Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 And 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. DENT. I thank the gentleman from Delaware.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of the Castle-Dent amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act. As of May 2009, just last month, over 147,000 citizens, residents and nationals of foreign countries remain in the United States because the governments of their home nations are delaying or even refusing repatriation, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It's simply unacceptable. The disconcerting detail regarding the situation is that over 17,000 of these individuals are criminal aliens who have been released into our communities and neighborhoods because U.S. courts have ruled that our system cannot legally hold them in custody for longer than 180 days, or 6 months, following their sentence of imprisonment if their home country refuses or unreasonably delays repatriation.

Detainment will only be extended if an individual has been proven to be especially dangerous by a court and a psychiatrist.

This extension has only been exercised a handful of times since being instituted in 2004. Releasing dangerous criminals back on to our streets is just not fair to our citizenry and the families and individuals who have legally immigrated to America.

That said, the Castle-Dent amendment requires quarterly reports, reports every 90 days, to Congress from the Secretary of Homeland Security publicly listing the countries that refuse or unreasonably delay repatriation, including information on the total number of criminal aliens in the United States.

Furthermore, the Secretary of Homeland Security will have the power to facilitate the repatriation process by denying the entrance to the U.S. of those holding diplomatic visas of the offending country. The administration can exercise discretion regarding diplomatic flexibility with an affected nation if necessary.

Under current statute, the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that the U.S. State Department has the authority to discontinue the granting of immigrant or nonimmigrant visas to nationals from foreign countries that unreasonably delay or deny accepting an alien who is a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country. Although State has threatened to deny visas in this capacity, it has never enforced this authority.

Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office has indicated this amendment has no significant impact on PAYGO. On the other hand, drawn-out repatriation negotiations divert scarce Federal and State resources.

As an example, in one case, the U.S. Government paid $197,000 to fly an alien convicted of assault with a knife back to his home country of Somalia, only to be denied and sent back to the U.S. where he was released and fled to Canada. I don't understand the logic here. We cannot spend taxpayer dollars to remove a dangerous individual from American soil only to discover the nation is refusing the reentry of their citizen.

Congressional action on comprehensive immigration hangs in the future.

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