“Welcome to the United States, Mohamed Atta. Your visa has been approved.
“That was the message sent out by sleepy immigration officials this week while the rest of America was remembering the havoc wrought by the Sept. 11 attack leader,” The New York Post reports.
In a mind-boggling gaffe, the Immigration and Naturalization Service notified a Florida flight school on Monday that student visas had been approved for Atta and Marwan al Shehhi – six months to the day after their suicide attack on the World Trade Center.
New Yorkers who lost loved ones in the attack called last night for heads to roll at the INS over the embarrassing mistake.
‘It’s quite asinine, really. One hand has absolutely no idea what the other hand is doing,’ said Anne Ielpi, whose firefighter son, Jonathan, lost his life in the attacks.
‘It’s time somebody investigated the INS.’
Uh, gee. Ya think…?
Meanwhile on Capital Hill…
Last night, the House voted 275-137 to let illegal immigrants become legalized upon payment of a $1,000 fine and identification of a sponsor. The vote was a victory of sorts for President Bush, who can tell Mexican president Vicente Fox that he’s making progress toward legalizing illegals at their meeting next week. But it was only barely a victory.
Bush needed two-thirds of the votes because of the procedure under which the bill was brought up
2 Replies to “Atta Boy”
What’s really disturbing is that the INS spokesman seemed to offer, by way of an excuse, that the approval was made BEFORE 9/11. The fact that they approved two airplane-crashing terrorists to take flying lessons doesn’t seem to be a good point to emphasize.
Hee! Thanks for the ad! Anyway, one would think that, as this approval process was wending its way through the bowels of the INS, that SOMEONE might have noticed the names and said SOMETHING.
Did everyone on the O.J. jury work for the INS?