One Flight Away

Tomorrow marks the 13th anniversary of the most heinous and cowardly attack in the history of our Nation, certainly a terrorist attack that took the lives of nearly 3,000 of our fellow Americans. It happened in part because our visa security and border security defenses were not very effective. Among the most important weaknesses that the attackers were able to exploit was our porous outer ring of border security. In total, the 19 hijackers passed through the U.S. border security 68 times back and forth without being detected. On that day in September, we learned a very hard lesson. As noted by the 9/11 commission, "For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons." Many more terrorists since have exploited the visa system in one fashion or another, and it is an on-going vulnerability, certainly one heightened by the significant growing threat that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria pose to our Nation. Our best estimates are that thousands of individuals carrying Western passports have joined in the fight in Syria and in Iraq, including several hundred Americans. These thugs have no regard for life and have threatened to attack our homeland, and the United States Government must be prepared to prevent such an act from happening.