Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) is introducing legislation to crack down on illegal visa overstays — and it’s about time.
Consider that the 9/11 Commission recommended that the U.S. should focus on the prevention of visa overstays to protect national security. And yet, nearly 22 years later, hundreds of thousands of individuals still take advantage of America’s visa system.
“America is a welcoming nation, but we are also a nation of laws,” Vance said in a statement sent to The Daily Wire. “There are millions of people in this country who have abused our visa system and circumvented our legal immigration process.”
To help stop this problem, Vance is introducing the “Timely Departure Act.” Under this bill, foreigners who enter the U.S. under the visa program would be required to deposit up to $15,000 to the Department of Homeland Security prior to entering the country. If they exit the country in the required amount of time, they would be given that money back. However, if they fail to leave, then the money is put into an account that can “only be used to fund the detention and removal of illegal aliens.”
“It is a slap in the face to the working-class Ohioans whose wages are suffering — I will not stand for it,” Vance said of those who take advantage of America’s immigration system. “I’m proud to introduce this legislation and bring some sanity to our broken immigration system.”
According to a recent report from DHS, there were 853,955 overstays in fiscal year 2022. And that’s on top of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who illegally crossed the southern border.
Jessica Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies noted in 2022 that visa overstays “are a significant contributor to our nation’s illegal immigration problem.”
Vaughan told The Washington Examiner, “ICE should be directed to expand enforcement programs that target overstays. Laws should be tweaked to impose the same penalties for overstayers as illegal border crossers.”
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“Congress should continue to press DHS to build the biometric entry-exit system that will help maintain the integrity of the visa programs,” she added.
Maybe DHS can use some of the funds scrounged up thanks to Vance’s bill, should it ever become law.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.