Two of the medical doctors arrested in connection with the bungled London and Glasgow car bomb attacks had made preliminary inquiries about practicing medicine in the United States, an American law enforcement official said Friday.

The official confirmed a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the doctors had contacted the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, a non-profit organization in Philadelphia that screens foreign citizens wishing to train or work as doctors in the United States.

Nancy O'Dowd, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said one of them "was applying" for approval to practice in the United States.

Now this points out just how pathetic the US screening criteria for immigration is—especially in the case of skilled workers. Just because someone is smart and hardworking doesn't mean he has the interest of the American people at heart. If anything a 'really smart' terrorist or criminal is far more dangerous than a dumb or unskilled one.

It would be a real simple matter to simply require a bond be posted with respect to criminal actions on the part of a prospective immigrant. I would expect such a bond to be rather inexpensive for say a German or a Japanese-but rather expensive from countries that have a stronger relationship with criminal or terrorist activity.

Now, the cost of 911 and the war it inspired is over $1 Trillion. I think it will be rather hard to justify much US immigration from unstable regions of the world if we expect those profiting from immigration to truly pay their own way.

Immigration advocates tend to look at benefits-and ignore the costs. That is because their real job is to shill for wealthy interests that stay wealthy at the expense of their fellow Americans.

Granting folks like these foreign doctors the right to practice in the US doesn't come for free. The risk of terrorism aside, each immigration slot has a value of over $225,000. It would be far less expensive to expand medical scholarships for US citizens