Late last week Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) demanded the Department of Homeland Security cough up the immigration and naturalization records of Washington D.C. Metrorail suspected terrorist bomber Farooque Ahmed.
In an effort to determine the best method to protect Americans from illegal aliens who have nefarious intentions toward U.S. citizens, Grassley sought the immigration process used by Ahmed from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), but he was refused the records and told he needed a privacy release form from the suspected terrorist.
Grassley’s letter highlighted a clear conflict provided by USCIS and showed that the language contained in the Privacy Act details an exemption for members of Congress. Grassley said it, “is unacceptable as a matter of accountability,” for the American people.
Senator Grassley outlined his concern in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security. “It’s about the suspected terrorist from media reports, including accounts that the would-be bomber hoped to harm as many Americans as possible on the metro system.” In addition to seeking the suspected terrorist’s immigration history, Grassley also asked for the legal background for the excuse the USCIS used to disregard a provision of law designed to ensure checks and balances by giving Congress access to this kind of information.”
The senator pointed out several media reports that concerned him regarding the process used by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and other agencies to arrest Ahmed.
“According to news reports, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted an undercover sting operation, and exposed Mr. Ahmed of plotting terrorist attacks against Americans,” he said in a letter to Janet Napolitano, Secretary of DHS. “Some reports indicate that earlier this year, Mr. Ahmed ‘conducted surveillance and reconnaissance and suggested ways to generate the most causality’s on the DC metro. He reportedly wanted to battle U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan and trained himself in martial arts, use of firearms, and knife and gun tactics. Mr. Ahmed informed those whom he believed to be his co-conspirators that he also planned to wage jihad overseas.”
Various news reports cite that Ahmed obtained a degree in Computer Science from the College of Staten Island, which is a part of the City University of New York. Later Ahmed work in the telecommunications industry in Northern Virginia. It is also alleged that in order to keep his legal status, Ahmed began pursuing an online graduate degree in risk management and data security from Aspen University.
Senator Grassley’s concerns about Ahmed’s visa status draws attention to the process by which potential immigrants enter the country and what kind of background checks are required to ensure the legitimacy of prospective students who seek higher education in the U.S.
“I would like to know how Mr. Ahmed entered the United States and through which immigration channels he was able to remain here,” said Grassley who is also a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security. “I therefore request that you provide me with copies of all documents and reports relating to the issuance of student visa(s), any adjustment of status and subsequent visas, and naturalization for Mr. Ahmed including, but not limited to the following:
a. All immigrant and non-immigrant visa applications filed by Mr. Ahmed;
b. All certificates of eligibility for immigrant and non-immigrant visas provided by Mr. Ahmed in support of his application(s) for legal status in the United States;
c. All law enforcement reports that contained information on Mr. Ahmed’s associations with al-Qaeda and which were available to homeland security official(s) who approved his visa application(s) and naturalization application.
e. Any records on Mr. Ahmed included in the student tracking system, SEVIS, including but not limited to his degree program and classes taken at City University of New York and Aspen University.
f. All documents related to the naturalization process for Mr. Ahmed.
While these documents are a start for Senator Grassley’s office, others are now questioning the effectiveness the H-1B visas and the need to update the provisions to better fight terrorism in a post 9/11 world.
The main pathway for H-1B Visa holders is to obtain a degree from a U.S. college or university on a F-1 Visa, and perhaps extend it with OPT (Optional Professional Training) for up to 29 months and then obtain a H-1B Visa for employment of 6 or more years.
One factor of particular concern for Americans is the easy process for foreigners to obtain an H-1B visa. “These visas are discouraging young Americans from entering technology fields,” according to Gene Nelson, Ph.D. who is an expert in immigration policy. “Why should American students complete the expensive and challenging training to become a scientist or engineer if prospective employers will hire essentially unlimited numbers of (inexpensive) technical professionals from India or Communist China to quickly displace the young Americans from technology fields?”
Nelson believes the second effect of this immigration visa is just as significant, but more difficult to quantify.
“The lack of vetting of imported technical professionals under work visa programs such as H-1B is causing national security harms. I have discussed this problem in testimony delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives and the National Academy of Sciences since 1996,” Nelson explains. “The long-term negative externalities of such immigrant avidity include the prospect of large-scale nuclear terrorism or bioterrorism in the U.S., likely in cities such as Washington, DC or New York City.”
The H-1B Visa holder is a de-facto indentured servant, according to Nelson. He also points out their visa is conditioned on being continuously employed and employers are able to hold out the "carrot" of the eventual green card sponsorship.
Ferreting information about students can be as easy as looking to social networking sites. For example, Ahmed’s LinkedIn profile showed that he was enrolled in a master's computer engineering program at CUNY's College of Staten Island. It went on to explain that he did not get his degree because of a "political issue between computer science and engineering department."
Nelson explains that an employer-sponsored H-1B visa requires practically no vetting of applicants and allows foreign students to remain in the U.S. for at least six years. Plus, foreign students or employees are often granted automatic extensions while they are waiting for a green card. Once a green card is in hand, foreigners are well on their way to completing the U.S. naturalization process.
As far as employers ensuring that no one in America is qualified for the high-tech job, U.S. employers are required to make a “good faith” attempt to hire an American first before they grant an H-1B visa to a foreigner. However, experts contend that few employers do this because they know foreigners are willing to work for less money and longer hours.
According to the Labor Department's 2006-2011 Strategic Plan notes; "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."
This should be very concerning to Americans. Many of the H-1B visa jobs involve national security inside the telecommunication industry.
In Ahmed’s case he worked for three telecommunication companies since 2000 and according to the Labor Department each of these companies applied for hundreds of H-1B visas; Ericsson which has applied for 446 H-1B visas, Glotel who has applied for 143 H-1B visas and Sprint who has applied for a staggering 857 H-1B visas.
Once Nelson navigated through the Sprint VA H-1B visa spreadsheet he found some disturbing details. He pointed to an incorrect work city shown for Sprint "network" positions that begin in July, 2006, which matched his LinkedIn profile. “Also there is only one Sprint LCA for the state of Illinois, but it is not for Ahmed’s job title. This suggests to me that Sprint failed to follow the (loophole-laden) rules, as a LCA is for a specific job title in a specific city and state,” Nelson points out. (Here is the link to Sprint info; http://www.flcdatacenter.com/CaseH1B.aspx)
One thing is certain, a rash of terror plots continues to be uncovered across the country and there seems to be no end to the profound hatred these terrorists have towards America. The underlying terror threats will require the country’s national security agencies to continually evolve and grow if they are to be successful in preventing the next 9/11 attack.
For more stories; http://www.examiner.com/county-political-buzz-in-san-diego/kimberly-dvorak
Comments
The Federal government, through the leadership of Presidents and Congress, has shown nothing but disdain for citizens. Many of these so-called leaders are disgustingly callous and greedy about the pain inflicted on Americans by these millions of illegal invaders.
Unbelievable. Arrest Obama and Napolitano. Congressional investigation into all this nonsense now!
The H1B visa and its abuses started long before Obama.
True, BB, but he should be arrested anyway--along with the traitors at DHS, Geitner and others too numerous to name. Once he's arrested and held without bail, he must provide his original B/C and if he won't, he should be indicted, tried and convicted. Then after 10 years, he should be deported to Kenya.
Yes, it's true H-1B and L-1 visa abuses started long before Obama. However, this begs the question---why is the Obama administration allowing these flagrant abuses to continue? By asking that question, I'm not letting the Clinton and Bush administrations off the hook. The H-1B visa should never have been created and once it was created and shown to wreak havoc for American IT workers, it should have been abolished.
Worse yet, once these Indian visa holders become entrenched in the IT community and reach positions where they are responsible for hiring new workers, they routinely and blatantly discriminate against non-Indian workers. That said, I propose that any American IT worker who has encountered an Indian who gives him/her the run-around, file a complaint with the EEOC. Even if the complaint is eventually found to be without merit, it will put these Indian managers on notice that discrimination is not tolerated.
In this economy, it is absolutely galling to see H-1B and L-1 visa holders working IT jobs while qualified Americans go without. Senator Grassley has long been sounding the alarm on this issue but has been largely ignored. Let's hope that the times are a-changin'!
Has anyone considered that the H1B visa itself is unconstitutional?
Any hungry lawyers out there looking to make a percentage of BILLIONS?
Pursuing the following idea would even be socially useful, not like those lawyers you read about suing companies for having an expired patent number printed on their products.
Improving the U.S. education system, while a laudable goal, does NOT fix this problem. There are a million or more un- or under-employed engineers and IT people that are already very well educated. A better fix would be for someone to initiate a class-action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the H1B visa under the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the amendment that freed the slaves).
An H1B employee is “out of status” if they are laid off, and is required to leave the country immediately. There is no statutory “grace period”. This gives an employer the power to threaten an employee with IMMEDIATE DEPORTATION. The employer is not, of course, directly ordering the deportation, they are merely making the employee subject to immediate deportation by the U.S. government.
In United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931 ( 198 ), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment circumscribed involuntary servitude to be limited to those situations when the master subjects the servant to:
1. threatened or actual physical force,
2. threatened or actual state-imposed legal coercion or
3. fraud or deceit where the servant is a minor, an immigrant or mentally incompetent.
The federal anti-slavery statutes were updated in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, P.L. 106-386, which expanded the federal statutes’ coverage to cases in which victims are enslaved through psychological, as well as physical, coercion.
Being put “out of status”, subject to immediate deportation, is a form of “threatened or actual state-imposed LEGAL COERCION”
- Thank you Kimberly for not only covering this story (excellent work) - But, for also including the other truths about the H-1B visa program (via statements from Senator Grassley and Gene Nelson Ph.D.), specifically the displacing of American workers and the note, "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker." << A majority of the articles regarding the H-1B visa (from the popular media) almost always leave that fact out.
- 2 notes:
1) The other story, which has not yet been written, is about the Terrorism threat that comes from the unvetted workers sitting in all of the offshore "back offices" (in india) performing work for American corporations. For which it is very easy for a terrorist to gain employment in one these "back offices" and then steal corporate data, intellectual property, etc... Also, many of them have access to US corporate networks, whereby they could perform "Cyber-terrorism"... The other aspect of this is that india does not have the same level of security that we have here in the USA, to prevent terrorist from bombing their "back offices" or performing some terrorist act towards those "back office" locations.
2) The article was titled "Illegal immigration...", for which in this case, the terrorist is suspected of being here in the USA on an H-1B visa, for which entering the USA on an H-1B visa is legal and a pathway to legal immigration.
Could you somehow get your story into the hands of President Obama, so that he can be educated on the negative effects of the H-1B visa program on America (The Terrorism Threat and the displacing of American workers - which is also being done via offshoring)...
My dream is that the 2012 presidential election will be between Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley, truly a win-win situation!
Dick Durbin (D) is trying to better regulate the H1B (see http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=311910).
Chuck Grassley (R) once stated about some companies that hire H1B's "I call them H-1B pimps." http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=149264
We have become a country ruled by Political Correctness instead of laws. Politicians and judges cherry pick and enforce only the laws they agree with and forget the rest. This country is doomed I fear with these dishonorable people in our government.
You have to be kidding BB! Dick Durbin of Illinois is the main force behind The Dream Act and is as bad as Teddy Kennedy ever was on ILLEGAL immigration! You better do some more research on him before you recommend him as a candidate for president. Durbin is for ILLEGAL aliens 100%!
Thank you, Maya! After reading BB's endorsement of Durbin I was all set to point out exactly the same thing!
Am I at least right about Grassley?
Also, please remember that it is best to vote for the candidate that most closely agrees with you, but that has at least SOME chance of actually being elected.
Why don't they arrest the biggest illegal of all -- Barack Hussein Obama?!? He is the biggest threat to our national security. I hope we can survive two more years of this poser! Thank God that voters are waking up to the grim reality of Obama and his thugs and voted many Democrats and RINO's out of office! Please do it again in 2012 so we can get this country completely back on track! At least for now, we can stop the socialist agenda train barreling through Congress with Democrats in charage of all three branches of gov't! Thank you Lord!
Excellent reply, Vickie! You rock! So do you, Maya and April!
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