‘Every American needs to show ID to enter our country. So why do we make it simpler for illegal immigrants to come in than for our own people?’
Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced legislation on March 26 to prevent illegal immigrants from exploiting “loopholes” for air travel into or within the United States without valid identification.
The legislation
titled the “Verifying that all Aliens have Legitimate Identification Documents (VALID) Act” prohibits the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from accepting the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) phone app known as CBP One, Notice to Appear (NTA), and a Notice to Report (NTR) as legal forms of identification for illegal aliens at TSA security checkpoints and for boarding planes.
The VALID Act also bars aircraft from foreign nations that accept those documents as valid forms of identification from flying into the United States.
“Every American needs to show ID to enter our country. So why do we make it simpler for illegal immigrants to come in than for our own people? As our nation grapples with an unprecedented invasion at our southern border, the VALID Act resolves to close the loopholes that have allowed 200,000 illegal immigrants into the country unchecked,” Mr. Lee said in a March 26 statement announcing the legislation.
“The Biden administration’s policies have blatantly facilitated this crisis, encouraging illegal immigration and compromising our nation’s security,” he added.
The
CBP One app was created during the Trump administration in 2020 to reduce wait times for perishable commercial goods entering the United States at legal points of entry. But the Biden administration expanded the use of the app last year, allowing illegal immigrants to schedule appointments with the CBP.
According to CBP, in January 2024, it
processed about 45,000 non-citizens at ports of entry via appointments using the CBP One app to enter the United States. From January 2023 to January 2024, nearly 460,000 aliens used the app for “successfully scheduled appointments to present at ports of entry.”
Mr. Scott, in a March 13 letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,
demanded information and questioned the TSA for allowing 320,000 inadmissible illegal immigrants to fly on commercial airliners without government-issued identification.
The legislation is co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and John Thune (R-S.D.).
‘Mass Parole Scheme’
During a House Homeland Security joint subcommittee
hearing on March 21, Republican committee members called the Biden administration’s use of the CBP One app a “mass parole scheme” to unlawfully allow hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into the country.
According to DHS documents provided to the Homeland Security Committee in 2023, following Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
threatening to subpoena Mr. Mayorkas, 95.8 percent of immigrants who scheduled appointments via the CBP One app were
released into the United States from January to September 2023.
The documents showed that over 266,000 inadmissible individuals out of more than 278,000 who sought appointments were issued a Notice to Appear and admitted into the country on parole. Last month, CBS News reported that immigrants used the CBP One app over 64 million times to request entry.
In a letter dated March 20 to TSA, Mr. Green asked TSA Administrator David Pekoske to provide documents and information regarding its airport security screening procedures.
“The Committee is concerned that TSA’s screening procedures apply a weaker identity verification standard for alien migrants than for American citizens, creating an aviation security risk,” the letter reads.
A
report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) earlier this month
revealed that the Biden administration has approved “secretive flights” transporting 320,000 illegal immigrants from Latin America to 43 U.S. airports since 2022.
The effort is part of the administration’s “lawful pathways” strategy to reduce the number of illegal crossings at the southern border, according to the CIS report. The program allows asylum seekers to schedule an appointment using the CBP One app instead of rushing to the Texas border.
The Biden administration introduced the parole program in January 2023, allowing up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela to legally enter the United States each month. As of January 2024, about 357,000 nationals from these countries had
entered the United States via this program, according to CBP data.
Darlene McCormick Sanchez contributed to this report.
