Speech #1030021543

President. I rise to cosponsor the Port of Entry Inspections Improvement Act of 1993. which Senator SIMPSON is introducing today. This legislation will help remedy serious deficiencies in Americas immigration system. These deficiencies have been linked to recent acts of terrorism within our borders. including the bombing of the World Trade Center and the shootings outside the CIA. For example. Mir Aimal Kansi. who is suspected of shooting five people outside CIA headquarters last month. demonstrated the ease by which illegal aliens can enter our country. stay for extended periods of time and even legally work. Did Kansi sneak into our country in the dead of night? No. he simply flew into New York. presented what is believed to be a phony business visa. overstayed his visa and a year later. applied for political asylum. Upon applying for asylum. Kansi was issued a work permit and used this permit to get a Social Security number and a Virginia drivers license. which allowed him to purchase the AK47 he used to kill two innocent people and wound three others. Although almost a year had passed between the time Kansls asylum petition was filed and the date of the shootings. no immigration hearing had taken place. Kansi has since fled the country. and is the subject of a worldwide manhunt. The American people are calling on the Congress to take a serious look at the impact of our immigration procedures. The legislation I join in introducing today is directed at the tens of thousands of illegal aliens who arrive at United States ports of entry every year with fraudulent documents or no documents whatsoever. but are nevertheless allowed into the United States by making phony asylum claims. Under current law. while undocumented or fraudulently documented illegal aliens are subject to exclusion. few are actually excluded. Such aliens simply take advantage of our overburdened asylum system. Any illegal alien arriving at a U.S. airport today who asks for political asylum. whatever the merit of the claim. will be released into the general population within a minimum of a few hours and a maximum of a few days. Due to a severe shortage of detention space. and a serious backlog of asylum cases. those who come to the United States asserting an asylum claim generally cannot be detained until their asylum hearing. In the interim period. the Immigration and Naturalization Service has no means of tracking the asylum applicants. and as a result. thousands of aliens never appear for their asylum hearings. Since passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. over 100.000 asylum cases have been administratively closed by INS. primarily due to the applicants failure to appear for the asylum interview. It is clear that the system is being exploited. and that the word is out around the globe that anyone can gain immediate access into the United States. at virtually no risk. Under the legislation introduced today. those who arrive in the United States lacking legitimate documentation. and claim asylum. will immediately go before a special immigration officer. who will seek to determine if such an alien possesses a credible fear of persecution in the country from which the alien departed. Those who have such a credible fear will be granted access to the full asylum application process. Those who clearly lack a legitimate claim will immediately be excluded from the United States. Further. Mr. President. this legislation takes aim at the spread of international alien smuggling networks. which are taking advantage of our immigration system to earn enormous profits. The business of alien smuggling was the subject of an investigation I initiated in June of 1991 into Asian organized crime. The 15month investigation conducted by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that Chinese alien smuggling groups. many of which are run by Chinese organized crime figures. have successfully smuggled thousands of illegal Chinese aliens into the United States over the past several years.