Briton 'could stage another September 11

[The_dip_sticks 0]

Great I guess there is no hope for me. I try to keep positive about this whole ordeal and then when I have faith that we will be approved soon, I read things like this that make me feel like we are stuck in a never ending hell. So now reading this i feel like great.... my husband was born and raised in london, is muslim and his parents are from Pakistnan. He has been to the US many times before with out an issue then after we got married he got denied to come and vidist me. Now I have to worry that he is going to be thought of as a threat. I frear that people will lable us as 'clean skin' terrorists as this article puts it. At this rate I will never have the chance to be with my husband. Its like all the odds are against us as if destiny does not want us to be happy. Im going through hell and back palying the waiting game since June of 06 for an approval and now reading this i feel like great some one is now going lable my husband because of his faith and even though he is a born and bread Brit his parents are from Pakistan at this rate we are never going to be approved. THERE IS NO HOPE FOR ME US TO BE TOGETHER AND HAPPY. When will we see the light? Maybe I should put my self out of my missery and jump in front of car.

By Toby Harnden

Last Updated: 1:58am BST 05/04/2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../04/wterr04.xml

Interview: America's new homeland security chief tells Toby Harnden of his fears of 'clean skin' terrorists

Toby Harnden's blog

The godfather chaser

The United States fears that the next September 11-style attack on America could be launched by Muslims from Britain or Europe who feel "second-class citizens" and alienated by a "colonial legacy", according to the US Homeland Security chief.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Michael Chertoff, who arrives in Britain tomorrow for talks with John Reid, the Home Secretary, said the US was determined to build extra defences against so-called "clean skin" terrorists from Europe.

Michael Chertoff is concerned about a European threat

"We need to build layers of protection, and I don't think we totally want to rely upon the fact that a foreign government is going to know that one of their citizens is suspicious and is going to be coming here," he said.

Mr Chertoff insisted that the US required additional information, including email addresses and credit card details, to vet European passengers and rejected "the idea that we're going to bargain with the European Union over who's going to come into the United States" under the visa waiver scheme.

"We have an absolute right to get this, in the same way that if someone wants to be a guest in my house I have a right to ask them who they are and get identification."

The July 7 tube and bus bombs nearly two years ago had shown that Britain had a problem with its Muslim immigrant population that America did not share, he argued.

"Our Muslim population is better educated and economically better off than the average American. So, from a standpoint of mobility in society, it's a successful immigrant population. To some degree, the whole country is a country of immigrants, and therefore there's no sense that we have insiders or outsiders. In some countries [in Europe], you had an influx of people that came in as a colonial legacy and may have always have felt, to some extent, that they were viewed as second-class citizens, and they've tended to impact and be kind of clustered in some areas."

Mr Chertoff, a former federal prosecutor, said that one of his biggest worries was that "unknown terrorists" - such as most of the 7/7 bombers, who were British citizens with no criminal record or intelligence traces - could use the visa waiver scheme to enter and attack America.

Richard Reid the ‘shoe bomber’ was travelling to America

Britain is among 27 countries that participate in the scheme, which allows visitors to enter the US without a visa for up to 90 days. About 18 million people visit America every year under this programme.

Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" who attempted to blow up a transatlantic flight in 2001, was a British citizen travelling under the visa waiver scheme.

Zacharias Moussaoui, one of the September 11 plotters, was a French citizen who entered America without a visa. Mr Chertoff said that "we can do a good job with the known terrorists, if we have their name, or if we've previously arrested them and have their fingerprint on file" but a more potent threat was the terrorist with no known form.

"The fear has always been the so-called 'clean skin' - that's a person whose documents are completely legitimate, are not forged."

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This had led the US to require a significant tightening of the rules for passengers travelling under a visa waiver. Among the new requirements are that all passenger information be transmitted to the US before a plane takes off. Soon, passengers will have to give all 10 fingerprints, rather than just two.

"If someone's a terrorist, and they've left their fingerprints at a training camp, or in a safe house where a bomb was built, and those latent fingerprints are collected, we can then, when someone crosses a border, match their real prints against those latent prints even if we don't know their name," he said.

Mr Chertoff rejected the idea that the Iraq war had made the world more dangerous.

"Those that are inclined to be radicalised will find a reason to be radicalised no matter what's going on in the world."

America was "unquestionably safer and more secure" than it was on September 11 2001 but there was a danger of complacency because it had not been attacked for more than five years.

"Where you find some softness is in some elements of the media or in some elements of the intellectual class who convince themselves that this is our fault, or that there's an easier way to avoid the problem if we can just figure what price we have to pay. That is a plea to the sensibility of exhaustion and history has shown that's a very damaging and very destructive impulse."

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Unfortunately a few bad apples ruin the whole bushel.

[peejay 327]

My wife is an ethnic Russian with Belarusian citizenship. Her father and siblings live in Russia. I have many of my mom's relatives that also live in Belarus and Russia.

Neither of those countries are on the VWP and it is extremely difficult for their citizens to get any kind of tourist or temporary visitor visa to come to the USA. My wife (then fiancee) would never have been allowed to visit me in the USA until we were approved for her K-1. And it took 10 months to get the K-1 approved.

All except for 2 of my mom's relatives have been arbitrarily denied temporary tourist / visitor visas to come visit us in the USA because they are not wealthy enough to prove they wouldn't illegally immigrate. I might also add that the US embassy kept their $100 per person visa application fees without issuing any visa. The 2 that were approved were initially denied, but months of hammering my US senator finally pressured the US embassy in Minsk to allow them a visit. They went back home on time and did not illegally immigrate.

For my wife's relatives to visit us here in the USA they must travel roughly 1200+ miles in person from rural Siberia to the US embassy in Moscow to be interviewed and fingerprinted to be even considered for a temporary tourst visa. There are no guarantees they can prove to the satisfaction of the embassy that they will not illegally immigrate and get a visa after traveling this great distance at considerable expense for the average rural Russian. Not to mention that the $125 application fee is forfieted if they are denied.

I can only say that none of this is easy for anyone else. That is just the way it is.