Charlotte Observer 11/14/2005

Suggestion: Get facts before news conference
Bad info given to back illegal-immigration bill

By Tim Funk

Reps. Sue Myrick and Patrick McHenry made a few alarming statements last week during their news conference to promote legislation to fight illegal immigration in North Carolina.

Trouble is, Myrick's claim -- that three al-Qaida members were recently arrested near the Mexican border -- isn't true.

"An honest mistake," Myrick spokesman Andy Polk said later.

And the accuracy of what McHenry said -- that some of the 9-11 terrorists had N.C. driver's licenses -- is questionable. There's no proof that any of the hijackers did; the man who masterminded the attacks might have -- 20 years ago.

Illegal immigration has emerged as the No. 1 hot-button issue in Washington and in North Carolina -- home to some300,000 undocumented immigrants. So Republicans Myrick of Charlotte and McHenry of Cherryville were certainly addressing matters of concern to their constituents.

But members of Congress should be right when quoting facts, lest they be accused of manipulating information to make their case.

Myrick's legislation would deny North Carolina $890 million in federal highway money unless it stopped accepting taxpayer ID numbers as proof of identity or residence by those seeking licenses.

She said the bill, which also would apply to five other states, is needed for national security.

Then she said this:

"This is a critical issue today. I mean, they just arrested, down on the border -- what? a couple of weeks ago? -- three al-Qaida members who came across from Mexico into the United States. That's a given fact. They were holding them in the jail down there."

Two days after the news conference, Myrick's spokesman acknowledged that no such al-Qaida arrests had taken place.

Polk said Myrick told him she thought she had read it in her news report -- a stack of newspaper and magazine articles from her staff. Polk went through the stack. He found a year-old Time magazine report that talked about an al-Qaida operative seized in Pakistan who had disclosed potential plans to slip into the United States from Mexico.

"She thought (the Time article) was current," Polk said. "An inadvertent mistake."

I found the Time article -- dated Nov. 22, 2004. It said that Sharif al-Masri, "a key al-Qaida operative," told interrogators that the group had considered plans to "smuggle nuclear materials to Mexico, then operatives would carry material into the U.S." But it called his account "unproved." The article mentioned no actual border crossings or arrests.

Bill co-sponsor McHenry also spoke at the news conference.

He opened by saying that illegal immigrants looking for driver's licenses gravitate to North Carolina "because we roll out the red carpet for them."

Then he said this:

"In fact, some of the 9-11 terrorists had North Carolina driver's licenses." He later repeated his claim, but reduced the number from "some" to "one."

I knew that some of the 9-11 hijackers had gotten driver's licenses from Virginia and Florida -- neither of which would be covered by Myrick's bill. But I had never heard that any of the 9-11 hijackers had a N.C. driver's license.

I asked McHenry for his source.

First, he said he was pretty sure he had read it in the Raleigh News & Observer. Then he cited state Sen. Fern Shubert of Union County. "I know she talked about it (when she and McHenry were in the legislature)."

He went on: "If my memory serves, it was a student (who had the N.C. driver's license)."

I asked if it was one of the terrorists in the hijacked planes.

Yes, he said.

I called Republican Shubert, who had made immigration a top issue in her 2004 run for governor. Did she ever say that any of the 9-11 terrorists had a N.C. driver's license?

"I'm pretty sure I've never said that," she replied.

McHenry later had Aaron Latham, his spokesman, call me to clarify: It wasn't any of the 9-11 hijackers, it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the Al Qaida leader who planned the 9-11 plot.

Latham told me that a report by the Center for Immigration Studies indicated Mohammed had attended two N.C. colleges.

"It doesn't explicitly say he had a driver's license," added Latham, who sent me the report.

I checked the 9-11 Commission Report, which confirms that Mohammed left Kuwait -- in 1983 -- to enroll at Chowan College in Murfreesboro. He later transferred to N.C. A&T in Greensboro, where he earned a degree in engineering in 1986.

Whether he had an N.C. driver's license couldn't be determined late last week.

But a relevant fact is embedded in the report McHenry's aide sent me: Mohammed came to North Carolina on a student visa.

In other words, he was not an illegal immigrant.