http://counterterrorismblog.org/
Immigration Fraud and National Security Threats - Deja Vu All Over Again By Bill West On September 24, the Cybercast News Service ran a story <http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200709/NAT200709 24c.html> about a GAO report issued September 21 reflecting that our Diversity Visa program was at notable risk of fraud abuse and that risk was particularly vulnerable to misuse by foreign terrorist operatives seeking to enter and remain in the United States, utilizing the program to gain "legal" immigration status and cover. The Diversity Visa program was initially established to facilitate immigration from countries with otherwise low levels of immigrant entry. This currently includes terror sponsoring countries like Iran, Syria and Sudan. The report indicates fraud within the program is complicated by the easy potential for terrorist aliens obtaining genuine identity documents in false identities in their home countries, or such aliens who are not already known to US and allied Intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and therefore not in the various lookout systems, slipping through the alert network. Additionally, the report notes once Diversity Visa aliens are admitted into the United States, there is virtually no follow up effort by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or any other US Government agency to verify their location or activities. <http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/09/immigration_fraud_and_national.php# 026826> These issues are nothing new. The fraud abuse potential is the same as exists for all our visa and immigration systems. The resources for State Department and DHS immigration agencies to investigate, pursue and address these issues are significantly limited and that is something that is little changed from the days of the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the demise of which was supposed to make such things much better. Ironically, and perhaps a bit sadly, more than ten years ago fellow CT Blog contributor Mike Cutler and I testified before the House Immigration Subcommittee on the topic of immigration and visa fraud. We spoke about the potential for such fraud being pursued by organized crime and terrorist groups and the threat that posed and the need for additional enforcement resources focused on the problem and the need to change various policies and procedures to limit the exposure of the system to such fraud. Clearly, we may as well have been speaking to ourselves in a mirror. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
