Tag Archives: visa

Visa Overstays Since 9/11

Visa overstays partially contributed to 9/11, and with a lack of biometric exit, they continue to be a problem today.

But time passes. Twenty-five years. Yes, it’s been that long since September 11, 2001.

I was a Motorola employee at the time. My biggest memory is of a few Motorola employees who had to figure out a way to get back to Anaheim (and Boulder). One group was about to return a rental car at an eastern U.S. airport, and ended up driving cross country instead.

Locally, plans to build Terminal 3 at Ontario International Airport were postponed to this day. That may change in the next ten years if the BOLD program moves forward.

And Janice Kephart has her own memories.

9/11: The Terrorist Travel Operation.

And we are still struggling with people who remain in the United States on expired visas.

Nawaf al-Hazmi, died at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

These “illegals” had a minor impact on 9/11 and its planning.

“It’s true that the 9/11 hijackers took advantage of a flawed U.S. visa program….

“But…only two hijackers — Satam al Suqami and Nawaf al Hazmi, both non-pilots on the day of the attacks — overstayed their visas….

“Two other hijackers – pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi – overstayed their visas during preparations for the attack, but they had approved visas as of Sept. 11, 2001…”

Probably the bigger effect wasn’t visa overstays, but the mind-numbing bureaucracy. We haven’t solved bureaucracy yet. But we’re slowly working on getting people with expired visas out of the country…although there continues to be huge resistance to biometric exit requirements.

Because of the lack of a comprehensive biometric exit system, coupled with the ever-permanent bureaucracy, people who overstay their visas remain a problem today.

And apparently we’re not just worried about those Muslim people. Immigration & Customs Enforcement recently targeted an illegally-present citizen of the United Kingdom…and a supporter of Trump’s immigration crackdown until it affected HIM.

“The far-right British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who enthusiastically supported President Trump’s immigration crackdown, has been arrested and deported for allegedly living in the U.S. illegally….He entered the country legally in 2019 according to ICE, but he then overstayed.”

Is a 0.0001% EES Border Threat Level Meaningless?

I just reshared Tom Topol’s latest LinkedIn article to my Bredemarket Identity Firm Services readers on LinkedIn and Facebook, focusing on this quote:

“Between October 2025 and April 2026, the EES registered over 52 million border crossings. Entry was refused more than 27,000 times, including to almost 700 people who were identified as posing a security threat to the EU. Several thousand additional travelers were flagged for overstaying the Schengen 90/180-day rule…”

Is Europe over-emphasizing the threat?

But that isn’t how he begins the article.

“Europe’s Biometric Border and the Price of 700 Threats in 52 Million Crossings”

I did the math, and if you only count ACTUAL security threats, rather than visa overstays that COULD become security threats, you’re talking about a very small percentage: 0.0013461538%.

Topol asks:

“The question is not whether the EES caught anything. It is whether what it caught justifies what it costs: in financial terms, in operational disruption, and in the permanent erosion of informational privacy for hundreds of millions of innocent travelers.”

Let’s look at operational disruption. Topol cites GDPR Article 35’s requirement that “a Data Protection Impact Assessment must justify the necessity, suitability, and proportionality of any system processing biometric data at scale.” Topol cites a Spanish case that failed to obtain the required assessment (covered by Biometric Update), then extrapolates that EES is a net burden.

Topol acknowledges the deterrent effect—if fraudsters know their biometrics will be captured, they won’t attempt the fraud—but then notes that the argument “is also entirely unverifiable, and it has historically been used to justify the expansion of every surveillance system ever built.”

Bringing it all back home

Take the experience in my own country.

This isn’t a border issue, but when I joined the biometric industry in 1994, Los Angeles County was beginning to use fingerprint biometrics to ensure that the right people received government benefits—and the wrong people didn’t. Back in those pre-iPhone days only criminals gave their fingerprints, so this and other programs had an unsavory taint in the public’s eye. Yes the county saved money, but was this because fraudsters stayed away, or because legitimate users feared their fingerprints would go to the LAPD? The use of fingerprints for welfare benefits has disappeared today.

Returning to border crossings, our own entry-exit system has been justified by statements such as Senator Lindsey Graham’s 2015 claim about the 9/11 terrorists:

“All the hijackers who attacked — attacked us on 9/11 were visa overstays. So it’s more than just the border. You have got to control your visa program.”

According to FactCheck, Graham was off by 89%. Only two of the 19 terrorists were visa overstays. While the terrorists took advantage of flaws in the visa system, they had the visas.

Emotionally, I’m not convinced

Having spent over 30 years in this industry, I’m not about to chuck security out the window.

Emotionally I can’t do it.

And not because of the OVERLY emotional arguments, the “Jane never celebrated her seventh birthday because a cold-blooded smelly killer took her life.”

I’m talking about run-of-the-mill emotion.

And I have a challenge for you.

Tonight, when you go to bed, leave the front door of your house unlocked. After all, the chances of harm from an unlocked front door are minuscule.

I bet Topol locks HIS door at night.

For My U.S. Readers Interested in Visiting Uzbekistan

When using your passport to travel internationally, sometimes you need a visa to enter a country.

And sometimes you don’t.

“The country of Uzbekistan will lift visa requirements for U.S. travelers starting Jan. 1, 2026, offering Americans another country to visit visa-free. The police change, which was recently confirmed by the government, will allow U.S. citizens to enter visa-free for up to 30 days.”

Just don’t bring your surfboards. Uzbekistan is double-landlocked.