The flight school official in Florida who processed student visas for two of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots had been so uninformed about her duties that she relied on directions from one of the hijackers to do her job, according to a scathing Justice Department report issued Monday.
Furthermore, had the Immigration and Naturalization Service properly investigated the flight school in the first place, it likely would not have been allowed to process foreign-student visa applications.
Those problems, highlights of the 188-page report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, or in-house watchdog, shed new light on a student visa system acknowledged to be riddled with holes.
Inspector General Glenn Fine said a highly touted computer system designed to fix the problems by processing and tracking roughly 500,000 foreign students who come to the U.S. each year will be of little value unless other critical steps are taken.
These include training the school administrators who process the visas.
“There is still a lot that needs to happen,” Fine said in an interview. “The new system alone is not enough.”
The report raises questions about how many of the 70,000 schools with the power to issue crucial visa documents even exist, whether they could have been set up for fraudulent purposes or would have been shuttered if INS officials visited them.
Random check of schools
For example, Fine’s investigators randomly checked 200 schools certified for the student visa program and found 43 percent “were either no longer active or likely no longer active.”
An INS spokesman said the agency is working to improve the visa program by preparing the new computer system, scheduled to be online by Jan. 1. The agency said Monday it is not in a position to respond to other specifics in the report.
The report came on the same day another gap in the nation’s security system was highlighted, with FBI Director Robert Mueller saying suicide bombers like those plaguing Israel will inevitably come to the United States. “There will be another terrorist attack,” Mueller told a gathering of prosecutors. “We will not be able to stop it.”
The INS probe was launched in March after President Bush became angry over revelations that the agency issued documents notifying Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., that Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi had been approved for pilot training.
The notification was sent to Huffman six months after the two men piloted hijacked jetliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and seven months after their paperwork was completed.
The Bush administration recently proposed splitting the agency in two.
“This report reinforces the need for the fundamental INS reforms,” Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said.
Lawmakers were quick to criticize the agency.
“The facts in today’s report . . . illustrate the failure of Immigration and Naturalization Service,” said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “This dramatic failure has left the INS ill-equipped to handle the threat posed by terrorists who would attempt to harm innocent Americans.”
The INS, the Justice Department and Congress are relying on the new computer system, under development for more than five years, to help track foreign students. Under the Patriot Act, a sweeping law passed after the attacks, the system known as Student Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, was supposed to be operating by next Jan. 1.
Unlikely to meet deadline
Fine’s report highlights that SEVIS, like any computer system, will be only as good as the information punched into databanks. And Fine said he doubts it will be ready on time.
When a foreigner applies for a student visa, the application goes through the school where the individual intends to study before reaching the immigration service. At Huffman Aviation, investigators interviewed an employee who processed and certified the documents for Atta and Al-Shehhi. She told them she was new to the job when the two came through in August 2000.
“As a result, she said, she was unsure of what she was doing and that either Atta or Al-Shehhi directed her on the proper procedures for filling out the forms,” the report said.
Because there are similarly ill-prepared employees at schools across the nation, Fine’s office said, “violations of the law frequently occur.” The school officials who process the paperwork are not required to receive even minimal training, the report said, and INS has no plans to implement such education.
A computerized process would not alter that, Fine said.
The report also said Huffman Aviation was certified by the INS for foreign students in 1990 without anyone visiting the school. Had a site visit been conducted, the INS likely would have found the school didn’t qualify because students are not enrolled in a “full course of study” as mandated by the INS.
