Dave, it is a string not an integer. Thank you for your reply.
BTW, to move forward I've excluded the Web Assist variable and went with a simpler, direct query:
<?php if(isset($_GET['id'])) {
$target = $_GET['id'];
?>
<?php
$Recordset1 = new WA_MySQLi_RS("Recordset1",$redacted_i,0);
$Recordset1->setQuery("SELECT `id`,`setDate`,`fName`,`lName` FROM applications WHERE $target = 1 AND status != 3 ORDER BY applications.id DESC ");
$Recordset1->execute();
?>
It works but was not my first choice.