Bush Calls for Probe of INS After Hijackers’ Visas OKd

President Bush delivered a stinging rebuke to the Immigration and Naturalization Service on Wednesday following the disclosure that the agency confirmed student visas for two of the Sept. 11 hijackers--six months after they destroyed the World Trade Center.

The revelation not only embarrassed the INS but also underscored the error-prone agency’s central role in the nation’s war on terrorism and added force to the drive to address its long-standing problems.

Bush said, “I could barely get my coffee down” as he read about the incident in his morning newspaper.

“I was stunned and not happy,” Bush told a news conference. “This is an interesting wake-up call for those who run the INS. It needs to be modernized so we know who’s coming and who’s going out and why they’re here.”

At the same time, Bush stood by INS Commissioner James Ziglar, whom he appointed. “His responsibility is to reform the INS,” the president said. “Let’s give him time to do so.”

Ziglar has pledged to modernize an array of INS procedures, including bringing in modern technology to track foreign students in the United States and speeding up the process that caused the current furor.

On Wednesday, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft vowed an immediate investigation of the INS, which is part of his Justice Department. The INS threw up a defensive perimeter of explanatory news releases.

The brouhaha began Monday, six months to the day since the hijackings, when a flight school in Venice, Fla., received notification that the INS had approved student visas for two of its alumni: Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, who are believed to have piloted the jetliners that brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers.

As news spread, the INS hastily released a statement pointing out that the flight school had received a “secondary” notification. Atta’s application had been approved July 17, and Al-Shehhi’s on Aug. 9.

“It is important to emphasize that the decisions regarding the request to change status were made in the summer of 2001, prior to the tragic events of Sept. 11,” the INS said in the statement, which also noted that the beleaguered agency “had no information indicating that Atta or Al-Shehhi had ties to terrorist organizations.”

Those explanations were overshadowed by a hail of derision, and the episode seemed destined to take on the status of a legend in the annals of governmental miscues.

On top of that, the terrorists’ visa approvals quickly became entangled with other grievances between Congress and the White House over homeland security.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said the incident underscored the need for Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to testify before Congress. The White House has resisted requests for Ridge to testify, contending that he is a presidential advisor, not a Cabinet officer, and that he regularly makes himself available to members of Congress on an informal basis.

Daschle said Ridge needed to testify before Congress “and explain why things like this” are happening. He said he was “absolutely shocked” at the news of the visas, calling it “one of the most embarrassing incidents since 9/11.”

Others expressed concern that efforts to reform the INS were bogging down. “My fear is that it is still business as usual at INS, even in the aftermath of the most devastating terror attack on American soil,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). She urged passage of legislation to improve visa security.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a co-sponsor of that legislation, called the incident “an embarrassing mistake” that showed the INS had serious problems.

“This is an agency that is out of control, unable to perform its most basic functions and is in need of radical reform,” complained Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.). He urged fellow lawmakers to mandate an overhaul of how student visas are issued and monitored.

Others expressed amazement that such an incident could ever have occurred. “Anything with Mohamed Atta’s name on it should send alarm bells blasting,” said Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.). “What is this, a Keystone Kops operation?”

Ziglar has testified that the agency “is currently on schedule” to introduce a modern system for tracking foreign students by Jan. 1, 2003. The system is intended to replace the slow and circuitous approach still in use, in which INS examiners mail information to a processing center, where a private contractor enters data and ultimately sends paperwork back to a school on the status of an applicant.

In the case of Atta and Al-Shehhi, the final mailing was sent by a processing center in London, Ky., which is run by a private contractor, to the flight school on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

A Justice Department official Wednesday described Ashcroft as “extremely concerned and furious,” and said the attorney general would have the department’s inspector general investigate “as soon as possible.” Bush ordered Ashcroft and Ridge to “get to the bottom of this immediately,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

In November, Ashcroft unveiled administration plans to overhaul the INS, dividing the agency into two parts: one responsible for law enforcement, the other in charge of services to law-abiding immigrants. The effort was intended to head off more drastic congressional proposals to effectively break up the agency.

The latest furor provides the agency’s many critics with some of their most potent ammunition so far.

Tuesday’s “discovery that student visas had been issued to dead terrorists sadly underscores the fact that the INS is so overwhelmed and disorganized that it is incapable of managing the current flow of immigration, let alone the additional mandates being foisted upon it by Congress,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to restrict immigration.