CNS News.Com - Obama Freezes Budget for Program Designed to Stop Terrorists from Getting U.S. Visas

From my archive of press clippings:

CNS

Obama Freezes Budget for Program Designed to Stop Terrorists from Getting U.S. Visas

Wednesday, May 05, 2010


By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer


This Dec. 2009 photo released by the U.S. Marshal's Service on Monday Dec. 28, 2009 shows Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Milan, Mich. Abdulmutallab, 23, is charged with trying to detonate an explosive device on a Dec. 25 flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshal's Service)

(CNSNews.com) – Four months after the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit and nine years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, only 14 of the 57 U.S. consulates identified as being at “high risk” for potentially providing visas to terrorists have been furnished with units of the Department of Homeland Security’s Visa Security Program (VSP).

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"President Barack Obama, meanwhile, is planning to freeze the program’s budget for fiscal 2011.

The VSP, established by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, puts Department of Homeland Security officials in the field at U.S. consulates to vet the backgrounds of people applying for U.S. visas. DHS uses a broader range of databases than the State Department to review the backgrounds of visa applicants. Also, many policymakers believe DHS officials tend to be more security-minded than State Department consular officers when reviewing visa applications.

While administration officials have said publicly that five additional VSP units should be in place at high risk consulates by the end of 2011, President Barack Obama’s fiscal Year 2011 budget for DHS--submitted almost two months after the Christmas Day bombing attempt—does not increase funding for the program from its fiscal 2010 level."

&

"Congressional sources told CNSNews.com that Yemen and Jerusalem are believed to be among the four planned VSP units to be deployed in 2010. The visa-issuing process and the progress of the VSP came under scrutiny after the failed Christmas Day attack Northwest Flight 253, when the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held hearings on the incident. At the April 21 hearing, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the committee, said the Obama administration was not making the expansion of VSP a priority. “Here’s why I reached that conclusion,” Lieberman (I-Conn.) said. “DHS and the State Department have identified 57 high-risk consular posts around the world – that’s out of 200 posts that issue visas. But only 14 of those have received … Visa Security Program offices.”"