VISAs Are Being Revoked After Christmas Day Terrorist Attack

How Many Visas Revoked Since Detroit Plane Terrorist Attack?



The U.S. State Department has said the 1,700 visas have been revoked since Sept. 11, 2001. But at the news conference today, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley refused to be pinned down on a specific number of how many visas have been revoked since the attempted air terror attack on Christmas Day, including when one journalist said he'd heard five.

Crowley did confirm that the man charged in the attempted attack Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has had his visa revoked since then. Excerpts from the exchange at the briefing today:

QUESTION: A couple of more things on visas. First of all, there’s been some reporting that either yourself, or through the government interagency process, that several visas have been revoked as a result of this particular review — perhaps people that were on one watch list and have been moved up to another — if you can shed any light on that.

MR. CROWLEY: Okay. Let’s take those two issues first. As I think the White House indicated yesterday, we have been — collectively across the interagency, we have been scrubbing databases and as a result of that action, additional visas have been revoked for people that we believe have suspected ties to terrorism. I’m not going to get into — there are a lot of numbers out there, but this is an ongoing process, and rest assured that in light of what happened on December 25 we’ve gone back over these databases and there have been additional actions taken.

QUESTION: Can you just — can you quantify that in terms of like dozens, hundreds?

MR. CROWLEY: No.

QUESTION: Tens?

MR. CROWLEY: No.

QUESTION: Why?

QUESTION: Why?

MR. CROWLEY: I mean, put it this way —

QUESTION: But how do we know that it’s actually happening —

QUESTION: Or that it’s just one?

MR. CROWLEY: I do know it’s happened —

QUESTION: We’re taking your word for it?

MR. CROWLEY: Put it this way: I can say broadly that since 9/11, roughly 1,700 visas have been --

QUESTION: Since 9/11?

MR. CROWLEY: Since 9/11 --

QUESTION: Yeah, I’m sorry, but that’s --

MR. CROWLEY: -- roughly 1,700 visas have been revoked by the Department of State because we had suspicions that individuals --

QUESTION: Okay. But we knew that last week. You guys put this out last week.

MR. CROWLEY: I’m just saying – now, so – and have we added to that number since December 25? The answer is yes. I’m not going to talk about a number. It’s not that we don’t know. It’s just I don’t think it’s fruitful to get into a scoreboard about how many people have we found today that we think have links to terrorism. That’s not something that we feel comfortable discussing publicly.

QUESTION: Well, hold on a second. You may not think it’s fruitful, but I think to the general public it is fruitful and it’s useful to know that their government is actually doing something and that something has actually changed --

MR. CROWLEY: And I’m here to tell the American people that the government is doing something. We are taking action. We are adjusting the criteria through which we decide who’s on a watch list, who’s on a no-fly list, and who might have a visa that should have it revoked. We are taking specific actions, and that’s the purpose of the meeting with the President this afternoon to see what else we need to do. So are we doing that? We are. Do we have to discuss numbers at a podium in public? We don’t think we do.

QUESTION: Let me ask you a question, because my understanding was there were five visas that were revoked since the 25th. Now, if there’s 1,700 since September 11th, that actually is on the same pace of one every two days, if you do the math. So I mean, how can you say that this is an intensified process? I mean, how can you say that you’re scrubbing the names? It seems like it’s the same pace as it’s been for the last eight and a half years.

MR. CROWLEY: That might suggest that actually the system that we have, while not perfect and can be better, actually does work.

QUESTION: Right. But I’m curious – I mean, you made the assertion that this was an intensified process, whereas the numbers would seem to indicate it’s the same pace.

MR. CROWLEY: Put it this way: I believe my colleague, Bill Burton, over at the White House yesterday, talked about a fact that in light of December 25 we’ve gone back, we’ve rescrubbed databases. That includes our own. We’ve intensified our efforts across the interagency to make sure that all information relative to terrorism cases is on the table. And have we take further – have we taken further action since December 25? The answer is yes.

Now, there are various numbers – there could be a number that might have been true three days ago, and additional steps have been taken since then. That’s why it probably is not fruitful to say at any particular point in time that this is a number because this is something that we do do every day. We do this every day for a variety of reasons.

We revoke visas because of fraudulent information. We revoke visas for terrorist information. That is something that is a continual process, the State Department working across the interagency. So if we put out a number today, by this afternoon it may be different again. So that’s why – among the reasons why it’s very hard to think about this in scoreboard terms.

QUESTION: I think my point was only that the numbers don’t seem to back up the fact that this is an intensified process. It’s the same exact pace for eight and a half years --

QUESTION: -- one very quick question. You said it was – this guy – Abdulmutallab’s visa has been revoked and it’s more than one. The other visas that have been revoked, what reasons were they revoked for? I mean, one doesn’t actually have to actively try to blow up a plane to get your visa revoked, do you?

MR. CROWLEY: Okay. We have revoked multiple visas since December 25 on – based on information that we have related to terrorism cases.

QUESTION: But not actually attempting to blow up a plane? I mean, I’m just trying to get the --

MR. CROWLEY: It’s based on --

QUESTION: If they didn’t actually do anything --

MR. CROWLEY: It’s based on our assessment of the risk associated with specific individuals on information that we have from various sources but ---

QUESTION: Well, I’m just trying to get at it – you don’t actually have to commit a crime --

MR. CROWLEY: Correct. No, no.

QUESTION: -- like trying to blow up a plane to get your visa revoked, right?

MR. CROWLEY: Correct.

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State Department Official: Visas Viper Cable "Just The Tip Of The Iceberg"


The State Department's official cable about underwear-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wasn't the only report to come out of the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria as part of the Visas Viper process, a State Department official tells The Cable.

As reported earlier today, the alert sent by the embassy to the National Counterterrorism Center and other agencies on Nov. 20 contained only sparse information about the meeting between embassy officials and his father, a prominent Nigerian businessman. That reporting fell short of the regulations for Visas Viper cables, failing to add detailed information about the father's background and credibility.

But the additional qualitative information was included in several reports sent that same day and in succeeding days by the embassy in separate and previously unreported classified communications to the NCTC, from other embassy personnel not from employed by the State Department, the official said.

"The unclassified Visas Viper cable is just the tip of the iceberg in a much more extensive set of reports that came from the post," the official said.

At least one of those additional reports was from the CIA, the official said, and others might have been from the FBI representative on post or other intelligence organizations.

President Obama commented on previous reports that Abdulmutallab's father had several contacts with the CIA that were not disseminated through the intel community. What's new here is that the State Department official is claiming at least some of these were submitted directly to the NCTC "as part of the Visas Vipers process."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed the information to The Cable and defended the official Visas Viper report as being only one part of the embassy's effort to pass on the information they had about Abdulmutallab.

"The people in Nigeria said that this was as much of the information they felt comfortable providing in an unclassified cable," said Crowley. "The rest of the information was submitted as part of the VISA Vipers process, but by other means."'

UPDATE: A reader writes in: "There is no FBI representative at Embassy Abuja. The Legal Attache for Nigeria operates out of the Consulate in Lagos. "

So we're left with the CIA and other as yet unnamed agencies as those who submitted the "Classified" parts of the Viper cable.




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Sources: U.S. State Dept., Politico, MSNBC, Foreign Policy Cable News, NY Daily News, Google Maps