Speech #1050176995

Mr. President. S. 1360. the "Border Improvement and Immigration Act of 1998" sponsored by Senator ABRAHAM requires an entryexit system at air ports by the year 2000 and requires a feasibility study of an entryexit system for land and sea ports within a year. However. it does not address all the problems for which Section 110 of the 1996 Act was intended. I hope that during conference. we can improve the bill by mandating a workable deadline for creating an entryexit system at all land and sea ports. Section 110 of the 1996 Immigration Act requires an automated entryexit system by October 1. 1998. It also requires the Attorney General to identify visa overstays. making the system an integrated part of data collection by the INS. The purpose of Section 110 in current law is to fix the problem which exists now. INS says that in FY96. over 24 million nonimmigrants came into the U.S. INS also says that they are "unable to calculate overstay rates on nonimmigrants in general or for particular nationalities." INS also told my staff that they "do not have an estimate" of the average length of overstay for nonimmigrants or know the "destinations of nonimmigrants". The purpose of Section 110 is to make sure INS has the ability. by building an integrated data system at all ports of entryincluding air. sea and land ports of entry. in order to know who is coming into the country and who is leaving and more importantly. who is breaking the law by overstaying. INS estimates that there are over 5 million illegal aliens in this country and 41% of the illegal alien population is due to visa overstaysthat these aliens failed to depart. (source: 1996 Statistical Yearbook of INS). In the 1997 report. the INS Inspector General concluded that currently. INS has no real ability to identify the characteristics of the visa overstays which could be used in developing an enforcement strategy that effectively targets visa overstays. It also found that capturing entryexit information only at airports reveals information about 10% of the nonimmigrants in this country who come through airports. The other 90% come and leave through sea and land ports and therefore. are unknown if there is no entryexist system at those ports. INS inability to identify visa overstays has greater significance when we add the fact that there are over 4.5million border crossing cards which have been issued since 1940s. Having an integrated entryexit system at the land borders is critical in keeping track of all nonimmigrants. those with visas and border crossing cards. providing valuable information for law enforcements. not only to deport visa overstays but in prosecuting those drug runners who provide a critical link into the heartland of America. Time has come to fully implement the 1996 Immigration Act. I hope that during conference. we can find a workable deadline for INS to create an entryexit system at both sea and land ports. Doing a feasibility study is helpful in planning the implementation but without tough mandates to install entryexit systems--while drug runners go back and forth freely at the Southwest border without law enforcements knowledge. and while potential terrorists slip in easily through the Canadian borderis not the intent of Section 110 when Congress passed the 1996 Immigration Act last year. Thank you Mr. President and I ask unanimous consent that this statement be printed in the RECORD after the text of S. 1360.