Avoiding More 9/11 Attacks
What I Learned Today from Judge Joe Brown
The 9/11 hijackers entered the United States easily
through legal visa processes, even though several red flags were present and
could have been caught.¹
How the 9/11 Hijackers Got In through Visa issuances
Nineteen hijackers submitted 24 visa applications and
received 23 visas between 1997 and 2001, mostly as tourists or students at U.S.
consulates overseas.²
Many carried passports with suspicious indicators—such as altered pages or
stamps concealing travel to al Qaeda training locations—and made false
statements on their applications about prior U.S. travel or prior visa
applications. Yet they were still approved under lax standards and a limited
terrorism watchlist system.³
Border Entry
Altogether, they entered the United States 33 times
through airports such as Miami, JFK, Newark, and others. All entries were
legal, through ports of entry, and none crossed an illegal land border. Some
were sent to secondary inspection, but they were still admitted.⁴
At least six later violated the terms of their admission—overstaying, failing
to change status properly, or studying and training without proper visas—yet
the tracking systems of the time failed to identify and remove them before the
attacks.⁵
Key failures in 2001
Every 9/11 hijacker used the legal system to enter:
visas issued by U.S. consulates and inspections at U.S. airports. They
exploited weak vetting, fragmented databases, and poor follow-up—not mass
illegal crossings. This is crucial, because it sharply contrasts with what
happened between 2021 and 2025.⁶
Why 2021–2025
Was Far Worse for Infiltration
From late January 2021 to late January 2025, an
estimated 6–7 million illegal aliens entered or were allowed into the U.S.
interior, many without full vetting. This includes millions released after
encounters, plus an estimated 1.5 million or more "got-aways" who
evaded all direct contact with authorities.⁷
Scale of Access
Where al Qaeda's 19 hijackers relied on 23 visas and
33 legal entries, the 2021–2025 era saw:
·
Roughly 10.9 million border encounters in just a few
years.⁸
·
About 6.7 million inadmissible aliens brought into or
allowed to remain in the U.S. under various policies (releases, parole,
catch-and-release, visa overstays).⁹
·
Well over a million "got-aways" who slipped
in with no screening at all.¹⁰
This is not a handful of terrorists exploiting a
flawed legal system; it is an enormous, chaotic flow that overwhelms every
vetting and enforcement mechanism.
Organizational
Edge for Enemies
After 9/11, visa procedures and intelligence sharing
were significantly tightened, making a repeat of the exact 2001 model harder.¹¹
Yet between 2021 and 2025, new policies undercut those gains by:
·
Releasing large numbers of inadmissible aliens into
the interior pending hearings.
·
Using parole and programs (such as app-based entry
systems) that moved people in faster than they could be fully vetted.
·
Allowing huge numbers of unknown
"got-aways" to vanish inside the country.
This sheer volume created ideal cover for enemy
operatives—from Iran's proxies to other jihadist movements—to enter, hide,
communicate, and organize. Analysts and former officials have warned that this
"open door" environment is made-to-order for sleeper cells, in a way
2001's smaller, more controlled system simply was not.¹²
Judge
Joe Brown's Warning: A "9/11 2.0" Is More Feasible
Judge Joe Brown has argued that the border situation
from 2021–2025 made a "9/11 2.0" not just conceivable, but easier to
pull off than the original attack.¹³ His reasoning closely mirrors the hard
data:
In 2001, al Qaeda had to thread the needle of
consular visas and airport inspections.
By 2021–2025, hostile actors could simply blend into a sea of millions of
unvetted entrants, especially "got-aways," and build networks without
the same paper trail or scrutiny.
He connects the dots between:
·
The original 9/11 hijackers' exploitation of legal
systems and weak databases.¹⁴
·
The later period's massive illegal influx,
overwhelmed vetting, and interior releases.¹⁵
In that environment, a new, possibly larger and
deadlier operation—whether a coordinated series of attacks or a spectacular
single strike—becomes far more feasible than in 2001.
Trump, Iran, and
Cutting the Head off the Snake
Recent U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed top Iranian
leadership, including Ayatollah Khamenei, were explicitly justified as a move
to cripple Iran's role as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and to
disrupt its proxy networks (Hezbollah, militias, and others).¹⁶
After these strikes, the FBI shifted to high alert
for possible Iranian or proxy retaliation, including concerns about sleeper
cells already inside the U.S.¹⁷ Media and
security reports described "growing fears" that Iranian-backed cells
could exploit prior border chaos to strike inside America.¹⁸
From Judge Brown's perspective—and yours—this
decapitation of Iran's command structure reduces the probability that any
embedded cells can receive coherent orders, funding, and a coordination for a
full-scale "9/11 2.0." It doesn't make the risk vanish, but it
slashes the operational capability and central direction of the threat.
The Timing Question: What if Trump Waited Six more Months?
Given the size of the 2021–2025 influx
and the time it takes for networks to organize, train, move materiel, and
choose targets, a longer delay could have been extremely dangerous.
If decisive action against Iran's
leadership had been postponed by another six months:
·
Residual unvetted networks seeded during the 6–7
million surge would have had more time to coordinate, recruit, and arm.
·
Iranian command, still intact, could have used them
for a major retaliatory strike once a trigger event occurred.
·
Border security improvements and wall expansion,
which take time to show full effect, would still have been catching up to a
problem that started years earlier.¹⁹
This conclusion—that delay would have
multiplied the risk of a catastrophic attack—is a reasonable strategic
inference based on the pattern of vulnerabilities and the way terrorist
organizations historically exploit windows of weakness.
Big
Picture: What I Learned Today
Pulling it together, what Judge Joe Brown made me see—such that I "cannot unsee
it"—is:
1. 9/11 was
made possible by relatively small, legal-system failures. A few dozen visas and
33 legal entries were enough to kill thousands.²⁰
2. 2021–2025
created a vastly larger and more chaotic vulnerability. Millions of unvetted
entries and "got-aways" opened doors al Qaeda never had.²¹
3. A 9/11 2.0
is structurally more feasible now than it was in 2001, especially for a state
sponsor like Iran working through proxies and sleeper cells.²²
4. Trump's
rapid decapitation of Iran's leadership and renewed border focus directly
target that new risk window, trying to close it before a catastrophic attack
can be organized.²³
Footnotes/References
1. 9/11
Commission Staff Statement No. 1
2. 24
applications, 23 visas granted 1997-2001
3. Suspicious
passports, false statements ignored
4. 33 legal
airport entries
5. 6+
hijackers violated status undetected
6. Legal
channels vs. mass illegal crossings
7. 6-7M
unvetted entries 2021-2025
8. 10.9M
encounters
9. 6.7M
inadmissibles released/paroled
10. 1.5M+
got-aways
11. Post-9/11
visa reforms
12. Sleeper
cell warnings
13. Judge Joe
Brown on "9/11 2.0"
14. 9/11 legal
exploitation
15. 2021-2025
border chaos
16. Operation
Epic Fury vs. Iran
17. FBI high
alert post-strikes
18. Iranian
proxy fears
19. Border wall
progress (27 miles Year 1)
20. Small legal
failures enabled 9/11
21. Massive
2021-2025 vulnerability
22. 9/11 2.0
feasibility
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