FAIR Press Release

October 29, 2001

FAIR Applauds Creation of Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, Voices Concern About Uncontrollable Level of Immigration

President Bush today announced the formation of a Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force that would look for ways to improve our nation's ability to exclude foreign terrorists and those associated with them. President Bush said "we are going to tighten up the visa policy."

"We applaud this effort, and we laud the willingness of the Administration to take a look at how our porous borders are used by foreign terrorists to gain illicit entry," commented Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

Nevertheless, FAIR is concerned about the following:

The current level of legal immigration - both non-immigrant and permanent immigration - is now so high that the nation's immigration laws are virtually unenforceable. This fact alone is proof positive that immigration levels are beyond acceptable levels.

The Administration must curtail dramatically the size of the flow if we are ever to get a handle on who is here and who is violating the law.

It is impossible to stop terrorism unless we control immigration. We cannot control immigration if we continue at the present levels.