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Don’t give visas to Indians, top US senator asks Obama administration

A top US senator has asked Obama administration to stop issuing visas to Indians and foreign nationals of 22 other countries including China because their governments, according to him, don’t cooperate in taking back illegal immigrants from the US.

India TV News Desk India TV News Desk Published on: June 28, 2016 13:38 IST
Chuck Grassley
Chuck Grassley

Washington: A top US senator has asked Obama administration to stop issuing visas to Indians and foreign nationals of 22 other countries including China because their governments, according to him, don’t cooperate in taking back illegal immigrants from the US.

Chuck Grassley, a Republicamn senator, has written a letter to US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in which he has expressed his concern over these countries not cooperating in taking back their nationals who have ‘illegally’ entered US.

 “Dangerous criminals, including murderers, are being released every day because their home countries will not cooperate in taking them back,” Republican senator Chuck Grassley said in a letter to the Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

In fiscal year 2015 alone, 2,166 individuals were released in the US because of this decision and the non-cooperation from recalcitrant countries; more than 6,100 were released in the preceding two years, Grassley, who is the senate judiciary committee chairperson, said.

Currently, 23 countries are labelled by the US as uncooperative, with the top five most recalcitrant countries being Cuba, China, Somalia, India, and Ghana, Grassley said.

In addition, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is monitoring another 62 nations where cooperation is strained, but which are not yet deemed recalcitrant.

In the letter to Johnson, Grassley reminded him that, Congress addressed this problem when it enacted section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“Under section 243(d), the secretary of state is required to discontinue granting immigrant or non-immigrant visas to a country upon receiving notice from you that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country,” he said.

“This tool has been used only once, in the case of Guyana in 2001, where it had an immediate effect, resulting in obtaining cooperation from Guyana within two months,” Grassley said.

(With PTI inputs)

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