Admitting Terror, Part 3

Four more cases of egregious ineptitude at the Immigration and Naturalization Service

A A A Comments By Bob Norman Thursday, Dec 13 2001

...continued from page 4

"He had encountered INS, and they admitted him with his fake documents," Morfa says. "He was the very last passenger in the customs area, and he was seen by one of the inspectors trying to leave the area."

When Rishel questioned Braish, "the things he had told INS didn't jibe with what he presented to her," Morfa explains.

Immigrants sometimes negotiate with inspectors. Above are two who were successful: Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and Mohamed Atta

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After being confronted with this information, INS spokeswoman Patricia Mancha, on behalf of Shewairy, conceded that inspectors had allowed Braish's entry and that he wasn't escorted to customs, which is located near the INS area.

When Rishel determined that Braish was a Muslim Palestinian born in Jordan and that his travel documents were fake, she handed him over to INS. During the investigation Braish admitted to INS investigator Parodi that he bought the Jordanian passport and phony New York documents for $2500 from a woman identified as Amal Habibi in his home city of Amman, Jordan, according to court records. Parodi's sworn report doesn't specify where Braish obtained the fake Bureau of Prisons ID card, which had the same picture on it as the fraudulent passport and driver license.

The prison ID most alarms immigration expert Krieger. "You can get fake birth certificates and driver's licenses anywhere," he says. "But that prison card isn't common and it indicates to me that he was working for a terrorist organization and may have had a special purpose for being in the United States involving the prison."

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Mia Ward, says Braish is the only suspect known to have had such a card and that the case is currently under investigation by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General.

Braish "was prevented from entering this country and was held accountable according to the laws of the United States," Shewairy stated in a written statement to New Times. "The system and the process worked."

Krieger again disagrees. "It was a screwup by INS tremendously," he says. "Here this guy was stamped in by INS, he was almost in the country, and he was unescorted. The primary inspector should have looked at those documents and verified their authenticity. But he didn't. Why? Because it's easier to let the guy slide."

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