The Justice Department Office of Inspector General recently released a report on the movements of two of the September 11th hijackers. The report found that while INS procedures used in dealing with them were “untimely and significantly flawed” the agency did not act improperly, and could not have identified the two as potential terrorists. The report focused on Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, the two men for whom student visa approval notices were issued six months after the attacks. According to the report, no one at the INS even thought to check for documents relating to the two men, so their approvals were processed to completion. The report also faults the INS for issuing approvals because Atta and Al-Shehhi had left the country while the applications were pending. However, before September 11th, immigration inspectors routinely granted documentation waivers to people with pending student visa applications. The report was critical of the INS computer systems used to track foreign students, and was no less critical of the SEVIS system that is due to be operational at the beginning of next year. According to the report, there is no way the system will be ready by then, and so many questions about how it will operate remain that it will not be particularly effective.
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