only one is known to have entered on an appropriate visa for such study, and one entered on an F-1 student visa. Besides the four pilots, all but one of the terrorists entered the United States only once and had been in the country for only three to five months before the attacks.
The four pilots had been in the United States for extended periods, although none was a legal permanent resident. Some had received more than one temporary visa, most of which were currently valid on September 11, but at least three of them had fallen out of status and were, therefore, in the United States illegally."
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersc582