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In new row, Israel at odds with US over visas
by Aron Heller, AP Jerusalem at: http://twitter.com/aronhellerap and http://aronheller.com
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - With the United States irked at Israel over its settlement policies and
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| In this March 17, 2003 file photo, an Israeli border policemen guards the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv as other Israelis line up for U.S. visas. To ease the travel of its citizens, Israel is pressing to join 38 other countries in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, a prestigious club of nations whose citizens don’t need a preapproved visa to visit America. (AP Photo/Eitan Hess-Ashkenazi, File) |
the lack of progress in peace talks, an obscure diplomatic classification has emerged as a new sticking point between the two close allies. To ease the travel of its citizens, Israel is pressing to join 38 other countries in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program - a prestigious club of nations whose citizens do...
Read Full Story TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - With the United States irked at Israel over its settlement policies and the lack of progress in peace talks, an obscure diplomatic classification has emerged as a new sticking point between the two close allies.
To ease the travel of its citizens, Israel is pressing to join 38 other countries in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program - a prestigious club of nations whose citizens don't need a preapproved visa to visit America. So far, their efforts have not only been rebuffed, but Israel has seen a spike in the number of young people and military officers rejected entry to the U.S.
Washington says Israel has not been let into the program simply because it has not met the requirements - and has pointed in part to Israel's treatment of Arab-American travelers, drawing sharp denials by Israeli officials of any discrimination. U.S. officials say there is no policy in place to make it more difficult for Israelis to get "B'' visas, which allow a 90-day stay in the United States for business or travel purposes.
Figures show that the percentage of Israelis whose visa requests are rejected is lower than that of many other countries, and other countries' rejection rates have grown as well amid an overall stricter approach taken by American Homeland Security officials . For example, in 2013 Belarus had a rejected rate of 20.7 percent, Bulgaria's was 19.9 percent and Ireland's was 16.9 percent.
Even so, Israel saw its visa rejection rate jumped to 9.7 percent last year, up from 5.4 percent the year before - a startling 80 percent increase.
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, has called on the State Department to "end its widespread, arbitrary practice of denying young Israelis tourist visas." Other pro-Israel members of Congress have also pressed for answers. Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin said some Congress members are pushing for legislation that would exempt Israel from the requirements to qualify for the waiver program altogether.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki responded this week by saying that Israelis are still overwhelmingly granted entry.
"Over 90 percent of Israeli applicants for tourist visas to the United States are approved. For young Israelis, over 80 percent of visa applicants are approved for a visa," she said at a briefing.
The 90-day visas are either approved or rejected after a brief interview with a U.S. embassy official in the applicant's country of origin. Americans do not need a visa to enter Israel, though Americans of Palestinian origin often face problems and cannot enter through Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport, instead entering either through Jordan or Egypt.
The visa issue brings another irritant in U.S.-Israeli ties at a time of strains over Secretary of State John Kerry's stagnating peace efforts. The Obama administration has been critical of Israel for continuing to press forward with Jewish settlements in the West Bank while Kerry has been brokering peace talks over a future Palestinian state.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon recently called Kerry "obsessive" and "messianic" over making peace between Israelis and Palestinians and dismissed a U.S. security plan for the region as worthless. He also called the U.S. weak when it comes to its stance on Iran's nuclear program and questioned Washington's commitment to Israel's security.
During the same briefing last week, Psaki said the U.S. was disappointed that Yaalon has yet to apologize for his "offensive" remarks.
Among younger Israelis, the visa issue has put a damper on plans for a post-army trip to America, a common rite of passage after completing three or more years of compulsory military service. For this demographic, the American concern appears to be less a matter of security and rather a fear that they will abuse their tourist visas to work illegally and peddle products at malls.
Yoav Rosenbaum, 23, said he had no such intention. He and three friends just wanted to go on a 10-day trip to the New York area to see a comedy festival. But even though he holds down a hi-tech job, rents an apartment in Tel Aviv and lived in the U.S for the three years when he was younger, he was immediately rejected at the American embassy.
"I brought documents, showed my return flight and the tickets to the festival, paid the fee and the guy just looked at me and said 'it's not going to happen,'" he recalled, saying the official told him he didn't have enough ties to Israel to be trusted to return. "I wasn't that shocked because I knew that they give a hard time to people of my age group."
It hasn't stopped dozens of others from lining up outside the American embassy in Tel Aviv to seek visas on a daily basis.
For the Israeli government, the larger issue is membership in the Visa Waiver Program.
As one of America's closest allies, Israel wonders why countries like Slovakia, Iceland and Latvia qualify while they are left out.
U.S. diplomats say it is merely a matter of countries meeting stringent conditions, such as issuing biometric passports, properly reporting lost or stolen documents and allowing the free access of Americans into their country.
Psaki said American authorities "remain concerned with the unequal treatment that Palestinian Americans and other Americans of Middle Eastern origin experience at Israel's border and checkpoints, and reciprocity is the most basic condition of the Visa Waiver Program."
Elkin, the Israeli deputy foreign minister, rejected long-standing accusations that Arabs were unnecessarily targeted with aggressive questioning, long luggage examinations and strip searches, saying that U.S. Homeland Security had just as tough techniques for people - including Israelis - of Middle Eastern descent.
He told The Associated Press that Israel had addressed all matters under its control to be able to qualify for the program. He said it will now allow Palestinian-Americans to begin entering the country through the airport.
The only obstacle remaining was the rate of Israelis rejected for U.S. visas, which needs to drop below 3 percent before Israel can be considered for the program.
"That depends on the Americans. If they wanted, a creative solution could be found," Elkin said. "Israel is among the friendliest countries to the U.S. and there is no reason why we shouldn't be part of the program."
Immigration rules change for people with ‘limited’ terrorist links
by By
article source: http://voxxi.com/2014/02/10/immigration-rules-limited-terrorist/
The Obama administrations has loosened the immigration rules for asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants seeking to come to the United States or stay here but are barred because they gave “limited” support to terrorists or terrorists organizations in the past.
The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department issued a notice last week, announcing that immigrants who've provided “limited material support” to a terrorist or terrorist organization will now be allowed into the U.S. but only if they don’t pose a threat to national security or public safety.
Immigrants who are already in the U.S. and want to change their immigration status, including those whose green card applications have been on hold for years, will also benefit after passing all relevant background and security checks.
The immigration rules change applies to a provision in immigration law known as “terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds.” The provision was implemented following the Sept. 11 attacks to determine what individuals should not be allowed entry into the U.S. The grounds for inadmissibility include people who are engaged or are likely to engage in terrorist activity after entering the U.S.
But after consulting with the U.S. Attorney General, DHS and the State Department determined that those grounds of inadmissibility “bar certain aliens who do not pose a national security or public safety risk from admission to the United States and from obtaining immigration benefits or other status.”
The change comes after President Barack Obama announced during his recent State of the Union address that he plans to bypass Congress and take action by executive order on several issues. This is one of his first executive actions related to immigration.
Reaction to immigration rules change
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, supports the change. He said the current law barring admission of people who’ve provided “material support” to terrorists and terrorist organizations “has led to the unfair and irrational exclusion of tens of thousands of refugees.”
“For years, I have worked to reform our policies governing so-called material support for terrorism,” Leahy said in a statement. “The existing interpretation was so broad as to be unworkable. It resulted in deserving refugees and asylees being barred from the United States for actions so tangential and minimal that no rational person would consider them supporters of terrorist activities.”
But not everyone thinks the change is a good idea. Republicans are criticizing the change, saying it could open the door for terrorists to come into the U.S.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said he is “deeply concerned” with the change. He called it a “naïve” move by the Obama administration given today’s global terrorist threats.
“President Obama should be protecting U.S. citizens rather than taking a chance on those who are aiding and abetting terrorist activity and putting Americans at greater risk,” he said in a statement.
Goodlatte added that he is afraid the change “provides bad actors an opportunity to easily manufacture reasons that ‘forced’ them to provide material support to terrorists.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also disagrees with the change. He pointed to a 2009 internal audit of immigration procedures, obtained by the House Judiciary Committee from DHS, that reveals at least 70 percent of asylum applications showed signs of fraud.
“In light of these and other facts, it is thus deeply alarming that the Obama Administration would move unilaterally to relax admissions standards for asylum-seekers and potentially numerous other applicants for admission who have possible connections to insurgent or terrorist groups,” Sessions said in a statement.
Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com, January 20, 2014
A newly released document obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request confirms that the State Department ordered the Department of Homeland Security to spare members of the Muslim Brotherhood [MB] traveling to the US in 2012 a TSA pat down or any kind of secondary screening.
The one page document (PDF), obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, shows that members of a Muslim Brotherhood delegation traveling through Minneapolis Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and Dulles Airport were handed expedited entry known as “port courtesy,” which is normally reserved for high ranking government officials and dignitaries. At the time, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohamed Morsi, later deposed, had not been elected president.
The document contains four separate entries which include a directive that Muslim Brotherhood members, “not be pulled into secondary upon arrival at a point of entry.” As well as a TSA pat down, secondary screening involves carry on luggage being inspected by hand and the use of puffer explosive detectors.
Two following entries confirm that Muslim Brotherhood members traveled through both JFK and Dulles Airports “smoothly” and “without incident” after the DHS had been alerted about “port courtesies”.
Another entry reads; “MB delegate departure: In response to a request from the MB, the desk worked with the office of Foreign Missions to arrange for TSA to escort the last member of the visiting MB delegation, Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, through security at Minneapolis Airport and JFK Airport on April 15. We did not hear anything further from the MB, so we assume the departure went smoothly. In the coming days, we’re going to write down a list of procedures for dealing with MB visits to the United States.”
The delegate was given privileged access despite one of their members being linked to a previous child pornography investigation in the United States. In addition, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has now been declared a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government after bombing a police HQ last month, is closely affiliated with Al-Qaeda and has long been cited as the foundational inspiration for both Al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad.
The IPT also highlights the fact that individuals traveling from Syria to give speaking tours in the United States, people like Sheik Osama al-Rifai, that have openly endorsed Al-Qaeda militant groups under the banner of the the Islamic Front, are being handed visas by the State Department with no questions asked.
While completely innocent Americans continue to be subjected to invasive TSA grope down procedures and placed on no fly lists for no reason whatsoever, members of a group with direct links to terrorism were given VIP treatment by the State Department, the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
