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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    GAO: Foreigners at U.S. flight schools not always vetted

    GAO: Foreigners at U.S. flight schools not always vetted

    By Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Updated 1h 31m ago

    Foreign students are able to study at U.S. flight schools after entering the country illegally or without undergoing a security check required after the 2001 terror attacks, government investigators say.

    The Government Accountability Office reported Wednesday that its investigators found that eight foreign nationals attending a Boston flight school in March 2010 had entered the country illegally. Seventeen more who received security checks had overstayed their allotted time in the country.

    Three of them had obtained pilot's licenses, Stephen Lord of the GAO told the House Homeland Security subcommittee on transportation security.

    Investigators also found that an undisclosed number of foreigners among the 25,599 registered with the Federal Aviation Administration to train to fly were not in a Transportation Security Administration database and hadn't applied for a security check.

    "We were surprised to find that some — the exact number is designated sensitive security information — some of the foreign nationals holding pilot's licenses were not in the TSA's database, indicating that some foreign nationals hadn't been vetted before receiving flight training," Lord said.

    Three of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers who slammed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were trained to fly at schools in Florida, Arizona and Minnesota.

    After the attacks, Congress required the TSA to run security checks on all foreign flight students for planes weighing more than 12,500 pounds.

    But GAO investigators found that the TSA check, which includes a criminal-background check and a comparison to a terrorist database, doesn't occur until after the student has started training.

    "Thus, foreign nationals obtaining flight training with the intent to do harm, such as three of the pilots and leaders of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, could have already obtained the training needed to operate an aircraft before they received any type of vetting," Lord told the subcommittee in written testimony.

    Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., asked the TSA whether somebody on the terrorist watch list could begin flight training, in effect being allowed to fly a plane while not being allowed to board a commercial flight.

    "That is true," said Kerwin Wilson, general-aviation manager at TSA. But, he added, it would take a long time for the student to complete training and that the background check could be completed during that time.

    "I'm shocked that somebody on the no-fly list can be approved for flying lessons in this country," said the panel chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.

    The TSA says it receives 48,000 applications each year for foreigners to receive flight training. The agency has reviewed 350,000 applications involving 125,000 people since 2001.

    "Flight-training providers are prohibited from providing training until the security threat assessment has been successfully conducted by TSA," Wilson said.

    The TSA and the Federal Aviation Administration agreed in February to better exchange information about pilots. The TSA vowed to complete a plan to improve security checks for foreign flight students by the end of this year.

    GAO: Foreigners at U.S. flight schools not always vetted
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  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Americans on no-fly list allowed to learn to fly

    By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press

    WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. citizens who are on the government's list of people banned from flying because they're considered terror threats are not prevented from learning how to fly in schools around the country, according to government regulations.

    Such a person may have to drive across the country to learn how to fly a plane because he or she would likely be stopped from boarding a commercial airliner. But the security checks put in place after the 9/11 attacks will not keep the person from receiving pilot training.

    The security loophole was raised during a hearing Wednesday to examine the Homeland Security Department's programs to screen foreigners who want to attend flight schools in the U.S. Some of the 9/11 hijackers were able to learn to fly in the U.S. while living in the country illegally. The government put in several more layers of security after the attacks, and foreigners now receive criminal background checks and are screened against terror watch lists before they are allowed to begin training. U.S. citizens, however, are not subject to the same scrutiny.

    "I was stunned. That just caught me completely off guard, and I'm pretty angry about it," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said after the hearing. "Everybody should be concerned."

    The government has other screening requirements for someone to receive a pilot's license or other certificate to fly a plane which include criminal background checks and screening against terror watch lists. But Rogers said if the government doesn't want someone on an airplane because he or she is a terror threat, there's no reason why that person should be allowed to learn how to fly.

    There are about 500 U.S. citizens on the no-fly list, according to an intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive numbers.

    Kerwin Wilson, the Transportation Security Administration official who oversees the flight school screening program, said he did not know whether an American on the no-fly list has actually undergone flight training in the U.S. in the past 10 years.

    "Keep in mind, the way the program is set up, there's layered security in place," Wilson said, adding that once someone receives a flight certificate, he or she is screened against other criminal and terrorism databases regularly. Wilson also cautioned that putting U.S. citizens through these additional security checks could cost more money.

    This did not allay concerned lawmakers.

    Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security committee, said the only thing the government does not do for a U.S. citizen on the no-fly list is give him or her a license to fly a plane.

    "We've trained them to do it. That's my concern," Thompson said.

    Rogers, chairman of the subcommittee that held Wednesday's hearing, said he plans to raise this with the head of the TSA, and if the agency can't fix the problem, he plans to introduce legislation that would.

    As it is, the TSA's program to screen foreigners has its own security loopholes, according to the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency.

    The TSA screening program does not automatically determine whether a prospective flight student is in the U.S. legally, said Stephen Lord, who heads GAO's homeland security and justice programs. In 2010, law enforcement investigated a flight school in the Boston area and found that eight people at the school approved for flight training by TSA were in the country illegally, and 17 more had stayed in the country longer than they were allowed, Lord told lawmakers. The owner of the flight school was in the country illegally as well.

    The TSA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have agreed to share more information with each other, officials from those agencies said.

    SantafeNewMexican.com with news from The Associated Press
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  3. #3
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    TSA Let 25 Illegal Aliens Attend Flight School Owned by Illegal Alien

    By Edwin Mora
    July 18, 2012
    CNS News



    (CNSNews.com) -- The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved flight training for 25 illegal aliens at a Boston-area flight school that was owned by yet another illegal alien, according to the Government Accountability Office.

    The illegal-alien flight-school attendees including eight who had entered the country illegally and 17 who had overstayed their allowed period of admission into the United States, according to an audit by the GAO.

    Six of the illegal aliens were actually able to get pilot’s licenses.

    Rep. Mike Rogers (R.-Ala.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security, said he found the GAO's findings "amazing."

    "We have cancer patients, Iraq War veterans and Nobel Prize winners all forced to undergo rigorous security checks before getting on an airplane," said Rogers, "and at the same time, ten years after 9/11, there are foreign nationals in the United States trained to fly just like Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers did, and not all of them are necessarily getting a security background check."

    Stephen Lord, who is the GAO's director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues, testified about the matter Wednesday in Rogers' subcommittee. Rogers asked him: "Isn't it true that, based on your report, the Transportation Security Administration cannot assure the American people that foreign terrorists are not in this country learning how to fly airplanes, yes or no?"

    Lord responded: "At this time, no."

    Although the illegal alien who owned the Massachusetts flight school had not undergone a required TSA security threat assessment and had not been approved for flight training by the agency, he nonetheless held two Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pilot licenses, also known as FAA certificates.

    The GAO report, released today, is entitled General Aviation Security: TSA’s Process for Ensuring Foreign Flight Students Do Not Pose a Security Risk Has Weaknesses.

    In response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. homeland perpetrated by terrorists who learned how to pilot aircraft at flight schools in Florida, Arizona, and Minnesota, the TSA, a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), developed the “Alien Flight Student Program (AFSP) to help determine whether foreign students enrolling at flight schools pose a security threat,” said the GAO's Stephen Lord in written testimony prepared for Wednesday's hearing in the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security.

    According to the 911 Commission Report, four of the Sept. 11 hijackers who entered the United States with legal visas had overstayed their authorized period of admission.

    Under the Alien Flight Student Program, foreign nationals are supposed to be subjected to a TSA security threat assessment prior to receiving flight training to determine whether they pose a security threat to the United States.

    “According to TSA regulations, an individual poses a security threat when the individual is suspected of posing, or is known to pose, a threat to transportation or national security, a threat of air piracy or terrorism, a threat to airline or passenger security, or a threat to civil aviation security,” Lord said in his written testimony.

    “According to TSA officials, when a foreign national applies to AFSP to obtain flight training, TSA uses information submitted by the foreign national--such as name, date of birth, and passport information--to conduct a criminal history records check, a review of the Terrorist Screening Database, and a review of the Department of Homeland Security’s TECS [anti-terrorism] system,” Lord testified.

    However, a “weakness” in TSA’s Alien Flight Student Program, noted by GAO, is that it does not check for immigration status.

    “AFSP is not designed to determine whether a foreign flight student entered the country legally; thus, a foreign national can be approved for training through AFSP after entering the country illegally,” stated the GAO in its report. “In March 2010, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigated a Boston-area flight school after local police stopped the flight school owner for a traffic violation and discovered that he was in the country illegally. In response to this incident, ICE launched a broader investigation of the students enrolled at the flight school.”

    “ICE found that 25 of the foreign nationals at this flight school had applied to AFSP and had been approved by TSA to begin flight training after their security threat assessment had been completed; however,” reads the GAO report, “the ICE investigation and our subsequent inquiries revealed the following issues, among other things:

    --“Eight of the 25 foreign nationals who received approval by TSA to begin flight training were in ‘entry without inspection’ status, meaning they had entered the country illegally. Three of these had obtained FAA airman certificates [pilot’s license]: 2 held FAA private pilot certificates and 1 held an FAA commercial pilot certificate.

    --“Seventeen of the 25 foreign nationals who received approval by the TSA to begin flight training were in ‘overstay’ status, meaning they had overstayed their authorized period of admission into the United States.

    --“In addition, the flight school owner held two FAA airman certificates. Specifically, he was a certified Airline Transport Pilot (cargo pilot) and a Certified Flight Instructor. However, he had never received a TSA security threat assessment or been approved by TSA to obtain flight training. He had registered with TSA as a flight training provider under AFSP.”

    A GAO official told CNSNews.com that, based on their names, none of the 25 illegal aliens who attended the flight school appeared to be from Muslim countries. Instead, they had Latin American names.

    The GAO found that, “From January 2006 through September 2011, 25,599 foreign nationals had applied for FAA airman certificates, indicating they had completed flight training.” That information is placed on the FAA airmen registry.

    The GAO provided information from the FAA’s airmen registry to TSA “so that the agency could conduct a matching process to determine whether the foreign nationals in the FAA airmen registry were in TSA’s AFSP database and the extent to which they had been successfully vetted through the AFSP database.”

    The GAO found that not everyone in the FAA registry had been vetted properly.

    “TSA’s analysis indicated that some of the 25,599 foreign nationals in the FAA airmen registry were not in the TSA AFSP database, indicating that these individuals had not applied to the AFSP or been vetted by TSA before taking flight training and receiving an FAA airman certificate,” stated the GAO.

    The GAO continued, “TSA’s analysis indicated that an additional number of the 25,599 foreign nationals in the FAA airmen registry were also in the TSA AFSP database but had not been successfully vetted, meaning that they had received an FAA airman certificate but had not been successfully vetted or received permission from TSA to begin flight training.”

    The GAO did not provide the full number of individuals who were not properly vetted.

    The GAO’s Stephen Lord, in his prepared remarks, told lawmakers that the TSA does not screen new and existing FAA pilot license holders against the Terrorist Screening Database until after the foreign national has completed flight training.

    “Thus, foreign nationals obtaining flight training with the intent to do harm, such as three of the pilots and leaders of the September 11 terrorist attacks, could have already obtained the training needed to operate an aircraft before they received any type of vetting,” warned the GAO.

    The TSA and ICE are working on a pilot program for vetting the names of foreign nationals against immigration databases.

    However, the GAO noted that the two agencies “have not specified desired outcomes and time frames, or assigned individuals with responsibility for fully instituting the program.”

    The GAO further stated, “We recommended that TSA and ICE develop a plan, with time frames, and assign individuals with responsibility and accountability for assessing the results of their pilot program to check TSA AFSP data against information DHS has on applicants’ admissibility status to help detect and identify violations, such as overstays and entries without inspection, by foreign flight students, and institute that pilot program if it is found to be effective.”

    “DHS concurred with this recommendation and stated that TSA will prepare a plan by December 2012 to assess the results of the pilot program with ICE to determine the lawful status of the active AFSP population,” said the GAO.

    TSA Let 25 Illegal Aliens Attend Flight School Owned by Illegal Alien | CNSNews.com
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