BOMBSHELL: Rep. Crane - Homeland Security IG reports over seven million 'unvetted alien' visa holders are inside the U.S.

WASHINGTON, DC - A report from the Homeland Security Inspector General (IG) issued in July has somehow flown under the radar, but it is being highlighted by freshman Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) in a post on X this week. 

Last month, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reported that the IG informed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) via a formal alert of an “urgent issue” that required immediate attention. 

In that alert, the IG said that some 7.1 million foreign nationals were granted visas and allowed entry into the United States despite officials having not interviewed the aliens, nor in some cases even collected fingerprints. With the country coming up on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, much of this sounds familiar. 

According to the IG, the decision by the State Department to waive the interviews and fingerprints was due to staffing shortages and backlogs that developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and an effort to manage those issues. However the IG found that CBP, tasked with protecting our borders, was not informed which “non-immigrant visa holders” arriving at the border had received only limited screening.

Had they possessed that information, they could have conducted additional screenings in order “to make more informed decisions” upon inspection, FAIR reported. 

The IG said the problem stems from a “lack of information sharing” between two federal agencies, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Consular Affairs, which operates under State, is supposed to screen and vet foreign nationals who want to enter the U.S. on a temporary basis through a non-immigrant visa. That department, however, has a history of trying to “fast track” its consular duties. 

Prior to the 9/11 attacks, the State Department had a program called “Visa Express,” which raised concerns among some that were dismissed. That program allowed visa applicants to travel to the U.S. without being interviewed in-person by a government official. That program was set up only three months prior to September 11, 2001, which is partially blamed for some of the hijackers being able to enter the country. 

That program was amended after the attacks and imposed a requirement for in-person interviews of visa applicants. However, there are exceptions which allow officers to waive interviews for certain applicants when “in the national interest.” Nowhere is “national interest” defined, however. 

Much of that changed, however, in 2020. The IG said the State Department began waiving interviews and in some cases, the collection of fingerprints, on a “large scale” using the COVID-19 pandemic as a convenient excuse. While the program was supposed to sunset in December 2023, the State Department actually “doubled-down,” and along with the DHS expanded the categories of those eligible for interview waivers. The only condition was that CBP officers were supposed to be informed of who was bypassing that requirement. 

Earlier this year, the State Department finally tied into CBP’s technology systems which had previously been nonexistent. That move allows CBP officers to look at a visa holder’s records. Despite that, the information flowing from the State Department was not available to all officers. The IG’s report notes that senior CBP officials claimed they didn’t provide all the information to their officers out of fear of “inundating” the process and “overload[ing] officers with information.” 

That served to shift screening of visa applicants from overseas to already overworked CBP front-line officers, who are dealing with the Biden administration’s open border policies. Even worse, CBP didn’t provide officers with the information they needed to do their jobs. The IG said, “More than 4 years after the waiver expansion began, CBP has no assurance that individuals with waivers who arrived at U.S. ports of entry from 2020 to 2023 were identified at [redacted] for further screening.” 

Crane, however, puts the number at between seven and nine million people who received visas that were not properly vetted. 

“This is a serious lapse in our security, leaving massive vulnerabilities for terrorists to exploit,” Crane wrote on X. 

In a video attached to the tweet, Crane said that the “Harris, Biden, Mayorkas administration” has been “completely horrible” when it comes to “homeland security and our southern border.” He referred to the IG’s report as “a whole new bag of awful.” 

Crane said CBP officers have no idea that the people who present a visa have not been properly vetted and are letting them into the country. 

“I don’t know about you guys, but as an American I want people who come here to work or go to school to actually have to get vetted because I’m sure you guys with common sense can realize this is just another…um…you know, another pathway that a terrorist can exploit to get into the United States of America with a legitimate visa…and be walking around here ready to do harm to America,” Crane said. 

In response to his investigation, the IG suggested two key recommendations for CBP, which includes working “with the National Targeting Center to establish other means to manage risks, if any, posed by visa holders who received interview waivers.” 

He also “recommended that CBP develop and implement a comprehensive plan to analyze trends and risks posed by aliens whose consular interviews were waived.” FAIR wrote that CBP concurs with those recommendations. 

Another recommendation put forth by FAIR suggests that Congress “revisit the exemptions it provided under the law and severely limit or do away altogether any waiver of the personal interview for visa applicants,” claiming it was a matter “of national security and the safety of Americans.” 

FBI DIrector Christopher Wray months ago warned Congress that the United States is in very dangerous times and another terrorist attack could happen “at any time.”