10,000 Saudi Students on US Campuses
Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) – Two years ago President Bush and Saudi Arabia’s then Crown Prince Abdullah jointly called for a greater exchange of students, but recent revelations of a terror plot and a history of lax screening have raised concerns about the nearly 10,000 Saudis in the United States on student visas.

The visa figures from the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement were revealed less than a month after the Defense Intelligence Agency issued an unclassified statement that said al Qaeda’s Iraq faction considered using student visas to get more than a dozen operatives into the United States.

U.S. officials told media organizations the plan was in its early stages and that none of the operatives had entered the United States.

This is a fine piece of Saudi-bashing put out by the Cybercast News Service. The organization, born as the ‘Conservative News Service’ tends to represent the more fringe-y elements of conservative America, putting more emphasis on spin than content. This piece, for example, tries to suggest that the students mentioned are somehow related to either the 9/11 attackers or are part of a new Al-Qaeda plot. What’s the substance of the link? The students’ Saudi nationality.

The piece tries to convince its readers that 10,000 Saudi students is some big surprise, or surreptitious event. The program has been fully publicized, at least since June of 1965 [and covered pretty thoroughly on this blog!]. It also tries to scare readers by implying that the US Visa system—which clearly had weaknesses that helped permit the 9/11 attacks—has remained unchanged since then. As any Saudi could tell them, that’s hardly the case. The piece nicely neglects to mention this, instead relying on conservative fears about uncontrolled illegal immigration. All in all, it’s a piece designed to ratchet up American fears about Saudi Arabia without having to rely on any facts.