Thread: TSA Signs Off On Flight School Owned by Illegal Alien

Malkin: TSA - Training Sky-bound Illegal Aliens

By Michelle Malkin July 20, 2012 6:45 am

When it comes to soldiers, breast-feeding moms, toddlers and grannies, the Transportation Security Administration is not just hands-on, it's hands-all-over.

But when it comes to illegal alien pilot trainees, our homeland security bureaucracy's policy is still stuck in pre-9/11 mode: Hands off, blinders on.

This week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report on the airline security agency's "process for ensuring (that) foreign flight students do not pose a security risk." In short, there isn't much of a "process" at all when it comes to checking the immigration status of flight school students. While the GAO report may be new, the documented lapses are part of the same old, same old refusal to profile foreign flight risks for fear of offending and inconveniencing politically correct special interests.

In November 2010, my column spotlighted a shady flight school outside Boston that had provided single-engine pilot lessons to more than two dozen illegal immigrants from Brazil. Clear counter-terror rules banned illegal aliens from enrolling in U.S. flight schools. Clear counter-terror regulations required TSA to run foreign flight students' names against a plethora of terrorism, criminal and immigration databases. Yet dozens of these illegal alien students eluded our homeland security radar screen.

What's changed since that illegal alien flight school first came to light?

The new GAO audit, first reported on by CNSNews.com on Wednesday, disclosed fresh details about the Boston area flight school racket:
-- "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: Two held FAA private pilot certificates, and one 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."

The GAO report pointed out that over the past two years, TSA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security have supposedly been working on a pilot program to vet names of foreign students against immigration databases -- "but have not specified desired outcomes and time frames, or assigned individuals with responsibility for fully instituting the program."

The Obama administration promises to have a "plan" in place by December 2012 to "assess" the legal status of foreign pilot trainees.

Meantime, election-year amnesty and intransigent apathy reign.

For more than decade, I've reported on the failure of the federal government to build a comprehensive foreign visitor entry-exit tracking system. Visa overstayers constitute 40 percent of the entire illegal alien population -- and have been major beneficiaries of both Bush and Obama illegal alien waiver programs and deportation freezes.

On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks last year, GOP House Homeland Security Chairwoman Candice Miller reported on the federal backlog of more than 750,000 unvetted visa overstay records: "If we are serious about controlling who comes into the nation and preventing another 9/11 attack, we need to get serious about an exit program," she testified. "The (Department of Homeland Security) has yet to articulate a plan to move forward with a comprehensive exit plan in the air environment or elsewhere."

Open-borders lobbyists, the travel industry, civil-rights absolutists and ethnic-grievance groups have lobbied hard to stymie full implementation of coordinated databases to identify, locate and remove illegal overstayers. The systemic, bipartisan refusal to crack down on short-term tourist, business and student visa holders is a clear and present security danger.

Don't take my word for it.

In 2010, President Obama's own Homeland Security Department Inspector General Richard Skinner testified before Congress: "Overstays perpetuate the illegal immigration problem by using the visa process to break the law to remain in the United States. Moreover, some overstays represent a very real national security risk to the nation."

Need a reminder? The Nationwide Visa Overstayers Club includes dozens of jihadists, including Mohamed Atta and four other 9/11 hijackers; 1997 New York subway bomber Lafi Khalil; four of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers; 1993 New York landmark-bombing conspirator Fadil Abdelgani; convicted Times Square bomb plotter Faisal Shahzad; and U.S. Capitol bomb plotter Amine El Khalifi, whose visa expired in 1999 and escaped homeland security notice for 12 years before he was arrested this February just blocks from the Capitol building donning what he thought was a suicide bomb vest.

For the willfully dense: The salient homeland security point here isn't that every overstayer is a jihadi. The point is that the nation's massive, untouched illegal alien overstayer population allows nefarious malefactors from all over the world to blend in and operate with impunity.

Evil never rests. Washington bureaucrats, on the other, are engaged in an endless, reckless game of Kick the Can.
---
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

» Malkin: TSA – Training Sky-bound Illegal Aliens » Commentary -- GOPUSA

TSA is clearing illegal aliens to teach flight schools and fly while strip searching elderly American grandmothers and are coming to a roadblock near you soon!

It is a hard and bitter thing to acknowledge, but no one in the administration cares one bit about doing the job required and doing it right. That goes for every single department starting with the Oval Office and wending its way through every single executive branch department. Sadly this includes the DOD and the FBI along with the usual suspects. DHS should never have been formed, nor should TSA exist. Every day proves they do nothing to keep us safer, while they are doing things that endanger us. This is just one example. But the gun control activists are licking their chops on how to exploit the tragedy in Colorado, while nothing is said by anyone about the two teen agers wounded by an illegal alien who was poaching in Texas. Any outcry to ban illegal aliens? Nope. Any pressure from DHS on the Massachusetts governor to sign the strengthened measures against illegal immigrants which was passed as a true bipartisan measure because of deaths and damages illegals are causing in the state. No, DHS says nothing, except to attack Arizona, Georgia, etc for their passing such measures. Does DHS advise DOJ to not only accept but advocate voter ID because they know how many illegal aliens are already here and voting? Nope. Harry Truman once called the congress he was dealing with as the "Do Nothing Congress". Well now we have the "Do Nothing Useful Administration".

What are we paying these people for? Is there nothing we can do? I heard this story on FOX NEWS yesterday and I was stunned. As they said, guess we'll have to have another 9-11 before anything is done. I shudder to think of some thing like that happening again, although our government seems to be helping them along. Now the question is, they haven't learned a damn thing from the first 9-11, what makes anyone think they would learn the second time around? This government system is broken, all they care about is votes, money, and how to screw the American citizen.

Can anyone find us the name and location of this illegal alien flight school????

W

TSA Let 25 Illegal Aliens Attend Flight School Owned by Illegal Alien

By Edwin Mora
July 18, 2012


(AP Photo)

(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 included 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.

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

Discovery of the trouble at the flight school began when local police--not federal authorities--pulled over the owner of the school on a traffic violation and were able to determine that he was an illegal alien.

Video at the page link:

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.”


(AP Photo)

“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.

[cns-donate]

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

TSA Allowed 25 Illegal Aliens to Attend Mass. Flight School Owned By Illegal Alien

Posted on July 19, 2012 at 10:47am
by Jason Howerton

A glaring loophole in government regulation that allows people on the no-fly list to learn how to fly was uncovered during a hearing on Wednesday. Now, unbelievably, it appears the federal government has also been approving flight training for illegal aliens.

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

Among the students at the illegal-alien flight school were eight people who were in the country illegally and 17 who had overstayed their approved period in the U.S., CNSNews.com reports.

Even more disturbing, six of the illegal aliens were eventually awarded pilot’s licenses.

The worrisome flight school was discovered when local police pulled the owner in an apparent traffic stop and determined that he was in fact an illegal alien.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security, said it was shocking that foreign nationals are being allowed to learn to fly “just like Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers did.”

“We have cancer patients, Iraq War veterans and Nobel Prize winners all forced to undergo rigorous security checks before getting on an airplane 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,” Rogers said.

Stephen Lord, GAO’s director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues, testified before Rogers’ committee Wednesday and was forced to answer some tough questions.

“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?”

“At this time, no,” Lord replied.

CNSNews.com reports that the illegal alien who owned the Boston-area flight school had not been subject to a required TSA security threat assessment and had not been approved for flight training by the TSA, yet he was still able to acquire two Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pilot licenses.

In the tragic 9/11 attacks, the hijackers were in the United States with legal visas but had over stayed their visas.

Meanwhile, they learned how to pilot an airplane at flight schools in Florida, Arizona and Minnesota. In response, the TSA implemented the “Alien Flight Student Program (AFSP) to help determine whether foreign students enrolling at flight schools pose pose a security threat,” Lord said in written testimony delivered Wednesday.

Under AFSP, foreign nationals are supposed to go through a TSA security threat assessment before getting any flight training in order to determine whether there is a reasonable security threat to the U.S.

“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 explained.

He continued: “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.”

But one thing not checked for is immigration status, a “weakness” noted by the GAO.

From the GAO report titled, “General Aviation Security: TSA’s Process for Ensuring Foreign Flight Students Do Not Pose a Security Risk Has Weaknesses“:

“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.”

“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 spokesperson told CNSNews.com that none of the 25 illegal aliens who attended the Massachusetts flight school appeared to be from Muslim countries based on their names, which appeared to be Latin American.

“From January 2006 through September 2011, 25,599 foreign nationals had applied for FAA airman certificates, indicating they had completed flight training,” the GAO report reveals.

However, the GAO determined that not everyone in the FAA registry had been subjected to thorough background checks.
“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,” according to the GAO.

“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 TSA and ICE are working on a pilot program to properly vet foreign nationals and check them against immigration databases, though no time frame or real plan of action has been developed.

TSA Let 25 Illegal Aliens Attend Boston-area Flight School Owned By an Illegal Alien | TheBlaze.com

Flight school students arrested

Concerns raised on antiterror net; 34 immigrants allegedly illegal

By Maria Sacchetti
Globe Staff / November 5, 2010

STOW — Federal officials have arrested dozens of alleged illegal immigrants connected to a flight school in Stow, including the school’s owner and students who received US government clearance to train as pilots despite strict security controls put into place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The arrests of 34 Brazilian nationals that began in July and concluded quietly last month raise troubling new questions about possible holes in the government’s antiterrorism security net, which bans illegal immigrants from taking flight lessons and requires background checks on any foreigner training to fly in the United States.

No link to terrorism has been found in connection with the Stow flight school, TJ Aviation Flight Academy at Minute Man Air Field, 30 miles northwest of Boston, US immigration officials said.

All the arrested immigrants, who were learning to fly small single-engine planes, are free pending deportation hearings in federal immigration court, immigration officials said.

But the episode may have exposed problems in the Transportation Security Administration’s ability to make sure the only foreign students allowed to attend flight school are, as its website states, “properly checked, legal aliens.’’

That mandate stems from a 2004 order that TSA check all foreign flight students against terrorism, criminal and immigration databases after authorities discovered that several of the men who hijacked the airplanes used in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had received flight training in the United States.

TSA has faced questions before about its effectiveness in carrying out the order. In 2008 ABC News reported that thousands of foreign nationals were obtaining pilot’s licenses without the proper paperwork.

Officials at TSA and the Federal Aviation Administration, which issues pilot’s licenses, could not explain this week why alleged illegal immigrants were allowed to take classes and obtain pilot’s licenses in Stow.

TSA officials said they are conducting a review of the circumstances by which the immigrants obtained pilot’s licenses. Officials would not say how many students received clearance to fly and how many ultimately obtained pilot’s licenses.

However, TSA officials said they check the backgrounds of all foreign flight students and routinely check pilot’s licenses against terrorism watch lists.

“TSA performs a thorough background check on each applicant at the time of application to include terrorism and other watch list matching, criminal history, and checking for available disqualifying immigration information,’’ spokeswoman Ann Davis said in a statement. “There is currently a review ongoing into the circumstances by which these individuals were issued pilots’ licenses.’’

Among those arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are the school’s owner, Thiago DeJesus, a 26-year-old Brazilian immigrant who holds a license to fly single-engine airplanes and who was charged in July with being in the United States illegally, federal officials said. DeJesus continued to give flying lessons this week.

FAA spokeswoman Laura J. Brown confirmed that DeJesus is a licensed pilot and flight instructor but would not comment on the fact that his school is still open because the agency is investigating what she called safety issues in connection with the school. She declined to elaborate.

“We have an ongoing investigation,’’ she said.

Thousands of foreign pilots train in the United States every year because of the high quality and relatively low cost.

Foreigners who wish to take flight lessons must first register online with TSA and provide biographical information that the agency uses to determine if they are on terrorism watch lists, have criminal histories, or any disqualifying immigration information. Students are also fingerprinted and pay a fee.

Most applicants come from outside the country, said TSA spokesman Greg Soule.

Soule said TSA checks immigration information when prospective students apply. The agency does not follow up in every case to ensure that those who take classes obtain the necessary immigration documents.

Students must also show their passports and visas to their flight instructor, who must keep copies on file. TSA inspectors conduct unannounced audits to ensure that the records are in order.

By contrast, the FAA does not have any responsibility for checking the immigration status of flight students or pilots, Brown said. The agency’s role is to ensure that pilots have completed proper training before they receive a pilot’s license, she said.

This week, TJ Aviation Flight Academy remained open for business, teaching students on Cessna and other single-engine airplanes at the air field off a quiet country road in this small town of about 6,000 people.

DeJesus, owner of TJ Aviation, denied in an interview that he is in the country illegally. He said he came to the country at age 16 from southern Brazil and is a legal resident. He declined to provide proof of residency.

Kathryn Mattingly, a federal immigration court spokeswoman, said DeJesus was accused in July of being in the United States illegally. He is scheduled for a deportation hearing in Boston in February.

FAA records show that DeJesus has a valid pilot’s license to fly single-engine airplanes and to teach flying. He registered TJ Aviation Inc. with the Massachusetts secretary of state in 2008 and said he has been teaching flying for two years.

DeJesus said that all of his foreign students obtained TSA approval before he allowed them to take classes, as the law requires, and that he did not know that they were in the country illegally. The students paid $165 an hour for the lessons, he said.

“It’s something that [TSA] approved in the first place,’’ said DeJesus. “Every student that we had went to the TSA, and TSA approved them.’’

Last month, he said, the TSA sent him an e-mail revoking approval for many of the students. Around the same time, he said, federal immigration agents arrested many of those same students for deportation.

He said he had followed the rules and pointed out that federal officials have allowed his flight school to remain open.

“You think if we did something wrong, we’d still be open as a flight school?’’ he asked.

He said many students hope to earn their pilot’s licenses to get better jobs in their native Brazil.

“In Brazil, being a pilot is almost like being a doctor,’’ said DeJesus, who speaks fluent English. “These are honest people. . . . They just want a better future.’’

William Joyce, a Boston-based immigration lawyer who is representing a few of TJ Aviation’s former students, said many of his clients felt betrayed by DeJesus. He said they wanted to take flying lessons but did not realize that they would be exposed to immigration checks. The assumption is perhaps naive, he said, since illegal immigrants are not even eligible for driver’s licenses in Massachusetts.

“All I know is this: these people are in big trouble,’’ Joyce said.

Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com or on Twitter at @mariasacchetti.

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

Flight school arrests raise terrorism fears - The Boston Globe

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Can anyone find us the name and location of this illegal alien flight school????

W

No link to terrorism has been found in connection with the Stow flight school, TJ Aviation Flight Academy at Minute Man Air Field, 30 miles northwest of Boston, US immigration officials said.

DeJesus, owner of TJ Aviation, denied in an interview that he is in the country illegally. He said he came to the country at age 16 from southern Brazil and is a legal resident. He declined to provide proof of residency.

Kathryn Mattingly, a federal immigration court spokeswoman, said DeJesus was accused in July of being in the United States illegally. He is scheduled for a deportation hearing in Boston in February.

FAA records show that DeJesus has a valid pilot’s license to fly single-engine airplanes and to teach flying. He registered TJ Aviation Inc. with the Massachusetts secretary of state in 2008 and said he has been teaching flying for two years.

If the governor of Massachusetts would sign the bipartisan bill passed by the state legislature this type of incident probably would not happen.