(Headline USA) House Republicans sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security this week asking for additional information on an “extremely troubling” policy that allows illegal immigrants to use civil arrest warrants as a form of ID to board airplanes.
Led by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., two dozen Republicans signed the letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding answers on the Transportation Security Administration policy, which allows illegal immigrants to use forms of identification not normally listed on TSA’s acceptable form of ID list.
These documents are not secure documents and can easily be forged, copied, or otherwise manipulated,” the letter, obtained by Fox News, said.
“Given the fact that American citizens are constantly being reminded that their IDs will soon need to be REAL ID compliant to board an airplane, it is extremely troubling that TSA is allowing illegal aliens to use nonsecure documents as IDs to board planes,” the lawmakers wrote.
Republicans also pressed the TSA on this policy during a Senate hearing last month. When asked how many arrest warrants or deportation notices TSA had approved this year, TSA Administrator David Pekoske said “under 1,000.”
House Republicans, however, are skeptical of that number.
“This number seems extremely low given the fact that DHS has released nearly 500,000 illegal aliens into the United States so far this year,” they wrote.
Pekoske argued during the hearing that the policy marks the beginning of an identification verification process.
“These individuals who have these arrest warrants, these arrest warrants were issued by Border Patrol or a customs officer, and they serve as a beginning of our identity verification process so you can’t walk up to a checkpoint, wave that form and then go right through into screening,” he said at the time.
But House Republicans argued the government shouldn’t be worried about an identification process for illegal immigrants at all, and should instead deport them as soon as they are caught crossing into the country illegally.
“The fact that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used directly or indirectly to pay for illegal aliens to be transported throughout the country is a slap in the face to all law-abiding, tax-paying Americans,” they wrote.
“Instead of using taxpayer funds to transport illegal aliens, DHS should be using those funds to acquire additional detention space so that it may detain the illegal aliens as required by law.”
