First and foremost, this article is inspired by this piece of absolute bullshit by Senator Banks from Indiana.
Making visa overstays a crime is unnecessary. The law is fine as it is. It’s a civil infraction. That’s enough.
But the part of the article I find absolutely horrendous is he accuses the 9/11 highjackers of overstaying their visas. As Saudis they are entitled to staying in America for up to 6 months on a B visa when issued. All of the highjackers on B visas entered the United States less than 6 months before the attack, most of them in April or May. None of them entered the country illegally.
In order to conduct anti-terrorism, we need to get the facts straight. Terrorism is a very serious threat, as is Salafi Islam, and we need to take them seriously.
Reading through the page I have some recommendations to bring our response in line with the actual causes for how the attack happened. Be warned, the Saudi government is really not going to like this.
- Abolish ESTA. ESTA is the famous government waste and inefficiency Elon Musk keeps going on about. It does not keep America safe. Allow citizens of democracies with low visa overstay rates to come to the USA without any form of visa through eGates. Right wingers who blabber about government waste are the ones who generally create wasteful programs like ESTA. We should cut real government waste. Abolish ESTA.
- Saudi and UAE citizens can only get B visas for up to 6 months validity as a result of the 9/11 attack. Currently they are valid for ten years.
- Qatari citizens can only get B visas for up to 6 months validity because of their collaboration with the Taliban. Currently they are valid for ten years.
- Strengthen anti-money laundering laws to ensure there is no path for American money to end up in the hands of terrorists.
They are really not going to like the last piece.
But fuck them.
