Mark Krikorian recently made the case in his National Review column that “the 9/11 attacks were, at their heart, a failure of our immigration system.” His sentiment is backed by the opening words of the 9/11 Commission staff report, which stated - “It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country.”
Now, two decades after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Mark Krikorian, the Executive Director of Center for Immigration Studies, set out to explore what precisely the U.S. has learned about the critical immigration failure that led to the hijackings and what has been done to prevent something like that from happening again.
He adds that while “a wide variety” of steps were taken post 9/11 to make it more difficult for potential terrorists to violate U.S. immigration law, these steps also make it more difficult for any other immigration lawbreaker, a group protected by powerful business and open-border interests.
Krikorian highlighted several issues recommended by the September 11 commission and passed by Congress that are yet to be enacted to this day. A few examples include:
- The Federal Real ID program (now postponed to 2023).
- A complete electronic entry-exit tracking system (which has been re-mandated eight times according to Krikorian).
- Greater oversight for student visas.
Finally, Krikorian concludes on a subject that the U.S. government has refrained from doing for the past two decades, passing amnesty. He recalls in 2001 when the 9/11 attacks interrupted amnesty discussions between President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, dooming any push for amnesty.
Krikorian concludes:
The benefit of amnesty to malefactors isn’t hypothetical. Mahmud “The Red” Abouhalima was an Egyptian illegal alien driving a cab in New York when he fraudulently got a green card from the 1986 amnesty by posing as a farmworker. Only with that newfound freedom to travel was he able to go to Afghanistan for terrorist training, equipping him to help lead the first World Trade Center attack in 1993.
Please read Mark Krikorian’s entire column here.
