New legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday by a group of Republican lawmakers, including Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), would eliminate the “loophole” used by the Biden-Harris administration to grant legal status to more than 500,000 illegal immigrants.
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is joined by the Visa Integrity Preservation Act by 13 other senators in an effort they argue “would close a loophole in current law that the Biden-Harris administration took advantage of in a June 2024 executive action to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the United States without inspection or overstayed a visa.”
Cornyn accused President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of using a “magic amnesty wand to create unlawful programs that allow any and every person to enter and stay in the U.S. – legally or not.”
Biden announced the amnesty plan in June when his administration said it would offer a fast path to citizenship for foreign nationals who have lived in the United States for more than a decade and are married to an American citizen.
The Republican explained in his press release that part of Biden’s plan waived an interview requirement for nonimmigrant visas, enabling those who entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa to obtain temporary work visas.
According to the lawmakers, their Visa Integrity Preservation Act would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify that immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa for more than 180 days are not eligible for a waiver of the in-person consular interview requirement and would instead be required under all circumstances to depart the U.S. for an interview before they could receive a nonimmigrant visa.
Blackburn, in a statement, said the legislation would prohibit Biden and Harris “from devaluing U.S. citizenship and making illegal immigration legal.”
The senator said, “Since day one in office, the Biden-Harris administration has made it crystal clear that they support an open border and providing mass amnesty to illegal immigrants through unlawful catch-and-release programs.”
While the legislation is aimed at preventing the Biden-Harris administration from offering amnesty to illegal immigrants who have been in the country for a sustained period of time, the administration remains characterized by an illegal immigration crisis and loose border.
Experts say more than 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the country since the start of the Biden-Harris administration in 2023, and more recently, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) data revealed there have been nearly 3 million illegal border crossers so far in 2024.
A recent report estimated between 1.5 million and 2.7 million non-citizens will vote in the 2024 election.
Earlier this week, the Texas Department of Public Safety sounded the alarm after an increase in the number of “Special Interest Aliens,” including Turkish nationals who claimed they arrived in the country through an international travel network that included stops in Istanbul and Kuwait.
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Illegal Immigrants” by John Modlin.
