More U.S. training funds likely to swell ranks

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The federal government is making available $8 million to step up firearms training for commercial pilots who want to carry weapons in the cockpit, officials said Thursday.

Capt. Fred Bates, an American Airlines pilot who helped lead the fight in Congress to arm pilots, said he has been bombarded with queries from colleagues who want to be trained.

"Hundreds are going to sign up for this thing, and that number is just going to escalate," Bates said.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) offered no estimate on how many pilots can be trained with the money, which is supposed to cover instruction through Sept. 30.

The first 44 pilots allowed to carry weapons were sworn in as federal flight deck officers on Saturday after a week of classes, drills and testing at a federal law enforcement training center in Glynco, Ga.

They were nominated by their unions and selected by the TSA. Future trainees will apply online, agency spokesman Robert Johnson said.

Lawmakers last year overrode objections by the Bush administration, which feared that allowing pilots to carry weapons on the flight deck would be dangerous and distracting. The airlines were opposed for the same reasons.

According to one estimate, about a third of the 100,000 pilots in the United States will volunteer to carry guns and complete the training in the next five years.

Training a single pilot costs $6,200, but there are likely to be new expenses for equipment and training aids, Johnson said. The course itself is unlikely to change much, he said.

His agency asked for $25 million to train pilots next year.

Illegal immigrants

Meanwhile, Attorney General John Ashcroft has declared in a legal opinion that most illegal immigrants can be jailed indefinitely without bond when national security risks exist. Immigration advocates are calling that an abuse of power in the name of fighting terrorism.

The order means such immigrants will not be released on bond while their cases are being decided by immigration judges if the government can show that national security issues are involved.

"Such national security considerations clearly constitute a reasonable foundation for the exercise of my discretion to deny release on bond," Ashcroft said in the 19-page opinion, which was signed last Friday.

The opinion was requested by the Homeland Security Department, which now enforces most immigration laws, after the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld a judge's decision to release a Haitian asylum-seeker on $2,500 bond.

Cheryl Little, executive director of Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, said Ashcroft's opinion is the latest in a string of government decisions "manipulating our very serious national security concerns to justify targeting nationals of Haiti."

Advocates for Latino and Muslim immigrants made similar comments on behalf of their constituencies.