DHS Does Not Look For Temporary Visitors Who Overstay Their Visas
Published on Jan 21, 2016
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions grilled I.C.E. Assistant Director Craig Healy about the enforcement procedures for individuals who have overstayed their visas.
Jeff Sessions: "So, you’ve got an investigation of 3,000. You admit that there are 400,000 to 500, really 500,000 overstays. And you don’t go out and look for 500,000 people, do you?"
Craig Healy: "No, we prioritize to what we’re looking for."
Sessions: "So you’re prioritizing. This is a key word, colleagues. Prioritizing mean you got some sort of information. And it usually involves terrorism or some serious crime, is that right?"
Healy: "It could be, sir."
Sessions: "But if they are not that way, if they came here from a country and did not return and you have no information that they are terrorists, based on the information you have, you don’t go look for them, do you?"
Healy: "No sir."
Sessions: "Right. So this is overwhelmingly that’s so."
Senator Sessions remarked that the current immigration policies of the U.S. Government is sending the wrong message to the rest of the world.
"This is where public confidence is being destroyed. This is how we’re sending a message to the world that you can get away with it. That’s what it’s all about. And you’ve got to send the reverse message. We’ve got to send the message that if you try to come to America unlawfully, or overstay a visa when you came lawfully, you will be apprehended and you will be deported. And it’s going to be an unpleasant time and you’re going to wish you hadn’t done it. And then the numbers will go down. But as long as they’re this high, you’re going to have more of it rather than less. And that’s not where this country needs to be going. I just…we’ve got a border. We either have a sovereign nation or we don’t."
Do you think the U.S. Government is properly enforcing laws regarding temporary visitors who overstay their visas? Share and comment below.
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