-By Warner Todd Huston
From the government that wants to take over your healthcare comes word that the Department of Homeland “Security” has, uh, lost over a million foreigners it was supposed to be tracking inside our borders. Welcome to America.
The million lost foreign visitors that were being tracked by DHS via their visa info was recently discussed at The Blaze.com which revealed a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
According to a report by the Government Accountability Office:
“Each year, millions of visitors come to the United States legally on a temporary basis either with or without a visa. Overstays are individuals who were admitted legally on a temporary basis but then overstayed their authorized periods of admission. DHS has primary responsibility for identifying and taking enforcement action to address overstays.”
But despite this responsibility, DHS has lost over a million foreigners with visa information on file, but no departure date noted once that visa expired. The whereabouts of these people are unknown and likely unknowable–at least unknowable by the government.
How is this possible in the electronic age? How has this happened in this era of heightened security because of Islamic terrorism? It’s because DHS has a way to file visa information into its tracking system, but no way to, you know, actually do any, you know, tracking of the people the visa info belongs to.
The system is set up to take in the information but there is apparently no way for DHS to know if foreign visitors are obeying the law and leaving when their visas are expired. In other words, the first and last information DHS has on these foreigners is when they get their visa. After that, nuthin.’
Apparently foreign visa holders are on the honor system for obeying our immigration laws. When their visa expires, they go home…. if they feel like it.
Ah, but Obama’s DHS promises to fix all that.
“DHS remains committed to strengthening and building upon existing capabilities to better identify and report on potential overstays,” said Jim H. Crumpacker, Homeland Security’s liaison to the GAO.
Well, isn’t that special? (And don’t you love Jim’s last name?)
And if you want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn…
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.