Illegals learning to fly! Where have I heard this before
Problems remain in flight school security
Few changes are evident following Stow arrests
By Maria Sacchetti
Globe Staff / February 21, 2011
‘The airport managers are obviously working more closely with TSA and ICE.’
Several months after federal officials arrested the immigrant owner of a Stow flight school and 33 of his students for being in the United States illegally, officials have not instituted new safeguards to prevent something similar from happening again.
No links to terrorism were found at TJ Aviation Flight Academy, but critics jarred by the episode nearly a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks questioned how it was possible for an illegal immigrant to obtain a pilot’s license, open a flight school in Massachusetts, and teach other immigrants here illegally to fly small aircraft.
“It’s shocking how many vulnerabilities are still there, gaping open, this long after 9/11,’’ said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors tougher limits on immigration. “We clearly need to have more checkpoints and more due diligence along the way to make sure that this can’t happen.’’
US immigration officials arrested school owner Thiago DeJesus last July and, during the next several months, 33 students at the school, all from Brazil and many carrying expired visas, for being in the country illegally. DeJesus said the students had obtained clearance from the Transportation Security Administration to learn to fly single-engine planes at Minute Man Airfield, about 30 miles northwest of Boston.
The TSA, which is in charge of scrutinizing all foreign flight students before they can take flying lessons or get a pilot’s license in the United States, is working with federal immigration officials “to refine the process for checking the immigration status of alien flight school students,’’ said TSA spokesman Greg Soulé.
Soulé said the TSA fully vets foreign flight students using criminal, terrorism, and immigration databases when they apply for permission to take lessons, to ensure that they are not known or suspected threats to aviation. Flight schools are required to keep a copy of each visa for their records.
But the TSA does not always follow up to ensure that a student stops flying when his or her visa expires. And after the initial TSA check, students can go on to obtain a pilot’s license from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA is also investigating what happened with the Stow flight school. But agency spokeswoman Laura J. Brown said her agency relies on the TSA for criminal and immigration background checks.
She said the FAA does not have the legal authority to revoke a pilot’s license for being in the country illegally.
DeJesus’s pilot’s license remained valid after his arrest last year. After he was released pending a hearing in Boston immigration court, he resumed teaching people how to fly. His school closed after a Globe article about the arrests was published in November.
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