Why Is Janet Napolitano Ignoring The Visa Process That The Terrorists Are Abusing To Attack America?

An excellent article here from Family Security Matters that addresses the issue of how terrorists are obtaining visas to the United States and how Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano and the State Department are completely ignoring the glitches in the system.

I don't know...perhaps Janet Incompetentitano figures it would be just too "unfair" to people to have their visa applications scrutinized...since it obviously is everyone's right to come to America and certainly not a privilege, correct?

Exclusive: Napolitano Still Ignoring Critical Issues Surrounding Visa Process

Our nation nearly suffered the tragedy of fatalities at the hand of a suicide bomber in the skies over the United States this past Christmas. Yet Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano is still ignoring the critically important issues concerning the process by which visas are issued, including the Visa Waiver Program.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the terrorist who attempted to destroy the airliner this past Christmas, was operating in conjunction with al Qaeda and but for the failure of the high- powered explosive he was carrying in his underwear, headlines around the world would have carried the horrific news of hundreds of innocent airline passengers losing their lives in a mid-air explosion, much the same way as the 259 passengers and crew of Pan Am 103 were slaughtered as their airliner flew above Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. That explosion also killed 11 people on the ground when the debris from that Boeing 747 fell.

The unsuccessful bombing of the Delta airlines flight also paralleled the effort by the so-called "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid to detonate explosives that were concealed in his shoe on December 22, 2002 as American Airlines Flight 63, a Boeing 767 airliner in which he was a passenger, cruised over the Atlantic Ocean, en route to the United States from Paris to its intended destination of Miami. In the aftermath of his attempt to destroy the airliner and all of the people onboard over the Atlantic Ocean, the decision was made to divert the airliner to Logan Airport in Boston. Reid claimed to have been operating at the behest of al Qaeda.

Richard Reid is a citizen of Great Britain and as such was eligible to seek to enter the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program. The most recent attack committed this past Christmas was attempted by a Nigerian citizen, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who, unlike Reid, was required to first obtain a visa in order to apply for admission into the United States.

If he had been unable to obtain a visa, he would not have been able to get on board the airliner he was determined to destroy in midair.

While it is possible that when Mr. Abdulmutallab applied for his visa our intelligence officials had no knowledge about him or his nefarious plans, but I am frankly, not convinced of this. His visa, from what I have read in the various newspaper accounts of his attempted attack, was issued in 2008. I have a number of questions that should be of great concern to Ms Napolitano and others in our government, but no one seems to be the least bit interested.

The focus of the media appearances and press releases seems to be on the methods by which passengers boarding airliners are screened to make certain that they don't bring explosives onboard airliners. There is also some concern about information sharing and the "No Fly" list, but where is the concern about the fact that an al Qaeda operative had been able to secure a visa for the United States? Why is there no mention of the process by which visas are issued?

The 9/11 Commission, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, made much of the program that had been known as "Visa Express," in which travel agencies were able to literally send boxes of passports to the United States Embassies and Consulates in order to secure visas for their clients without their clients having to show up at the visa issuing post for an interview.

The process by which visas are issued is supposed to provide a layer of protection for our nation and our citizens. Any security expert will tell you that security measures work best when they are layered. They will also tell you that the best place to construct a fence is at the furthest extremity of the property you are trying to secure against an attack. By requiring visas, our country, in effect, moves its secure perimeter out to the visa issuing post located at a Consulate or Embassy.

However, if the process by which applications for visas are adjudicated is flawed, then the benefits to be gained through this process are greatly diminished or eliminated altogether.

Yet it is being ignored by Ms Napolitano and, thus far, by every other member of the administration who spoken to reporters.

Don't misunderstand what I am saying – the measures that are discussed in the press release linked above are worthwhile, but the omission of any mention of the visa process is disturbing to me. Also, the presumption is being made that the lessons to be taken away from this attempted attack deal solely with keeping the bad guys and their explosives off of airliners. I certainly believe that these are important goals.

What I want to know is why is no one asking the obvious questions about what might have happened had Abdulmutallab decided to not attempt to destroy the airliner in mid-flight but was rather, intent on entering the United States and carrying out an attack inside the United States? The only reason that he was immediately identified as a terrorist is that he attempted to detonate a bomb on an airliner.

If his goal was to simply enter our country and embed himself in a community inside the United States and bide his time as he or his cohorts sought to decide upon a target in our country and attack such a target at a later date, then he might well have been admitted into the United States and under such circumstances would have been working towards a terrorist attack inside our country that could have had a devastating impact on our nation and our citizens.

The Secretary of Homeland Security is the boss to whom the officials at CBP (Customs and Border Protection) and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) answer, but Napolitano's failures to address the critically important missions of both CBP and ICE along with the visa issuing process leave me astonished.

The attempted Christmas attack was referred to as an "isolated" incident. How isolated an incident was it? Consider that both Pan Am 103 and the airliner that Reid had attempted to destroy over the Atlantic Ocean both took place in the Middle of December – perhaps because this is the time Christians celebrate Christmas and Jews celebrate Chanukah.

All three attacks sought to destroy airliners in flight.

Additionally, we have seen several other terrorist attacks including the shooting incident at Fort Hood inside the United States that was carried out by U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, on November 5, 2009, in which 13 soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded.

I find it impossible to understand how the Christmas attack is an "isolated incident.” The threat posed by terrorists is not limited to the destruction of airliners, but also includes the potential for massive casualties inflicted inside the United States as we saw on September 11, 2001.

If Ms. Napolitano is not even talking about the process by which aliens are vetted for visas to enter the United States and board airliners to come to the United States, then I am greatly concerned that she does not even understand the issues. How then will she correct what is broken if she does not even recognize that it is broken?

It is completely unacceptable that the Secretary of Homeland Security fails to demonstrate that she understands the role that agencies under her command must play to secure our nation against terrorists.