Ted Kennedy's terrorist loop hole

Joel Mowbray:

Waving to the cheering crowd at the St. Patrick's Day parade with a giddy congressman by his side, Irish Republican Army political leader Gerry Adams visited the United States thanks to a special provision put into the law for him more than a decade ago by Sen. Ted Kennedy. And in that time, many other staunch advocates of terrorism have utilized that very same provision in order to come to the United States -- including several affiliated with the Taliban.
Simply put, the language Mr. Kennedy inserted into the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1990 states that consular officers cannot refuse a visa to someone on the grounds of advocacy of terrorism.
But while the law has been effective in keeping the door open for Mr. Adams -- allowing him to march in a St. Patrick's Day parade yet again this month in Holyoke, Mass. -- it has also proved a bonanza for people such as the former spokesman for the Taliban and an imam who helped run a school that is closely tied to the Taliban.
Though Mr. Kennedy has steadfastly refused to close the Gerry Adams loophole (including shortly after September 11), the State Department has the authority under the law to do so. Yet the State Department has tweaked it, but has otherwise refused to act.
(While the Patriot Act grants the Department of Homeland Security the authority to deny visas to those who use "position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity," DHS seems to do so only sporadically.)
So, who has gotten in thanks to Mr. Kennedy? For starters, the Gerry Adams provision is almost certainly the reason former Taliban spokesman Rahmatullah Hashemi was able to obtain a student visa to attend Yale University. The lengthy New York Times Magazine profile of him that caused quite a stir last month indicated that he was open about his Taliban past, yet he received his visa with ease.

...
There is more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more