[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 23, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6573-S6575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Salazar for his 
courtesy. I want to share a few thoughts tonight. In particular, I wish 
to talk about the Grassley amendment that deals with the granting of 
visas, which, by error or inadvertence, could in fact involve 
individuals who are very dangerous, who would get into our country on a 
valid visa, and then it be determined that they should never have been 
issued that visa.
  That happens quite often. The State Department is concerned about it. 
The FBI is concerned about it. The Grassley amendment would help fix 
that in a significant way. In any comprehensive immigration reform, it 
is my view that should be a part of it.
  We have talked about this for a number of years, but somehow we never 
got around to getting it done. I am glad he has offered it. If we are 
going to pass immigration reform, it certainly should be a part of it.
  I think one of the problems we have had in our thinking throughout 
this process is an insufficient understanding that we as Senators 
should place our national interests first, and we should set policy 
that serves our laws, that serves our financial interests, and should 
validate those who follow the law properly and have consequences for 
those who do not follow the law.
  In 1986, there was this discussion that led to immigration reform. It 
was admitted to be amnesty, and it was supposed to be the last amnesty 
of all time, a one-time amnesty, and we are going to enforce the law in 
the future. They promised.
  Of course, the amnesty took place immediately and the promises of 
enforcement and funding and enough Border Patrol agents and all the 
things necessary to have enforcement never occurred for two main 
reasons. No President of the United States cared to do anything about 
lawlessness at the border, and the Congress didn't. Congress, every now 
and then, would rise up and suggest that something should be done, and 
some Congressman or Senator would talk about it, but nothing ever 
really got done.
  Now we are at a point where we have perhaps 12, maybe 20 million 
people here illegally, and they desire amnesty. What will happen next? 
How many years will it be until the next time?
  I have a simple view that goes to the core of what this bill fails to 
do, and that is to affirm the rule of law. My view is that a 
compassionate and kind and very generous thing to do for persons who 
came into our country illegally, who have not been forced to stay here 
but stay here because they choose to stay here--presumably the life and 
the pay and the benefits they have here are sufficient that they would 
choose to stay here rather than where they came from--that those 
persons, as a result of coming here illegally and of their own 
volition, should not be given every single benefit that we would give 
to persons who come to America legally. That is just it. We said that 
in 1986 and this will be a defining moment about whether we mean it.
  We could take two positions. One is, this is not amnesty and maybe we 
can go on and the same thing would be prepared to happen a few years 
from now, 15 years from now. Or we can say: No, sir, nobody from 1986 
and forever hereafter who comes to our country illegally will be given 
the full panoply of benefits we give to persons who come to our country 
legally.

[[Page S6574]]

  I just want to mention two or three things I think about that. One is 
citizenship. You don't get citizenship if you break into this country 
illegally. You don't receive some of the benefits we would give, such 
as the earned-income tax credit. The earned-income tax credit was 
designed to help people with families, who are poor, but who do work. 
It was an idea that went back to the Nixon days. The theory was there 
was not enough distinction between the income you could get staying 
home on welfare and actually going out and working. So they tried to 
incentivize and encourage poor people to see the advantage of work and 
would give them the earned-income tax credit, which a lot of people do 
not know is $41 billion a year in expenditures, which is a lot of money 
designed to help poor people.
  Conservatives talk about it, others talk about it, but fundamentally 
it was designed to incentivize work for American working poor, 
particularly if they had children. The average recipient of the earned-
income tax credit in America receives from $1,700 to $2,000 a year. 
That is designed to help them work.
  But if somebody comes to our country illegally, I see no reason they 
should be rewarded with the earned-income tax credit; nor should they 
get Social Security benefits if they paid benefits over a false Social 
Security number, working under a fraudulent name in a business where 
they were illegal. They should not get those benefits.
  One cannot, in America today, go to court and enforce an illegal 
contract. If a person promises to pay a drug dealer money for dope and 
that person doesn't pay the drug dealer, the drug dealer can't sue that 
person in court. It is an illegal contract, a contract for dope.
  It is an illegal contract. When a person comes here and pays money 
using a fake name or fake Social Security number, that person is not 
entitled to receive any benefits, in addition to the problems we would 
have in determining who paid what money under what number and where and 
when. Fraud would be rampant, so we should not do that.
  I am worried about this legislation. I think it has some containment 
of the Social Security, a good bit better than last year, although I am 
not sure it is real tight. But there is no containment of the earned-
income tax credit. Those are some things we need to think about as we 
analyze the cost of the legislation that is before us today.
  With regard to the Grassley amendment, this amendment would revise 
the current law related to visa revocations for visa holders who are on 
U.S. soil. Under the current law, visas approved or denied by consular 
officers in foreign countries are nonreviewable. In other words, if you 
go into the consular office, as I did with Senator Specter last summer 
in the Dominican Republic, and happened to meet one and talked with him 
about how his day was and what it was like--they make decisions. The 
consular officers ask for information. If they think somebody has a 
scheme to go into the United States with a visa and never to return 
back to the Dominican Republic, or whichever country is involved, they 
deny the visa. The alien whose visa was denied doesn't get to sue the 
consular officers. That alien doesn't get to complain. This is a 
discretionary act by a designated agent of the United States of 
America, a sovereign nation. A sovereign nation gets to decide who gets 
into its country, who does not get into its country, and under what 
conditions they come into their country. That is fundamental.
  You don't get to sue over it, if you were denied by the consular 
official in Cyprus or Poland or the Dominican Republic. That's just it. 
OK.
  However, if you are approved by a consular official, but that is 
later revoked and that individual has now landed on American soil 
already, the consular official's decision to revoke is turned into a 
big court case. The practice has made visa revocations ineffective, in 
fact, as an antiterrorism tool.
  This amendment, the Grassley amendment, would treat visa revocations 
similar to visa denials because the right of a person to be in the 
United States would expire once the visa is revoked, regardless of 
whether that person is in the United States.
  I think that is something the 9/11 Commission has suggested we should 
do. That is a very important issue that I will talk about in a little 
bit.
  At a judiciary hearing in March of this year the Secretary of 
Homeland Security, Secretary Chertoff, said this:

       The fact is that we can prevent someone who is coming in as 
     a guest. We can say you can't come in from overseas. But once 
     they come in, if they abuse the terms and conditions of their 
     coming in, we have to go through a very cumbersome process. 
     That strikes me as not particularly sensible. People who are 
     admitted as guests, like guests in my house, if a guest 
     misbehaves, I tell them to leave. They don't go to court over 
     it.
  In 2003, the General Accounting Office reported that suspected 
terrorists could stay in this country after their visas had been 
revoked because of a legal loophole in the wording of revocation 
papers. GAO found the FBI and the intelligence community suspected ties 
of terrorism in hundreds of visa applications but did not always share 
that information with consular officials properly so that the 
application could be rejected. So the consular officers granted the 
visa, not knowing that the applicant may have connections to terrorist 
organizations. Had the consular officials known that, they would not 
have granted the visa. Maybe the FBI was tardy in giving it to them; 
maybe it was a product of sensitive information they were not at 
liberty to reveal; maybe they did not discover the terrorist 
connections until the person got into our country. By the time they got 
the derogatory information, it was often too late; the visa had been 
issued. Immigration officials could not do a thing about it if the 
person had already arrived here. We were handicapped from locating the 
visa holders and deporting them, even if they were terrorists or there 
were other serious reasons to deny the visa.
  Revocation of a visa is not a thing done lightly, although as a 
matter of law, I cannot think there is any constitutional requirement 
they have any kind of extended procedure. But we have established 
strong procedures on revocation decisions. To revoke a visa is not done 
lightly. If a consular officer wants to revoke a visa, the case is 
thoroughly vetted. In fact, the final decision cannot be made by the 
consular official in the Dominican Republic or Cypress or Poland; it 
must be made by a higher official in Washington.
  Revocation cannot be based on suspicion. It must be based on an 
actual finding that the alien is ineligible for the visa; in other 
words, they should not have received the visa. They had the power to 
say no to begin with. Once the alien is in our country, without 
judicial review, you cannot revoke a visa.
  The consular official gives the visa holder an opportunity to explain 
their case. They may have the visa holder come down to the embassy and 
defend their position. So when a visa is revoked, it is serious 
business. It takes a good bit of time. But current law handicaps our 
enforcement and makes it nearly impossible to deport the alien if they 
have already made it to the United States. Current law allows aliens to 
run to the steps of our country's courts to take advantage of the 
litigation system. There is no reason for special treatment of those 
whose visas we revoke simply because they happen to be on land here 
after we figured out that their permission to come should have been 
denied.
  Allowing judicial review of revoked visas, especially on terrorism 
grounds, jeopardizes classified intelligence that led to the 
revocation. It can force agencies such as the FBI and CIA to be 
hesitant to share information.
  Current law could be reversing this very process we set up after 9/11 
so we could share information more readily among agencies. Our poor 
visa policies contributed to the events of September 11.
  Nineteen hijackers used 364 aliases. Two of the hijackers may have 
obtained passports from family members working in the Saudi passport 
mission, in other words, fraudulent passports.
  Nineteen hijackers applied for 23 visas and obtained 22 visas. The 
hijackers lied on their visa applications in detectable ways. The 
hijackers violated the terms of their visas. They came and went at 
their convenience. The 9/11 Commission pointed out the obvious by 
stating that:

       Terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United 
     States if they are unable to enter the country.

  The 9/11 Commission recommended that we intercept terrorists and 
constrain their mobility. This amendment

[[Page S6575]]

would do that. Allowing aliens to remain on U.S. soil with a revoked 
visa or petition is a national security concern. It is something we 
should do something about.
  Think about it. An individual came into America, approved for a visa, 
and it is now discovered the individual had ties to terrorist 
organizations, may well be deeply connected in some dangerous way where 
they could threaten the security of the United States, and all we can 
do is revoke their visa, eventually ask the person to leave, and they 
file petitions and object and go to court and turn it into a big 
process.
  It is this kind of thing that has the capacity to overwhelm and flood 
our courts and to create circumstances such that the immigration laws 
become unenforceable. It is a realistic concern. We have to go back to 
the basics of immigration and see what this process is all about.
  A person who comes into any sovereign nation, the United States 
certainly being one, comes at the pleasure of the United States, at the 
sufferance of the United States. Without a right to stay here, but as a 
free gift that can be taken away or rejected at any time. An alien is 
not entitled to stay here. An alien does not have a constitutional 
right to stay here. An alien has no legal right to stay here if he or 
she is not in compliance with the rules and regulations of the United 
States. We have designated officials, agents, and officers with the 
procedures and plans to make those decisions about visas, and we can't 
have all of those revoked visas turning into lawsuits. I mean, there 
are not enough hours in the day. It can subject our Nation to threats 
in many different and terrible ways.
  What I would suggest to my colleagues is, let's think about the 
basics of what immigration is about. It is not a matter of the right of 
somebody wants to come here. Nobody has a constitutional right, a legal 
right, or a moral right, for that matter, to enter the United States. 
It is a decision we make based on policies that presumably serve the 
national interests of the United States.

  If a person is not in compliance after they get here, if a person did 
not meet the standards when they were admitted, if the person did not 
meet the standards when they first applied, they should be rejected 
without a court hearing or a lawsuit. If they get into this country and 
we find additional information that would have prohibited them from 
coming, they can be asked to leave without going through a big trial, 
because they do not have that property right or legal right that would 
justify such an action.
  This is something I have dealt with for some time. I think we can do 
better about this area of the law. This was a request from the State 
Department which deals with this every day. We need to do better to 
support the State Department.
  When I met with the consular official in the Dominican Republic, he 
talked about the fraud they see, and it is pretty common. Frequently 
people produce fraudulent marriage licenses. Sometimes people actually 
pretend to be married. Sometimes they just produce documents; they say 
they are married when they are not married. That makes people eligible 
to come.
  You know what he said? In all of the time he has been working on it, 
nobody has ever prosecuted someone for a fake marriage license to get 
entry into the United States.
  When I was U.S. attorney, I prosecuted one or two, anyway. I remember 
people who created fraudulent marriages to set up to get in the 
country. For one reason or another it came to our attention and we 
prosecuted the case. It is a violation of Federal law.
  What we have got, our guess is, there are so many that people do not 
have time to do it. But if a person says they are married and they come 
here to the country, and you find out they are not married, they should 
be able to depart without having a big trial. You can try them, as I 
did, and convict them and send them to jail, or give them a 
probationary sentence for filing a false claim to the Government or 
false document to the Government or false claim for entry into the 
United States. All that would be criminal, but it takes a tremendous 
amount of time, effort, and money to prosecute a case like that, more 
than probably we can afford to do today. So the better thing is to give 
our people the power to make that decision and move people out if they 
are here on a visa.
  Now, if they have legal permanent residence or citizenship, of 
course, that is not so. If you get a legal permanent resident status, 
then you have certain rights that go beyond what I described.
  Mr. President, I thank Senator Grassley for his leadership and for 
working on this amendment. I think it would be a critically important 
aspect of any comprehensive reform. I thank the Chair for his patience 
late into the evening.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar.) Under the previous order, the 
Senate stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

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