Posted on 08/16/2006 1:12:51 AM PDT by Rte66
(WCCO) Bloomington, Minn. For the first time today, we heard from the Egyptian foreign exchange student arrested in Minneapolis.
Eslam El-Dessouki is one of eleven young men authorities picked up after entering the country on student visas, but never showing up at school.
In a Bloomington, Minn. immigration courtroom, a judge asked the student some very tough questions.
Several times, the Egyptian student was asked, "Why didn't you go to Montana State as required by your student visa?"
El-Dessouki said, "It was the first time out of my country, I just think to visit my uncle... I didn't know if I didn't attend school it would be a crime."
(Excerpt) Read more at wcco.com ...
El-Dessouki’s attorney said it was an innocent mistake.
"I think he meant well," immigration attorney Herbert Igbanugo said. "He didn’t understand the law. His uncles actually didn't understand the law because they gave him some bad advice."
Igbanugo explained that the student’s uncles live in Minneapolis. They thought that he could transfer to a different school on his visa instead of attending Montana State University where he had already been accepted.
Earlier in August, when the 17 Egyptian students landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport, they said they got separated during customs inspections. El-Dessouki said he then couldn't find his gate and he missed his Montana flight.
"I think the story about what happened at the airport is extremely questionable," Judge Joseph Dierkes said. "I mean, he had a ticket to go to Montana."
After missing his flight, El-Dessouki hopped a Greyhound from New York to Minneapolis and stayed with his uncle.
Igbanugo said the student didn’t know he was wanted by the FBI the situation sure looked bad at the time.
El-Dessouki visited the U and applied later applied for an official Minnesota state identification card.
He told the judge that's proof he wasn't hiding out.
The judge granted El-Dessouki a bond of $1,700. So even though a nationwide manhunt put him behind bars, he could have been released and returned to Minneapolis Wednesday.
That didn't happen. Immigration officials took steps to keep him in jail.
Igbanugo said since this is a highly-publicized, officials want to keep him in jail even though officials have said none of the students was a direct threat. But the immigration official at the court hearing complained the case was a distraction since FBI had to round up all the missing students at a time when agents wanted to focus on heightened homeland security concerns.
Igbanugo predicted the U.S will probably move to have his client sent back to Egypt in the coming weeks.
"My first time out of my country" ... but I hopped a Greyhound from New York City to Minneapolis.
Oh-kay.
One or Two deciding not to report to their school would be suspicious enough.. but Eleven taking off for different parts of the country is very odd.
Most of the 9/11 hijackers were on student visas.
None are believed to pose a terrorist or criminal threat, per ICE. I think they were sent to probe security. Just send them all back to Cairo. Innocent mistake huh? Ignorance of the law is not a excuse.
But you see...Islam has a different set of laws. Of course it isn't a crime.
or, having missed the flight, why couldn't the next flight out be taken.
I'll be generous and assume he is not the sharpest tack in the box.
Ah, come on guys, give Eslam a break....
He REALLY did only want to merely transfer to a different school.....
Flying School.....
One that skipped those boring bits at the begining and ending of a flight.... Just the fun bit there in the middle.
Send the 11, plus ALL muslim-islamic-arab students back to the turd-world hellholes they came from. This insanity has to stop. We have hundreds of thousands of muslim-islamic-arab terrorists already here, waiting for 'their turn'. Whether it's gathering intel, probing security or conducting 'dry-runs', we're nuts for allowing this crap to take place!
Yeah, yeah, that's the ticker. 11 foreign students come to study at a particular school, but don't show up for classes at all. Who in his right mind would believe this cock and bull story for even a second?
Come to think of it, he *was* the first one caught, lol!
This was only a 4 week summer course. The 11 who went this way and that and anywhere BUT to the college they were supposed to go to, have all been expelled from their school back home. Once they get back home, their lives will be over. Their parents paid thousands of dollars to send then here and some of the parents, who have been interviewed, thought it was perfectly okay to spend that kind of money to get the kid into the USA, so that he could work. They KNEW what was going to happen, once the boys got here and it wasn't going to college for 4 weeks in Montana.
Why has this handful of Egyptians raised such a visible fuss, when there are many other would-be foreign students that decide to sightsee instead and the public does not hear about it. Some kind of dirt about Egypt must have turned up.
Agree 100%. Yes, a probe.
All student visas from Muslim countries should be revoked and none issued for the forseeable future, no offense intended of course. It's insanity to let these people into this country.
At what sort of job that would make the initial investment worthwhile?
No offense, but if you think this guy is just dumb, well, it makes you not exactly the sharpest tack. I'll be generous and just chalk it up to your being young and gung ho. :>
Agree 100%. STOP THE INSANITY!!
And don't forget this little tidbit:
" ... applied for an official Minnesota state identification card. ..."
So, you're saying they came here to fan out, get lost in the chaos, and get jobs illegally like Mexicans and SAs do (only better jobs, of course)? In other words, illegally immigrate for employment? No doubt those jobs would be in Arab-owned or influenced companies. But I don't think so. I think it was to probe our security, as another poster suggested. Who knows if they really flunked out of college in Egypt or not? Maybe they did, and the only honorable recourse for them was to go to America, connect with a terror cell and become suicide bombers? The money to get them in could easily have come from Al-Qeada.
If it would not pay back the investment, you're full of it
Why would Egyptians need to play hooky to "probe" US nonsecurity. All they need to do is watch the southern what-passes-for-a-border.
Because they can't crawl across a border from a country that is difficult to get into (Mexico) so they have to come into the US on a visa. The probe is to check how well they are tracked after they arrive and what holes exist.
It will be interesting to see in the next few days, as the other 10 make their court appearances, whether it comes out that any of them were in touch with any of the others, or if they "knew" where the others went.
They haven't been expelled from Mansoura University yet - that is supposed to happen when they get home to Egypt.
So "they* say.
I agree, just send them all back to Egypt. Amen.
Mother: My Eslam, he's a good boy, he brings me pastries and tea when he is in Cairo, and has a new job in America at......Radio Shack! His friends work at the fertilizer plant and now he is using our family business to start his own fertilizer plant in America, such a good boy!
When will this country wake up? It is NOT business as usual!!!
Profiling must begin, and we need to start closing the doors.
Working off the books can be profitable, even if the pay is lower than the norm for that kind of job. They can probably land such a job and a place to stay with some relative in the states, of which they have many. The reason is that while doing work off the books, they can also get fake IDs and start cashing in on charitable organizations' goodwill, both the typical charity oranizations we all know, and the Muslim ones we don't. They can add on a selection of welfare programs as well. They can also get free health care. And they can spend their time looking for some American citizen to marry.
This whole thing stinks.
May it be the last time in this country.
"When will this country wake up?"
I find myself thinking this all the time anymore.
Revoke "student" visas from terrorist countries.
When will this country finally wake up?
PC is going to kill more people!
You know how they don't put up a stop light,widen a road or any other needed road project until someone dies? Same thing is stewing here. Even though we had 911 its going to take 10 times more than that for Americans to demand the complete removal of all nationalities that may pose a threat.
The racket of which you speak certainly did exist, and millions of "students" from all over the world came to this country on student visas & just disappeared & started new lives as Americans. For decades, it was one of the prime avenues for illegal immigration from overseas, and easy-money for universities since they were taking in million$ in tuition from folks they didn't have to expend any resources to actually teach.
After 9/11, the feds required universities to report its no-shows, which is why MSU contacted the authorities when these men never made it to Bozeman. So, a system that was terribly broken for decades actually worked here through post-9/11 reforms.The new policy has essentially shut down the racket & now only the occassional strays make the news, whereas before millions disappearing into the woodwork annually went completely unreported.
One would think that freepers would take some heart out of this, but it seems sometimes even good news is bad news here.Some people here seem to think that the success had by the US in tracking down the Bozeman 11 is evidence that Homeland Security is bungling it or hiding something or worse. I'm not quite sure why.
Let's send them to Gitmo instead.
PROBABLY?! It better be more than 'probably', buddy.
This whole thing is such a bunch of BS.
But I can't believe we actually had the will power to care where these clowns went and to actually track them down. That's a start. Too bad we didn't do this with our borders a LONG time ago.
It's incredibly naive for americans (& europeans) to think that all we have to do is roll up the carpet & cover our heads & western civilization will somehow survive for successive generations to enjoy. Jihad ain't going away ever & it's going to take more than magic bullets fired from behind a border fence to vanquish it.
I WAS being generous. When I went to work in HK, my boss laid out all the directions to the office from the airport. I hardly think Montana just left this guy to figure out how to get there all on his own. Maybe my generosity needs to be reconsidered. :)
We need to revoke all student visas from Moslim countries until the terror threat ceases.
Also send the administration at Montana State a bill for the expenses incured in this man-hunt. Perhaps they will not be in such a roaring rush to import these clowns next time.
Bump
The only reason we did look for them and find them all was because Montana State U *did* do the right thing.
The law gives them 30 days before they declare a visa-holding student to be "missing" if the student visa-holder hasn't shown up for classes.
In this case, this was just a summer course lasting only 30 days, so MSU couldn't wait all that time before reporting - they didn't have a whole semester to look for them.
Thus, MSU waited about a week and then reported them to ICE or FBI or whoever they notified. I'm sure glad they used their common sense on this one to override the "law."
Oh, I'm sure they do have buses in Egypt. But is there a Greyhound terminal at JFK? Maybe there is, I don't know.
If so, I can see that someone may have directed the "student" to the bus terminal, but other than that, finding a Greyhound terminal elsewhere in NYC and buying a bus ticket to Minneapolis are a far cry from seeing what could be done about getting his plane ticket changed to a new flight to Monatana.
Should have been done right after 9/11. I'm amazed, though not surprised, that this is still going on. By far my biggest disappointment in Bush is his failure to take meaningful action on immigration. He had a historic opportunity to change immigration policy after 9/11, and totally flubbed it.
Yes, perhaps so. ;>
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