Bill in US Cong to end aid to countries not accepting criminal immigrants

Team Udayavani, Mar 10, 2017, 11:40 AM IST

Washington DC (USA): A Republican lawmaker has introduced a legislation aimed at suspending Foreign Aid to countries that deny or delay accepting their criminal citizens who have been ordered removed from the United States.

Congressman Glenn Grothman, who introduced the bill, said that in some cases, these criminal citizens have gone on to commit other crimes after their release.

“For instance, China refused to accept a criminal Chinese citizen after he was arrested for assault and ordered deported. The criminal alien stayed in the US and later murdered the same woman he assaulted,” he said.

The bill also requires the Department of Homeland Security to submit a report to Congress once a year that lists the countries refusing to allow their criminal citizens to return.

“I find it appalling that we continue to send foreign aid dollars to countries that are actively putting Americans at risk by refusing to accept their criminal aliens, especially when our own country is so deeply in debt,” said Grothman.

“My bill shifts our immigration system back in the right direction and halts America’s condoning of this bad behaviour,” he said.

The US currently has tens of thousands of criminal immigrants that are ordered deported, yet their home countries refuse to take them back. Instead, these criminal immigrants are released back into the US, posing a threat to American citizens, his office said.

According to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State, more than 20 countries have refused to accept their criminal citizens back into their borders.

Currently, the US is planning to send USD 36.5 billion in Foreign Aid in Fiscal Year 2017 – a portion of which is sent to these countries that refuse to take back their criminal immigrants.