9/11 terrorism - was asylum partly to blame?

February 26, 2006 9:19 AM

Were any of the 9/11 terrorists granted asylum in the US?

I've heard that other terrorists had been granted asylum in the US. I am wondering specifically about the 9/11 terrorists, and specifically whether they were granted (not just applied).

posted by Amizu to law & government (14 comments total)

Nope.

And I think you're misinformed about other terrorists being granted asylum in the US.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:29 AM on February 26, 2006

No. Many of them had student visas, though.
posted by delmoi at 9:37 AM on February 26, 2006

Their families were allow to leave the US before anything bad happened to them.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:42 AM on February 26, 2006

Whatever happened to Louis Posada Carriles? Isn't he a terrorist?
posted by MrMulan at 9:45 AM on February 26, 2006

If they had, what would that have changed?
posted by mkultra at 9:52 AM on February 26, 2006

Their families were allow to leave the US before anything bad happened to them.

what? evidence please? *Bin Laden* family members were allowed to leave the US but i've never heard anything about the actual hijacker's families.
posted by joeblough at 9:52 AM on February 26, 2006

I smell racism. Not from Amizu on purpose, but misinformation is being spread somewhere in this chain.
posted by public at 9:56 AM on February 26, 2006

And I think you're misinformed about other terrorists being granted asylum in the US.

If we're talking about the kind of terrorists who fly planes into buildings or who personally carry out suicide bombings and whose efforts are directed against the US or US allies, it's quite possible this statement is correct. However, there are a lot of other types of terrorists in the world and some of these have been granted asylum (and more) in the US. Whoever originally made the assertion that Amizu heard may have had in mind these other types of terrorists.
posted by Clay201 at 10:00 AM on February 26, 2006

None of the 911 hijackers had family members in the US. Random bin Ladens were the ones allowed to leave.

I highly recommend reading the 911 report. It's actually well written and quite gripping.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:05 AM on February 26, 2006

If we're talking about the kind of terrorists who fly planes into buildings or who personally carry out suicide bombings and whose efforts are directed against the US or US allies, it's quite possible this statement is correct.

What do you mean by 'quite possible'? If it were true, don't you think someone would have, you know, mentioned it. I'm pretty well informed, and this question is the first time I've ever heard anything about asylum in connection to 9/11.

If anyone is granted asylum in the US, it's very rare, and would be a very small number compared to the number of people who enter the nation legally. It's much easier to get things like a student visa or an H1B
posted by delmoi at 10:10 AM on February 26, 2006

delmoi, I think Clay201 was asserting the quoted statement that none of the terrorists involved with 9/11 were granted asylum. Both of you are correct, none of them were. The only terrorists the US grants asylum to are the ones that attack its enemies, such as the previously mentioned Carriles.
posted by allen.spaulding at 10:19 AM on February 26, 2006

For those unfamiliar, Luis Posada Carriles is a Cuban anti-Castro militant who is a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Part of the preparation for the invasion included training by the CIA, which began a longstanding relationship between the United States government and Posada. He was then employed by the Venezuelan government as a national security officer until 1976 when, in a bizarre twist, he was allegedly involved in the terroristic bombing of a Cuban airliner in Venezuela which killed 73. Posada has been implicated in and/or admitted to multiple other terrorist activities, including attempts to assassinate Castro, the Iran-Contra operation, and bombings at the University of Panama (which killed an Italian tourist), and various Cuban tourist sites. Posada snuck into the United States and is being held on immigration charges, but was seeking asylum from the Venezuelan and Cuban governments, which were both requesting his extradition for prosecution.

To answer your question, the United States is likely to grant (and may have already granted -- I haven't seen any new stories however) Posada asylum in the United States, putting him on "house arrest" in Texas, where he is currently staying, on violation of immigration charges. They can refuse his asylum on grounds of the likely torture he would receive if extradited (on the grounds of article 5 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights), as neither Venezuela nor Cuba has a stellar record of ethical treatment of political prisoners (not that the United States does either). Assumedly this is due to his possession of sensitive information regarding some of the undertakings which he has collaborated with the United States with in Latin America, including terrorist training (see WHISC) and the aforementioned Iran-Contra scandal. So in this case, if you believe that Posada's actions qualify him as a terrorist (as most, including myself, do), then yes, the United States has (or will likely in the immediate future) granted terrorists asylum.

Kudos to MrMulan for mentioning JPC earlier.
posted by charmston at 11:15 AM on February 26, 2006

We've granted asylum to dubious characters before when it served our interest. But apparently not in the 9/11 case.
posted by SPrintF at 1:19 PM on February 26, 2006

"To answer your question, the United States is likely to grant (and may have already granted -- I haven't seen any new stories however) Posada asylum in the United States" —charmston

From January 26th, 2006's DemocracyNow!:
"...the US government has announced it will delay a decision on his extradition until April. In September, a U.S. immigration judge ruled Carriles won't be deported to Cuba or Venezuela, where he is wanted for his role in blowing up a Cuban jetliner in 1976 killing 73 people. A US immigration spokesperson said the government has not ruled out deporting Carriles to a third country."
posted by blueberry at 4:17 PM on February 26, 2006