Thread: VA-Eastern Euro. Flight school operator,charged as illegal

Thu 28 Jan 2010 07:17
TSA Approved:Eastern European Flight school operator in Norfolk charged as illegal immigrant

Categories: All Posts , Illegal Alien Nation , Same Shit--Different Day

By Tim McGlone
The Virginian-Pilot

An Eastern European man operating a flight school at Norfolk International Airport was arrested Wednesday morning on a federal charge of lying about his citizenship.

The arrest of Peter Surina raises questions about security at the airport and the level of background checking done on someone given access to airplanes and runways.

One security expert called it a "complete systemic breakdown," harkening to some of the 2001 terrorist attackers who attended flight school while in the country illegally.

"That’s how terrorists operated in the past. We can’t ignore these people," said Michael Cutler, a retired 30-year immigration agent who speaks publicly about security issues.

Federal officials say Surina has been in the country illegally for 20 years, having arrived from what was then Czechoslovakia when he was about 8 years old.

Within the past four or five years, he managed to obtain a pilot’s license and open his school, called Norfolk Flight Center, based on airport grounds, according to court records and other public documents.

Surina, 29, lives in an Ocean View bayfront condominium and drives a Hummer. At a court appearance Wednesday afternoon, his attorney said Surina does have legal status in the country and was recently married.

However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury told a magistrate judge that Surina repeatedly lied on his FAA license applications, stating that he was a U.S. citizen born in New York.

"The defendant has no legal status," Salsbury told the judge in urging that Surina be held in jail because he is at risk of fleeing.

Surina’s attorney, John Gardner, told the judge his client was in "a period of stay" with immigration authorities based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen.

A woman identified by Gardner as Surina’s wife declined to comment after the proceeding.

U.S. Magistrate Judge F. Bradford Stillman set a detention hearing for Friday morning.

How Surina was able to remain in the country unchecked was a question authorities could not answer Wednesday.

Wayne Shank, director of the Norfolk Airport Authority, said he knew nothing about the case until Wednesday morning. Upon checking, however, he learned that Surina was given a security badge that allowed him to access the Landmark Aviation facility, where Surina kept an office and a plane.

That type of security badge requires a background check but not the full security clearance required for a "security identification display area badge," which allows access to anywhere in the airport. Still, Shank acknowledged that Surina had access to the same runways used by commercial jets.

According to court records, the Transportation Security Administration conducted the background check on Surina. TSA officials did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday.

Mike Netherland, the special agent in charge of the Norfolk office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that in that type of background check, immigration status typically would not be questioned unless there was some suspicion of the person’s status.

Surina had a valid Social Security number and, according to the court records, had checked that he was a citizen on all his background documents.

Cutler, who testified before Congress on immigration and security issues, said that just shows a breakdown in the system.

"They all bear responsibility," he said. "They’re trying to say, ‘It’s not my fault, it’s someone else’s fault,’ when it’s everyone’s fault. We keep seeing this time and again where we have criminals and terrorists acquiring immigration status."

Surina opened his business in July. According to public records, he has lived in the Binghamton, N.Y., area, has been stopped and ticketed numerous times for traffic infractions, and has hunting and fishing licenses.

His Web site also says that he "graduated with honors from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University with a professional aeronautics degree along with minors in management and aviation safety."

A spokesman for the school, based in Florida, said records indicate that Surina was enrolled in an undergraduate program at the end of last year but had not received any degrees.


http://www.the-two-malcontents.com/2010 ... immigrant/

Related: http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-186760-flight.html