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Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber attempted to destroy a U.S. bound airliner that was packed with passengers and crew members by detonating explosives he had hidden in his shoes, is a citizen of Great Britain and therefore was not required to obtain a visa before flying to the United States to apply for admission into our country. Had there been no Visa Waiver Program and he been required to obtain a visa, it is likely he would never have secured the visa and would have not been permitted to board the airliner he intended to destroy. Our government now requires citizens of the United States and all others who seek to board airliners to remove their shoes for inspection because of Mr. Reid–however, the vulnerability created by the Visa Waiver Program has not only been utterly ignored, but more countries have since been added to list of those countries whose citizens do not need to seek visas before traveling to the United States to apply for admission into our country even though other terrorists have also entered our country under the Visa Waiver Program.
Currently, 36 countries participate in the Visa Waiver Program, as shown below:
| Andorra | Hungary | New Zealand |
| Australia | Iceland | Norway |
| Austria | Ireland | Portugal |
| Belgium | Italy | San Marino |
| Brunei | Japan | Singapore |
| Czech Republic | Latvia | Slovakia |
| Denmark | Liechtenstein | Slovenia |
| Estonia | Lithuania | South Korea |
| Finland | Luxembourg | Spain |
| France | Malta | Sweden |
| Germany | Monaco | Switzerland |
| Greece | the Netherlands | United Kingdom |
Title 8, United States Code section 212 is the section of law (the INA) that enumerates the various categories of aliens who, under the Immigration and Nationality Act, are supposed to be prevented from entering the United States and are supposed to be removed if they are found.
I have compiled a list of the six ways in which the visa process can be helpful to law enforcement and bolster our nation’s efforts to prevent the entry of aliens whose presence on our country may prove harmful to our nation and our citizens. Under the Visa Waiver Program, not one of these important benefits applies:
- By requiring visas of aliens who seek to enter the United States, this process helps to screen potential passengers on airliners that are destined to the United States.
- The CBP inspectors are supposed to make a decision in one minute or less as to the admissibility of an alien seeking to enter the United States. The visa requirement helps them to do a more effective job. There’s is a tough job I can certainly relate to, I began my career at the former INS as an immigration inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and worked there for four years before I became a special agent.
- The application for a nonimmigrant visa contains roughly 40 questions that could provide invaluable information to law enforcement officials should that alien become the target of a criminal or terrorist investigation. The information could provide intelligence as well as investigative leads. You can check out the application for a nonimmigrant (tourist) visa by clicking on this link:
- If an alien applicant lies on the application for a visa that lie is called “visa fraud.” The maximum penalty for visa fraud starts out at 10 years in jail for those who commit this crime simply in order to come to the United States, ostensibly to seek unlawful employment or other such purpose. The penalty increases to 15 years in jail for those aliens who obtain a visa to commit a felony. For aliens who engage in visa fraud to traffic in narcotics or commit another narcotics-related crime, the maximum jail sentence that can be imposes rises to 20 years. Finally, when an alien can be proven to have engaged in visa fraud in furtherance of terrorism, the maximum penalty climbs to 25 years in prison. It is important to note that while it may be difficult to prove that an individual is a terrorist, it is usually relatively simple to prove that the alien has committed visa fraud when there is fraud involved in the visa application. Indeed, terror suspects are often charged with visa fraud.
- The charge of visa fraud can also be extremely helpful to law enforcement authorities who want to take a bad guy off the street without tipping their hand to the other members of a criminal conspiracy or terrorism conspiracy that the individual arrested was being arrested for his involvement in terrorism or a criminal organization. You can arrest the alien who commits visa fraud for that violation of law and not for other charges that might make it clear that the investigation underway is targeting a criminal or terrorist organization.
- Even when an alien applies for a visa and his application is denied, the application he filed remains available for law enforcement and intelligence personnel to review to seek to glean intelligence from that application.
If our government’s failures to protect American jobs by securing our nation’s borders and effectively enforcing our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
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An article that appeared on the Nextgov Magazine website on August 23, 2012 began:
The Homeland Security Department maintains fingerprints of every foreigner who enters the country to help prevent fraud, but 825,000 of those records appear to be associated with multiple individuals, according to internal investigators. The sheer number of discrepancies raises questions about how many immigrants intentionally are faking their identities to evade authorities versus falling victim to poor typing.
The report this article refers to was released earlier this month and bore the understated title, US-VISIT Faces Challenges in Identifying and Reporting Multiple Biographic Identities, and equally understated subtitles including:
“US-VISIT Needs to Improve Procedures That Specifically Target Individuals Using Multiple Biographic Identities to Enter the United States”
“Data Inconsistencies Hinder Effective Use of Biometrics to Identify and Prevent Use of Fraudulent Identities at U.S. Ports of Entry”
“US-VISIT Data Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Records with Inconsistent Biographic Information”
What is disturbing is the potential nexus between those aliens who sought to enter the United States under assumed identities and national security. The terrorists who attacked our nation in 1993 and on September 11, 2012 all committed visa fraud and/or immigration benefit fraud.
The Nextgov article continues:
In a written response to a draft report, Rand Beers, undersecretary of DHS’ National Protection and Programs Directorate, which oversees US-VISIT, said the program has “initiated a proactive review” of ID data to spot fraud and alert the proper authorities. As of May 8, US-VISIT had researched 1,200 official alien registration numbers filed for immigrants trying to enter or obtain benefits, and added 192 of those individuals’ prints to a watch list of known or suspected criminals.
“Subjects suspected of fraud may be or have already attempted to commit passport fraud, U.S. citizen-lawful permanent resident fraud and fraud involving possible alien smuggling,” Beers wrote in the letter.
Deffer, however, said this review stops short of examining possible fraud committed by travelers such as visitors from visa waiver countries who do not have alien registration numbers, or do not need visas for entry.
According to these facts, the Visa Waiver Program, at present, enables aliens from some 36 countries to seek to enter the United States without first applying for and obtaining a visa, thus removing an important layer of security in the name of “trade and commerce.” It would now appear that in addition to removing a vital layer of security, the Visa Waiver Program may also conceal fraud that has serious national security implications!
Aliens who seek to enter the United States are required to present themselves for inspection at an authorized port of entry is to enable the inspectors of the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) to prevent the entry of aliens into the United States who would pose a serious problem. The data contained in the various databases utilized by the inspectors is supposed to prevent the entry of aliens who, under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) are excludible from the United States.
According to immigration law Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182, the following categories of aliens are statutorily ineligible to enter the United States:
- Aliens with dangerous communicable diseases,
- Aliens who suffer serious mental illness and are prone to violence,
- Aliens who are convicted felons, aliens who fugitives from justice in other countries,
- Aliens who are human traffickers and drug smugglers, aliens who are war criminals,
- Aliens who have committed human rights violations and aliens who are engaged in terrorism and espionage, and
- Aliens who have been previously deported from the United States and fail to secure the appropriate authorization to re-enter the United States are barred from re-entering the United States.
If the databases are unable to provide accurate information to enable inspectors to weed out impostors who seek to circumvent the laws and databases, then it is entirely possible that criminals and terrorists may be able to gain entry through the lawful process.
What may not be quite so obvious is that aliens who commit identity and visa frauds pose at least as serious a threat and, perhaps an even greater threat, because they have found a way to develop a level of credibility to which they are not entitled when they succeed in gaming the lawful entry process.
Finally, it is possible that if aliens can assume false identities to enter the United States they may well be able to acquire lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship by using false identities enabling them to conceal criminal histories or terrorist affiliations. This is yet another reason to oppose the President’s program to provide millions of illegal alien “DREAMers” with employment authorization. It may not only ultimately cost Americans their jobs, but their lives!
The only thing worse than no security is false security!