Speech #1030022451

I am pleased along with Senator SIMPSON to join with 10 other Senators in introducing the Port of Entry Inspections Improvement Act of 1993. Our seaports and airports have become open gates to those like Sheik Omar Abdol Rahman. who can board a boat or plane and travel here. The formal process. the requests for admission. visas. and other applications. in fact the entire system of immigration control has entirely broken down. Now. by simply setting foot on American soil and requesting political asylum. an alien enjoys the rights and liberties guaranteed under the Constitution to American citizens. Once here. it is extremely difficult to deport an illegal alien. We need no more proof than the case of Sheik Rahman. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. the spiritual leader of the violent nest of territories operating in the New York metropolitan region is a case in point. Those charged with the bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993. are his followers. He. like all but one of those charged with the bombing. entered illegally and either overstayed their visas. or claimed political asylum. The Sheik entered illegally in 1990. leaving and entering repeatedly at least three times under different combinations of names. He asked for political asylum. The defendants in the bombing also were illegal aliens. In addition to the Sheik. one of the bombers also asked for political asylum. Bilall Alkaisi was an illegal immigrant from Jordan who came to the United States in 1987 and applied for political asylum. He later surrendered himself to authorities in connection with the World Trade Center bombing. The other men charged in the bombing overstayed their visas: Mohammed Salemeh was an illegal alien from the West Bank in Israel who came to the United States in 1985. Mahmoud Abouhalima came to the United States illegally in 1986 on a German passport and posed as an agricultural employee to receive permanent residence. Ibrahim Elgabrowny came illegally from Egypt. These men took great advantage of the several loopholes in the system. What our bill attempts to do is to close one gap in the process. It will do the following: Any alien who uses or attempts to use a fraudulent document for the purpose of coming to the United States would be subject to an order of exclusion issued by an immigration officer. Such an order would not be subject to direct judicial review. although limited review by writ of habeas corpus would continue to be available. The amendment also provides for the exclusion of aliens who initially use documents to board an airplane. but then fail to provide a document to the inspector when they arrive at our ports of entry. This deals with an increasingly common practice of presenting fraudulent documents before boarding the plane and then destroying or discarding them prior to the immigration inspection after landing. An INS officer will listen to a claim for political asylum. If he determines that the claim is not credible. then the alien is subject to exclusion. The alien may not appeal this exclusion. An alien who arrives here with no documents or fake documents. is instead of being sent back to the place where he or she boarded the plane or boat is allowed into the country. In some cases. the alien destroys his documents on board the plane. and arrives undocumented. On average. a person who enters the country illegally would have a preliminary hearing 4 months after they arrive. At that hearing they are often given work permits that allow them to hold a job in the United States. With this they can also apply for a work permit which gets them a Social Security card. which gets them a drivers license and now they can buy a gun. receive welfare. or even vote. After a total of 18 months. the average alien would get a formal hearing on their immigration status. A decision. however. can take months or even years longer to be handed down. Of course. this is assuming that the alien would even bother to show up for their first or second court appearance.