FOREIGN STUDENT VISAS: POTENTIAL KILLERS IN OUR MIDST?

Dzhokar Tsarnaev & Kazakhstani Friends

In the wake of the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, the chaos of foreign student visas is getting a going-over, and well it should. Procedures in place are loose, and American higher education, which has long considered foreign students as cash cows, has been anything but scrupulous in its role in the chain of enforcement.

For starters in improving anti- terrorism safety measures, the  following numbers of student visas granted in 2011/2012 for students from Muslim countries should offer food for thought:

Saudi Arabia - 34,139
Turkey - 11,973
Indonesia - 7,131
Iran - 6,982
Malaysia - 6,743
Pakistan - 5,000

Faisal Shazad

With recent revelations that the accused bombers' Kazakhstani friends, Dias Kadybayev and Azmat Tazhayakov, had reentered the U.S. on expired student visas, immigration authorities have been put on notice that they must do a much better job of policing and monitoring student visa holders residing in the U.S. House Homeland Security Chair Michael McCaul has hit the nail on the head by stating that ICE has been lax in addressing not only student visa overstays, but expired visas as well, both of which have resulted in a very serious hole in national security.

Khalid Aldawsari

One would think that events preceding Boston should have suggested to someone somewhere in the U.S. government that Muslim foreign students represented a potential threat to the lives of our citizens.  In 2010, former Pakistani student Faisal Shazad came close to detonating a deadly blast in Times Square. In the following year, 2011, a Saudi Texas Tech student studying chemical engineering, Khalid Aldawsari, was apprehended before his various chemical concoctions were employed against American citizens.  And, it should not be forgotten that some of the 9/11 hijackers had expired visas and were illegally in the U.S.

Hopefully, hearings that are likely to come out of the Boston tragedy will also include particulars about the Muslim Students Association, an organization which the NYPD has exposed as having had 12 former members who have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in the U.S. and abroad.  Chapters of the MSA have been known to engage in training various individuals to advocate against Israel and have established ties to the Mujahadeen n Afghanistan.

Please listen up, dear readers!  Time is short, and we do not have the luxury of mincing words! With a fundamental obligation to protect their constituents, it is time that we, the citizens of the U.S., put the feet of our representatives to the fire, in an effort to insure our security.  It is totally inexcusable that our potential killers are permitted to circulate freely in our midst under the guise of being "students."