The Senators cited a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed 40-45 percent of the estimated total population of illegal aliens — 4 to 5 million people — stayed past their visa expiration dates. But DHS’ U.S. VISIT program — which is supposed to identify people who overstay their visas by comparing entry and exit information — cannot keep up with the number of potential overstays it identifies by matching entry and exit records.

In fact, US-VISIT processes less than half of the potential overstays it identifies, and GAO found that the program has a backlog of 1.6 million potential overstay records. Once a potential overstay has been identified, the information is provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which devotes just 3 percent of its investigative man-hours to tracking down immigrants whose visas have expired.

This population is of grave concern to law enforcement officials. Five of the 9/11 hijackers overstayed their visas, and GAO found that 36 of the roughly 400 people convicted of terrorism-related charges since September 2001 had overstayed their visas.

“Despite numerous congressional and DHS efforts, we still lack an exit system that will effectively identify people who have overstayed their visas, and do so in real time,” Senator Lieberman said. “The reality is that U.S. VISIT remains a very troubled and ineffective program.”

“Identifying individuals who overstay is a crucial component of securing our borders, and it is simply unacceptable that we are still unable to systematically identify people who overstay – some of whom may be terrorists waiting to attack innocent Americans. I am asking Secretary Napolitano to update the Committee on current efforts within the Department to close this dangerous vulnerability,” said Lieberman.

In speeches and in her testimony, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano boasts of the success of her department in dealing with illegal immigration and related issues including border security. However, past and recent GAO studies present a different picture, say many law enforcement officials.

Senator Collins said, “According to the GAO report, ICE should do a better job identifying the estimated four million people in the United States who have stayed illegally after their permission to be here expired.”

“The Pew Hispanic Center reports there are about 12 million individuals here illegally and between four million and 5.5 million of those came here legally but their visas have since expired. I understand that only three percent of ICE efforts are focused on these cases. That seems insufficient and shortsighted as almost half of all unauthorized residents fall into this category,” said Collins.

AUTHOR: Jim Kouri
URL: http://www.renewamerica.com/
E-MAIL: COPmagazine [at] aol.com

For months the nation’s Homeland Security Secretary has repeatedly insisted that everything is safe and secure on the southwest border, even as violence escalates and overwhelmed federal agents are increasingly attacked by heavily armed drug smugglers.

Just last month Napolitano declared that violence along the Mexican border is merely a mistaken “perception” because the area is safe and “open for business.”

Furthermore, President Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary assured that “some of America’s safest communities are in the Southwest border region….”

During another speech, Napolitano accused critics of the Obama Administration of exaggerating the problems on the U.S.-Mexican border.

“Our nation’s sovereignty is being violated and Americans killed by illegal aliens and all we get are photo opportunities with Obama Administration officials and scoldings from the Mexican government officials including President [Felipe] Calderon,” said police officer Iris Veguilla, herself a Latino.
A top Pentagon official contradicts Napolitano’s fairytale assessment, pointing out that Mexican criminal organizations extend well beyond the southwest border to cities across the country, including big ones like Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit, according to Judicial Watch.

Addressing a U.S. Senate hearing this week, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats William Wechsler warned lawmakers that all their constituencies are confronted by the threat of Mexican drug cartels.

Even more alarming is that once in the United States, the Mexican criminal groups are becoming more dangerous by forming networks with each other and insurgent or terrorist groups. In some regions the “threat networking” not only engages in drug trafficking but kidnapping, armed robbery, extortion, home invasions and other serious crimes.

The threat is so great that the assistant Defense Secretary offered federal legislators military assistance in the name of protecting national security.

“Many of the global and regional terrorists who threaten interests of the United States finance their activities with proceeds from narcotics trafficking,” Wechsler reminded, adding that “extremist and international criminal networks frequently exploit local geographical, political or social conditions to establish safe havens from which they can operate with impunity.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), a staunch supporter of tough immigration enforcement, once again called on Napolitano to resign last week. Tancredo has led many congressional efforts to protect the borders against illegal immigration.

An incident that involved a gunfight in December between Border Patrol agents near Nogales, Ariz., and armed drug smugglers has been a sore point with Tancredo. One member of the U.S. Border Patrol, Brian Terry, was killed by automatic gunfire during a shootout that highlighted the fact that U.S. law enforcement officers are out-manned and outgunned by Mexican criminals.

The Obama administration also claimed it increased the number of Border Patrol agents from about 10,000 in 2004 to more than 20,700 now. However, an examination of records reveals that the increase in border agents occurred during the Bush Administration when the number of agents reached upwards of 18,000 in 2008.

AUTHOR: Jim Kouri
URL: http://www.renewamerica.com/
E-MAIL: COPmagazine [at] aol.com

It gets worse. An official of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) confirmed during a radio interview on Thursday that the Taiwanese government would retaliate against Filipino workers. Documents of Filipinos that normally took Taiwan about two weeks to process may now take up to four months, he told Joe Taruc on dzRH. The Philippine economy is kept afloat by remittances from overseas Filipino workers, or OFWs, who are predicted to send home some $20 billion to their families in the Philippines this year. About 90,000 Filipinos work in Taiwan, including the undocumented OFWs, according to the MECO official.

Besides hosting Filipino workers, Taiwan is also a major source of foreign investments in the Philippines. And Taiwan conducts humanitarian and civic missions here, as well as scholarship grants to Filipinos to study there. It’s unclear whether these programs, too, will be affected by the deportation of the Taiwanese, although prudence demands consideration of all possibilities no matter how remote.

The Palace should not underestimate the gravity of the situation. In the eyes of Taiwan, the Philippines has unwittingly intervened in the sensitive cross-straits affairs by deporting the Taiwanese to archrival China. To date, it still considers Taiwan a renegade province. But it doesn’t serve Philippine interests to take sides.

Very significant is that the deportation may have repercussions on Taiwan’s domestic politics, because the issue is reportedly being used by the Taiwanese opposition to attack the ability of President Ma Ying-jeou’s government to protect its citizens. President Ma is up for reelection next year.

Options for the President

Taiwan’s representative in Manila, Donald Lee, demanded that the Philippines apologize to Taiwan. The Palace should weigh that heavily, hopefully with advice from experts at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

More importantly, we urge the President to look into the deportation case, and declare that he will not tolerate shenanigans at the Bureau of Immigration or elsewhere in government against foreigners, whether they are from Taiwan or someplace else. Looking into Mr. Lee’s allegations that Philippine laws and human rights were violated has nothing to do with the One China Policy.

The authorities should investigate why the Taiwanese were allegedly detained illegally. They, along with 10 Chinese from the mainland, were arrested by officers of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on December 27, 2010, but the cases against them were not filed until January 4 and 5, 2011—after the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) wrote to complain about the detention.

Also, there ought to be a probe into the undue haste by the Immigration bureau and the lack of due process. According to TECO, the Taiwanese and Chinese were flown to China on February 2, 2011, in spite of a writ of habeas corpus issued by the Court of Appeals on January 31, 2011 that orders the NBI, the Immigration bureau and the Department of Justice to bring the detainees to a hearing on February 2nd. And the prosecutors had even scheduled a hearing on February 8 and 10, 2011.

The Immigration bureau instead held a hearing on February 1, 2011, but TECO claimed it was not informed. And when the 14 Taiwanese were about to be flown out, Mr. Lee said that he rushed to the airport with a copy of writ of habeas corpus to halt the deportation, but he was stopped by the authorities there.

Finally, the Palace should look into why the Taiwanese were classified as undocumented aliens. TECO alleges that their passports were confiscated by the NBI.

Plus, TECO had contacted them several times about the 14 Taiwanese. If there was still doubt about nationality, the authorities could have asked MECO if it issued visas to the 14 detained. In sending the Taiwanese to China, Mr. Lee points out correctly that the Philippines violated its own immigration laws.

One China Policy

On a related matter, we urge Foreign Affairs Sec. Alberto Romulo to send someone to explain the One China Policy to the President and his spokesmen. They appear ignorant in invoking that policy with regard to this deportation scandal.

Officially, we have no diplomatic ties with Taiwan. But economic and geopolitical concerns make it essential for us to have strong “economic and cultural relations” with the government of that friend and neighbor. In a polite rebuke, Mr. Lee pointed out some truths. When Filipinos apply for a visa to work in Taiwan, they do so at TECO, not at the Chinese embassy in Manila. And when the Filipinos workers are paid for their labor, they receive Taiwanese dollars, not renminbi, the currency of the mainland.

Taiwan has a point that at issue here is not the One China Policy. The issue is whether Philippine laws and procedures were broken by Filipino authorities. And a related issue is the authority of a writ of habeas corpus issued by Court of Appeals, as well as the authority of prosecutors who have yet to complete their procedures in this case. It is unfortunate that because foreigners were involved, the Filipino people, particularly the innocent and hardworking OFWs in Taiwan, are the ones that end up suffering the consequences.

AUTHOR: Kerry B. Collison
URL: http://kerrycollison.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: author@sidharta.com.au