An article in the New York Times today highlighted a gaping weakness in the United States’ immigration system—our government has no reliable way to track if a visitor has left the country.  That’s right, the immigration agencies don’t know whether or not the 2.9 million persons who entered the U.S. last year (and the tens of millions who came in prior years) on visitor visas are still here or have already left.  Why?  Because the government has no uniform “check out” requirement.  The only system is place is where the visitor would turn in his I-94 card upon leaving the country.  Even this is not consistently enforced because many visitors lose or forget to retain their I-94 cards.  This is as sensible as a library having a self-enforced borrowing policy.

There is nothing in place that would alert the government that a visitor has overstayed his authorized visitation period, and it’s time to look for him.  The security measures in place before a visitor enters the country are formidable.  Foreign visitors are fingerprinted and photographed when they arrive, and are closely screened and monitored.  The process of obtaining a visitor visa in the first place is no fun, either, because it is loaded with bureaucratic layers. Ironically, once a visitor passes the customs turnstile, he is free to do as he pleases without any practical consequence.  Often times, he melts into the general population without ever hearing from the U.S. government again.  In fact, a large percentage of the “illegal” aliens in the U.S. came legally and simply never left.

This is another reason why comprehensive immigration reform is needed.  The system is dysfunctional and nonsensical.  A link to the NY Times article below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/us/12visa.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print.