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1) Page 11 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC But the last thing to mention, Mr. Chairman, is that in 1996, Congress overwhelmingly approved an Immigration Reform Act that I happened to introduce, and it was signed into law by President Clinton, and among the provisions of that particular piece of legislation is one that said we needed a foreign student tracking system and it needed to be implemented immediately by five or more countries—in five or more countries, particularly those who sponsor terrorism and we would track the students coming from those countries, and then the program was supposed to have been expanded to other countries, as well.
I don't want to speculate whether the course of history would have been changed had the Clinton administration enforced that law instead of ignoring it, but it's certainly possible, and I have not made that statement in public before simply because I don't want to speculate. But at the same time, I think the entire country would have been better served had the previous Administration implemented the Immigration Reform Act as Congress has intended. I think there is a good chance that had the law been enforced, who knows. We might have apprehended one or more of the three terrorists who came in on student visas. We might have been unravel the conspiracy. You never know.
But no matter what, we would have been better served had we had a foreign student tracking system in existence several years ago rather than waiting until after a crisis occurred before we did the right thing, and I'm glad we're getting to that point. I know some of the testimony we are going to hear today is going to indicate that we still have a system that doesn't work as well as it should, and I'm hoping that that can be corrected.
I guess what I'm saying is, better late than never, but it certainly would have been better had we implemented a foreign student tracking system when Congress intended to do so, and that was back in 1996. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
2) Thomas Fischer is an immigration consultant in Atlanta, Georgia. From 1988 to 1999, Mr. Fischer was the District Director of the INS's Atlanta District Office. Most importantly for this hearing, Mr. Fischer was District Director in Atlanta at the time it was the pilot district for CIPRIS student tracking system. CIPRIS was the predecessor to the current SEVIS system that we are talking about today.
3) Page 24 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
SEVIS is a new system, developed and deployed under an aggressive schedule. Any new system will have bugs and anomalies that must be addressed. SEVIS is supported by a team of talented and dedicated professionals, from both the public and private sectors. Although we cannot guarantee that this new Internet application will not have additional problems over the next year, we can assure you that any such problems shall be addressed immediately, aggressively and professionally.
The SEVP and its SEVIS application are works in progress and will continue to evolve. We continually examine our requirements and the educational community's feedback to make the system and the foreign student program sustained successes. We believe that our interactions with the educational community are vitally important. We have worked closely with many education associations including the American Council on Education, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office. In fact, we host a conference call at least once a month with the major educational organizations to convey information and to receive their feedback.
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/CIPRIS
Excerpt:
The article references the pilot program called CIPRIS that the INS ran for two school years (1997-1999).
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersc582
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The Pentagon Plane (AA Flight 77, Dulles to Los Angeles)
Hani Hasan Hanjour (26) - Saudi Arabian - pilotHad been in U.S. in April 1996, when he lived in Oakland, Cal. where he studied English, and later received flight training in Scottsdale, Arizona. He left in Nov. 1996 and returned again in Nov. 1997 while he obtained a FAA commercial pilot certificate. He left again in April 1999.
Obtained student visa (F-1) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in Sept. 2000 after an initial refusal. According to the 2/04 Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, Hanjour failed to reveal in his visa application that he had previously traveled to the United States.
Returned Dec. 2000 to study English at Holy Names College (Oakland CA) but never showed up at the school. In illegal status because he did not enroll, and his entry permit had expired at the time of the attack.
http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1268.html
What Is SEVIS and SEVP? What Should You Know about It?
The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) is designed to help the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of State better monitor school and exchange programs and F, M and J category visitors. Exchange visitor and student information is maintained in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). SEVIS is an Internet-based system that maintains accurate and current information on non-immigrant students (F and M visa), exchange visitors (J visa), and their dependents (F-2, M-2, and J-2). SEVIS enables schools and program sponsors to transmit mandatory information and event notifications via the Internet, to the DHS and Department of State (DOS) throughout a student or exchange visitor's stay in the United States. Select SEVIS to go to the DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Internet site and learn more.
All student applicants must have a SEVIS generated I-20 issued by an educational institution approved by DHS, which they submit when they are applying for their student visa. Your school is responsible for entering your information for the I-20 student visa form into SEVIS. The consular officer will need to verify your I-20 record electronically through the SEVIS system in order to process your student visa application. Unless otherwise exempt, all F-1 or M-1 principal applicants must pay a SEVIS I-901 fee to the DHS for each individual program. See the SEVP Fact Sheet for a fee list. See SEVIS-901 Fee for further information on how to pay the fee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani
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1)
The Fasci movement was made up of a federation of scores of associations that developed among farm workers, tenant farmers, and small sharecroppers as well as artisans, intellectuals, and industrial workers.[3] The immediate demands of the movement were fair land rents, higher wages, lower local taxes and distribution of misappropriated common land.[4] Between 1889 and 1893 some 170 Fasci were established in Sicily. According to some sources the movement reached a membership of more than 300,000 by the end of 1893.[3] The Fasci constituted autonomous organizations with their own insignia (red rosettes), uniforms and sometimes even musical bands, their own local halls for reunions and congresses.[5]
While many of the leaders were of socialist or anarchist leanings, few of their supporters were true revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the peasants who assembled into the Fasci were eager for social justice and convinced that a new world was about to be born. A crucifix hung beside the red flag in many of their meeting-places, and portraits of the King beside those of the revolutionaries Garibaldi, Mazzini and Marx. Cheers for the King were often heard in their marches that almost resembled quasi-religious processions.[4] Many of the Fasci were part of the Party of Italian Workers (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani, the initial name of the Italian Socialist Party) that had been founded at the conference of Genoa on August 4, 1892.[6][7]
The rural Fasci in particular were a curious phenomenon: both ancient and modern. They combined millenarian aspirations with urban intellectual leadership often in contact with workers’ organizations and ideas in the more industrialized Northern Italy.[8] According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, the Fasci were millenarian insofar as the socialism preached by the movement was seen by the Sicilian peasantry as a new religion, the true religion of Christ – betrayed by the priests, who were on the side of the rich – that foretold the dawn of a new world, without poverty, hunger and cold, in accordance with God’s will. The Fasci, which included many women, were encouraged by the messianic belief that the start of a new reign of justice was looming and the movement spread like an epidemic.[9
2) The leader in Catania, De Felice, also maintained contact with leading anarchists like Amilcare Cipriani. On these and other important issues there was much friction between Catania and Palermo.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/202201/fascio-siciliano
Excerpt:
fascio siciliano, plural Fasci Siciliani, any of the organizations of workers and peasants founded in Sicily in the early 1890s, reflecting the growing social awareness of the lower classes.
The fasci were primitive trade unions and mutual-benefit societies aimed at helping workers get better contracts and helping villagers protect their lands from enclosure. Conservative resistance to their demands led to an outbreak of violence. In early 1893, when the peasants of Caltavuturo occupied land that they claimed was theirs, a number were killed by local authorities. Disturbances continued throughout the year. Members of the fasci attacked and burned public buildings. The police and the upper classes responded with force in an attempt to suppress them.
In 1894 Prime Minister Francesco Crispi sent troops to Sicily to restore order. Martial law was declared, and many fasci leaders were arrested. In March 1896 those arrested during the disturbances were granted amnesty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennialism
Excerpt:
Millennialism (from millennium, Latin for "thousand years"), or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state (the "World to Come" of the New Heavens and New Earth). This belief is derived primarily from the Book of Revelation 20:1-6. Millennialism as such is a specific form of Millenarianism.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani
Excerpts:
1)
The Fasci movement was made up of a federation of scores of associations that developed among farm workers, tenant farmers, and small sharecroppers as well as artisans, intellectuals, and industrial workers.[3] The immediate demands of the movement were fair land rents, higher wages, lower local taxes and distribution of misappropriated common land.[4] Between 1889 and 1893 some 170 Fasci were established in Sicily. According to some sources the movement reached a membership of more than 300,000 by the end of 1893.[3] The Fasci constituted autonomous organizations with their own insignia (red rosettes), uniforms and sometimes even musical bands, their own local halls for reunions and congresses.[5]
While many of the leaders were of socialist or anarchist leanings, few of their supporters were true revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the peasants who assembled into the Fasci were eager for social justice and convinced that a new world was about to be born. A crucifix hung beside the red flag in many of their meeting-places, and portraits of the King beside those of the revolutionaries Garibaldi, Mazzini and Marx. Cheers for the King were often heard in their marches that almost resembled quasi-religious processions.[4] Many of the Fasci were part of the Party of Italian Workers (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani, the initial name of the Italian Socialist Party) that had been founded at the conference of Genoa on August 4, 1892.[6][7]
The rural Fasci in particular were a curious phenomenon: both ancient and modern. They combined millenarian aspirations with urban intellectual leadership often in contact with workers’ organizations and ideas in the more industrialized Northern Italy.[8] According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, the Fasci were millenarian insofar as the socialism preached by the movement was seen by the Sicilian peasantry as a new religion, the true religion of Christ – betrayed by the priests, who were on the side of the rich – that foretold the dawn of a new world, without poverty, hunger and cold, in accordance with God’s will. The Fasci, which included many women, were encouraged by the messianic belief that the start of a new reign of justice was looming and the movement spread like an epidemic.[9
2) The leader in Catania, De Felice, also maintained contact with leading anarchists like Amilcare Cipriani. On these and other important issues there was much friction between Catania and Palermo.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/202201/fascio-siciliano
Excerpt:
fascio siciliano, plural Fasci Siciliani, any of the organizations of workers and peasants founded in Sicily in the early 1890s, reflecting the growing social awareness of the lower classes.
The fasci were primitive trade unions and mutual-benefit societies aimed at helping workers get better contracts and helping villagers protect their lands from enclosure. Conservative resistance to their demands led to an outbreak of violence. In early 1893, when the peasants of Caltavuturo occupied land that they claimed was theirs, a number were killed by local authorities. Disturbances continued throughout the year. Members of the fasci attacked and burned public buildings. The police and the upper classes responded with force in an attempt to suppress them.
In 1894 Prime Minister Francesco Crispi sent troops to Sicily to restore order. Martial law was declared, and many fasci leaders were arrested. In March 1896 those arrested during the disturbances were granted amnesty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennialism
Excerpt:
Among Christians who hold this belief, this is not the "end of the world", but rather the penultimate age, the age just prior to the end of the world when the present heavens and earth will flee away (Rev. 21:1). Some believe that between the millennium proper and the end of the world there will be a brief period in which a final battle with Satan will take place. After this follows the Last Judgment.
Millennialism is also a doctrine of medieval Zoroastrianism concerning successive thousand-year periods, each of which will end in a cataclysm of heresy and destruction, until the final destruction of evil and of the spirit of evil by a triumphant king of peace at the end of the final millennial age (supposed by some to be the year 2012). "Then Saoshyant makes the creatures again pure, and the resurrection and future existence occur" (Zand-i Vohuman Yasht 3:62).
Various other social and political movements, both religious and secular, have also been linked to millennialist metaphors by scholars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascio
Excerpt:
http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Docs/SPS/StPetersSquare.htm
Excerpt:
The south fountain
Built in 1675 by Carlo Fontana, at the order of Pope Clement X, whose coat of arms, the six stars in the shape of an inverted pyramid in an oval, are just visible on the base of the fountain. The present Pope, Paul VI, had this fountain restored in 1967, the fourth year of his pontificate.
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