Arrest Made in Ciudad Juarez Consulate Murders (Maybe)

Ricardo "Chino" Valles de la Rosa, under arrest in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico






Mexican authorities have arrested a member of the Barrio Azteca, an El Paso, Texas, crime gang that is affiliated with the Carrillo-Fuentes drug cartel, and say that he has confessed to having a role in the murders of three members of the U.S. Consulate Ciudad Juarez community on March 13.

See the Mexican press release here (in Spanish).

The twist is that, according to the story line picked up by the Associated Press and other media outlets, the attacks on our consulate employees and their families had nothing to do with drug cartel retaliation against the U.S. government. I have my doubts about that, which I'll explain below.

Here's today's story from the El Paso Times:

A former Barrio Azteca gang member from El Paso suspected of being involved in the killing of three people tied to the U.S. Consulate in Juárez claimed the target of the attack was a detention officer who mistreated gang members at the El Paso County Jail.

Mexican authorities on Tuesday accused Ricardo "Chino" Valles de la Rosa, 45, of being a lookout for gunmen who carried out the hit.

Valles was arrested Friday by the Mexican army in Juárez and remains in custody in Mexico.

Valles alleged during his detention hearing that a gang leader ordered the hit on Arthur Redelfs, an El Paso County sheriff's detention officer, because Redelfs mistreated fellow gang members at the jail. Valles had another hearing Tuesday before a judge, also in Juárez.

The Barrio Azteca is a brother gang of the Juárez Aztecas gang, and both are aligned with the Carrillo-Fuentes cartel.

On March 13, gunmen shot and killed Redelfs, his wife, Lesley Enriquez Redelfs, who worked for the U.S. Consulate, and Jorge Salcido Ceniceros, a maquiladora supervisor and husband of consulate employee Hilda Antillon.

Valles said soon after his arrest that a gang leader ordered him to locate Redelfs the next time the detention officer entered Juárez. He said that on the day of the slayings he notified gunmen for the Aztecas that the white vehicle Redelfs was supposed to be driving had left a children's party at the Barquito de Papel hall.

In his statement to officials, Valles said he followed Redelfs' vehicle along Avenida Ribereña until the gunmen asked him to leave the area because "they had him." Redelfs and his wife were killed near the Stanton Street international bridge.

Because two white vehicles left the same party within minutes of each other, the gunmen decided to follow and attack both of them, officials said Valles told them. Redelfs and Salcido both drove white SUVs that day.

El Paso County sheriff's Deputy Jesus Tovar said Valles has a cocaine delivery charge pending against him in El Paso.

Redelfs was a detention officer for the El Paso County Sheriff's Office for more than 10 years.

Sheriff spokeswoman Chris Acosta said the Sheriff's Office had no comment on the allegations concerning Redelfs because the FBI was the lead agency responsible for any communications about the case.

"We will repeat what we said before -- that Arthur Redelfs was a professional who was well-respected," Acosta said.

Chihuahua Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza said the FBI and DEA are assisting with the investigation, mostly by providing intelligence.

"We still maintain that we have no information to indicate that any of the three were specifically targeted," FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons said Tuesday. "U.S. law enforcement continues to work on this investigation and follow up on all leads."

Soon after the killings, Mexican officials said the Aztecas gang was responsible. The FBI has extensively investigated the U.S.-based Barrio Azteca gang.

On March 18, U.S. investigators in El Paso County launched an operation to shake down Barrio Azteca members and their associates for information about the murders. A few days later, the Border Patrol received intelligence that the gang was considering some kind of retaliation for the operation.

Mexican officials said that several Mexican law enforcement agencies collaborated in Valles' detention, and that the federal attorney general's office was the lead agency for the investigation of the murders. Officials provided background about Valles, who was born in Juárez in 1964.

At the age of 6, Valles and his family moved to El Paso where he lived for 30 years. Valles, nicknamed "Chino," was a member of the notorious Los Fatherless street gang in South-Central El Paso.

On Oct. 15, 1995, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison on drug charges, and he met members of the gangs in La Tuna federal prison, including a leader that Mexican authorities identified as David Almaraz.

On July 25, 2007, Valles was released after serving 12 years in eight U.S. prisons. That year he moved to Juárez, where he joined up with the gang members there. Valles' body is heavily tattooed with ancient Aztec imagery. "El Paso" is inked on the back of his neck, and "Chino" on his abdomen.

The Mexican army arrested Valles on Friday in the slayings of four rival gang members in Juárez and on a weapons charge for being in possession of a 9 mm handgun.

Last Oct. 21, Valles allegedly gunned down 32-year-old Marco Zapata Reyes at a chicken restaurant named El Pollo Sinaloense, authorities said. He is also accused of killing David Angel Contreras Regalado a week later. Both victims were members of the rival Mexicles gang.

Officials said that in January, Valles allegedly shot and killed two members of the Artistas Asesinos (Artist Assassins, or Double A) gang who were in a blue-green Cadillac. Their names were not released.

I think the announced motive for the attack is unconvincing. The idea that a crime gang that got its start in Texas prisons would attack an El Paso jail officer such as Deputy Redelfs has surface plausibility. However, I don't see any indication that Barrio Azteca has retaliated against other jail officers, so there isn't a pattern there that would substantiate such a threat, and so far as I know no one has alleged any specific cause for Barrio Azteca to retaliate against Redelfs personally.

Also, the party with an interest in attacking an El Paso jail officer - the El Paso-based Barrio Azteca gang - didn't commit the attack. The story that Mexican authorities are putting out has the attacks being committed by multiple gunmen from a Juarez-based gang, rather than by the El Paso-based gang. The suspect, Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, acting alone, merely spotted Redelfs when he left El Paso, followed him, and set him up for others to attack. If the motive was really to attack Redelfs because of his status as an El Paso jail officer, then why wouldn't the El Paso-based gang simply attack him themselves? It's not like Valles de la Rosa has any inhibition about murdering people on either side of the border.

And why were there two attacks within a few minutes of each other, if the motive related only to Redelfs? The confession by Valles da la Rosa doesn't account for the attack - mistaken or otherwise - on a second vehicle being driven by Jorge Salcido Ceniceros, the husband of one of the consulate's locally engaged staff. According to Valles' statement, he was never uncertain as to the identity or the whereabouts of Redelfs. Valles followed Redelfs' white SUV after he departed the child's birthday party that had brought him to Juarez, and Valles broke off from that pursuit only after the attackers told him they had the target. Moments later, he heard the gunshots (in the words of his statement, "momentos despues, escucho unos disparos"). He then drove past the Redelf's vehicle, in which he saw a man and a women who appeared to be dead. Why was there any reason for a second crew of shooters to follow a second white SUV from the same birthday party and to attack its occupants?

Most importantly of all, the street gangs, on both sides, work for the Juarez cartel that runs the drug business in Mexico's Chihuahua State.

According to testimony from several different witnesses on both sides of the current trial, BA [Barrio Azteca] now works only with the Juarez cartel of Vicente Carrillo-Fuentes, which has long controlled much of Mexico’s Chihuahua state and Ciudad Juarez, and broke with the Sinaloa Federation earlier in 2008. BA took sides with the Juarez cartel, with which it is jointly running drugs across the border at the Juarez plaza.

BA provides the foot soldiers to carry out hits at the behest of Juarez cartel leaders. On Nov. 3, 10 alleged BA members in Ciudad Juarez were arrested in connection with 12 murders. The suspects were armed with four AK-47s, pistols and radio communication equipment — all hallmarks of a team of hit men ready to carry out a mission.

We'll see what develops as investigations proceed and more arrests are made. But for now, the simplest explanation for the murders of our employee, her husband, and the husband of another employee in Ciudad Juarez seems to be just this: "BA [Barrio Azteca] provides the foot soldiers to carry out hits at the behest of Juarez cartel leaders."

CIA Identities Protection and the John Adams Project

The Washington Times has a bit more on a story they first reported two weeks ago concerning a conflict between the CIA and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over a certain type of legal assistance that DOJ allows for Gitmo detainees. Bill Gertz, a reporter with a long record of receiving leaks from inside the intelligence community, says that a CIA security assessment has concluded that the privileged interaction of certain Gitmo detainees with their legal teams creates a danger for CIA officers.

See CIA Says Gitmo Officers at Risk of Exposure:

A team of CIA counterintelligence officials recently visited the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and concluded that CIA interrogators face the risk of exposure to al Qaeda through inmates' contacts with defense attorneys, according to U.S. officials.

The agency's "tiger team" of security specialists was dispatched as part of an ongoing investigation conducted jointly with the Justice Department into a program backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The program, called the John Adams Project, has photographed covert CIA interrogators and shown the pictures to some of the five senior al Qaeda terrorists held there in an effort to identify them further.

Details of the review could not be learned. However, the CIA team came away from the review, conducted the week of March 14, "very concerned" that agency personnel have been put in danger by military rules allowing interaction between the five inmates and defense attorneys, according to an intelligence source close to the review.

The team also expressed concerns about the inmates' access to laptop computers in the past. Some of the inmates who are representing themselves in legal proceedings were granted laptop computers without Internet access. However, the officials fear that future unfavorable court rulings could provide the inmates with the capability of communicating outside the island prison.

The joint investigation, which recently added U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald to the Justice Department team, was stepped up earlier this month after a disagreement between Justice Department and CIA officials over whether CIA officers' lives were put in danger at the prison.

The probe was launched last year but was given renewed attention after CIA counterintelligence officials expressed alarm at the recent discovery of photographs of CIA officers, without their names on the photos, in a cell at the prison.

Mr. Fitzgerald, who investigated the press disclosure of clandestine CIA officer Valerie Plame beginning in 2003, has been meeting with CIA officials for the past several weeks as part of the probe.

The prosecutor was called into the case after agency officials voiced worries that Justice Department investigators did not share their level of concern over the danger that al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo, including Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, could secretly send information on the identities of CIA officers to al Qaeda terrorists outside the prison through the attorneys.

A senior Justice Department National Security Division official, Donald Vieira, recused himself from the probe earlier this month as a result of the interagency dispute. Mr. Vieira was a Democratic counsel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, before taking a post at the Justice Department.

Spokesmen for the CIA and Justice Department had no comment. The new chief defense counsel for Guantanamo, Marine Corps Col. Jeff Colwell, also declined to comment on the recent CIA security review conducted at Guantanamo.

Spokesmen for the ACLU and the John Adams Project have denied that any lawyers working to represent Guantanamo detainees have compromised the security of CIA personnel, asserting that they have operated within rules set by a military judge.

[TSB note: I'm sure no lawyer would violate those rules; well, some would, but the ACLU's word is good enough for me.]

Military lawyers and some civilian lawyers seeking to represent the detainees have held meetings with the detainees over the past several months.

[TSB note: the detainees are meeting lawyers who are "seeking to represent" them? The Gitmo Gang is such a hot property that they are fielding offers now? Next we'll hear that these lawyers compete for Gitmo clients by offering percentages of future book, movie and lecture revenues, and that the ACLU is sending literary agents to look out for the Gitmo Gang's interests.]

Regarding the interagency dispute, some CIA officials are said to be concerned that Justice Department investigators may have been advocates on behalf of the Guantanamo Bay detainees prior to joining the Obama administration.

The worries were heightened after the recent disclosure that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had signed Supreme Court briefs supporting a court review of the case of convicted terrorist Jose Padilla. Mr. Holder apologized last week for failing to disclose his role in the briefs during Senate confirmation hearings last year to be attorney general.

Mr. Holder announced in November that he would shift military trials of five al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo to a federal court in New York. However, under protests from critics, he reversed the decision and is expected to announce soon either another civilian trial location or military trials at the Cuban prison.

Newsweek magazine reported March 29 that CIA concerns were heightened after 20 color photographs of CIA officials were found in the cell of Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a detainee who U.S. officials think is one of the financiers of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Officials familiar with the photos said they included snapshots of CIA officers in public areas.

According to U.S. officials, the photographs were obtained by the John Adams Project through private investigators who were able to track down the CIA officials.

Info Management Specialist Recalled From Pretoria, Under Investigation

The Washington Times is reporting today that a State Department information management specialist is under investigation for, well, severely mismanging some of the information in his possesion.

Reginald Eugene Hopson, a 30-year State Department foreign service officer, was summoned back to Washington from South Africa in October, stripped of his top-secret security clearance and questioned by federal investigators, records show.

He was an information management specialist and pouch control officer who processed classified information at U.S. embassies in Bolivia, Trinidad and Tobago, and South Africa. His interrogators wanted to know about a raft of classified documents found in his possession — documents they said he had no business having.

The documents included a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) file on a confidential undercover operation and eight classified State Department cables, two of which related to intelligence matters and national defense.

A search of a storage locker containing boxes he had shipped to suburban Maryland from his recent post abroad also turned up five diplomatic passports, a Bolivian passport and bank documents from Italy, Spain, Honduras and the Cayman Islands.

"I have [reason] to believe that Mr. Hopson has violated" laws prohibiting removal of classified information concerning national defense or foreign relations, Special Agent Stanwyn A. Becton of the State Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) wrote in a federal affidavit seeking a judge's approval to search Mr. Hopson's storage locker.

"None of the cables would have required Hopson to print and retain copies of them," the affidavit said.

One of the national defense-related cables, according to the affidavit, "was an extremely sensitive document whose subject matter had no relation to Hopson's job responsibilities and should not have been in his possession."

The affidavit also said that when Mr. Hopson started answering their questions, federal investigators found he changed his story and offered explanations that did not make sense.

The OIG referred inquiries of the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore, which neither confirmed nor denied the existence of a criminal investigation.
Mr. Hopson, who received his first top-secret security clearance in 1981, could not be reached for comment. He has not been charged with a crime.

A State Department spokesman said Mr. Hopson, who joined the foreign service in 1979 and was listed by the department in 2005 as being among the "key officers of foreign service posts," is now stationed in the Washington area. The spokesman said department policy prohibits comment on active investigations. He also declined to describe Mr. Hopson's job status.

A source with the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the State Department division that also is investigating the matter and determines eligibility for access to classified material, said: "Annually, there are a limited number of instances where the DSS performs investigations resulting in the curtailment of an individual's assignment abroad which are serious enough to warrant suspension of their security clearance."

Violations of the security laws listed in the affidavit can result in a fine and up to 10 years in prison.

Daniel Hirsch, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, the bargaining unit that represents foreign service officers, confirmed that a union representative accompanied Mr. Hopson to a Nov. 11 interview at the DSS in Arlington, Va., but declined to comment on the interview or the case.

When asked about the classified documents, Mr. Hopson told investigators that a co-worker must have put them there.


"Hopson's claim makes little sense as no one knew that law enforcement agents would be inspecting either his office or the boxes prior to the classified documents being discovered," Mr. Becton wrote. The agent also noted that the cables originated from previous posts where Mr. Hopson had served; one was attached to a personal e-mail.

It was not the only time Mr. Hopson would be at a loss to explain being caught with documents he was not supposed to have. In 2009, investigators found two confidential cables addressed to U.S. embassies in his shipping boxes. Neither of the cables required him to print and retain copies, the affidavit said.

Mr. Hopson said during the interview that when he was assigned in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 2006 there were not enough desks so he worked in an abandoned annex building for two years.

Last June, he left that post a week earlier than scheduled without certifying that he was not taking classified material. DSS and OIG agents were investigating visa fraud at the embassy at the time and discovered that Mr. Hopson was storing classified information in his unauthorized work space. The affidavit said when his supervisor told him to relocate to a secure facility, he failed to comply.

After Mr. Hobson left for his new post in Pretoria, South Africa, a search of his work space revealed a sensitive DEA document and a "confidential" State Department cable in an unlocked desk drawer. The affidavit said the DEA document detailed "an ongoing undercover operation that Hopson had no reason to have in his possession."

A 2009 OIG report described Port of Spain as "an exceptionally attractive transshipment point for drugs." The report said the DEA has a six-person embassy team "to disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking networks."

The report also said the embassy's facilities "do not further a sense of team or collective activity, either on or off the job," adding that "for decades, the department has found it difficult to attract quality officers to small islands where service can be mind-numbing and perceived as inconsequential to Washington."

Investigators learned that Mr. Hopson had shipped four boxes from Port of Spain to Pretoria. Inside one, they found eight classified State Department cables, two of which related to intelligence matters and national defense. Search of another revealed two more "confidential" cables, neither of which would have required Mr. Hopson to print copies.

At an interview with DSS investigators in September, Mr. Hopson initially said he had "dumped" the contents of his personnel files into the shipping boxes. Later, he "changed his story and said that he had, in fact, looked through the documents before putting them in the boxes."

Mr. Hopson further said he had no idea how the cables got into his boxes, and speculated that he was set up. He called the discovery of the documents "very suspicious … especially the quantity of the documents found."

As for the documents found in the annex building, Mr. Hopson told investigators he had not worked in that space immediately before his departure, he did not store classified material there, other personnel had access to the area, and he had completely cleaned out his desk when he left.

A week after the State Department suspended Mr. Hopson's security clearance, monitors observed him pack his belongings to return to the U.S. A final search of one those boxes contained two more classified cables. He said he was using the documents for training purposes.

In a written statement he gave to investigators last September, Mr. Hopson "volunteered that he 'in no way sold or gave any classified or unclassified documents to anyone not cleared to see them'" the affidavit said.

We'll learn more about this case, and Mr. Hopson's motive, in due time. But, the fact that he printed and retained cables about DEA operations in the Caribbean makes me suspect that this is not so much about espionage for a foreign state as about peddling info to drug traffiking organizations. The violation he is alleged to have committed is just as serious either way, of course.

On This Day in 1981

On March 30, 1981, President Reagan was shot by would-be assassin John Hinckley. If there was any mention of that event in any of the major news media in Washington today, I didn't see it.

The President "took a round" in the chest, as Secretary of State Alexander Haig put it to the White House press corps later that day, when Hinckley fired a .22 revolver at Reagan six times as he left the Hilton Hotel after addressing an AFL-CIO conference.

Hinckley hit not only Reagan, but also White House press secretary James Brady, Washington DC Police Officer Thomas Delahanty, and U.S. Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy. All four of them survived, which must say something about the luck of the Irish.

As for Hinckley, he was was found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21, 1982.

Opposition Continues to Foreign Affairs Security Training Center

Local opposition to State Department plans for construction of a Foreign Affairs Security Training Center on Maryland's rural Eastern Shore appears to be hardening. The Washington Times had a story two days ago about the latest public meeting on the matter, a meeting which did nothing to satisfy local opponents.

For more than three hours, officials from the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the General Services Administration patiently answered questions and withstood scathing comments that revealed an opposition and distrust rivaling the most confrontational displays in last year's health care town-hall summits.

When it was over, few opinions had been swayed.

-- snip --

"We have been treated by the GSA [General Services Administration] and the State Department as if we're a bunch of backwood hicks who don't know what's good for us," said Centreville resident Sveinn Storm, a local activist who has taken a prominent role in opposing the center.

"In reality, we are mainstream America. We're angry about wasteful projects that are going to ensure that our children and grandchildren won't be able to climb out of the pit of debt that projects like this are digging for them. We are absolutely livid at the treatment that we've received."

-- snip --

Complaints range from concerns that the facility would overwhelm country roads or create too much noise to a fear that it would contribute to suburban "sprawl" or drive away game birds from this popular hunting area.

In opposing the project, County Commissioner Eric Wargotz, a Republican who is running for Ms. Mikulski's Senate seat, said zoning restrictions would limit a private developer to building about 150 to 200 town houses on the site, but the federal government is not bound by similar restrictions.

"This flies in the face of all the efforts this state has made toward smart growth and planning," he said.

-- snip --

A January public meeting intended to address local concerns ended up prompting an angry letter to GSA acting Administrator Stephen R. Leeds from Ms. Mikulski, who said agency representatives treated her constituents "with a disregard that borders on arrogance."

"They displayed a shocking, inexcusable and inexplicable lack of preparation, which has resulted in threat of lawsuits, widespread anger and what I fear now is an implacable opposition to the project," she wrote, adding that the GSA's inability to answer basic questions gave the appearance of a lack of transparency. "It is hard to imagine how your team could have done a worse job in explaining this important project to the community."

-- snip --

The State Department has persisted, with mixed results, in its effort to make the case that the facility will be good for the community. Officials have posted plans, maps and the answers to dozens of frequently asked questions on their Web site.
They have arranged bus tours to military and civilian facilities with similar missions as the proposed training center and staged explosives demonstrations to make their case to skeptical residents, politicians and reporters that the facility will not be as intrusive as they think.

In some cases, the efforts have only provided ammunition to the opponents, who have filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, securing project documents and details. Mr. Storm traveled with a video camera to New Mexico to visit a security training facility with a similar mission to document the town's disenchantment with the federal facility it invited on the promise of jobs and economic growth.

You can read more about the objections of local residents at Citizens for Greater Centreville.

Dipomatic Security: 2009 Year in Review

The Bureau of Diplomatic Security's 2009 Year in Review is now available (here), and it is worth a look.

One small item in the report really stood out to me, personally, since it is a good example of something that I think should be done routinely. It was about physical security enhancements abroad, and how DS specialists worked with a local architect in Rome to meet security requirements for our historic chancery there in an architecturally sensitive way. The result is a compound access control booth that is in full compliance with the purportedly onerous 'Fortress Embassy' security standards, yet is so visually discrete that it is practically invisible from outside the embassy's perimeter fence. See a photo of that stealthy structure on pages 14 and 15 of the report.

I'm happy to learn that someone in DS is concerned about protecting our culturally significant properties, as well as our people. That guy ought to get a bonus.

Abdulmutallab (TWA "Christmas Bomber") Had a Visa Denial Reversed

The WaPo has a bit of a ho-hum story tonight about the complicated visa history of the "Christmas Bomber," young Mister Abdulmutallab of Nigeria.

Visa denial was reversed for terrorism suspect in 2004:

A U.S. consular official originally denied terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a visa to enter the United States in 2004 after finding false information on his application, but that official was overruled by a supervisor, according to senior government sources.

-- snip --

Abdulmutallab's visa history was recently shared with the Senate Intelligence Committee and House lawmakers, who have been exploring whether the government missed any red flags and could have prevented the Nigerian from entering the country.

-- snip --

Officials said the consulate supervisor who authorized Abdulmutallab's visa concluded that he had strong ties to Nigeria and no derogatory information in his background and that his inaccurate answer about having been denied a visa might have been based on a misunderstanding.

"When that judgment was reviewed, the supervisor concluded that this was not a willful misrepresentation and that he had the intent of returning home after visiting the United States," one official explained.

The bottom line is that the 18 year-old Abdulmutallab committed a non-material error on his first visa application, which was forgiven based upon his lack of willful misrepresentation and his strong ties to Nigeria, i.e., his Daddy's $$$$$$$. This all happened before he was radicalized and became a security threat.

Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

As is usually the case, I found the on-line comments readers made about the story more interesting, and sometimes providing a better interpretation of the event, than the news article itself. Here are two if the 32 comments posted as of midnight Thursday:

(MEppinger wrote)

Junior consular officers, who conduct visa interviews in all or our embassies and consulates, are often the most strict in interpreting the regs and denying visas. They take a lot of flack for it, and get a lot of pressure, some from their immediate supervisors, some from higher in the embassy, but MOST from members of Congress.

Congress, before you light into our career diplomats, do us a favor and take a look at your own "constituent services" staff. In particular, look at the boilerplate text of letters sent out in your name when a constituent (or, on occasion, a non-voting resident of your district) complains about a visa denial for a friend or relative. Before you castigate State, change your own office's policies. Only weigh in for people personally and favorably known to you. Help lead all branches of government in defending the integrity of our visa processes. 99% of the time, junior officers are out their on the front lines on their own. They only hear from Congress when a complaint comes in about a visa denied. Why not start but having their backs on visa denials?!

(When you think about it that way, when you think about actually saying "no" to an unknown constituent who writes for help with a visa, it gets a lot harder, doesn't it?)

State Department consular supervisors put pressure on their junior officers to reverse visa denials in part because of their own years of having to justify having denied this or that visa, including answering hundreds of letters from members of Congress over visa denials.

Visa decisions are the most petty and the most crucial part of our front-line defenses. At the same time that you ask State to make some changes, Congress, do your part.

And,

(deparker2001 wrote)

As a retired consular officer--no I was not the reviewer in 2004. I retired in 2002--please permit me to add a modicum of reality to this discussion.

For the misrepresentation to be a grounds for the denial of a visa application it must be "material." That means that the information must be so important that were the truth to be known, then the visa would be denied. Now a previous application is not material and that fact can be easily discovered through normal name checks which probably occurred in this case. In any event the visa issuance was perfectly valid in this case. The young man traveled to the US and left the country. And he wasn't a jihadist in those days, as far as we know. So a "security officer" would not have found any reason to refuse his visa application in 2004.

The problem with this case has nothing to do with the visa issuance. The problem was the lack of coordination between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. If the information regarding the training of jihadists in Yemen had been known and if someone had checked up on some of these young men, then they might have known that this chap was a danger in 2009. If there are fixes to be made, then they must be made within the intelligence community.

Both of those readers sound like they know what they are talking about.