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September 10, 2004 Program Moderator Doris Meissner, former Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), introduced Susan Ginsburg as the latest speaker in MPI’s series, Conversations with Senior Government Officials. Ms. Ginsburg was senior counsel and team leader for border security at the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission). Previously, she served as the chief of staff and senior advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement at the Department of the Treasury, and she also has worked in the State Department, on Capitol Hill, and as a litigating attorney. Based on her own experience testifying before the 9/11 Commission and being questioned by its staff, Ms. Meissner praised the Commission’s thorough preparation, as well as their tough but probing questions and the evenhandedness of their professional demeanor. She accredited the success of the 9/11 Commission both to the leadership of co-chairs Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean and to the quality of staff such as Ms. Ginsburg. Keynote Remarks: Terrorism and Immigration Ms. Ginsburg began by noting that it was nearly the third anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks and that her involvement with the Commission had helped her come to terms with the attacks by giving her something to do to help. She also expressed her appreciation for the dedicated public service of immigration and other public servants. Her presentation included three components: 1) a brief discussion of the spirit of the 9/11 Commission; 2) an explanation of the factual findings on the hijackers’ entrance into the United States; and 3) a presentation of the Commission’s policy recommendations in the Commission Report and Terrorist Travel Monograph The Nature of the 9/11 Commission Ms. Ginsburg emphasized that the Commission was a bipartisan effort, intended both to collect facts for future historical analysis, and to derive feasible recommendations that would be possible in the contemporary political climate. The Commission’s goals were to deliver an accurate reporting of facts on which Democrats and Republicans alike could agree, and to present recommendations that could be adopted in the short term, taking into account institutional and political capabilities. In particular, the Commission highlighted facts that were most relevant to understanding contemporary problems, using teams to cover the topics that Congress directed the Commission to address. The team that Ms. Ginsburg led was charged with addressing immigration, non-immigrant visas, and border control issues as they related to the events of September 11. The team discovered information that fell into two categories: the not-surprising facts that were consistent with general available knowledge about borders and immigration, and the surprising facts that were previously known to very few. Not Surprising Facts The team on immigration, non-immigrant visas, and border control revealed a number of known and knowable facts about the 9/11 attacks. • Visas. When the Commission began its investigation, it was well known
that most of the 9/11 hijackers entered the United States on tourist visas.
Five other potential hijackers had tried to enter and failed. The Congressional
Joint Inquiry on 9/11 found that the hijackers’ visa applications were
not sufficiently completed, and some flat untruths had not been checked in the
database system. There was also no functioning entry-exit compliance system
for persons violating the terms of student visas or who overstayed their visas,
and violators had no reasonable expectation that they would incur any consequences
for their violations. Surprising Facts Collecting information from various primary documents, including images of terrorist visas received in July, Ms. Ginsburg learned new facts about the admission of the hijackers and the perception of the permeability of American borders in the pre-September-11 period. • Visas and Admissions. Of the four hijackers’ passports to which
the government had access of the images, two contained fraudulent entry-exit
stamps known as cachets, probably inserts by document forgers to hide travel
to Afghanistan for terrorist training. Three of the passports had a possible
indicator of an extremist affiliation, which should have caused an informed
border agent to subject the traveler to further scrutiny, alert counter terrorism
officials, and make an indication in the traveler’s file. The cachets
could also have resulted in a decision not to issue a visa or admit the traveler.
Ms. Ginsburg found it especially disconcerting that two hijackers had received
their passports from relatives in the Saudi passport ministry, revealing corruption.
In addition, the 9/11 Commission eventually learned that the 19 hijackers had
used over 300 variations in their names during travel, including both outright
aliases and slight spelling changes. 9/11 Commission’s Approach to Recommendations After analyzing the facts of the September 11 attacks as they related to immigration and border controls, Ms. Ginsburg’s team then addressed the challenge of developing meaningful, feasible recommendations for the 9/11 Commission’s report. Traditional intelligence and terrorism law enforcement took center stage in the report, in part because the Commission’s work built on years of study on how to adapt intelligence organizations to national security challenges. Ms. Ginsburg believes that there is a lack of an epistemic community on homeland security issues, including the role of border, transportation, and immigration systems. Not only do academics, policy analysis, government officials, and private sector persons fail to exchange ideas on a regular basis, but there is also an especially notable gap between immigration-related social science, legal, and policy thought, and the world of national security. Thus, she emphasizes that there is a need for broader research, thinking, and communication to build a sustainable and rational border and immigration security policy. When the Commission began to consider recommendations, there were three potential
approaches: While it was not in the Commission’s mandate to thoroughly examine what the administration was or was not doing after 9/11 other than in immediate response, it needed to acquire a basic understanding of current actions and programs. They found that: • The United States is nowhere near the well-informed border management
system envisioned in the Homeland Security strategy. Cooperation with Canada,
Mexico, and the Atlantic partners is not moving at sufficient speed. Recommendations The 9/11 Commission drew on all three models and recommended: • Enhanced Screening. There must be a new effort to verify people’s
identities, as well as a serious assessment of the legitimacy of travel, in
order to instigate effective watchlisting and immigration enforcement. The effort
must include: biometric identity verification; comprehensive and integrated
travelers files; data analysis and screening; an entry-exit system; and a broader
screening system to reduce duplicity. Data must be integrated into one system.
While these efforts are generally a part of existing policy, they are currently
dispersed throughout the government bureaucracy.
An audience member asked whether the focus on preventing fraudulent asylum
seekers in Europe involves the same measures as preventing terrorist entries.
Ms. Ginsburg responded that raising the level to detect fraudulent applications
on any level will also produce additional measures against international organized
crime, which on a base level will help prevent terrorism, and thus there is
some overlap. However, separate efforts are also needed for terrorist prevention. Noting that Malaysia had allowed Muslim operatives to enter without visas, there was a question about other countries that give Muslims favored status, and whether there is a favored relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States for visa entry. Ms. Ginsburg responded that there is no comprehensive list of countries that give Muslims favored immigration status, because these questions require more systematic study than the 9/11 Commission was able to perform within its mandate. Prior to 9/11, she believes that Saudi Arabian citizens generally received admission because they had a good record of meeting the terms of their visas, indicating a gap between the intelligence community’s knowledge of rising extremism and the scrutiny of visa applications. In response to a question of whether there was any information about terrorist
entries over the southern border of the United States, Ms. Ginsburg noted the
arrest of one human smuggler with terrorist ties. Law enforcement is part of
the solution, including removing travel facilitators from operation and restraining
terrorist mobility and finance. However, she also believes that border screening
can also help by using anomaly detection to discover potential risks. The next question dealt with the connection between realistic immigration admissions and targeted border enforcement, but Ms. Ginsburg responded that the 9/11 Commission, not intending to be a migration commission, stopped short of immigration reform and only briefly discussed immigration enforcement, though it would seem that these issues need to be addressed. However, with regard to the viability of an entry-exit system Ms. Ginsburg responded that she believes the investment in exit-entry needs to be made on a consistent basis, that Americans should not be exempt from verifying their identifies when crossing borders, and that more emphasis should be placed on enabling frequent commuters and travelers. The program needs additional research and development – she believes there will be a solution for an entry-exit program, and research teams must figure out the best solutions. A final set of questions revolved around private sector involvement in an entry-exit system, the statutory or judicial barriers to change, and the impact of post 9/11 changes on victims of persecution. Ms. Ginsburg responded that there had been little assessment of the programs that were put in place, that the business community had not been as vocal as she might have expected, and that expedited removal makes sense for arrivals who lack documentation, though Border Patrol should debrief them to learn about smuggling routes and actors.
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