Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007

Floor Speech

COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - May 23, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

AMENDMENT NO. 1166 TO AMENDMENT NO. 1150

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I have an amendment at the desk that I would like to call up.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Iowa [Mr. GRASSLEY], for himself, and Mr. DeMint, proposes an amendment numbered 1166.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To clarify that the revocation of an alien's visa or other documentation is not subject to judicial review)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. __X. JUDICIAL REVIEW OF VISA REVOCATION.

(a) In General.--Section 221(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1201(i)) is amended by striking ``There shall be no means of judicial review'' and all that follows and inserting the following: ``Notwithstanding any other provision of law, including section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, any other habeas corpus provision, and sections 1361 and 1651 of such title, a revocation under this subsection may not be reviewed by any court, and no court shall have jurisdiction to hear any claim arising from, or any challenge to, such a revocation.''.

(b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall--

(1) take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act; and

(2) apply to all visas issued before, on, or after such date.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, the amendment I have before you is dealing with an issue I just described in morning business as one of 15 flaws in a very important part of this legislation. This amendment is going to revise current law related to visa revocation for visa holders who are on U.S. soil.

Now, we have this situation which does not make sense. My amendment is meant to bring common sense to this. Under current law, visas approved or denied by a consular officer in some of our embassies overseas would be nonreviewable. In other words, what that consular office said would be final. That person being denied a visa to come to this country would not have access to courts because consular officers have the final say when it comes to granting visas and allowing people to enter a country. So if you are a consular officer and you believe somebody is a terrorist or a terrorist threat, you can deny the visa, no review.

However, if that person gets a visa and they come to this country and we find out later on that they are a potential terrorist and should not have come here in the first place and you want to get them out of the country as fast as you can--because that is surely what we would have done with the 19 pilots who created the terror we had on September 11--then that decision made when the person comes to this country, that decision by the consular officer is reviewable in the U.S. courts.

Now, everybody is going to say: Well, that just does not make sense. You know, the same person over in some foreign country wants to come here, and the consular officer says: We can't let that person come here because he is a potential terrorist threat. Well, then they do not get to come here and nobody can review that. But if that very same person came here and we decided they shouldn't have been here in the first place, then they have access to our court system before they can be removed. Thanks to a small provision inserted during conference negotiations on the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the visa holder at that point has more rights than he or she should have. I think that is very obvious.

Now, the ability to deport an alien on U.S. soil with a revoked visa is nearly impossible if the alien is given the opportunity to appeal the revocation. This section has made the visa revocation ineffective as an antiterrorism tool.

My amendment would treat visa revocations similar to visa denials because the right of that person to be in the United States is no longer valid. In other words, if it was not valid for him to come here in the first place and it
was not reviewable by the courts, and then they get here and for the same reasons they should not be here--because they are a terrorist threat--they should not have access to our courts.

So this exception has made the visa revocation ineffective as an antiterror tool. My amendment would treat visa revocations similar to visa denials because the right of that person to be in the United States is no longer valid. If they were originally denied a visa by the consular officer, there would be no right to dispute; they would not be here in the first place.

I asked Secretary Chertoff about the problem with our current law on the visa revocation, and I want to quote from what he told the Judiciary Committee in March because I have been working on this problem for a while. To quote Secretary Chertoff:

The fact is that we can prevent someone who's coming in as a guest. We can say ``You can't come in overseas,'' but once they come in, if they abuse their terms and conditions of their coming in, we have to go through a cumbersome process. That strikes me as not particularly sensible. People who are admitted as guests, like guests in my house, if the guest misbehaves, I just tell them to leave; they don't get to go to court over it.

We can equate the role of homeowner to that of a consular officer. Currently and historically, all decisions by consular officers with regard to the granting, the initial granting of visas are final and not subject to review. Revocations shouldn't be treated differently in the case of terrorists.

Why is this important to do? Consider visa revocations related to terrorism. Consider the 2003 Government Accountability Office report revealing that suspected terrorists could stay in the country after their visas had been revoked on the grounds of terrorism because of a legal loophole in the wording of revocation papers. This loophole came to light after the Government Accountability Office found that individuals were granted visas that were later revoked because there was evidence the persons had terrorism links and associations.

The FBI and the intelligence community suspected ties of terrorism in hundreds of applications. The FBI did not share this information with our consular officers in time, so the consular officers granted the visas. So I suppose at that point you cannot blame the consular officers when they did not have the information the FBI should have given to them. So then when they got the derogatory information about these individuals from the FBI, then it was too late. They had already been granted visas. They were already here. The consular officers then had to go through the process of revoking the visas. What the Government Accountability Office found was that even though the visas were revoked, immigration officials could not do a thing about it. They were handicapped from locating the visa holders and deporting them.

I wish to give you an example of how this hurts us today. A consular officer grants a visa to a person, and that person makes his or her way where they were intended to come, to this great country of the United States. After arriving in the United States, a consular office finds out that the foreign individual has ties to terrorism. Maybe the consular officer found out that visa holder attended a terrorist training camp or maybe the intelligence community just informed the consular officer that the visa holder was linked to the Taliban or maybe our Government just learned that visa holder gave millions of dollars to a terrorist organization before they applied for a visa. These are all very good reasons for revocation of a visa. If a person should not have received a visa in the first place, then the consular officer has to revoke it. Well, I mean if they had the visa then, you have to go to the trouble of getting it revoked.

Three key points to consider: First, the decisions to revoke a visa are not taken lightly. If a consular officer needs to revoke a visa, the case is thoroughly vetted. In fact, the case is decided back here in Washington, DC, at the highest levels. Second, consular officers do not have the authority to revoke a visa based on suspicion. A revocation must be based on actual finding that an alien is ineligible for the visa. Third, consular officers give the visa holder an opportunity to explain their case. They may ask them to come to the embassy and defend themselves. So when a visa is revoked, it is very serious business. But the current law handicaps law enforcement and makes it nearly impossible to deport the alien if they already made it to the United States.

Current law allows aliens to run to the steps of our country's courthouses and take advantage of our system. Allowing review of a revoked visa, especially on terrorism grounds, jeopardizes the classified intelligence that led to the revocation. It can force agencies such as the FBI and the CIA to be hesitant to share any information. Current law could be reversing our progress on information sharing, the very major thing we did to make sure September 11 didn't happen again. Prior to September 11, the FBI and the CIA could not share information. Now they can, in hopes that we will stop September 11 from happening again. But if all this information is going to get out through the court system, one of two things will occur: It isn't going to be given to the State Department in the first place, or, secondly, if it is given and it gets into the court system and gets out, we are going to have a damper put on the sharing of information.

We ought to be able to make sure a terrorist doesn't get into this country without exposing the source of our information and, once here, get them out. We need to secure this country, and we need the ability to revoke visas without terrorists or criminals seeking relief from deportation. I remind my colleagues of our poor visa policy contributing to the attacks on September 11. Nineteen hijackers used 364 aliases. Those people who killed 3,000 people in New York and 300 people here at the Pentagon knew how to play the system. They had 364 aliases. Two of the hijackers may have obtained passports from family members working in the Saudi passport ministry. Nineteen hijackers applied for 23 visas and obtained 22. The hijackers lied on the visa application 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:

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

In the Midwest we call that common sense.

The 9/11 Commission recommended that we intercept terrorists and constrain their mobility. This amendment would do that. Allowing aliens to remain on U.S. soil with a revoked visa or petition is a national security concern and something the 9/11 Commission would suggest is needed. We should not allow potential terrorists and others who act counter to our laws to remain on U.S. soil and get the protection of our courts, stay in this country for years through the appeals process of seeking relief from deportation.

Terrorists took advantage of our system before 9/11. We cannot let that happen again. This amendment will be helpful in making sure that doesn't happen again.

I hope my colleagues will support the amendment.

I yield the floor.

Source