[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 23 (Thursday, March 3, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2030-S2031]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself and Mr. Sessions):
  S. 524. A bill to strengthen the consequences of the fraudulent use 
of United States or foreign passports and other immigration documents; 
to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, Senator Sessions and I are introducing 
legislation to combat the use of fraudulent immigration documents, 
particularly passports and other travel documents.
  The need to prevent and prosecute passport and travel document fraud 
is clear, and this bill would increase penalties for the use of 
fraudulent travel documents.
  We know that the threat of terrorism against the United States is 
real and as the 9/11 Commission Report states, ``for terrorists, travel 
documents are as important as weapons.'' In order to minimize the 
threat of terrorism to the United States, we must make every effort to 
limit the use of fraudulent immigration documents.
  The bill Senator Sessions and I are introducing would make the use of 
fraudulent travel documents--such as passports, Border Crossing Cards, 
Canadian driver's licenses or identification cards, transportation 
letters for parolees, military identification cards or green cards--an 
aggravated felony which will mandate detention and increase the 
likelihood of prosecution.
  Today, this is not the case. Instead, fraudulent documents are 
routinely returned to the offender and individuals are allowed to 
return home without suffering any consequences from their attempts to 
circumvent our immigration laws.
  Why is this a problem?
  Firstly, admission to the United States is a privilege and not a 
right. We should not tolerate fraud and deception at our ports of 
entry, particularly because it should be apparent that a terrorist 
organization as sophisticated as Al Qaeda is well aware of our current 
procedures and can be expected to take full advantage of them.
  Secondly, the 9/11 Commission found that as many as 15 of the 19 
hijackers on September 11, 2001 could have been intercepted by border 
officials, based in part on their travel documents. In fact, all but 
one of the September 11 hijackers acquired some form of U.S. 
identification document and some of those documents were acquired by 
fraud. All of the hijackers opened bank accounts in their names and 
used passports and other identification documents that appeared valid 
on their face.
  Even before September 11, 2001, the use of fraudulent immigration 
documents to enter the United States was a threat that we did not 
sufficiently heed.
  Let me give you some known examples of terrorists who have entered, 
or attempted to enter the United States, with fraudulent travel 
documents: Ahmed Ajaj and Ramzi Yousef attempted to enter the United 
States with fraudulent passports. Both were later implicated or 
convicted in the first World Trade Center bombing in February of 1993.
  Ahmed Ressam used a fraudulently obtained Canadian passport, and, in 
1999 attempted to cross the border from Canada at Port Angeles in 
Washington State. A border inspector felt Mr. Ressam looked nervous, 
and a search of his car turned up a trunk full of bombs. There is some 
debate about the exact target(s) of the attack; however, it seems 
likely that Los Angeles International Airport and perhaps the 
millennium celebrations in Seattle were the intended targets.
  It is no secret that: as the 9/11 Commission Report makes clear, Al 
Qaeda has established a complex international travel network that 
allowed, and presumably still allows, its operatives to legally travel 
worldwide to train, conduct reconnaissance or otherwise prepare for an 
attack. This network included, and presumably still includes, the use 
of altered and counterfeit passports and visas.
  Many countries, including France, Portugal and Saudi Arabia, have 
reported tens of thousands of passports and travel documents stolen. 
When these are stolen in large numbers, they are sold on the black 
market to others.
  The 9/11 Commission found that had the immigration system set a 
higher bar for determining whether individuals are who they claim to 
be--and ensured consequences for any violations--it could potentially 
have denied entry, deported or come into further contact with the 
terrorists that were involved in the September 11, 2001 attack on the 
United States.

[[Page S2031]]

  Last year, the Department of Homeland Security Office of the 
Inspector General issued the following reports on lost and stolen 
passports: ``A Review of the Use of Stolen passports from Visa Waiver 
Countries to Enter the United States'', December 2004; and, ``An 
Evaluation of the Security Implications of the Visa Waiver Program'' 
(April 2004).
  I encourage my colleagues to read these reports on the 
vulnerabilities in our current border security. To summarize, the 
reports state that: In the United States alone, immigration officials 
have records for 1.2 million stolen passports.
  Aliens applying for admission into the United States using stolen 
passports have little reason to fear being caught and are usually 
admitted. It has been standard practice to simply return a fraudulent 
passport to an individual seeking entry and let them return to their 
country. This, in effect, is the soft underbelly of the entire passport 
system.
  The Director of the U.S. National Central Bureau of INTERPOL said 
that for 55 of the 181 INTERPOL countries, there probably were over 10 
million lost and stolen passports that might be in circulation.
  Law enforcement officials state that lost and stolen passports are 
the greatest security problem associated with the Visa Waiver Program.
  And now that I've mentioned the Visa Waiver Program, let me say a few 
things about this program.
  I believe the Visa Waiver Program is the Achilles heel in our 
immigration system. This program allows roughly 13 million individuals 
to enter the United States each year from 27 countries, without a 
visa--meaning they enter without a thorough background and security 
check.
  Since we do not have in place a fully operational entry and exit 
program, specifically an exit system, we have no real way of knowing if 
millions of travelers who entered the United States have left as 
required.
  Last year, Congress extended the deadline for one year for countries 
participating in the Visa Waiver Program to include biometric 
indicators in passports to verify the identity of bearers at the 
request of the Administration.
  It is likely this deadline will again need to be extended.
  I believe that granting another extension will be another opportunity 
for terrorists, organized crime rings, petty crooks, counterfeiters and 
forgers to continue entering the United States virtually unnoticed 
because we won't be able to confirm that they are who they say they 
are.
  The bottom line is that we must crack down on document fraud if we 
are to protect our borders. There are thousands, even millions, of 
lost, stolen and fraudulent international passports, travel documents, 
driver's licenses and other identity documents in circulation, and we 
must now allow those to compromise our homeland security.
  The purpose of this bill is twofold: first, to give the Department of 
Justice the incentive to vigorously prosecute all cases involving 
passport and travel document fraud, as well as certain other egregious 
cases of immigration document fraud.
  Second, by encouraging policies that make these cases a priority for 
prosecution, it will require that Department of Homeland Security 
officials not return fraudulent documents to travelers, but instead 
turn them over to the Department of Justice so that they can institute 
criminal proceedings.
  Unfortunately, the prosecution of immigration document fraud is not a 
high priority for the Department of Justice, because, although current 
penalties allow for a sentence of up to 25 years, typically most 
alien's convicted of travel document fraud serve less than one year in 
prison.
  Also, the immigration consequences of document fraud are relatively 
minor. Low sentences, coupled with minimal immigration consequences, do 
not provide much incentive for U.S. Attorneys nationwide to consider 
the prosecution of immigration document cases a priority nor can they 
be seen as anything but a slap on the wrists of the offenders.
  Senator Sessions and I pose a solution to this problem by toughening 
penalties so that we instill in those seeking to use fraudulent travel 
and immigration documents a real sense of fear that they will be caught 
and prosecuted to the fullest extent possible under our laws.
  In any kind of meaningful border protection plan, one must have a 
good sense of who is entering and exiting the country. That simply 
cannot be known if the individual is using a fraudulent document.
  Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this 
legislation.
  I also ask by unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                 S. 524

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. FRAUDULENT USE OF PASSPORTS.

       (a) Criminal Code.--
       (1) Secretary of homeland security.--Section 1546 of title 
     18, United States Code, is amended by striking ``the 
     Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service'' 
     each place it appears and inserting ``the Secretary of 
     Homeland Security''.
       (2) Definition of passport.--Chapter 75 of title 18, United 
     States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``Sec. 1548. Definition

       ``In sections 1543 and 1544, the term `passport' means any 
     passport issued by the United States or any foreign 
     country.''.
       (3) Clerical amendment.--The table of sections for chapter 
     75 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at 
     the end the following:

``Sec. 1548. Definition.''.

       (b) Immigration and Nationality Act.--Section 101(a)(43)(P) 
     of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 
     1101(a)(43)(P)) is amended to read as follows:
       ``(P) except for a first offense for which an alien 
     affirmatively shows was committed solely for the purpose of 
     assisting, abetting, or aiding only the alien's spouse, 
     child, or parent to violate a provision of this Act--
       ``(i) an offense described in section 1542, 1543, or 1544 
     of title 18, United States Code (relating to false statements 
     in the application, forgery, or misuse of a passport);
       ``(ii) an offense described in section 1546(a) of title 18, 
     United States Code, relating to document fraud used as 
     evidence of authorized stay or employment in the United 
     States for which the term of imprisonment is at least 12 
     months; or
       ``(iii) any other offense described in section 1546(a) of 
     title 18, United States Code, relating to entry into the 
     United States, regardless of the term of imprisonment 
     imposed.''.

     SEC. 2. RELEASE AND DETENTION PRIOR TO DISPOSITION.

       Section 3142(f)(1) of title 18, United States Code, is 
     amended--
       (1) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``or'' after the 
     semicolon; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(E) an offense under section 1542, 1543, 1544, or 1546(a) 
     of this title; or''.
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