Political Quotes

“the Washington Post reported today that despite administration pledges to crack down on criminals and terrorists slipping into the country as immigrants, the Federal Government has stopped running routine fingerprint checks on immigrants. I find this outrageous. During the past year, as ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I conducted a lengthy investigation of criminal aliens in the United States. Our investigation found that criminal aliens are a serious threat to our public safety that is costing Federal, State, and local criminal justice systems hundreds of millions of dollars. The very last thing this country needs to do is import more criminals--we have more than enough of our own. The INS decision to stop immigrant fingerprint processing will allow criminals and terrorists to immigrate to our country. Last year fingerprint processing prevented some 9,000 criminals from immigrating to the United States. The INS claims that this is only 1 percent of the total numbers fingerprinted, but that 1 percent still represents 9,000 criminals, a very significant number. Nine thousand more criminals can ruin the lives of an enormous number of law-abiding citizens. What the INS apparently does not realize is that fingerprint processing deters criminals from even attempting to immigrate to the United States.”