It's time to review all Student Visas and forget the ACLU

An Egyptian student was arrested in my state recently at the University of Memphis for wire fraud. In his apartment they found a pilot's uniform, an id for the Memphis Airport and a series of DVD's including one called How an Airline Pilot Should Look and Act. Is that scary or what?

Memphis, Tennessee, the home of Elvis and apparently an Al Qaida cell. Here is a clip from the story in the Memphis Flyer:

29-year-old Mahmoud Maawad was busted this week after federal agents searched his apartment and computer on September 9th and examined his Internet purchases of flight instructions and pilot paraphernalia. Since June, Maawad ordered $3,300 of merchandise over the Internet from Speedy’s Pilot Shop in San Diego, including a private pilot course, flight simulator software, a flight gear bag, several DVDs, a $239 Navy leather flight jacket, a $19.95 DVD on “How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act,” and instructional programs on “airplane talk.” His email address was pilot747_200@hotmail.com. After purchasing approximately $2,500 worth of merchandise, Maawad’s debit card was rejected by Speedy’s for lack of funds and his last three orders were not filled. Agents are in the process of examining his computer hard drive.

Maawad told police "My school is everything. I stay in this country for seven years. I stay for school." Yea, right! SEVEN YEARS in this country? How much planning and damage could already be done? I recall a professor/scientist/ biochemist with super-secret credentials going missing from Memphis in 2001 - he was an expert in Ebola and AIDS. What if he was kidnapped and his records were stolen before he was found dead?

Here is more troubling news from the Flyer:

U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Thomas Anderson agreed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Parker, and Maaward becomes the second Memphis resident of Arab descent to be held without bond because of investigations by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. In April, Rafat Mawlawi was jailed in a separate investigation in which prosecutors have linked him to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida. He is awaiting trial on October 3rd.

I think it is time for the US Immigration department to cancel all student Visas from Middle Eastern Countries (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt) and countries outside the Middle East who harbor Terrorists like Indonesia and some former Soviet republics.

The ACLU will scream that this is "profiling" and "discriminatory." They'd be correct, but it also will keep the US safer. Profiling is ok, in my opinion. It helps narrow down the suspect. When a blonde woman or an elderly man from Scandanavian descent begin bombing or trying to hijack airlines I'd add them into the profile as well. As it is, most of these folks are Muslim Extremists from Theocracies (or countries with specific influence from radical Islam) in the Middle East. I say start there and then move on.

With the way the US borders are, this student from Egypt could have been educated in Toronto and just drove across the border. The US border policy is so porous, it is comical. For this I blame both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Do it now. Protect the country and let these students be educated elsewhere. The US Educational System is poor anyway, right France? Germany? The UN?