Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ) has brought to light a damning report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This report, filed on June 25, 2024, reveals that between 7 to 9 million visa holders in the United States have not undergone proper vetting procedures, raising grave concerns about national security and public safety.
The report, “Management Alert: CBP Has Limited Information to Assess Interview-Waived Non-Immigrant Visa Holders,” details how the customary vetting process for foreign nationals seeking entry into the U.S. has been largely disregarded under the current administration.
Traditionally, applicants must complete an in-person interview at a U.S. consulate or embassy in their home country, undergo fingerprinting, and pass local background checks.
These measures are designed to identify potential criminals or terrorists before they set foot on American soil. However, it appears that these critical safeguards have been waived, leaving millions of individuals unvetted and potentially dangerous.
Congressman Crane said in a video statement, “We talk about the gotaways. We talk about individuals on the terror watchlist. We talk about MS-13 gang members coming through that Southern border. But this is a whole new bag of awful. Typically, the way this is supposed to work is if you’re a foreigner and you want to come to the United States of America and you want to get a visa to do so, you’ve got to go to the consulate or the embassy in the nation that you’re from and apply.”
According to the DHS Inspector General’s report:
“According to Dos, from calendar years 2020 through 2023, it granted nonimmigrant visas to approximately 7.1 million individuals without conducting in-person consular interviews. Dos also did not collect fingerprints for an unknown number of visas during the same period. In December 2023, Dos and OHS agreed to expand the categories of visas and applicants whose consular interviews could be waived beginning on January 1, 2024.
The fingerprint waiver program ended in December 2023. During our ongoing audit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP} Screening of Visa Holders That Received Waivers from Department of State (24-011-AU D-CBP), we found that CBP Office of Field Operations (OFO) port directors at some U.S. ports of entry had not been aware of the interview and fingerprint waiver program.”
“What’s happening is that these folks are being given visas, legitimate visas. They come to the U.S., come to a port of entry, and then the CBP officer or official just looks at their visa to determine whether their visa is legitimate, and then just lets them into the country, not knowing that this vetting that was supposed to take place for the issuance of this visa is not being done,” said Crane.
“That’s what this IG report is saying. I don’t know about you guys, but as an American, I want people that come here to work or go to school to actually have to get vetted, because I’m sure you guys with common sense can realize this is just another pathway that a terrorist could exploit to get into the United States of America with a legitimate visa and be walking around here, ready to do harm to Americans.”
This isn’t just a bureaucratic oversight; it’s a colossal failure of leadership. The Biden regime has made it alarmingly easy for individuals who may wish to do harm to enter our country without any meaningful scrutiny.
WATCH:
You can read the full report below:
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