WTF? "There are a variety of other ways for an individual to arrive in the country?" This is mystifying to me. Can anyone posit a possibility as to how a foreign national can legally enter the United States without a visa?

Perhaps it was a friendly rendition.

"Kissinger was sneaking into a Communist country where lying to the public was the norm. That is not an acceptable norm here."

Now, this is where you kind of have to wake up, loose your naivete, and realize that the US government does all the things you thought only other governments did.

it would be great if the u.s. IS actually talking to iran instead of the pissing contest they've been having where one side is ready to pee nuclear weapons and the other side... well, the other side is ready to, well, ummmm... god knows what THEY'RE ready to do... as sy hersh notes:

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[W]e have a president that doesn't talk to people he disagrees with. And anybody who's been around little boys, big boys, knows that when they get out of control, you grab them. If you're a nursery school teacher, you grab the little four-year-olds by the scruff of the neck, and you pull them together, and you say, 'You two guys, shake hands and make up, and go play in the sandbox.'

Bush doesn't talk to people he's mad at. He doesn't talk to the North Koreans. He didn't talk to the insurgency. When the history is done, there were incredible efforts by the insurgency leaders in the summer of 2003. I'm talking about the Iraqi insurgency, the former Sunni generals and Sunni and Baathist leaders who were happy to see Saddam go, but did not want America there. They wanted to talk to us. Bush wouldn't. Whether it got to Bush, I don't know, it got in to four stars. Nobody wanted to talk to them. He doesn't talk to the president of Syria; in fact, specifically rejects overtures from al-Asad to us. And he doesn't talk to the Iranians. There's been no bilateral communication at all.

Iran has come hat-in-hand to us. A former National Security Council adviser who worked in the White House, Flynt Leverett, an ex-C.I.A. analyst who's now working at Brookings, wrote a piece a month or so ago, maybe six weeks ago, in the New York Times, describing specific offers by the Iranians to come and 'let's deal.' Let's deal on all issues. I'm even told they were willing to talk about recognizing Israel. And the White House doesn't talk. And it's not that he doesn't talk, it's that nobody pressures him to talk. There's no pressure from the media, no pressure from Congress. Here's a president who won't talk to people he's walking us into a confrontation with.

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little boys, big boys... sy hersh has it absolutely right... the leader of the so-called free world is a petulant, spoiled brat... and offloading responsibility by saying that "nobody 'pressures' him to talk" is a load of buffalo chips... if bush had two brain cells to rub together in that playground bully head of his, he wouldn't need someone ELSE to figure THAT one out...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

Maybe he slipped past the Minuteman patrol, Charlie.

Why assume the lie is for the benefit of the American people as opposed to the Iranian people? If the nationalistic absolutism is working well for Iranian politicians at home, it would be a faux pas to be caught over at the adversary's house talking about a deal.

Charlie, MANY foreign nationals enter America every day without visa's. Some of them we call "Canadians". Perhaps this guy has double citizenship as a Canadian?

Very unlikely, but just wanted to point out that your premise is not correct. There ARE other ways to enter the country besides having a Visa.

There ARE other ways to enter the country besides having a Visa.

There's MasterCard, American Express ...

All of you are wrong; there is a provision in the law which specifically authorizes the Citizenship & Immigration Service, or the Customs and Border Protection Service (former INS) to grant what is called "parole" if it is in the national interest of the US. "Parole" does not refer to prison leave, but to a process where the personis not formally "admitted" in the legal sense of having been inspected and allowed to physically remain in the US for a specified period of time. A person who has been paroled is deemed not to have been admitted, and thus can be deported ASAP with no due process hearing.

This is nothing new; it has existed in the law for decades.

one word: Ghorbanifar

There is another way to legally cross into the U.S.A. without a visa, just cross over from the mexican border.

A diplomat accredited to any international body or to another country would not require a visa to enter the U.S. Iranian diplomats at the UN live in the U.S. Iran has an interests section in the Pakistan embassy in DC -- staffed, incredibly enough, by Iranian diplomats!

This is an extremely important news item and the discussion of it on this site does not impress people that Americans know very much about anything except their own fears.

Maybe he's here providing forged documents so that we can spend another trillion or two dollars on ensuring Armeggedan.

"There ARE other ways to enter the country besides having a Visa." "There's Mastercard, American Express........." Good comments but...

There is also their preferred method of CASH in suitcases or wrapped in plastic on pallets as it was in Iraq, that is, before something like 8 BILLION disappeared.

The State Department daily public briefing also covered this topic http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2006/64696.htm:

QUESTION: Does it say anything about the entry system to the U.S. that you guys didn't know that he was coming in? Regardless of whether or not he needed a visa, would there not be a way that his name would be known at the border when he had to sort of be checked in?

MR. MCCORMACK: There are -- and further, thank you for bringing up that issue. There are -- I wanted to get into one issue. Yesterday, we talked a little bit about how one might come into the United States without a visa. I wanted to confirm a couple of facts.

So the primary way to get into the United States if you're not a U.S. citizen is with a visa. There are two other ways. One is to be a legal permanent resident and have a green card. The other way is also to have a passport from a visa waiver program country. There are 27 of these countries, so again, that would be a way that somebody could enter without a visa. As I said, we have no record of issuing a visa to a person with this name.

In terms of the border security, the Department of Homeland Security has done a terrific job in working to protect America's borders, to upgrade the technologies and the information sharing among the various U.S. Government agencies to help protect those borders. The Department of State is part of that effort and we have a good partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, so we are working with them to make sure that we have the safest possible borders that we can while also making America a welcoming place for legitimate travelers.

QUESTION: Well, I'm not saying he was a security risk, but as an official in the Iranian Government, isn't there a way that his name would have at least raised a flag that the Administration would have at some point been notified that he was here even if he was -- didn't need a visa?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, at this point, Teri, I think the only thing that I would say is that this issue and matters surrounding this issue and this question are certainly of interest to us and we are looking into them. And as I said in response to Barry's question, if I have anything further that I can share with you, I'd be pleased to do so either today or in the days ahead.

Charlie.

QUESTION: Just would that include in the matters you're pursuing, would that include just figuring out whether it was the green card route or the visa waiver country route he got in?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, again, we're going to --

QUESTION: Or do you already know that --

MR. MCCORMACK: I don't -- I don't have all the facts surrounding these questions, Charlie, so what my job here is to try to do is to make sure that those facts get pieced together in such a way that I can provide a clearer answer to you with regard to your questions.

Sue.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) be welcome in the United States? Would he be someone, if he did indeed hold a green card or was part of the visa waiver program, would he be welcome here?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, we don't have diplomatic relations with Iran and there are very clear restrictions on those Iranian diplomats who are accredited to the UN and their ability to enter the country as well as once here to move around the country. So again, we don't -- we have not issued an invitation to any such individual and at this point have no plans to do so.

QUESTION: Can I have just one more general -- oh, on this?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, she has a question on this.

QUESTION: Sorry.

QUESTION: We heard that he's a green card holder. Can you please confirm that or have some --

MR. MCCORMACK: As I said, there are two without a visa and we know that there was no visa issued to a person with this name. There are two ways, as I said, to get into the United States without a visa legally: one, green card; two, through the visa waiver program. And at this point, all that I would say is that this question is a matter -- it's a real matter of interest to us. We're looking into all the facts. And as I can, I'd be happy to share those with you.

Teri.

QUESTION: Is that something that you would be notified about? Maybe I'm -- maybe it's not -- I mean, is he of the level if he is a deputy to Larijani, is that of the level in the Iranian Government that you would be notified? Because if not, then, you know, he can come and go as he pleases --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: Without you knowing.

MR. MCCORMACK: Certainly, I think at this point, Teri, I would just say the movement of such an individual would certainly be a matter of interest.

Do you have another one on this?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. MCCORMACK: And we'll go back to you, Nicholas.

QUESTION: I mean, would his name be on the no-fly list? I mean, Cat Stevens's name, for example, was on the no-fly list so would his name be on the no-fly list?

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Again --

QUESTION: Or should it be?

MR. MCCORMACK: Like I said, I'm going to try to keep you up to date on all the facts as I am able to assemble them.

Nicholas.

QUESTION: Just for further clarification and you probably are not going to be able to say any more than you have already, but I'm just wondering, if you say there are no records of issuing a visa to this person --

MR. MCCORMACK: Correct.

QUESTION: -- I assume that this name is actually in your system because it's a huge system, I know, but there's a way to actually check things. So do you know -- I assume that if there's no record of visa, then someone found his name in the system. Do you know if -- do you know what kind of passport was attached to his name in your system? Was it an Iranian passport or was it a passport from a country on the visa waiver list?

MR. MCCORMACK: Again, Nicholas, at this point, I don't have anything else I can add.

QUESTION: And secondly, if he indeed had a green card, there are requirements for someone with a green card to spend a certain amount of months a year in the United States.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: Are you aware if this person has been actually spending time in the United States?

MR. MCCORMACK: I don't have any other information on the question. Like I said, we'll try to keep you up to date as best we can.

The Iranians can enrich uranium, so they ought to be able to forge a green card. I'm unsure about what's so titillating here. That if he came in illegally we get to designate him a "spy"? I'm not sure how that would change our sense of what the is the news story here.

fyi: other ways to get into US is with an advance parole or if a person has another citizenship, then he/she could have used the visa waiver program, or he could have been granted residence.

WMR has them meeting on the Wye River here on the Eastern Shore.