In reply to:


If I'm not mistaken, didn't our immigration department get reamed rather hard just after 9/11 because some of the terrorists in fact WERE here on expired visas and such?



You are right on this point Tony, the INS did get (and was due for) a good reaming by the Authorities for having screwed up for so long.

But please explain, then how does "rounding up Arabs", help resolve this problem?

If the US has a problem with tracking down people with expired visas, I (and so do a lot of people) fail to see how fingerprinting & photographing people from *selected* countries at the border helps.

I also fail to see how encouraging those whose Visas may be about to, or that have actually expired - (who are almost certainly not known terrorists or their sympethisors [yet]), to "register" and then as soon as they turn up, interning them in camps while you figure out what to do with them is going to capture any terrorists and achieve anything but assists the terrorists causes.

If the US was cracking down (hard) on all expired Visas - whether the visitor was from Sudan, Syria or Australia, that would be reasonable behaviour.

But right now the selected "profiling" by "race" (e.g. Arabs) is the way its being implemented.

And as I pointed out, if the US excludes certain kinds of visitors (e.g. Arabs), then the terrorists will then most likely come in from "friendly" countries - like the UK, or Australia etc.

As far as the US Immigration systems effectiveness is concerned, I think the terms "holding capacity" and "wet paper bag" spring to mind.

I'd go as far to state that I would be very surprised if the next time I visit the US I am not dragged aside and accused of having overstayed my last VISA by years due to the inefficiency of the systems in place in accurately knowing when people have actually left the country.