[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 96 (Thursday, June 24, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5388-S5390]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last week the media reported that 17 
Afghan military trainees had gone AWOL--absent without leave--from the 
Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, 
TX. The shocking thing about this is not that 17 Afghan trainees left 
the military base without leave, but that we hadn't heard anything 
about it. Even though these officers went missing over a period of 2 
years, neither the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Air Force, 
nor the Department of Defense notified me. No one advised the Congress 
or the American people, to my knowledge, that this had happened. 
Obviously, it created a lot of consternation and concern.

[[Page S5389]]

  The fact is, this is just one example--really the tip of the 
iceberg--of some of the problems with our broken immigration system--
our inability to track individuals who come into the United States with 
visas, whether it is a tourist visa, a student visa, or a visa like 
those issued to the Afghan military officers. We have virtually no 
ability to track individuals who overstay their visa and then simply 
choose to melt into the great American landscape.
  This is true in spite of the fact that in 2007, Congress passed on a 
recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, which highlighted visa overstays 
as a potential national security threat to our country. All we have to 
do is recall people like Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World 
Trade Center bombings, an example of people who came into the country 
and overstayed their visa. The recent attempt of a would-be terrorist 
to bomb a skyscraper in Dallas, TX, is another example of people who 
enter the country legally and do so with the clear intent to overstay 
their visa and do us harm.
  Congress passed a law in 2007 that required the Department of 
Homeland Security to come up with a plan by June 2009 to track every 
entry into the country pursuant to a visa and biometrically track those 
individuals who overstay their visas. Obviously, that has not happened 
yet or else the Department of Homeland Security would have been able to 
track the 17 Afghan military officers. As far as we have been informed, 
we don't have clear information as to exactly where all of these 
individuals are.
  We have talked a lot about border security, and appropriately so, 
particularly in light of the exploding violence in Mexico and the 
cartel drug wars that have killed 23,000 people since 2006. Many have 
expressed concerns that our borders, which are still too porous, will 
allow people to come across but not just people who want to work. Our 
porous borders will allow people to enter who want to smuggle drugs, 
smuggle weapons, and who potentially want to do us harm. Last year 
alone, about 50,000--or closer to 45,000 individuals from countries 
other than Mexico--so-called OTMs--have been detained coming across our 
southern border. These OTMs have come from countries such as Somalia, 
Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, China--you name it. The southern border is 
being used as a means to enter our country without detection and in 
violation of our laws.
  The problem I wish to highlight today is that apparently the 
Administration is just now waking up to this danger along our border. I 
say that because only in the last couple of days, the President has 
requested an emergency supplemental appropriation of $600 million for 
southern border enforcement. Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that 
it is a large sum of money, it simply does not go far enough.
  Recently, I introduced a border security amendment that was 
defeated--even though it got a majority vote, but didn't get the 60 
votes it needed to pass. It was on the Defense supplemental 
appropriations bill. It would have been paid for; it was not deficit 
spending. It would have provided an additional $2 billion to make up 
for shortfalls in funding to Federal, State, and local agencies that 
are on the front line and need that funding to get the job done.
  Some critics have said that Members of Congress have focused too much 
on border security and that the real solution is to pass a 
comprehensive immigration reform bill. I disagree. Until we have 
credible border security and a credible system of tracking visa 
overstays, the American people are simply not going to believe we have 
either the credibility or the competence to enforce whatever law we 
pass. All you have to do is to look at where we find ourselves now. You 
also need to look back to 1986, when President Ronald Reagan signed an 
amnesty for 3 million people. He did so premised on the belief that we 
were actually going to pass an immigration law that could be and would 
be enforced. We know, from our sad experience, that even though an 
amnesty was adopted, enforcement did not follow. That is why I say the 
American people simply don't believe we have the credibility or even 
the competence, as demonstrated so far, to get the job done.
  I don't think the American people believe we have done a good job of 
controlling illegal immigration, let alone national and domestic 
security. If Washington was doing its job, we would not see States such 
as Arizona and Nebraska passing laws trying to deal with immigration at 
the State and local level. If Washington was doing its job, we would 
not continue to hear about the many illegal immigrants who have 
committed heinous crimes in the United States and who have been 
deported multiple times, only to reenter the United States and commit 
further crimes. If Washington had been doing its job, we would not 
continue to hear about terrorists exploiting our lax immigration 
enforcement--terrorists who are in this country right now trying to do 
us harm, such as the Christmas Day bomber, who had a valid visa--
amazing as it sounds--and the foreign national who overstayed his visa 
who I mentioned a moment ago, who tried to blow up a Dallas skyscraper 
recently--a plot foiled by the FBI.
  I believe we need credible immigration reform, but first we need to 
demonstrate to the American people that we are serious about border 
security by making sure the resources--both the boots on the ground and 
the technology--are in place to help, as a force multiplier, provide 
the kind of border security that will allow us to know with a much 
greater certainty who is coming into the country and why they are here.
  The other component of our nation's security has to do with the visa 
overstay issue, which is a huge part of the problem. Put another way, 
even if we were able to secure the border today and know with certainty 
who was coming across our southern or northern border and what their 
purpose was for entering, we would still have a huge, gaping hole in 
our immigration enforcement system because of the problem of visa 
overstays.
  Most Americans probably don't realize that between 40 and 50 percent 
of the people who have come into the country and who are here without a 
valid visa--an estimated 4.5 to 6 million people--are visa overstays. 
In other words, they came in legally but simply ran out the clock and 
overstay their visa, and now they have attempted to just melt into the 
American landscape.
  Unfortunately, notwithstanding the recommendations of the 9/11 
Commission and Congress's mandate to the Department of Homeland 
Security to come up with a way to biometrically track visa overstays 
coming in through our airports--the Department of Homeland Security 
still has yet to come up with a credible and workable solution to deal 
with this very real problem. We know the visa overstays come from 
countries all around the world, not just Mexico or countries to our 
south. These overstays come from places such as Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, 
Afghanistan, Syria, and Sudan.
  It seems just as plain as the nose on my face to say that America's 
security depends on our tracking not just people who illegally come 
over the border, but also those who come in legally and then illegally 
overstay their visas. Our failure to track visa overstays and enforce 
our immigration laws has already put our country in jeopardy.
  I mentioned some of the examples a moment ago. The World Trade Center 
mastermind was a visa overstay. The 9/11 hijackers, lest we forget, 
were visa overstays, people who came in under false pretenses as 
students, only to try to do our Nation harm and then killing thousands 
of people in the process. I mentioned the Dallas office tower attempted 
bomber, who was a visa overstay. Most recently, the 17 Afghan pilots in 
training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX, my hometown. 
These were visa overstays. Yet when you ask the Air Force, the 
Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security where 
they are now and what they are doing, we have yet to get a 
comprehensive and complete report. Why? Because the U.S. Government 
simply doesn't have a workable and effective and efficient means of 
tracking people who come into the country legally on a temporary visa 
but then choose to overstay.

  Foreign nationals overstaying their visas is not a new issue, but, as 
we have seen, it can be a national security issue. Even the Department 
of Homeland Security, the Government Accountability Office, the Pew 
Hispanic

[[Page S5390]]

Center have highlighted the number of overstays in the United States.
  Like its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the 
Department of Homeland Security has a real inability to track down and 
remove aliens who overstay their visas. Each year, approximately 
300,000 foreign nationals who come to the United States legally, 
overstay their visa. That is 300,000 a year.
  My amendment, which was defeated last month by a narrow vote, would 
have given the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the personnel 
and money needed for additional investigators, detention officers, and 
detention space.
  We need a plan, our government needs a plan from the administration 
to enforce our immigration laws regarding visa overstays or the 
American people will continue to see threats to our national security 
materialize before their very eyes.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record my letter to Secretary Napolitano at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, there are a number of think tanks--and I 
will allude to just one--that have come up with a strategy to do what 
needs to be done to deal with visa overstays. I refer to a 
Backgrounder, published by the Heritage Foundation, dated January 25, 
2010, entitled ``Biometric Exit Program Shows Need for New Strategy to 
Reduce Visa Overstays.''
  I think we need to put our best minds together and devote our efforts 
to dealing with this problem. Just like our broken border, unless 
Congress and the Administration come up with a credible plan to deal 
with this problem of visa overstays, I don't think the American people 
will have the confidence they demand and are entitled to when it comes 
to enacting a credible immigration enforcement program.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1


                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                    Washington, DC, June 22, 2010.
     Secretary Janet Napolitano,
     U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Nebraska Avenue 
         Complex, Washington, DC.
       Dear Secretary Napolitano: Last week, the media reported 
     that 17 Afghan military officers had gone Absent Without 
     Leave (AWOL) from a Defense language training institute at 
     Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Needless to say, I was 
     deeply disturbed by this report and by the fact that I had 
     not received official notification from either the 
     Departments of Defense or Homeland Security.
       On Friday, I sent a letter to Secretary of the Air Force 
     Michael Donley requesting an immediate explanation and report 
     on how such a serious violation of security occurred, as well 
     as an assessment of the potential threat posed by these 17 
     officers. In statements to the media, the Air Force stated 
     that they work in close coordination with DHS and ``[w]hen 
     the Defense Department learns an international student has 
     gone missing, DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement is 
     immediately notified and appropriate action is taken.''
       I have been informed by ICE the majority of these missing 
     Afghan officers have not been located. According to the 
     recent media reports, these Afghan officers disappeared over 
     a 2-year period. Two years is a significant period of time 
     and I find it alarming that we are still unable to locate 
     these officers in the United States.
       I recognize that tracking visa overstays in the United 
     States is a challenge. However, I continue to see a 
     disturbing pattern that began with Ramzi Yousef and the 1993 
     World Trade Center bombings, came to fruition with the 9/11 
     hijackers, and has continued recently with Hosam Maher Husein 
     Smadi's planned attempts to bomb of a skyscraper in Dallas, 
     Texas--terrorists using legal visas to gain entry into the 
     United States with the clear intent to overstay and do harm. 
     The 9/11 Commission pointed out this area as a vulnerability 
     and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has echoed 
     concerns about visa overstays and our ability to track and 
     remove them from the United States.
       According to one study, the number of current overstays in 
     the United States ranges anywhere from 4.5 million to 6 
     million, approximately 40 to 50% of the total illegal 
     immigration population. Overstays come from every continent, 
     and from many nations known to harbor terrorists, including 
     Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Sudan. Given 
     that this number is growing each year by approximately 
     300,000 additional aliens, it is imperative that your 
     Department make identifying and removing visa overstays a 
     national priority.
       In a public statement, ICE indicated that they notified the 
     U.S. law enforcement community about the missing officers and 
     had ``no information that any of these individuals pose a 
     national security threat.'' As you can imagine, I am not 
     assured by this statement, especially given the fact that 
     these officers remain at large in the United States with 
     their whereabouts unknown to the U.S. government. I view this 
     situation as a clear security failure that needs to be 
     remedied immediately.
       I would appreciate a response as soon as possible on how 
     you intend to locate these officers immediately and remove 
     them from the United States. I would also ask that you 
     provide me with the Department's strategic plan to deal with 
     visa overstays.
           Sincerely,
                                                      John Cornyn,
                                                     U.S. Senator.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island is 
recognized.

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