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87–092 PDF 2003

JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD, DOCUMENT FRAUD,

AND THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE PASSPORT

EXCEPTION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, 

BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 13, 2003

Serial No. 18

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/judiciary 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., Wisconsin, Chairman 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California

PHILIP G. KIKO, Chief of Staff-General Counsel 

PERRY H. APELBAUM, Minority Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS

JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana, Chairman

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan

GEORGE FISHMAN, Chief Counsel 

LORA RIES, Counsel 

ART ARTHUR, Full Committee Counsel 

CINDY BLACKSTON, Professional Staff 

NOLAN RAPPAPORT, Minority Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

MAY 13, 2003

OPENING STATEMENT 

Page 

The Honorable John N. Hostettler, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Indiana, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border 

Security, and Claims ............................................................................................ 1

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims ..................................................................................... 4

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Texas ................................................................................................................. 6

The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Iowa ................................................................................................................... 7

WITNESSES 

John E. Fuller, Esquire, Head of Antiguan Task Force Investigating 

Muhammad’s Activities 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 10

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 11

Mr. Robert J. Cramer, Managing Director, Office of Special Investigations, 

U.S. General Accounting Office 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 29

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 31

Mr. Roderick L. Beverly, Special Agent In Charge, Office of International 

Operations, Federal Bureau of Investigation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 36

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 37

Ms. Sharon Palmer-Royston, Chief Legal Officer for Passport Service, Bureau 

of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 38

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 39

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress From the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee 

on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims ................................................... 55

Article from Houston Chronicle submitted by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee ............. 57

Washington State Driver’s License of Russel Dwight (actually John Allen 

Muhammed) .......................................................................................................... 58

State of Florida Certificate of Live Birth for Russel Dwight ............................... 59

Alabama State Certificate of Live Birth ................................................................ 60

Michigan State Certificate of Live Birth ............................................................... 61

(1)

JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD, DOCUMENT 

FRAUD, AND THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 

PASSPORT EXCEPTION 

TUESDAY, MAY 13, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,

BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in Room 

2237, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John N. Hostettler 

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The Subcommittee will come to order. 

In the autumn of 2002, the Nation was shocked by a wave of 

shootings in the National Capital area. In a spree that lasted from 

October 2, 2002 through October 22, 2002, 13 people were shot, 10 

of whom died from their wounds. 

On Thursday, October 24, 2002, troopers from the Maryland 

State Police and other law enforcement officials arrested two individuals—John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo—outside Frederick, MD. The pair have subsequently been charged under multiple indictments in connection with those shootings. 

As the news of the arrests and the names of the suspects was 

broadcast worldwide, the Government of Antigua and Barbuda recognized that Muhammad and Malvo had been residents in that 

country. They determined also that Muhammad had received an 

Antiguan passport despite being a U.S. citizen. 

On October 28, 2002, the Attorney General of Antigua and Barbuda appointed a task force to look into the activities of Muhammad and Malvo while in Antigua. The task force was headed by 

Antiguan attorney John Fuller. 

On December 31, 2002, Mr. Fuller’s task force released its support. He has graciously agreed to come to Washington and discuss 

the findings of that task force with the Subcommittee today, and 

we are appreciative, Mr. Fuller. 

In its final report, the task force found that Muhammad needed 

money to support himself in Antigua and turned to forgery. In particular, the task force concluded that Muhammad had found what 

it termed ‘‘a fertile market,’’ primarily among Jamaican nationals, 

in forged U.S. documents. 

Specifically, Mr. Fuller states in his testimony Muhammad produced and sold U.S. driver’s licenses with photographs and corresponding birth certificates. 

2

The question becomes why Jamaicans in Antigua would want 

fraudulent U.S. identification documents. The answer has to do 

with a State Department regulation applicable to citizens traveling 

within the Western Hemisphere. 

The Immigration and Nationality Act provides that it is unlawful 

for U.S. citizens to depart from or enter the United States without 

a valid United States passport. The Act states, however, that the 

Government can prescribe exceptions to this rule. One of the exceptions that the State Department has established to this rule is 

known as the Western Hemisphere exception. This allows U.S. citizens to re-enter the United States without a passport when returning from a trip to another country in North, South, or Central 

America, except Cuba. 

Citizens returning from these countries may re-enter the United 

States by presenting secondary documents evidencing citizenship, 

such as birth certificate or baptismal certificate, accompanied by a 

driver’s license. 

By exploiting this exception, an alien with fraudulent documents 

can enter the United States by making a false claim to citizenship. 

This exception would provide an unscrupulous document vendor 

with an opportunity to make money by selling fraudulent documents to aliens who want to come to the United States, as the task 

force was told Muhammad did, for $3,000 per set. 

At a January 2003 hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Robert Cramer from the GAO’s Office of Special Investigations described how easy it was for travelers to enter the United 

States using counterfeit documents and aliases. Mr. Cramer and 

his agents created fictitious driver’s licenses and birth certificates 

containing aliases using widely-available computer software. The 

agents them presented those documents at ports of entry along the 

Canadian and Mexican borders and entering from Jamaica. 

The INS and Customs Service officials to whom those documents 

were presented never questioned the authenticity of those documents, and the agents presenting those documents encountered no 

difficulty using them. 

Since the Office of Special Investigations ran that operation, the 

INS and Customs Service have been merged into the same department—the Department of Homeland Security. Immigration and 

Customs inspectors are now together in the Bureau of Customs and 

Border Protection, or BCBP. 

To assess whether our Nation’s immigration inspects had improved or were able to improve their review of secondary travel 

documents in the wake of the GAO’s disclosures before the Senate 

Finance Committee, I asked the Comptroller General to send out 

the agents from the Office of Special Investigations to try to enter 

the United States with counterfeit documents again. 

Given the revelations in the task force report about document 

fraud in the Caribbean, the agents agreed to attempt entry into the 

United States from Barbados. At the U.S. port of entry, one of 

those agents was allowed to enter the United States after presenting a fictitious birth certificate and a counterfeit driver’s license. The other was allowed to enter after providing only a counterfeit birth certificate. 

3

Mr. Cramer is with us today with a couple of his agents to discuss these two operations as well as their conclusions following 

those operations. 

To blame the individual inspectors or immigration inspectors as 

a whole for the fact that these agents were able to enter the United 

States with counterfeit documents would ignore a much larger 

issue. Because of the Western Hemisphere passport exception, a 

person claiming to be a U.S. citizen can present any of thousands 

of documents to re-enter the United States rather than presenting 

one document—a U.S. passport. 

Specifically, there are more than 240 different types of valid driver’s licenses issued within the United States, and more than 50,000 

different versions of birth certificates are issued by U.S. States, 

counties, and municipalities. 

Even excluding baptismal records, it is doubtful that anyone 

could have even a passing familiar with, let alone a working knowledge of, each and every one of these documents. 

Technology has compounded the difficulties facing the inspectors 

at our ports who are charged with reviewing identity documents 

from returning U.S. citizens. That technology allows forgers and 

counterfeiters to produce high-quality fake birth certificates and 

driver’s licenses with off-the-shelf software programs and materials. 

I like to believe that our inspectors at the ports of entry are supremely vigilant as they review the documents presented by hundreds of travelers each day. The high-quality nature of fake identification documents could, however, make them indistinguishable 

from the real thing unless the inspector has sensitive instruments 

and sufficient time to examine them. Our inspectors unfortunately 

have neither the time nor the advanced electronics readily available, as anyone can see who travels through U.S. ports of entry 

from abroad. 

The seriousness of this problem cannot be understated. Although 

nothing in the task force report suggests that the aliens who purportedly purchased documents from Muhammad wanted to come to 

the United States for anything other than economic reasons, their 

example is indicative of a vulnerability that could be exploited by 

terrorists, criminals, and others coming to the United States with 

more malevolent intentions. 

As this Subcommittee has learned from its investigations since 

September 11, alien terrorists are adept at identifying and taking 

advance of the weaknesses in our immigration system. The passport exception would appear to present such a weakness. 

We will review the findings of Mr. Fuller’s task force and the 

GAO and assess whether some modification to the Western Hemisphere exception to the passport requirement, or the implementation of that exception, is necessary to protect the American people 

from those who would come to the United States to do them harm. 

There is one point that I want to make before proceeding. In 

order to protect the ongoing prosecutions of Mr. Muhammad in the 

United States, no one directly involved in those prosecutions will 

be appearing before this Subcommittee today. The witnesses on the 

panel are not qualified to answer questions about any aspect of the 

U.S. sniper investigation, and I would ask the Members of this 

4

Subcommittee not to ask any questions about that investigation or 

the ongoing prosecutions. 

I now turn to the Ranking Member, Ms. Jackson Lee, for any 

opening statement she would like to make. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and to the panelists. 

I do want to for the record again note the interest of the Members of the Subcommittee Democrats and note that travel logistics 

are continuously a hazard. Three of these Members are from California; it makes it very difficult to arrive at this time. I am hoping 

that their interest in this issue will be acknowledged and that we 

will be able to provide further opportunity for them to be able to 

attend these hearings. 

Let me first of all, Mr. Chairman, offer my deepest sympathy to 

the families of those Americans and others who are subjected or 

were subjected to the weekend violence in Saudi Arabia. What it 

emphasizes is that terrorism is not dead, and this hearing certainly 

is important, but I might challenge whether it is the most important challenge that we have with respect to terrorism around the 

world and terrorism against Americans. I would argue not. 

I would argue that Jamaicans do not represent a terrorist threat 

against the United States nor the Caribbean. I do believe that we 

need to work with the Caribbean heads of state as a travel—or, an 

effort that was engaged in with Congressman Souder I think either 

this last August or the August before. We traveled to several Caribbean countries who were begging to engage with the United States 

in a more frank and collaborative way to ensure that we wage a 

collective and collaborative war against terrorism. 

This issue before us, as I said, is an important issue, but it is 

not the most important issue before this Nation and before this 

Congress—document fraud as relates to individuals from the Caribbean. And I would argue that we have had very important collaborative relations, strong tourism, between the Caribbean and the 

United States. 

Might I just offer a speculative comment about the fact that we 

have used driver’s licenses and birth certificates—why? Because 

Americans have enjoyed the flexibility of a getaway, a getaway to 

the beauty of the Caribbean and the ability to make that decision 

at 12 noon on Thursday and fly out on Friday. 

So I would wonder as we are proceeding—it is important to have 

this report—but we must understand and prioritize what our priorities are. We have a fight against Al Quaeda in this world today, 

and we had better get to it. Frankly, talking about documents that 

happen to be fraudulent as we do with fraudulent documents here 

in the United States is not going to keep us safe. 

Mr. Chairman, I do not have a xerox, but I would ask unanimous 

consent to put this picture into the record, and I will read the caption for my colleagues. ‘‘Long Ride for Short Legs. Mitchell 

Hinsher, 7, from Niagara Falls, Ontario, rode his bike across the 

United States-Canada border Saturday undetected by U.S. Customs officials. His nearly 8.5-mile journey ended at a busy intersection in Niagara Falls, New York.’’

This is among the challenges that we have. So as I begin, Mr. 

Chairman, I am going to ask that my entire statement be put in 

5

the record, but I begin by saying that John Allen Muhammad produced more than 20 sets of fraudulent United States driver’s licenses with photographs and corresponding birth certificates. He 

sold them to Jamaican nationals, who used them to enter the 

United States as American citizens. 

According to John Fuller, who investigated Muhammad, the production of these documents was not extremely difficult and did not 

require sophisticated skills. Muhammad just needed a computer, a 

scanner, a template for the driver’s license and for the birth certificate, a photograph, a laminating machine, and a careless immigration officer. 

Robert Cramer from the General Accounting Office will discuss 

the results of a January 30, 2003 report on a project that was performed at the request of the Senate Committee on Finance. The Finance Committee was concerned about the illegal transportation of 

currency throughout borders, especially counterfeit money and terrorism funds. It asked the agents of the Office of Special Investigations at GAO to attempt to enter the United States from Canada, 

Mexico, and Jamaica at land, air, and sea points of entry using fictitious identifies and counterfeit identification document. 

The report to the Senate Committee concludes that 1) people who 

enter the United States are not always asked to present identification; 2) security to prevent unauthorized persons from entering the 

United States from Canada is inadequate at the border park they 

visited; and 3) immigration inspectors are not readily capable of detecting counterfeit documents. 

In February of 2003, the Inspector General of the Justice Department issued a similar report. Unfortunately, we cannot discuss the 

substance of this report. The only part of the Inspector General’s 

report that can be discussed in public is the executive summary. 

According to the executive summary, the capability of immigration 

inspectors to analyze advance passenger information to identify 

high-risk and inadmissible travelers is limited by a lack of adequate resources. 

The lookout system for spotting high-risk and inadmissible travelers does not always provide primary inspectors with available 

critical information. Primary inspectors were not always carrying 

lookout databases as required, and controls were not sufficient to 

ensure that all primary inspectors and supervisors could assess 

backup information in the event of system outages. 

The report concludes that although $19 million was used in fiscal 

year 2002 to provide basic training to approximately 1,000 new immigration inspectors, the training was inadequate in two important 

areas, Mr. Chairman and to the Committee—on the use of the computer systems that provide lookouts and other critical information 

and on terrorism awareness. 

I recognize the urgent need to address these problems, but I 

want to emphasize that we need to proceed with caution. A sledgehammer approach to border security in this instance could adversely affect our economy. Visiting international tourists and business entrepreneurs are a valuable component of our Nation’s economy, and we have had a longstanding relationship with the Caribbean. Last year, more than 41 million international visitors genVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:02 Jun 12, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\IMMIG\051303\87092.000 HJUD1 PsN: 87092
6

erated $88 billion in expenditures and accounted for more than one 

million jobs nationwide. 

We need to address the fundamental weakness in our border security system that allowed this system to develop, give our inspectors more training as to how to review these new technological inventions that will make these documents sight-proof. 

For instance, it is apparent that our immigration inspectors have 

not received sufficient training on identifying fraudulent documents, which should not be difficult to provide. Also, I note from 

personal experience that there is a serious problem with the recruitment and retention of immigration inspectors. It is common 

for the immigration inspection stations at Houston International 

Airport to be understaffed. Making matters worse, many of the inspectors at those stations are inexperienced, and I believe that 

these and other fundamental weaknesses in our border security 

system can be addressed legislatively. 

I introduced a Border Patrol Recruitment and Retention Act in 

a previous Congress. An updated version of this bill could include 

immigration inspectors and Customs agents as well as training as 

it relates to these types of documents. I solicit the Chairman’s collaborative effort on this, and in addition to providing assistance 

with recruitment and retention issues, such a bill could provide urgently needed additional resources for training and technology. 

Mr. Chairman, as I said, this is an important hearing. We have 

many additional challenges. Let us not implode the relationship between the Caribbean and the United States on the basis of 20 documents by Mr. Muhammad. Let us find a way to compromise and 

reach the right kind of solution that does not deny a good portion 

of the minority population in the Northern Hemisphere access to 

the United States and likewise, Americans access to the Caribbean. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and I thank you for indulging me on this particular time. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentlelady. 

Do any other Members of the Subcommittee wish for opening 

statements? 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, would you prefer we not make opening statements, or do you want brief opening statements, or none 

at all? 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The chair is open to opening statements. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. I will keep it within my time period. 

Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you again for having a very 

timely and important hearing. You have had a number this year; 

you are very active as Chairman, and those of us interested in immigration issues appreciate your leadership on this and many other 

issues. 

The sniper case to me is instructive for one very important reason, and that is that it shows how easy it is for someone to gain 

entry to the United States and who is not authorized to come in. 

When we have a situation where it is so easy to come in illegally, 

as has been demonstrated, that is a threat to our national security, 

it is a threat to the American people, and it is a threat to our system of laws, and I think that is one of the things that you want 

to address here today. 

7

And it strikes me that I have always thought that I was more 

confident today than, say, I was 6 months ago that it was more difficult to get into the country illegally than previously. After reading 

the memo prepared by the Subcommittee staff, after reading the 

testimony of the witnesses today, I have to say I am not near as 

confident as I was that it is more difficult, and that we really are 

deterring people from coming into the country illegally. 

When it is as easy to get the two documents you need, for example—a driver’s license and a birth certificate—as it demonstrably 

is, and when you have so many different kinds of varieties that 

cannot be validated and cannot be authenticated, it is really an 

open invitation to anybody with any degree of savvy to come into 

the country illegally if they want to and do us harm or take advantage of us in any of the number of ways that we know is possible. 

It also strikes me, as we have also read in the testimony today, 

that the States today—and there are a number of States who have 

already authorized the issuing of driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, 

and there are other States who are contemplating that move—what 

they are doing is making it a lot easier for someone to come into 

the country illegally. What they are doing is providing one of the 

two documents necessary to someone coming into the country illegally to use to prove that they are here and can go about their 

business even though they are actually here illegally. And that is 

very discouraging. 

It strikes me that those States are knowingly contributing not 

only to illegal immigration but knowingly contributing to making 

it easier for someone to come into the country who might well endanger American lives. And I hope that one of the messages that 

is sent by our witnesses today and by some of the comments that 

we may have is that States who are contemplating issuing driver’s 

licenses to illegal aliens or those who have already done so ought 

to rethink what they have done if in fact they care about the safety 

of American citizens and if in fact they want to not encourage illegal immigration. 

One of the solutions I think we might get to is the fact that we 

need some kind of standardized form for driver’s licenses and for 

birth certificates so, as the Chairman pointed out in his opening 

statement, we do not have thousands of different varieties out 

there. 

It so happens that that was a part of our 1996 Immigration Reform Act, and unfortunately that provision calling for standardization of driver’s licenses and birth certificates was repealed in 1999. 

I think in retrospect that looks like a major mistake on the part 

of Congress, and I hope that that is something we might consider 

revisiting. 

So, Mr. Chairman, let me say again that already this hearing 

has been worthwhile because already it has pointed out on the 

basis of the testimony that we have how easy it is for someone to 

come into the country illegally, and again, I thank you for having 

the hearing. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Any other opening statements? 

Mr. King—the chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

8

I too thank you for holding these hearings today and appreciate 

the participation of the panelists and the Members of this Subcommittee. 

I want to listen to your testimony and try to look at this within 

the broader context of why we have immigration laws in the first 

place. There is a long history with national sovereignty and secure 

borders and citizenship, and if we look back through the history of 

the United States and nearly every other successful country, it is 

a requirement to maintain your sovereignty to be able to maintain 

a secure border, and that is for a number of reasons. One of them 

is from a national security standpoint, not just terrorism, but infiltrators from other perspectives. Another one is control of disease; 

that has been an historical reason why we have had controlled borders and controlled immigration. Another reason is that all nations 

must maintain some form of cultural continuity. 

Those are all broad national agendas that are not just unique to 

the United States of America but essentially generally apply to 

every successful country throughout all of history. 

So to measure those things—our economic standards, our military security, our national security, and our cultural continuity— to measure that against the convenience of travelers, I think the 

convenience of travelers fades in comparison. Do we want to open 

our borders to the entire Western Hemisphere is involved in this 

discussion, not just our communications with one particular nation. 

This Nation is at risk for not just terrorists but, say, the next typhoid Mary or the next maybe ‘‘anthrax Andy’’ that could come in. 

And as soon as they know where the soft spot is, that is what they 

will use. 

Well, that is the thrust of this hearing as I understand it, is to 

look and see where our soft spots are and see what we need to do 

to tighten up our borders and maintain that national security, still 

be able to maintain. We have technology that we can use, and we 

need to go down that path wherever we can, and I am certainly in 

favor of establishing those border controls that allow for the use of 

that technology especially for those consistent travelers. I want to 

provide for that kind of convenience, but I do not want to sacrifice 

the security of the United States of America for that. 

If we are only addressing terrorism as opposed to sometimes the 

quality of the people who come in and the numbers of immigrants 

who come in—if you remember the Mariel boatlift and the load 

that that put on our security within our borders and on our law 

enforcement people—if we have that going on on a regular basis, 

not just something that is dramatic and catches the news, we need 

to be aware of the cost and the implication of that as well. 

So again I thank the chair for holding these hearings, and I will 

sit back and am very interested to hear your testimony. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair now wishes to introduce the panel. John E. Fuller—

from October to December 2002, Mr. Fuller headed a task force appointed by the Attorney General of Antigua and Barbuda to investigate the activities of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo 

in Antigua. He has been an attorney in private practice in Antigua 

since 1975. He was the legal officer of the Attorney General of AnVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:02 Jun 12, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\IMMIG\051303\87092.000 HJUD1 PsN: 87092
9

tigua and Barbuda from 1973 until 1975. He is a graduate of Saint 

Peter’s College in New Jersey and the Inns of Court School of Law 

in London. 

Robert J. Cramer has been the Managing Director of the Office 

of Special Investigations at the General Accounting Office sine August 2002. He has also served as Assistant General Counsel for 

Special Investigations at GAO. 

Before he arrived at the GAO in 2000, Mr. Cramer was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. He is 

a graduate of Brooklyn College and Notre Dame Law School. 

Roderick L. Beverly is a Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Office of International Operations. In this position, he oversees the 

FBI’s Legal Attache Offices in 45 foreign countries as well as the 

Office of Language Services. 

Before coming to the Office of International Operations, Mr. Beverly served in a variety of positions at the FBI. He was Special 

Agent in Charge of the FBI’s San Antonio Division from April 1998 

until May 2002. Before that posting, he was Assistant Special 

Agent in Charge of the San Juan, Puerto Rico Field Office of the 

FBI, a position that he assumed in May 1996. This followed a posting as the field supervisor responsible for directing the Organized 

Crime Drug Program at the FBI’s Atlanta Division as well as here 

at FBI Headquarters where he was an Assistant Inspector in the 

Inspection Division. 

In September 1990, Mr. Beverly was sent to the U.S. Embassy 

in Bogota, Colombia as the Assistant Legal Attache. He spent 2 

years working with the Colombian authorities in pursuing the leaders of the Colombian cocaine cartels. He became a Special Agent 

in December 1982. In addition to the postings above, he also served 

tours in the Charlotte, San Diego, and Miami divisions of the FBI 

and at the Organized Crime Drug Section at FBI Headquarters in 

August 1988. 

He is a graduate of North Carolina State University. 

Sharon Palmer-Royston is an attorney advisor and Chief Legal 

Officer for Passport Services at the State Department. She has 

worked as a lawyer for Passport Services since 1975, supporting 

the passport program on litigation, legislation, and passport restrictive actions. 

Recently, Ms. Palmer-Royston has initiated or directed implementation of a number of innovative programs including the 1996 

law requiring passports to be denied to individuals in arrears on 

child support. 

She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and the Washington College of Law at American University. 

One last point, to reiterate. As I mentioned in my opening statement, in order to protect the ongoing prosecutions of Mr. Muhammad in the United States, none of the witnesses today is involved 

in those prosecutions. I would ask the Members once again not to 

question the witnesses about Mr. Muhammad’s presence or actions 

in the United States or about the sniper investigation itself. 

At this time, Mr. Fuller, you are recognized for 5 minutes. You 

are more than welcome to summarize your opening statement. It 

will be available for the record, but you are free to testify before 

the Subcommittee. 

10

Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN E. FULLER, ESQUIRE, HEAD OF ANTIGUAN TASK FORCE INVESTIGATING MUHAMMAD’S ACTIVITIES 

Mr. FULLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to preface what I am about to say 

with the remark that you have said it all, actually, between yourself and Ms. Jackson Lee, insofar as we are concerned. 

As you can see from my written submission, we conducted this 

investigation in Antigua and basically for the purposes of trying to 

understand how Muhammad got an Antiguan passport. And in our 

investigation, we realized that he used forged documents to obtain 

the Antiguan passport, and from that, we found out that he systematically targeted a sector of the population with his merchandise, that is to say, a very easy fabricating of driving licenses with 

photo i.d.’s and birth certificates. 

We found that in fact Muhammad came to Antigua with—I 

should say equipped with—blank birth certificates, some of which 

he actually forgot in the house that he was staying in. And I made 

copies of those, and I would like to give them to you. These are the 

ones he came with—and remember he came to Antigua more likely 

than not for the purpose of hiding his children, who were the subject of a court order in the States and to whom he had very scant 

access. 

I think the purposes of his obtaining the false birth certificates 

in the first place was to create new identities for his children so 

that he could keep them wherever he wanted to. And having successfully done that—he did create those birth certificates for 

them—he went on and found that his skills in so doing were marketable, and he did make quite a few dollars from selling them and 

fabricating documents quite easily. 

With the help of American Airlines staff, he was actually caught 

trying to send one of his clients overseas, and he was caught himself with a driving license, an American driving license from either 

the States of Washington or Washington, D.C., unspecific, and we 

have the original, and what I will do is—I have made copies, or you 

have very kindly made copies here—and the false birth certificate—and I will hand them all up to you. And I will hand the originals up as well so that you can have a look at them. 

It seems trite now to say how easy it is to fabricate these documents, and I think you could ask any 18-year-old or 17-year-old 

who wants to get into a bar how easy it is to obtain these documents. So that goes without saying. 

These are the originals, and if you would have a look at them, 

and I would love to have them back, please. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The record will reflect that Mr. Fuller has sent 

to the dias the records, the original records, for the examination by 

Members of the Subcommittee. 

Mr. FULLER. Actually, the fake driving license there has 

Muhammad’s photo himself on it. 

What more can I say? I think it is—I was very surprised to find 

that as a result of what we reported in Antigua, this thing grew. 

11

I’m sure that the authorities here knew about it before, but—because it was just too easy, just too easy. 

I think the documents themselves, however, are not sufficient. I 

think you need to have an attitude when you get to your immigration officer. You have to have the right moves, the right accent. If 

you are going through Puerto Rico, where most of the immigration 

officers’ first language is Spanish, it is very hard for them to detect 

the difference between a Jamaican fake American accent and an 

American accent, and I think that is a weakness there itself, just 

to add 5 cents to it. 

If I am allowed to comment, I think there will be a very, very 

detrimental impact to tourism in the Caribbean and to the economies of the Caribbean, because we rely mainly on tourism and people like the people that Ms. Jackson Lee referred to who decide 

Wednesday to go to the Caribbean Thursday. We rely on those people for our livelihoods, for our tax base, for everything, and if the 

exception were—and if I am allowed to beg—were done away with, 

we would suffer greatly, not just in Antigua and Barbuda, but 

throughout the Caribbean, and no doubt in other countries of the 

Western Hemisphere which rely on those sort of tourists. 

I spoke to a young lady, one of your clerks, earlier, and we were 

talking about how many Americans have passports. A very small 

percentage of Americans have passports compared to other developed countries. Something like 10 or 15 percent of Americans have 

passports. Therefore, the 85 percent or 90 percent of your population who don’t have passports will not be traveling without passports if this exception is done away with, and it is from—not just 

from the 10 or 15 percent that we get our livelihood throughout the 

Caribbean. We have services and places that they want to visit and 

obtain, and if this exception is done, we are going to suffer greatly. 

I don’t know if Ms. Jackson Lee had figures of how many million 

people, jobs, et cetera, et cetera, but in a small country like Antigua and Barbuda with a population of 70,000, where something 

like 80 percent or 75 percent of our BNP is based on tourism, we 

will suffer very, very much. 

Any further comments I have would be inappropriate. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. That is right, Mr. Fuller, and your testimony 

is well-taken, and that is why you are here. We appreciate your 

testimony. 

Mr. FULLER. Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fuller follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN E. FULLER

Together with three other persons (Ralph Francis, Attorney, Cosmos Marcelle, retired Assistant Commissioner of Police and the Reverend Arnold Francis, Catholic 

Priest) I was on the 28th day of October 2002 requested by the Attorney General 

of Antigua and Barbuda to conduct an investigation into the activities of John Allen 

Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo during their presence in Antigua and Barbuda. On 

the 31st day of October 2002 we issued the attached Interim Report and on the 31st 

day of December 2002 we issued the attached Final Report. 

Insofar as the findings in these two latter reports relate to the subcommittee’s 

oversight hearing the documents speak for themselves. 

On the issue of Mohammad’s document fraud activities in Antigua the following 

is a summary of facts as we found them: 

Mohammad first arrived in Antigua on the 20th day of March 2000. He was accompanied by his three minor children. We were satisfied that he came to Antigua 

12

effectively to remove his minor children from the jurisdiction of the Courts of the 

USA. He did not have lawful custody of his children. 

He stayed with an Antiguan family for a few weeks but was asked to leave as 

the family suspected that he had ‘‘kidnapped’’ his children. 

Upon his departure from the latter residence he seems to have inadvertently left 

in that house a few ‘‘blank’’ birth certificates ostensibly from a state in the United 

States (copies of certificates to be produced). We concluded therefore that he came 

to Antigua equipped with documents intended to be used in creating false identities—most likely for his children. 

His second residence in Antigua was with a Jamaican family and through them 

he became acquainted with many Jamaican nationals living in Antigua. It became 

apparent that there was (and no doubt still is) a rich market among Jamaican nationals for travel documents facilitating entry into the USA. 

Not withstanding the fact that Mohammad seems to have barely literate, between 

April 2000 and March 2001 he systematically engaged in the production and sale 

of U.S. driving licenses with photographs and corresponding birth certificates. He 

was aided and abetted in this activity by an individual who was (and is) extremely 

computer literate. The production of these documents does not seem to have been 

extremely difficult or requiring high skills. Two examples of his handiwork are now 

produced. All that seems to be required are:

1. A computer and scanner.

2. A template for the driving license and for the birth certificate.

3. A photograph.

4. A laminating machine.

5. A harassed and/or gullible immigration officer whose first language is not 

English.

Mohammad often ‘‘shepherded’’ his clients into the USA. He also often had two 

sets of documents for each client. One set contained his photograph, the other his 

‘‘client’s’’ photograph, both with a false name, etc. . . . Muhammad would check in 

for the flight entering the U.S. and, before embarking on the flight, would hand over 

the boarding pass to his ‘‘client.’’

Statements from witnesses supporting our findings are in our possession. 

The Government of Antigua and Barbuda in response to our recommendations has 

instituted an intensive training program aimed at airline counter clerks, immigration officers, customs officials, police officers, passport office clerks and public record 

employees. The U.S. Immigration Service has hosted several workshops here in the 

detection of forged documents. All recommendations have been implemented. 

From our point of view what Mohammad did was not so much as ‘‘exploiting a 

loophole’’ but utilize the computers and the Web to obtain documents to create credible forgeries. It must be remembered however that at least one of his ‘‘clients’’ was 

refused U.S. entry in December 2000 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

Finally, in addition to the many other avenues of investigation that we undertook 

and the various names and individuals that we investigated, Mohammad not only 

took advantage of the United States exception for the Western hemisphere but he 

also utilized forging skills in obtaining for himself and three others four Antigua 

and Barbuda passports. The other three passports were for Jamaican nationals. 

Mohammad’s activities highlighted the weaknesses in the systems in place in the 

U.S. and in Antigua and Barbuda in the age of computer technology from which we 

all should learn hard lessons. 

As a footnote I think it incumbent upon me to mention the potential repercussions 

to all tourist oriented countries in the Western hemisphere who allow U.S. citizens 

without passports but with photo ID to enter if the exception to enter is repealed. 

In such an event there will no doubt be an impact on the number of tourists traveling and such impact will no doubt substantially affect our tourist industries.

13

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Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Cramer? 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. CRAMER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, 

OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE 

Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, good 

afternoon. 

I am here today to report the results of security tests performed 

by agents of the Office of Special Investigations who, acting in an 

undercover capacity, entered the United States from several countries in the Western Hemisphere using fictitious identifies and 

counterfeit identification documents. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Cramer, could you pull the microphone a 

little closer to you? 

Mr. CRAMER. Sorry; sure. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you. 

Mr. CRAMER. The purpose of our tests was to determine whether 

U.S. Government officials conducting inspections at the border 

would be able to detect the counterfeit documents presented. 

For purposes of our tests, we established fictitious identities for 

our agents and created counterfeit driver’s licenses and birth certificates using ordinary personal computers and off-the-shelf software that is available to any purchaser. 

On the chart to your right are reproductions of some of the driver’s licenses and birth certificates that were created. 

The agents entered the United States from Barbados, Jamaica, 

Mexico, and Canada using their fictitious names and these documents. The border inspectors did not question the authenticity of 

the counterfeit documents, and our agents did not have any difficulty entering the United States at any time with them. 

On two occasions, border inspectors did not ask for identification 

when our agents came in from Canada and Mexico. 

The entry from Barbados occurred earlier this month when two 

of our agents traveling on one-way tickets from Barbados arrived 

at an airport in the United States. They proceeded to the immigration checkpoint, and each was checked at different times by the 

same inspector. Each agent was asked for his passport, and each 

responded that he did not have one, but produced the counterfeit 

birth certificate in the undercover name. The inspector reviewed 

the birth certificate and asked for picture identification. In response, each agent produced the counterfeit driver’s license he had. 

The inspector asked several questions of the agents and reviewed 

the documents and then permitted them to enter the United 

States. He did not question any of the counterfeit documents that 

they presented. 

In January of this year, two agents who were traveling on oneway tickets from Jamaica arrived at a different airport in the 

United States. When they went to the immigration checkpoint, 

they presented to two different immigration inspectors their counterfeit driver’s licenses and birth certificates. The inspectors appeared to examine those documents carefully, but they did not recognize them as counterfeit and permitted the agents to enter the 

United States. 

30

On one occasion in November of 2002, our agents crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. Two agents were asked for 

identification by two different border inspectors. Both agents presented counterfeit driver’s licenses and were allowed to cross into 

the United States. 

On another occasion in coming in from Mexico, an agent crossed 

the border, and the inspector asked him a series of questions and 

permitted him to enter the country without producing any kind of 

identification. 

Our agents also crossed the border from Canada into the United 

States on two occasions. The first border crossing occurred when 

the agents entered the United States through a seaport of entry 

from Canada. On that occasion, the agents were not asked to show 

identification. On a subsequent occasion, two agents using fictitious 

names and presenting counterfeit driver’s licenses crossed the border into the United States at a land border crossing. After the inspector reviewed the documents, he permitted them to enter into 

the country. 

To summarize this, we recognize that weaknesses in inspection 

processes for entrance into the United States raise complex issues, 

and we are performing an evaluation of those processes and weaknesses which will be reported to the Congress in the coming weeks. 

Although the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection inspects 

millions of people who enter into the country each year and detects 

thousands of individuals who attempt to enter illegally, the results 

of our work do indicate that the inspectors are not readily able to 

detect counterfeit identification documents and that people who 

enter this country are not always asked to present identification. 

That completes my prepared statement, Mr. Chairman. I am 

here with some of the agents who participated in this work, and 

we will be happy to answer any questions that you or the Members 

of the Committee may have. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Mr. Cramer. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cramer follows:]

31

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. CRAMER


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Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Beverly? 

STATEMENT OF RODERICK L. BEVERLY, SPECIAL AGENT IN 

CHARGE, OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

Mr. BEVERLY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Jackson Lee, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon. 

Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the purpose of this 

hearing is to examine John Allen Muhammad’s alleged document 

fraud activities in Antigua. The FBI appreciates the Subcommittee’s interest and concern in this matter. Due to the pending prosecution of Mr. Muhammad for the D.C. area sniper attacks, however, the FBI is not at liberty to discuss the activities of Mr. Muhammad. Nevertheless, I understand that the Subcommittee would 

like for me to provide an overview of the FBI’s Legal Attache or 

Legat Program. 

The Office of International Operations directs the FBI’s Legat 

Program which consists of 45 offices around the world. These Legal 

Attache Offices are staffed by 114 special agents and 75 support 

employees. By the end of 2003, we project that this will increase 

to 133 special agents and 83 support personnel with the opening 

of new offices in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Kuala Lumpur, 

Malaysia; Sanaa, Yemen; Tbilisi, Georgia; and Tunis, Tunisia. 

We are also in the process of reviewing the establishment of 

three sub-offices of existing Legats in Bonn, Germany; Milan, Italy; 

and Toronto, Canada. Legats Amman, Islamabad, Manila, Ottawa, 

Riyadh, and perhaps Cairo are being augmented with additional 

special agent and support personnel. Of the additional $45 million 

appropriated for the support of the FBI counterterrorism mission 

overseas, approximately $24 million was allocated for expansion of 

the Legat Program. 

Each Legal Attache Office is an integral component of the country team in the United States Embassy where they are located. 

Pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding, the Departments of 

State, Justice, and Treasury, Legat personnel report to the United 

States ambassadors in their roles as chiefs of mission. Legat personnel participate in the full range of country team duties, including Emergency Action Committees and the formulation of Mission 

Performance Plans. 

Legat personnel work in close coordination with our counterparts 

in the Central Intelligence Agency abroad to, among other critical 

missions, prevent, mitigate, and investigate terrorist attacks on the 

United States interests abroad. 

FBI Legats frequently advance mission goals and objectives by 

facilitating the delivery of a broad spectrum of training and technical assistance ranging from major case management to internal 

accountability systems to our foreign counterparts. During the past 

5 years alone, Legats have been instrumental in facilitating the 

participation of 586 foreign students from 113 countries in the 

FBI’s National Academy. Foreign National Academy alumni represent a high-value cadre of liaison contacts who are frequently of 

great assistance in advancing FBI investigations overseas. 

37

Through the liaison established by our Legats, we were able to 

mobilize the investigative assistance of foreign governments without compromising their national security or sovereignty. This assistance benefits not only the FBI but other Federal agencies as 

well as State, country, and municipal law enforcement agencies. 

During the period fiscal year 2001 through 2002, the number of 

leads handled by Legats increased from 41,200 to 53,100 approximately. This is consistent with the trend in which Legat lead coverage steadily increased from 15,630 in fiscal year 1997 to 41,211 

in fiscal year 2001. Legats further serve as the reciprocal point of 

contact for these countries to obtain investigative assistance in the 

United States through the FBI as well as State, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies. 

Our Legat Program greatly enhances the capability of the United 

States Government to wage the war against terrorism as well as 

addressing the full range of criminal threats to the United States 

in an increasingly globalized world. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and throughout the following year, our Legats 

facilitated the rapid deployment of approximately 700 FBI personnel overseas. Their contributions to the rapid international deployment of FBI personnel in response to terrorist attacks on our 

embassies in East Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, 

and the October 12, 2002 bombing in Bali also dramatically demonstrate this capability. 

While the FBI has no direct involvement in U.S. border security, 

in addition to our active participation with U.S. intelligence community and law enforcement partners abroad, the FBI as an agency and the Legat Program in particular works closely with the 

State’s Consular Affairs Office and Homeland Security by being an 

active participant in border security initiatives such as the visa 

waiver program, the visa viper program, and related initiatives. 

This concludes my prepared remarks. I would be happy to respond to any questions that you might have at this time. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Mr. Beverly. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Beverly follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RODERICK L. BEVERLY

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, and distinguished 

members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

this morning. 

Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the purpose of this hearing is to examine John Allen Muhammad’s alleged document fraud activities in Antigua. The FBI 

appreciates the subcommittee’s interest and concern in this matter. Due to the 

pending prosecution of Mr. Muhammad for the D.C. area sniper attacks, however, 

the FBI is not at liberty to discuss the activities of Mr. Muhammad. Nevertheless, 

I understand that the Subcommittee would like for me to provide an overview of 

the FBI’s Legal Attache, or Legat, program. 

The Office of International Operations directs the FBI’s Legat program which consists of 45 offices around the world. These Legal Attache Offices are staffed by 114 

Special Agents and 75 support employees. By the end of 2003, we project that this 

will increase to 133 Special Agents and 83 support personnel with the opening of 

new offices in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Sanaa, 

Yemen; Tbilisi, Georgia; and Tunis, Tunisia. We are also in the process of reviewing 

the establishment of three sub-offices of existing Legats in Bonn, Germany (Legat 

Berlin); Milan, Italy (Legat Rome); and Toronto, Canada (Legat Ottawa). Legats 

Amman, Islamabad, Manila, Ottawa, Riyadh, and perhaps Cairo, are being augmented with additional Special Agent and support personnel. Of the additional $45 

38

million appropriated for the support of the FBI Counterterrorism mission overseas, 

approximately $24 million was allocated for expansion of the Legat Program. 

Each Legal Attache Office is an integral component of the Country Team in the 

United States Embassy in which they are located. Pursuant to a Memorandum Of 

Understanding (MOU) with the Departments Of State, Justice and Treasury, Legat 

personnel report to United States Ambassadors in their roles as Chiefs Of Mission. 

Legat personnel participate in the full range of Country Team duties including 

Emergency Action Committees and the formulation of Mission Performance Plans. 

Legat personnel work in close coordination with our counterparts in the Central Intelligence Agency abroad to, among other critical missions, prevent, mitigate, and 

investigate terrorist attacks on United States interests abroad. FBI Legats frequently advance mission goals and objectives by facilitating the delivery of a broad 

spectrum of training and technical assistance ranging from Major Case Management to Internal Accountability Systems to our foreign counterparts. During the 

past five years alone Legats have been instrumental in facilitating the participation 

of 586 foreign students from 113 countries in the FBI’s National Academy. Foreign 

National Academy alumni represented a high value cadre of liaison contacts who 

are frequently of great assistance in advancing FBI investigations overseas. 

Through the liaison established by our Legats we are able to mobilize the investigative assistance of foreign governments without compromising their national sovereignty. This assistance benefits not only the FBI but other federal agencies as well 

as state, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies. During the period FY 

2001 to FY 2002, the number of leads handled by Legats increased from 41,211 to 

53,105. This is consistent with the trend in which Legat lead coverage steadily increased from 15,630 in FY 1997 to 41,211 in FY 2001. Legats further serve as the 

reciprocal point of contact for these countries to obtain investigative assistance in 

the United States through the FBI as well as state, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies. 

Our Legat Program greatly enhances the capability of the United States Government to wage the war against terrorism as well as addressing the full range of 

criminal threats to the United States in an increasingly ‘‘globalized’’ world. In the 

aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and throughout the following year, our 

Legats facilitated the rapid deployment of approximately 700 FBI personnel overseas. Their contributions to the rapid international deployment of FBI personnel in 

response to terrorist attacks on our embassies in East Africa, the bombing of the 

USS Cole in Yemen, and the October 12, 2002 bombings in Bali, also dramatically 

demonstrate this capability. 

While the FBI has no direct involvement in U.S. border security, in addition to 

our active participation with U.S. Intelligence Community and law enforcement 

partners abroad, the FBI as an agency, and the Legat program in particular works 

closely with State’s Consular Affairs Office and Homeland Security by being an active participant in border security initiatives such as the visa waiver program, the 

visa viper program and related initiatives. 

That concludes my prepared remarks. I would be pleased to respond to any questions the Subcommittee may have that relate to the FBI’s Legat Program.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Ms. Palmer-Royston? 

STATEMENT OF SHARON PALMER-ROYSTON, CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER FOR PASSPORT SERVICE, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. Mr. Chairman, Ms. Jackson Lee and Committee Members, thank you for inviting me to speak to this Committee about the exceptions to the general requirement that United 

States citizens carry a U.S. passport when entering and exiting the 

United States. 

The requirements are as follows. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, in Section 215, Travel Documentation of Aliens 

and Citizens, Subsection (b) Relating to U.S. Citizens, state that 

unless otherwise provided, it is unlawful for U.S. citizens to depart 

from or enter the United States unless they bear a valid U.S. passport. 

General requirement—by regulation, the Secretary of State provided that U.S. citizens are excepted from this requirement in a 

39

number of situations. The two major exceptions are when the U.S. 

citizen is traveling directly between parts of the United States and 

when traveling between the United States and any country, Territory, or island adjacent thereto in North, South, or Central America, excluding Cuba. 

The other exceptions are for United States seamen and air crewmen carrying valid merchant mariner or air crew i.d., for members 

of the U.S. Armed Forces on active duty, for certain minor members of the household of foreign or United Nations official employees, for children under 12 years old who are included in a parent’s 

foreign passport if they are otherwise able to prove U.S. citizenship, for U.S. citizens carrying a card of citizenship and identity 

issued by a U.S. Counsel at a foreign mission abroad, and for individuals specifically authorized by the Secretary of State, through 

appropriate channels—and this last exception is administered by 

officials at U.S. ports of entry. 

That is how the passport requirement is organized today. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Ms. Palmer-Royston. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Palmer-Royston follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHARON PALMER-ROYSTON

Mr. Chairman, Committee Members. 

Thank you for inviting me to speak to this Committee about the exception to the 

general requirement that United States citizens carry a U.S. passport when entering and exiting the United States. 

The requirements are as follows: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 in 

Section 215, Travel Documentation of Aliens and Citizens, subsection (b) relating to 

U.S. citizens, states that, unless otherwise provided, it is unlawful for U.S citizens 

to depart from or enter the United States unless they bear a valid U.S. passport. 

By regulation, the Secretary of State provided that U.S. citizens are excepted from 

this requirement in a number of situations. The two major exceptions are when the 

U.S. citizen is traveling directly between parts of the United States; and, when traveling between the United States and any country, territory or island adjacent thereto, in North, South or Central America, excluding Cuba. 

The other exceptions are for U.S. seamen and air crew carrying valid merchant 

mariner or air crew ID; for members of the U.S. armed forces on active duty; for 

certain minor members of the household of foreign or United Nations official employees; for children under 12 years old who are included in a parent’s foreign passport if they are able to otherwise prove U.S. citizenship; for U.S. citizens carrying 

a card of citizenship and identity issued by a U.S. consul abroad; and, for individuals specifically authorized by the Secretary of State through appropriate official 

channels. The last exception is administered by officials at U.S. ports of entry.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. We will now move to questions. First of all, I 

have a question for Mr. Cramer. In your testimony, Mr. Cramer, 

you state that you and your agents created counterfeit driver’s licenses and birth certificates which your agents successfully presented at various U.S. ports of entry. 

How difficult was it for you to make these counterfeit documents, 

and could a private individual create a similar document? 

Mr. CRAMER. It was simple and easy to create them. We did 

nothing different from what many young people do when they want 

to make counterfeit identification to get into a bar to drink. It is 

a very simple process. You go to Staples; you can buy the software. 

Most people have home computers; it can be done on a home computer. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The hearing is being held to explore document 

fraud and the Western Hemisphere passport exception. What efVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:02 Jun 12, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\IMMIG\051303\87092.000 HJUD1 PsN: 87092
40

fect, Mr. Cramer, do you think the Western Hemisphere passport 

exception has on the ability of inspectors at the ports of entry to 

identify fraudulent documents? 

Mr. CRAMER. I do not know that the exception itself has an effect 

on their ability to do it, except that if you have a passport, the inspectors need to be able to identify counterfeit passports, and it is 

much easier to be well-trained in detecting one kind of counterfeit 

document. For example, Secret Service agents are trained in detecting counterfeit currency, and because of that very particular specialized training that they have, they are able to do so virtually all 

of the time. 

The types of documents that are presented to border inspectors 

are very large—birth certificates—as you mentioned earlier, there 

are thousands of different types of birth certificates in this country, 

and there are at least 50 different types of driver’s licenses. It is 

very tough to train one person to be expert in detecting all of those 

types of identification. 

So the fact that more than one kind of document is permissible 

just makes it much more difficult for the border inspectors. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Very good. Is there any reason that a U.S. citizens—a citizen, mind you—would use an alias and/or counterfeit 

documents when returning to the United States at a port of entry? 

If so, why would they do that—why would citizens want to do that? 

Mr. CRAMER. Well, fugitives, for example—there are many wellknown fugitives from justice who may leave the country to flee justice and then want to enter the country to live quietly under an 

assumed name and enjoy the fruits of their crimes. So that is just 

one thing that pops into my mind immediately, that there are U.S. 

citizens who are fugitives who would love to be able to regain entry 

into the United States. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Very good. Thank you. 

Mr. Fuller, in the task force report, it states that, quote, ‘‘Muhammad would arrange for those who had purchased forged documents to fly to the U.S. on the return half of a ticket for a trip 

which originated in the U.S.A., thereby making it less suspicious 

to all concerned.’’

How would this scheme make a traveler with forged documents 

less suspicious? 

Mr. FULLER. Well, I was amazed that Mr. Cramer’s people got in 

on one-way tickets. I think it adds to the credibility of the passenger if he has the remains of a ticket that originated in the U.S. 

It adds to his credibility when presenting himself to your immigration officer—yes, I left Miami last week Thursday. I am an American. I am going back. I had a roundtrip ticket. I live in Kendall, 

Miami. 

It has to do with the whole package that you are selling to the 

immigration officer—your accent, your documents, your return ticket—it all adds to the credibility of the person who is attempting to 

gain entry. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. As an aside, how would they come up with half 

of a——

Mr. FULLER. We were never able, really, to get to the bottom of 

that, and I suspect that Muhammad—Muhammad traveled to the 

U.S. nearly weekly, and we suspect that he bought tickets from the 

41

U.S. to Antigua and return, under false names, and used the second half of those tickets to give to his clients, as it were. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. I see. 

In describing the improvements that Antigua has instituted in 

response to the task force recommendations—it is an extensive 

training program aimed at airline counter clerks, immigration, and 

Customs officers and others—what does the training consist of? 

Mr. FULLER. I have attended a couple of them myself. Your Immigration and Naturalization Services themselves and your Customs people actually visited Antigua and conducted seminars on 

how to detect forgeries looking at paper, different kinds of papers 

that are used—of course, they went through the passport thing, but 

the passport thing really is not an issue here—generally speaking, 

just trying to—for example, in Muhammad’s own birth certificate 

that he used to get his Antigua passport, one of the lines alone was 

out-of-sync with the rest of the lines in the document—just generally trying to show the officials concerned what to look for, if 

there is something—in all the documents involved. And I think airline clerks were a very important aspect of it because they are 

obliged to check your identity documents before you get on the 

plane, because the airlines themselves bear a certain amount of responsibility, I understand, for allowing illegal immigrants to fly 

into the U.S. 

So we had the airline clerks. We have instituted now a very boring but apparently very necessary system of having to present your 

documents before you get into the departure lounge, officials look 

at your documents—immigration officials—departure immigration 

officials, which is a real pain in the neck for travelers, but apparently necessary. 

One of the things that we have also done is because Muhammad 

arrived in Antigua with fake documents, the arrival officials have 

gone through intense training on how to detect, or at least try to 

detect, documents. 

The official records officers, because Muhammad was able to obtain a birth certificate, have been trained to be on the lookout for 

people trying to extract birth certificates for illegal purposes. 

So it is really on the top of everyone’s list because of course we 

were embarrassed by this man. This man used us, he used our systems, our weaknesses, just as he used yours, to further his activities. So we reacted very strongly to it, and hopefully we have done 

some good. 

There was one point I wanted to make, by the way, while we are 

at it. One of the gentlemen—Muhammad did sell mostly to Jamaicans, but there was one Syrian-born gentleman who obtained documents from him, and the FBI, I understand—I saw the documents 

in their possession—they got him. I do not know whatever happened to him. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Mr. Fuller. 

The chair now recognizes Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Fuller, reference was made to the new training procedures 

that have been put in place. Do you consider them successful, or 

how are they progressing? 

42

Mr. FULLER. Well, successful is—I think that it is successful definitely in the sense that there is a heightened awareness amongst 

everyone involved, heightened awareness of the potentials for disaster in allowing people who are not the people they say they are 

to travel; potential for disaster to the good name of our country by 

allowing it to be a base from which people travel illegally, especially to the United States of America, given the current geopolitical atmosphere. 

I think Muhammad, and because of the notoriety this gentleman 

has gained, it lent to our heightened sensibility of—from what was 

a sleepy little island in terms of these sorts of things to everyone 

suspecting everyone of walking with false documents, as they say. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, you happen to be highlighted, as you 

have indicated, by the high-profile nature of the individual that we 

are speaking of——

Mr. FULLER. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE.—and you are symbolic of the Caribbean. The 

question is, is this a widespread epidemic or pandemic in the Caribbean with respect to these kinds of documents. 

Mr. FULLER. No, ma’am, no. There is no evidence whatsoever of 

that. In fact—although it is surprising because—it surprises me 

particularly—because one would have thought this was—everybody 

wants to go to America, you know, everybody wants to come to 

America, and if you just to Barbados, the United States Consulate 

in Bridgetown, Barbados, and the queues that go on for days and 

days and days just to get a visitor’s visa. Everyone wants to come 

to America, and this is a very easy way of coming, and you would 

have thought that it would have been exploited a lot more than it 

has transpired to have been. 

When I said 20, Muhammad did 20, that was a rough guesstimate, okay? There is absolutely no factual evidence that he did 

20. But talking to various witnesses and people who did not want 

to be named, et cetera, et cetera, we came up with 20, which was 

probably a pretty good figure. But there is no evidence either from 

anywhere else in Antigua or anywhere else in the Caribbean that 

I know of that this was going on. I think the penny never dropped 

except to your own citizen, Mr. Muhammad. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, I think this is important for the record, 

and I appreciate it very much. We will continue to—— Mr. FULLER. And I think you for bringing it out, ma’am, for all 

of us in the Caribbean. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I thank you for your work as well. 

Mr. Cramer, in the Committee’s as well as your great work, we 

are trying to be corrective, and I noted a comment, ‘‘inspectors not 

readily to detect counterfeit documents.’’ I think if we probe you on 

that, you must be suggesting or suggesting that because there are 

different types, you cannot get your eye tuned to one single type; 

is that what I understand you are saying? 

Mr. CRAMER. Yes, that is part of it. Another part, though, is that 

for example, the driver’s licenses that we created were not particularly sophisticated counterfeits. Most driver’s licenses have 

holograms on them, and if you hold it up to the light, you can see 

the reflection of the hologram. We did not attempt to duplicate a 

hologram, so although the lines where the hologram would appear 

43

were there, if you held it up to the light, it did not reflect. So anyone who had training in driver’s license counterfeit detection would 

know right away that this was a counterfeit. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, let me first of all thank you for the work 

that was done. I think it is important work. You come from a corrective mode, meaning you find out the information and you try to 

correct it. So with that in mind and with the backdrop of the relationships that the Caribbean, Mexico in particular, the whole tourist issue which is not your responsibility, but could we enhance the 

training of the inspectors and others focused toward the possibility 

of being able to, as you have just so aptly described, focus on the 

driver’s license concept or the birth certificate concept, giving them 

enhanced training of those documents. As you well know, at the 

Southern border, we have the biometric card now, and those border 

patrol agents must be trained to eye those cards and to ensure that 

those are not going to be counterfeited, but we did it to avoid the 

abuse. 

Can we provide the kind of training that would be of assistance 

to close the gap on what we are seeing at the borders? 

Mr. CRAMER. I think there is no question that additional training 

for the inspectors at the border would be very helpful. Again, it is 

a big job, but certainly with respect to driver’s licenses, it is a more 

limited universe than the birth certificates, and certainly some 

training would be very helpful. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous 

consent for an additional 1 minute. I want to finish with Mr. Beverly and Ms. Palmer-Royston. 

Mr. KING. [presiding.] Without objection. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank you very much. 

Mr. Beverly, let me thank you for your work, and I do want to 

note the various agents that were involved in this work, and I want 

them to know on the record how much we appreciate it and do not 

discount the work, because any way that we can avoid terrorist opportunities, we should applaud, and I thank you very much, Mr. 

Cramer, for the work. 

Mr. Beverly, can you recall the kinds of documents, generally 

speaking, that the 19 terrorists that were the basis of the 9/11 attack, the general nature of the documents that they had? 

Mr. BEVERLY. I cannot tell you with certainty what they were. 

I know they did have documents that had been altered or otherwise 

changed their identity, but having not worked it, I would rather err 

on the side of not commenting. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You have no recollection that the bulk of them 

were legal documents? 

Mr. BEVERLY. I do not. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Okay. Well, my recollection is that they were. 

And do you have a comment on whether or not we have a situation 

where a great number of people may come in on legal documents 

as it relates to terrorists in the course of the work that you have 

been doing? 

Mr. BEVERLY. Certainly, there is—we work very closely with the 

Department of State. The Department of State, of course, takes 

care of their own internal examination of fraudulent documents, 

but we work very closely on a daily basis from embassy to embassy 

44

to try to identify people that their suspicions are raised about. And 

we do that through trying to check local criminal records checks or 

otherwise dealing with our counterparts in local law enforcement 

or intelligence services to try to work together to make sure we 

identify that these people are who they say they are before they 

ever set out to come to the United States. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Do you have any idea of how difficult it would 

be for a terrorist organization to get a passport—individuals to get 

a U.S. passport? 

Mr. BEVERLY. I think it depends on where you got the passport 

from. I know that there are certain countries out there that exercise a lot more strict control over the blank passports and applications than others—and when I say that, I am talking mostly about 

probably some of the countries that are—or, otherwise countries 

outside the United States or aside from the United States. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So it would range from very difficult to possibly easy? 

Mr. BEVERLY. We know, for example, of certain countries in 

which they have lost or are otherwise unable to account for blank 

passports, and any time you have that type of situation present, obviously, that facilitates the production and taking that to somebody 

and making it into a forged passport or altered passport. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And that would be U.S. passports that you are 

talking about? 

Mr. BEVERLY. That would not be U.S. passports. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. How easy would it be to get U.S. passports? 

Mr. BEVERLY. I really, not being familiar with what the internal 

requirements are for Department State, I think I would defer that 

to my colleague here. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me—and Mr. Fuller, I see my time is running out, and I want to finish with Ms. Palmer-Royston, and I 

thank her for being here. 

I just want to find out—you have recounted for us that the Secretary sets exemptions, and we appreciate the study and the work 

that the State Department does to establish these exemptions. I 

know it is not easy work. I assume you review this regularly— these exemptions that are given—do you? Does the State Department review the exemptions regularly? 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. The regulation has been in place since 

1966, but of course, we are certainly aware of the provisions in the 

regulations and—— Ms. JACKSON LEE. Do you know if they are done by statutory 

law, or are these done by internal regulations, administrative law? 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. The statute simply states that there is a 

general passport requirements, and the regulations are the Secretary of State’s regulatory exemptions, so the exemptions belong 

to the Secretary of State’s authority to control them. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. If the Secretary decides to issue a regulation 

that would eliminate the current passport exemptions for the 

United States, will the changes be announced, then, in proposed 

regulatory changes? 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. All our regulations would be, unless they 

were very perfunctory—and this certainly would not be a perfunctory change in the regulation—these regulations would be proposed 

45

and published in The Federal Register for comment; there would 

be a comment period, and we would receive the comments, consider 

them, and then, ultimately, a final regulation would be promulgated by the Secretary. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And finally, would you expect the Secretary 

to—what factors would you expect the Secretary to consider if the 

Secretary determined to propose such regulatory change? 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. Mainly, they certainly would not be legal 

questions that he would have to consider. That is a big change 

from present situation, from the present documentary regime, and 

it would be certainly an interagency question that would have very 

broad considerations, and it is not—as I said, I am the lawyer—

it is not a legal question, but it would, I am certain, have lots and 

lots of financial, policy, other kinds of——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Magnitude might be an issue, the magnitude 

of the——

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. It is a big change; it would be a big 

change. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes, but magnitude of the problem might be 

a consideration that they might look at. 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. I agree. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Fuller had his hand up; 

I do not want to take advantage. I do not know if he is trying to 

comment on the last comment; if you would indulge Mr. Fuller. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the witnesses. 

Mr. FULLER. Thank you, ma’am. You asked how easy it was to 

get a U.S. passport. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes. 

Mr. FULLER. But in our investigations, a side issue was thrown 

up. An acquaintance of Muhammad did get a U.S. passport in New 

York. He was an American citizen. Something happened to his 

original passport. He got another one using false documents in a 

very short period of time. Apparently, he is in custody now pending 

trial for that. But whilst his passport was still extant, he obtained 

another one, even in his own name. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. In the United States or when he was out of 

the country? 

Mr. FULLER. In New York, in New York, ma’am. So it is not just 

everywhere else that does this. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. We thank you for that. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Fuller. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, 

and appreciates his work in the chair while I was absent. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I do as well. Thank you, Mr. King. 

Mr. KING. It was a piece of work, I know, but thank you. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a series of questions here that have accumulated throughout this hearing. I would ask this of the panel—about how many 

passports have been issued in the United States—does anyone 

know the answer to that? 

46

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. We issue approximately 7 million-plus 

each year currently. 

Mr. KING. So the total passport-holders in the country, that accumulates? 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. A normal passport for an adult is valid for 

10 years. I think it is about 50 million approximately—I am trying 

to recall from—— Mr. KING. Okay. So if 10 percent of our population had passports, that would be about 28 million, then. 

What percentage of the American population travels overseas; do 

you know that? 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. That I don’t know. 

Mr. KING. I am just trying to get a handle here on the magnitude 

of this—if we were to take some steps to require utilization of the 

passport as a means to secure our borders, what would be the magnitude of that approach. 

Then, Mr. Cramer, as you testified, your agents entered the 

country a series of times, and I do not remember exactly how many 

different entry points or how many different entries there were, but 

I did not hear you say specifically was there ever a rejection of an 

entry of any agent for any reason? 

Mr. CRAMER. No, there was never a rejection. They were always 

successful in entering the country with their counterfeit documents. 

Mr. KING. Then, under what circumstances would there be a rejection of the entry? Is there some history of that in the knowledge 

of yourself or anyone else on the panel? 

Mr. CRAMER. I do not have any specific knowledge, but if the inspector were to pick up on the fact that this was a counterfeit birth 

certificate or driver’s license that was presented, it is my understanding that the traveler would then be sent to a secondary inspection at which more intensive questioning and investigation 

would take place. Where it would go from there, I do not know, 

though. 

Mr. KING. And that investigation might include going back to the 

source of the document and determining if that had been legitimately issued from that source, which could be a birth certificate 

or a passport. 

Under the circumstances that we are faced with, with potentially 

50,000 different varieties of documents or whatever that number is, 

would it be possible to train a single agent, let alone every agent, 

to identify those documents and be able to use that as a means to 

even improve our border security? 

Mr. CRAMER. I think it would be very difficult to train individual 

inspectors and give them the expertise needed to be able to detect 

counterfeits of all the different types of documents that are currently acceptable. 

Mr. KING. Okay. And I think we should have consensus on that, 

and so that takes us, then, to if this Nation is interested in securing its borders, which I certainly support, then the method by 

which we would use—what would you recommend, what would give 

us maximum security—if we decided that this is essential from a 

national security standpoint to have secure borders from an inspection perspective with regard to documentation, what would be an 

ideal system? 

47

Mr. CRAMER. I cannot really speak to that because that goes beyond the scope of what we did. I know that GAO is doing some 

work now on processes, and I do not know if that will even deal 

with that question. But that is really beyond the scope of what I 

am qualified to speak to. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Cramer. 

Mr. Beverly, would you have an opinion on that? 

Mr. BEVERLY. If I had an opinion, it would be more or less a personal one, because our primary competence obviously is not passports and visas. But there needs to be a balance struck between security and convenience, and I have lived in other countries that 

had national i.d. cards where obviously, that would be, from the investigator’s standpoint, probably preferred, because you would have 

one specific item that you would be dealing with that would be 

hard to copy or otherwise; it would be easier probably to train your 

people as to what to look for. But having said that, that would be 

a giant step away from the ease with which we travel and the convenience that people are used to, and I do not say that I advocate 

either one or the other, but I think that would be a facilitator. 

Mr. KING. It would also be fair to say that technology has far 

surpassed our policy, that it has evolved more quickly than our policy as with regard to the Western Hemisphere. So I will just make 

this speculation, then, that first, we should start out with what 

would be the ideal system and then figure out how to back it down 

to practical, as opposed to have this system that has this multitude 

of different documents and allows most anything and everything to 

serve as documents that allow entry into the United States. 

So I would just say that if we had a single document, whether 

it be a passport—that would be the ideal, I think, at this point—

a single document that had maybe a bar code on it that could be 

indexed back to a database system that could identify the source 

of the document and the viability of that particular document, I 

would speculate that that would take us a long way toward getting 

to the security that we would like to have. 

Would you agree with that, Mr. Cramer? 

Mr. CRAMER. There is something that I think we should all be 

aware of, which is that the law does not actually require that a 

U.S. citizen entering the United States from a Western Hemisphere 

country produce any identification document. One can prove one’s 

citizenship by oral statement alone, and of course, it is up to the 

judgment, the good judgment and discretion, of the border inspectors whether that is sufficient. But in fact when our people came 

in without showing any identification, that was perfectly legal. The 

border inspector must have determined that there was no reason 

to go further with the inquiry. 

Mr. KING. What this panel has not examined is the immigration 

access policy of all countries in the Western Hemisphere. We would 

need to examine all of those countries in order to even look and see 

how the secondary impact is on the United States. 

So if there are countries in the Western Hemisphere that say, 

‘‘We do not require any documents, and you can come and go as 

you please,’’ those people who can come into those countries then 

would have access under these conditions that you have laid out 

48

here in this panel, so that essentially, if the world knows it, is an 

open gate into the United States of America. 

Thank you very much. I appreciate your response to these questions. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentleman. 

We will now enter a second round of questions. 

I have a question with regard to the perspective of time. Ms. 

Palmer-Royston, do you know—the INA was passed, put into law, 

in 1952—how long has this particular exception, regulation, been 

in place that includes the exception for Western Hemisphere countries? 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. Yes. This regulation was promulgated in 

1966. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Nineteen sixty-six. 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. Yes. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. So it has been a long time that we have been 

operating in this situation with such——

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. So the notion that a new era might begin 

whereby passports, some form of identification, would be required 

would be—it would be an era where we are not familiar with what 

it would bring. How much institutional memory do you think there 

is in the State Department between 1952 and 1966 with regard to 

when this exception was not—and I do not want to make anyone 

give their birthday out here. 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. Yes. I do not know. Of course, there are 

records, written descriptions and records——

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Right, right. 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON.—history, and there is a Foreign Affairs 

Digest and other documents that talk about that. I have not reviewed them, however, so I would not be able to speak to that right 

now. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. All right. Very good. 

Agent Beverly, according to your resume, you served as an assistant legal attache in Colombia in 1990, and later you were special agent in charge in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I assume that you 

are very familiar with criminal investigations in the Caribbean; is 

that correct? 

Mr. BEVERLY. In general. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The Subcommittee has been told that there is 

an active market in false identification cards in that region. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. BEVERLY. Again, dealing with fraudulent documents is an infraction that is handled by the Department of State. We certainly 

would come across forged documents from time to time in an investigation we would be carrying out. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. In your investigations, what would false identification cards be used for? What had they been used for in your investigation? 

Mr. BEVERLY. To be able to travel under a fictitious identity; people particularly that were fugitives, that were wanted or otherwise 

might have been indicted or had been named in warrants or legal 

49

processes, and this would allow them to travel back and forth on 

a commercial carrier. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Okay. Very good. 

One other question. As a law enforcement officer—and you have 

probably answered this question already, but I would like to get it 

on the record in this fashion—is there any reason that a U.S. citizen would use an alias for entry or business reasons in the Caribbean? Is there any reason that a U.S. citizen would use an alias 

in re-entering the United States? 

Mr. BEVERLY. I guess people’s reasons to be doing that would 

probably vary, and I am certain that there would be some that you 

probably could and could not contemplate, but I think the primary 

reason would be to hide their identity, obviously, and probably the 

majority of the time, it would be because they were named in a 

warrant or some type of a legal process and would be arrested or 

otherwise detained if they are traveling under their true identity. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. All right. Very good. 

And then, one question to Mr. Fuller with regard to the question 

I asked Ms. Palmer-Royston. There is an issue of convenience with 

regard to the lack of need for a passport. Would you happen to 

know, have any idea, of the situation between 1952 and 1966 and 

commerce between citizens of the United States and Antigua? 

Would you have any idea? I know you started practicing law in 

1975 in Antigua, but——

Mr. FULLER. Yes. I was born and brought up in a hotel in Antigua, and of course, tourism really came into its own in the middle 

sixties, beginning sixties and onward. Before that, there was really 

no need insofar as our economic aspects are concerned for the exception to exist, and most people who did travel before that did 

travel with passports. 

Since then, of course, the vast majority of people have traveled 

to the Caribbean without passports, and the exception has proven 

to be extremely beneficial to us, and to those who wish to travel 

as well, I imagine. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. If an American has to renew a passport every 

10 years, how difficult would you believe it would—— Mr. FULLER. Yes, right; it is not that. I think the most inconvenient part of it will be the initial part of it, if you decide to do it. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Do United Kingdom citizens carry passports to 

Antigua? 

Mr. FULLER. Say again? 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Do United Kingdom, UK, citizens require passports to Antigua? 

Mr. FULLER. No, no, they do not, but the vast majority of United 

Kingdom travelers have passports. UK citizens have a much higher 

percentage of passports than Americans do. They travel a lot more, 

anyway. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Yes. Very good. 

Mr. FULLER. You have a lot more places within the U.S. to travel. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Right. Very good. 

The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Texas, Mr. Jackson 

Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

50

I think we have highlighted the issue, and that is that we have 

said earlier on the record that a large number of Americans simply 

do not have passports at this juncture. We have said that we have 

turned a page in our history which may require us doing things 

that are somewhat uncomfortable. But I think again, this goes to 

the question of magnitude. 

Mr. Fuller, you have indicated—you used the number 20—is that 

your ceiling, or are you suggesting that there is latitude under 

that, or that it may be a little higher, but we are still talking about 

the number 20—so what would be the precise answer—that it is 

in that ball park; it is not much higher than 20? 

Mr. FULLER. Absolutely not. If—if I had to swear, which I have 

not been asked to do, I would say it probably was less than 20. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And so, with the culmination of Mr. Cramer’s 

very fine work that was done by his agents, we detected a sort of 

crack in the armor problem, certainly a very obvious and very conspicuous one, but it seems that having this problem discovered 

leaves us great latitude and opportunity to fix the problem with respect to reasoning that Americans do not traditionally have a load 

of passports and may not be moved to secure them. You are very 

right, we have the luxury of having a beautiful Nation that allows 

people to vacation in a variety of geographical areas. 

Let me ask you this. If we put the passport requirement in, what 

effect do you think this would have on Caribbean economies, and 

would the economies of Antigua and other islands become weakened and thus, because you are somewhat vulnerable—and as I indicated, I visited the islands on determining how we could work to 

ensure or shore up terrorist entry into the islands—but in any 

event, would that make you more susceptible to domestic activity 

or criminal activity with respect to the economies going down? 

Mr. FULLER. There are a lot of questions there. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. What impact, first, would the passport provision, if put in place—— Mr. FULLER. The effect would be instantaneous, I think, on our 

economies and will be in the short term probably disastrous—probably disastrous—not just to us, but to people like American Eagle, 

American Airlines traveling to the Caribbean, local regional airlines, endless numbers of employees in the hotels, taxi drivers—you 

name it—and of course, the governments, because we make money 

from taxes from our travelers, your travelers. 

So the effect in the short term will be disastrous, there is no 

question about that. In the long term, I guess, you know, we learn 

to live with changes. But it is going to hurt, it will hurt, and it will 

hurt hard. 

Security-wise, it has—the reaction is a kneejerk reaction, of 

course, to the realization that there is this loophole, if you want to 

call it that, remembering always that Mr. Cramer’s people are 

highly-qualified law enforcement people who have backgrounds in 

the Secret Service, who can make good forgeries. 

Mr. Muhammad did not make very good forgeries, and several of 

his people were caught. In my report, I said——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. If I may, Mr. Cramer has indicated that we 

may find some resolve to that by training. You are absolutely right 

in making the point. 

51

Mr. FULLER. No question about that, no question. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So I think that if that is an option, we need 

to certainly look at that. 

Let me just ask—you have citizenship both in Antigua and the 

United States—are you here representing the Government of Antigua, yourself, or—— Mr. FULLER. No. The Government of Antigua, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Okay. Let me just, before I move on, ask your 

assistance, then. As you well know, there are some extradition 

issues that are going on in terms of an individual and the State 

of Connecticut. It would be helpful if you conveyed back to Antigua 

the need to be able to provide some response on that very question. 

I think you are aware of the—— Mr. FULLER. Extradition proceedings in relation to——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. With an individual that is in Antigua that has 

been accused of a murder in Connecticut. 

Mr. FULLER. Accused of——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. A murder in Connecticut. 

Mr. FULLER. Yes, I know of that, ma’am. I know——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Right. All I am asking you——

Mr. FULLER. Yes, I shall convey it, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE.—is to be helpful in that. 

Mr. FULLER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me just move on to again Mr. Cramer and 

just ask a closing, because I think I have gotten those questions. 

I am not sure if you can answer this, but if we require a passport 

for all travel, what do we do to the American who returns home 

without one? Typically, that is a likely circumstance for a good holiday in the Caribbean—all your items have been taken or you have 

had so much fun, you have lost it. How do you get that person to 

prove their identity? How long would they have to detain the person to complete the process? Would you have any idea as to what 

might transpire with that? 

Mr. CRAMER. Actually, I do not, but I am sure that there must 

be some way of dealing with this, because people need passports 

to come to the United States from everywhere else, and this must 

happen. So I do not know what people do in that situation or what 

Immigration does, but I am sure that somebody has that information. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I would imagine that we just would not 

want to have a corral with a whole bunch of them corralled for a 

long period of time. You think there will be a reasonable response 

to how we deal with that? 

Mr. CRAMER. No. I think one would try to establish some kinds 

of procedures that would be different from that, certainly. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Certainly it is a possibility of making the 

entry difficult and clogging up the system if that was to occur. 

[Pause.] 

Mr. CRAMER. I am sorry—is there a question pending? I am 

sorry. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes. Certainly it would clog up the system if 

we did not find a way to resolve that, if we went to eliminating the 

exemption, and there is high traffic of Americans coming back from 

the Caribbean. 

52

Mr. CRAMER. Well, it would certainly change the whole picture, 

and again, I really cannot speak to those issues simply because it 

goes far beyond the scope of the work that we did here. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Certainly we would have to have a resolution 

to that, however. 

Mr. CRAMER. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Good. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentlelady. 

The chair recognizes Mr. King for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Fuller, would it be fair to say that—you are here representing Antigua—would it be fair to say that you are here also 

to represent and hopefully promote the economic, social, and cultural well-being of Antigua? 

Mr. FULLER. I think my writ insofar as your questions are concerned, as the original request is concerned, and of course to remind you of the repercussions, that what you do will have on not 

just Antigua but the rest of the Western Hemisphere, sir—logically 

so. 

Mr. KING. My ear hears that as an affirmative response, qualified. 

I would point out that that is also our interest in this panel, is 

essentially to see this from the same perspective from the eyes of 

the United States and also have sympathy toward your side of this. 

Mr. FULLER. I would be presumptuous to deny that. 

Mr. KING. So I would ask you this question, then. If the United 

States had a policy that required passport from 1966 on, if it had 

been the practice from that period of time, what effect do you think 

that would have had on the economy of Antigua? 

Mr. FULLER. That is a pregnant pause. The—it is very difficult 

to say. Sixty-six onward was the golden age of tourism, although 

the character of the tourist of 1966 is different from the 1 day, of 

course, and there would be a much higher percentage of travelers 

in the sixties who had passports than there are today. So the effect 

would have been less detrimental than it would be now. 

Mr. KING. Would it be fair to say that if we had all grown up 

with the anticipation of this requirement that it would be very difficult to measure any economic impact in that there would be far 

more passports in the United States today and that we would have 

far more national security because of that? 

Mr. FULLER. I think that is a logical conclusion, sir. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. I took you down this path only to say that 

I have some sympathy for your position today and that all nations 

see this through the eyes that you do and we do, and we need to 

also look at it in that we are to be promoting the economic, the social and the cultural well-being of each nation—particularly the 

United States is what we are representing today—and I will tell 

you that because of your testimony today, I am more likely to visit. 

Mr. FULLER. Please do. Just ask anyone for me, sir, and come 

and stay; everyone knows me. 

Mr. KING. I am confident that that is a very accurate response. 

Mr. FULLER. In fact, all of you are invited, but especially Ms. 

Jackson Lee. 

53

Mr. KING. And so, because of that, I will not make my final statement, with the exception that I would say this has been very informative, and I think it has brought some things out to light—not 

to target your particular island, but our policy in the Western 

Hemisphere is what I am looking at and focused upon. So you are 

kind of the guinea pig for the entire Hemisphere, and I have some 

sympathy for that. But I do appreciate your answers and your response, and all the panelists, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and 

I yield back. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Would the gentleman yield to the chair? 

Mr. KING. Of course. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. I have a question regarding that issue. 

Ms. Palmer-Royston, how much does a passport cost, and how 

long does it take to obtain a passport, approximately; would you 

know that? I am asking you outside your legal—approximately. 

Ms. PALMER-ROYSTON. For the first-time passport, it costs $85, 

and it can take between a few days for a very expedited service, 

for which there is another charge, or several weeks, 4 to 6 weeks 

in general, and it depends on whether we are in the busy season 

or the non-busy season. Apply early. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you. Very good. 

And Mr. Fuller, for perspective, could you give me an idea of 

what a night’s stay in Antigua would cost in a hotel—for perspective. 

Mr. FULLER. Yes, I accept that. Well, if you are going to stay at 

Jumli Bay, which is top-of-the-line, it will cost you about—between 

$600 and $1,000 a day, American dollars, depending on the time 

of the year. But then again, if you were staying—for example, my 

wife has a guest cottage—— Mr. HOSTETTLER. Can it take four children—no. [Laughter.] 

Mr. FULLER. No, no—you could get yourself a hotel room with an 

all-inclusive thing, and if you work out the hotel room and take 

away the travel, it is nothing—$20, $30 a day, sir. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. All right. Very good. And once again, this is 

just to put this whole idea in perspective. 

I appreciate the gentleman for yielding. 

Mr. FULLER. I understand where you are coming from, sir. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding. 

In conclusion, the Members will have 5 legislative days to insert 

remarks into the record, as well as the very industrious—— Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes. I would like to have unanimous consent, 

Mr. Chairman—I asked, but I do not think you ruled on it—I 

would like unanimous consent to include this very attractive picture of a 7-year-old who traveled from Niagara Falls, Ontario on 

his bike across the U.S.-Canadian border—I am sure his parents 

were not happy—on Saturday, undetected by U.S. Customs. And he 

traveled 8.5 miles and ended his journey at a busy intersection in 

Niagara Falls, NY. I ask unanimous consent—this is the Houston 

Chronicle, Tuesday, May 13, 2003. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Without objection. 

The Committee wishes to thank all the members of the panel for 

your testimony and your participation in this. Especially, Mr. 

Fuller, we appreciate your coming from Antigua—— Mr. FULLER. It has been a lot of fun, sir. Thank you. 

54

Mr. HOSTETTLER.—and representing, as Mr. King pointed out, all 

of the Western Hemisphere—— Mr. FULLER. My prime minister asked me to make that point for 

all of them. 

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Yes, yes, sir. 

Mr. FULLER. Thank you, sir. 

I thank the panel, and the business of the Subcommittee being 

completed, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:38 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(55)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

John Allen Muhammad produced more than 20 sets of fraudulent United States 

driver’s licenses with photographs and corresponding birth certificates. He sold them 

to Jamaican nationals who used them to enter the United States as American citizens. According to John Fuller, who investigated Muhammad, the production of 

these documents was not extremely difficult and did not require sophisticated skills. 

Muhammad just needed a computer and a scanner, a template for the driver’s license and for the birth certificate, a photograph, a laminating machine, and a careless immigration officer. 

Robert Cramer from the General Accounting Office (GAO) will discuss the results 

of a January 30, 2003, report on a project that was performed at the request of the 

Senate Committee on Finance. The Finance Committee was concerned about the illegal transportation of currency through our borders, especially counterfeit money 

and terrorism funds. It asked the agents of the Office of Special Investigations at 

GAO to attempt to enter the United States from Canada, Mexico, and Jamaica at 

land, air, and sea ports of entry using fictitious identities and counterfeit identification documents. 

The report to the Senate Committee concludes that (1) people who enter the 

United States are not always asked to present identification; (2) security to prevent 

unauthorized persons from entering the United States from Canada is inadequate 

at the border park they visited; and (3) immigration inspectors are not readily capable of detecting counterfeit documents. 

In February of 2003, the Inspector General of the Justice Department issued a 

similar report. Unfortunately, we cannot discuss the substance of this report now. 

The only part of the Inspector General’s report that can be discussed in public is 

the Executive Summary. 

According to the Executive Summary, the capability of immigration inspectors to 

analyze advance passenger information to identify high-risk and inadmissible travelers is limited by a lack of adequate resources. The lookout system for spotting 

high-risk and inadmissible travelers does not always provide primary inspectors 

with available, critical information. Primary inspectors were not always querying 

lookout databases as required, and controls were not sufficient to ensure that all 

primary inspectors and supervisors could access backup information in the event of 

system outages. The report concludes that although $19 million was used in Fiscal Year 2002 to 

provide basic training to approximately 1,000 new immigration inspectors, the training was inadequate in two important areas, on the use of the computer systems that 

provide lookouts and other critical information and on terrorism awareness. 

I recognize the urgent need to address these problems, but I want to emphasize 

that we need to proceed with caution. A sledge hammer approach to border security 

could adversely effect our economy. Visiting international tourists and business entrepreneurs are a valuable component of our nation’s economy. Last year, more than 41 million international visitors generated $88 billion in expenditures and accounted 

for more than one million jobs nationwide. 

We need to address the fundamental weaknesses in our border security system 

that allowed this situation to develop. For instance, it is apparent that our immigration inspectors have not received sufficient training on identifying fraudulent documents, which should not be difficult to provide. Also, I know from personal experience that there is a serious problem with the recruitment and retention of immigration inspectors. It is common for the immigration inspection stations at Houston’s 

international airport to be understaffed. Making matters worse, many of the inspecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:02 Jun 12, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 G:\WORK\IMMIG\051303\87092.000 HJUD1 PsN: 87092
56

tors that are at these stations are inexperienced. I believe that these and other fundamental weaknesses in our border security system can be addressed legislatively. 

I introduced a Border Patrol Recruitment and Retention Act in a previous Congress. An updated version of this bill could include immigration inspectors and customs agents, as well as border patrol agents. In addition to providing assistance 

with recruitment and retention issues, such a bill could provide urgently needed additional resources for training and technology. 

Thank you.

57

ARTICLE FROM Houston Chronicle submitted by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee


Boy1.eps
58

WASHINGTON STATE DRIVER’S LICENSE OF RUSSEL DWIGHT

(ACTUALLY JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMED)


ID.eps
59

STATE OF FLORIDA CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH FOR RUSSEL DWIGHT


BC1.eps
60

ALABAMA STATE CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH


BC2.eps
61

MICHIGAN STATE CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH

Æ


BC3.eps