Let's take a break from the "stock market crashing" and "World War III" news for a second and remind ourselves that the government's immigration policy is just as terrible as everything else they do!
Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) just dropped a bombshell, unearthing a report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that, well, isn't great.
According to this report, which was released in late June, somewhere between 7 and 9 million visa holders in the United States have skipped out on proper vetting procedures since 2020. So not only did we leave the door open, we pretty much put up a sign saying "come on in, the water's fine!"
The report, with the catchy title "Management Alert: CBP Has Limited Information to Assess Interview-Waived Non-Immigrant Visa Holders," essentially says our usual vetting process has been thrown out the window.
Here's the summary:
The Department of State (DoS) issues nonimmigrant visas to individuals seeking entry into the United States on a temporary basis for tourism, medical treatment, business, temporary work, study, or other reasons. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to address staffing limitations and visa backlogs, DoS and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to expand DoS' authorities to waive requirements to conduct consular interviews and collect fingerprints for some individuals seeking nonimmigrant visas. According to DoS, from calendar years 2020 through 2023, it granted nonimmigrant visas to approximately 7.1 million individuals without conducting in-person consular interviews. DoS also did not collect fingerprints for an unknown number of visas during the same period.
So yeah, normally, if you want to get a visa to enter the US, you have to go through some sort of security filter, including an in-person interview at a U.S. consulate or embassy, fingerprinting, and local background checks. You know, so literal terrorists don't just walk into the country.
These crucial steps have been ditched, leaving us with millions of unvetted, potentially dangerous individuals roaming our country.
Congressman Eli Crane spelled it out in a video statement:
We talk about the gotaways. We talk about individuals on the terror watchlist. We talk about MS-13 gang members coming through that Southern border. But this is a whole new bag of awful.
And he's not wrong. Instead of going through the proper channels, folks are getting legitimate visas, coming to the U.S., and then our Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers just give their visas a once-over and wave them through. No vetting, no questions, no problem.
Crane summed it up perfectly:
I don't know about you guys, but as an American, I want people that come here to work or go to school to actually have to get vetted, because I'm sure you guys with common sense can realize this is just another pathway that a terrorist could exploit to get into the United States of America with a legitimate visa and be walking around here, ready to do harm to Americans.
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