Malkin: Tom Ridge, Where Were You?

Newsmax.com ^ | Michelle Malkin

[DWPittelli]

Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003 12:30 p.m. EDT

Malkin: Tom Ridge, Where Were You?

Seething over Homeland Security tsar Tom Ridge's months-long failure to end travel programs that allowed foreigners to fly to the U.S. without visas, before finally suspending them, sharp-tongued columnist Michelle Malkin has a question for Tom Ridge in her latest column: "Why did it take so bloody long?"

She also wonders why Ridge has not put a permanent end to the programs, instead of merely putting them on hold.

Says Malkin: "The visa is supposed to be our government's best method for keeping out foreign menaces. Law-enforcement agents consider it the most important national security screening mechanism. Yet, airline and tourism lobbyists, and their water-carriers in Washington, have poked dangerous holes in the system to benefit the $590 billion travel industry."

Noting that she warned everyone "eleven months ago" in her column about "the specific use of the Transit Without a Visa (TWOV) program by suspected Middle Eastern terrorists," Malkin reports that "federal officials say last week's suspension of two visa-less travel programs was based on 'new,' 'specific' and 'credible' intelligence indicating that al Qaeda terrorists might exploit them."

Charging that "there's nothing new about the widely known lack of security surrounding these terrorist-friendly airline security loopholes," Malkin writes that an internal Justice Department memo she obtained last summer revealed that four individuals were using the TWOV program to smuggle illegal aliens, many of whom are Middle Eastern males, into the United States at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

Malkin fumes, "Despite uncovering this plot a year ago, homeland security officials did absolutely nothing to stop the ... more than a million airline passengers ... routed to American airport hubs under the TWOV program."

Where was Ridge? Appearing on NBC's "Meet The Press" last week, Ridge pooh-poohed the TWOV program as "a little door."

Malkin asks, "How many of these visa-free travelers over the past year violated program requirements, overstayed their visits, and remain in the country today doing God knows what? The feds have no idea."

Scary.

Editor's Note: Michelle Malkin's column is available in NewsMax magazine.

[DWPittelli]

Appearing on NBC's "Meet The Press" last week, Ridge pooh-poohed the TWOV program as "a little door."

How big a door does it take to allow, I don't know, 19 men into the country?

[Shermy]

"a little door."

That's exactly what terrorists and smugglers look for. Mr. Ridge fails to give them the credit they deserve. Terrs are like water - water doesn't seep through walls, but cracks.

[King Prout]

your backdoor doesn't have to be a gaping hole to allow an invader to come by and bend you over.
these folks don't seem to be serious about national security, do they?

[joesnuffy]

Yeh a couple hundert thousands middle eastern men just flow into the country and dissapear
a few million other aliens running loose accross the USA
And still the borders have not been sealed...in fact when civilians tried to do what Mr. Ridge has failed to do....and complains of 'insufficent resources'
Yet the govt. has the time and resources to go after any civilians who wish to do what it is not willing to do?

[King Prout]

your Honey is being quoted

[joesnuffy]

Border Patrol Ordered to "Back Off"