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U.S. Justice Department Offers Help to Foreigners Who Inform on Terror
WASHINGTON, Nov 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Thursday a program to reward foreigners in the United States who provide information on terrorism with help in getting visas and eventual U.S. citizenship.
In an interview with NBC television, Ashcroft described a new "Responsible Cooperators Program," designed to encourage people to provide information that "helps to save American lives."
"Obviously, we think it's the responsibility of all people to cooperate in the fight against terror," he said. "For individuals who are visitors in this country, sometimes they might be in possession of information because of their language skills, or because of what they know from at home that might be especially valuable to us."
Ashcroft declined to call the new program an amnesty for illegal aliens, but said, "if they bring information forward, they're not going to be inquired of about their own status."
"We're interested in helping them with their visas in the United States," he said. "This is a program to give them improved standing in processing visas and becoming citizens ultimately someday."
In a CNN report, Ashcroft said that if a person brought "reliable" and "useful" information to the FBI or, if overseas, to an embassy, "you could, as a result of that information, be provided a visa which will allow you to be in the United States, allow you if necessary to work in the United States and provide a basis for your someday becoming a citizen."
The Attorney General also said his department had arrested members of the al-Qaeda network of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden in its probe into the deadly September 11 attacks on U.S. targets. But he added but that he could not say whether arrests had prevented further attacks.
Ashcroft defended the Justice Department's approach, saying in the CNN report, "We know now that when we continue to work hard, that when those associated with terrorists, when those who are violators of the law, are not only questioned and arrested but they're detained, that we reduce the potential that we have terrorist attacks."
However, in an interview with CNN, he refused to confirm reports that only 12 of the hundreds of detainees have actually provided information about bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
"I am not confirming any number," Ashcroft said in the CNN report. "I am indicating that among the people that we have, we obviously feel like we have individuals related to terrorism and I don't want to say we think it is as small as the number that you cited or try to give a number on that. I am not going to do anything that I think would provide information to the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden."
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