In 2006, American authorities granted Alejandro Saul Rico a B1 visitor visa. He and his family were going to visit Disney World. Twenty years later, Rico has a criminal record in Maryland and a very long-expired visa.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a press release on June 23 explaining how Rico entered the country legally but is now an illegal alien (along with the rest of his family) because his visitor visa expired at least a decade ago. The Argentinian national's supposedly brief family vacation to the famous Disney theme parks in Florida gave him the opening to live for two decades in the USA, where he also expressed his gratitude by committing serious crimes.
Rico's criminal history includes an assault conviction and a third-degree sex offense arrest in Maryland, per the DHS press release. Law enforcement conducted a targeted operation in Silver Spring, Md., to arrest the illegal alien. Rico has since admitted to the feds that he and his family entered the USA on that long-ago tourist visa.
Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said, “This criminal illegal alien overstayed his visa after visiting Disney World, has been convicted of assault, and has a prior arrest for a sex offense.”
She added, “Too many illegal aliens believe they can overstay a visa, disappear into the interior of the country, and avoid the consequences of violating our immigration laws. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, we are restoring integrity to our visa programs and ensuring visas are not used as a one-way ticket for criminals to come to our country and exploit our laws.”
Related: Convicted: Three More Noncitizens Who Voted in U.S. Elections
As mentioned above, Rico's original visitor visa was from 2006 and it expired in 2016, which seems in and of itself a dangerous length of time for a "visitor" visa. B1 visas need reform in general, too. They can be valid usually for a few months but sometimes for up to ten years; again, a length of time contradictory to the idea of being only a visitor in a country.
Our immigration system is broken in so many ways that it's difficult to get one's mind around it all. There are illegal aliens who sneak across the border or (under the Biden administration) flew into the country. There are countless foreigners who come here on H-1B visas to take Americans' jobs. There are the aliens who obtained lawful resident status but only by lying to authorities or by convincing immigration authorities to ignore their criminal or terrorist ties.
There are the "birth tourists" who travel to the U.S. to give birth to automatic U.S. citizens, allowing the families to have a permanent foothold in America too. There are the illegal aliens who have anchor babies for the same reason, since they now they have citizen family members. There are foreigners who use "temporary protected status" for decades, making it anything but temporary. And there are the aliens who overstay their student or visitor visas like Rico. No matter the method of entry, all of those aliens are potential threats to American citizens, while receiving unfair advantages over legal immigrants.
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