linked - Investigating the Terror

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9/11 Closed by Statute
JAccordingly, although it would have been legally
permissible to grant the sheikh a waiver of ineligibility to
permit his temporary entry notwithstanding the ineligibility, the
decision whether or not to do so would have been entirely
discretionary.
Obviously, it is not possible to know with certainty how that
discretion would have been exercised, but it was long-standing
Department policy that waivers would not routinely be obtained for
aliens ineligible for past terrorist activity. Thus, someone
would have had to make a convincing case for the propriety of
obtaining a waiver for the Sheikh in order for the necessary
recommendation to be made to the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.
If, on the other hand, the Cairo file had reflected a history
of extremist statements, advocating the overthrow of governments
which failed to function according to Islamic law and the
overthrow or assassination of the rulers of such government, but
not a history of terrorist acts or actions in furtherance of
terrorism, the situation would have been quite different. It is
here that section 901 comes into the equation.
Section 901 must be seen in its context. Beginning in about
1983 various groups opposed 'to Reagan Administration policies
vis-a-vis Central America and Cuba and with respect to nuclear
disarmament began to charge that the Administration was depriving
American citizens of their First Amendment right to hear the views
of aliens who sought to enter to participate in public debates on
these issues and whose views were antithetical to those of the
Administration. These charges were pursued in various ways — in