Florida Republican Rep. Sandy Adams wants answers from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Adams says she is not following existing law, which requires the federal government to cut off visas from countries that refuse to re-admit their citizens who have committed crimes while residing in the U.S. illegally. If these countries refuse to take the criminal illegal immigrants back after a six-month “detention period,” the U.S government releases them back into U.S. communities.
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“If she [Napolitano] doesn’t use what we have given her, this Congress and past Congresses with a statutory ability, 243(d) then what she is doing is she is releasing criminals back into the streets who have committed crimes and they’re going back into our American communities, our hometowns and they’re committing really horrible crimes,” Adams told The Daily Caller.
“One young man shot point blank, in the face, a police officer in Florida after being released. These have got to stop.”
Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, “Discontinuing Granting Visas to Nationals of Country Denying or Delaying Accepting Alien” reads as follows, “On being notified by the Attorney General that the government of a foreign country denies or unreasonably delays accepting an alien who is a citizen, subject, national, or resident of that country after the Attorney General asks whether the government will accept the alien under this section, the Secretary of State shall order consular officers in that foreign country to discontinue granting immigrant visas or nonimmigrant visas, or both, to citizens, subjects, nationals, and residents of that country until the Attorney General notifies the Secretary that the country has accepted the alien.”
Adams said that in 2001, the U.S. secretary of state “issued those orders [using 243(d)] and guess what? The country [Guyana] took back their criminal aliens so we know it works so the question is why isn’t she [Napolitano] doing it?”
Adams pressed Napolitano on the issue during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on October 26 but did not receive answers to her questions.
“I asked point blank, has she had a ruling from any attorney in her office saying that she could violate or ignore 243(d),” she said. “When I asked Secretary Napolitano has she done this, has she used this, she said ‘no’ at first then later on she said what she had said about everything else – she would have to go back and look at it and get back to us so the letter is a follow-up to the questions that were asked.”
Adams has asked Napolitano to respond to her letter by Nov. 18. She told TheDC she will work with Chairman Lamar Smith – who has issued a subpoena against DHS on a related issue – to take further action.