All the 9/11 hijackers had visas. Ergo, visas in the hands of terrorists are a deadly weapon. Such was the thinking early in the post-9/11 era. Even though the 9/11 Commission published a separate report on the threat of terrorist travel, Washington paid little attention to the findings. Instead, it embraced a bunch of knee-jerk measures, some of which did more harm than good.
Efforts to keep visas out of terrorists’ hands did more to discourage tourism and curb the free exchange of people and ideas than they did to keep our enemies out of the country.
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