After reading the post concerning the man with an expired visa found driving a truck with  explosive residue near a NAS I wonder:

Does INS actually attempt to find people in the U.S. with expired visas?

Does anyone verify that people on student visas actually are attending a university?

I don't know about you, but Visa always mails me a new card before mine expires. I don't think they care if you go to school or not.

My guess would be no.. and no on a governmental level and yes/kinda on an academia level.

The first would be an equivalent to looking for Juan Hernandez (no offense to any Juan Hernandezs' reading this) out of Guadeloupe after he crossed the border illegally. They just don't have the resources. I have stayed often times in Germany and Austria past my 90 days (although granted it is an automatic visa situation( and no one came looking for me.

Now if INS would flag an expired visa on routine LE stops (upload current outstanding visa's on NCIC), that would prolly help root out quite a few. But red tape will always get in the way.

Secondly, in some cases the school will cancel the visa if you're attendance falls below accepted levels, but once you complete a set number of hours - You can take 1 hour a week and still have a valid student visa/extensions, often times long enough for the induhvidual to become naturalised.

There is the solution/and the proplem..
As I understand it.. you can be pulled over for X reason. You can [b]tell[/b] them your visa is expired and as long as you dont get charged with a felony ,, you will sign you rticket and off you go..

Now if cops started enforceing the expired Visa thing .. can you imagine the overflow on the first day?

So if stopped for speeding one can be detained for unpaid tickets but not if you are in the country illegally.  This kind of puts the fingerprint issue into perspective. What are they going to do with the fingerprints if they don't do anything about folks with expired visa when they are found. I guess they would be good for IDing the bodies of terrorist after an attack.

If you are found in the USA with an expired visa you should be invited to
stay, 10 years free of charge at one of our nice penitentiaries.

If you are found to have a nonlegal person living in your house. The home
owners should be given 10 years in jail. Their kids can be taken away
and given to the state system to deal with.

The Government should give $5,000 for each tip leading to the arrest of
a non legal person living here.

It would be cheaper to deport them.  Think of the cost of housing and feeding someone for 10 years.

Feeding???? Who said anything about feeding?

I was thinking Visa card, too....

Scott

No they are not allowed to actively look for expired visas.
The schools shield these illegals. It is a source of revenue for them.
The INS management is all about CUSTOMER service.

Political correctness is a priority. If a person complains that agents appear threatening because they have a gun. A directive is sent down that all agents on the line are not to have weapons. I don't know about you but I want my border guards intimadating and armed.

INS Enforcement agents are required to issue work cards and green cards to illegals at a downtown office after inspection duties. They should be arresting them.

If any agent tries to enforce the laws the liberal news media does all it can to make them look bad.
So once again the spineless management backs down.
Here is a link of the media trashing one INS field office and making our borders safer for the sappers and terrorists.

[url]http://www.oregonlive.com/ins/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/12/lc_51cultr14.frame[/url]

Sorry for the on and on and on but I heard it from a team of agents for years of how they are not allowed to do their jobs. If they do they are fired.

To expect this agency to protect our borders is a joke.

Ha!  I wish this were true, it wouldn't have taken four years for the INS to process my green card paperwork.  Oh, maybe I should have been an illegal, then they would have given me a green card just like that.  Get real.  You obviously haven't been on the "customer side" of the INS.

A couple of things that no one in this discussion has even mentioned (ignorance is bliss):
According to US immigration law, there is a legal difference between [b]having a visa[/b] and [b]being in status[/b].  A visa is simply a stamp in a passport.  A visa is valid for a certain period of time and admits the holder to the US for a certain purpose, such as studying, tourism, temporary work, etc.  A visa only allows the holder to [b]cross the US border and enter the US[/b].

Once an alien is in the US, the [b]visa[/b] ceases to be relevant.  What is legally important is that the alien "remains in status", a term much wider.  This includes and is not limited to:
Continuing the purpose for which the visa was granted.  E.g.  A student may not work, a visitor may not study.
Further restrictions:  generally, students must sign up for at least 9 credit hours per semester.  Someone given a visa for temporary work can work for only the company which sponsored him for the visa.

If the alien disobeys these conditions, the alien [b]automatically[/b] falls "out of status", and becomes deportable, even if the visa stamp is valid.  E.g.  A student starts working without authorization.  A tourist enrolls at a college.

An alien can also remain "in status" but can change his purpose by applying to the INS.  For instance a tourist can ask the INS for permission to study.  If the INS grants permission, the INS will officially change the status of the alien to be a student.  This means that the original tourist visa becomes [b]null and void[/b], yet the alien is legally present in the United States.  Oddly enough, if he leaves the US for any reason, even temporary, the visa (which allows him to cross the border) is null and void, and he has to apply for a new student visa at a US consulate overseas.

There are also lots of other little goodies in immigration law like:
A student's visa stamp can expire, yet the student can remain legally in the US as long as he continues his course of study.
Citizens of many countries, such as Canada and the UK, do not need a visa to enter the US for tourism.

So to sum up:  if you meet a person who shows you a visa that is expired:
a)  The person may now be an illegal.
b)  The person may have taken other steps to remain in status, and may be lawfully present in the country.  Correctly determining his status may require a phone call to the INS and their computers.

(to be contd.)

I am surprised that someone who has been through the US immigration process would actually propose this.  (This may be part of the commonplace "I am inside, now let's close the gate behind me" syndrome.)  The immigration laws are so complex that it is [b]commonplace for different INS agents to give different answers to the same legal question[/b].  This has happened to me personally at least two times, and I have heard of it happening countless times.  In one of the cases, after consulting a lawyer, I determined that if I had followed one of the agents' advice, [b]I would have been breaking the law[/b], yet if I had done so, I would not have been able to offer the agent’s incompetence as a defense.

If the INS cannot interpret the laws that its agents are [b]trained[/b] to enforce, I can only imagine the chaos that would result from untrained local law enforcement attempting to determine who is in status and who has valid visas.  [u]It would probably be feasible if the local law enforcement officers were given extensive training before being sent out to intercept foreign-looking people and demand visas from them[/u].  Anything short of this will be result in something like the current airline security system.  No doubt this is acceptable to some people (they're only damn foreigners after all), but ask yourself:  do you want your local LEOs keeping the peace in your neighborhood or spending their time wading through and interpreting INS regulations?

I think that it is not wise for local law enforcement to enforce:
Federal Customs Laws and Regulations
Federal Firearm Laws and Regulations
Federal Immigration Laws and Regulations

What needs to be done is for the INS to be completely reformed from top to bottom.  It's greatest problem is that its many decent and capable officers are rendered ineffective in a rudderless bureaucracy where the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.

Once the bureaucracy is reformed, then the INS can start consolidating its computer and paper systems into a coherent whole, so that each alien could quote or produce a number, which would allow that alien's status to be instantly checked.  This would also require merging of data from the US State Dept. (they are the people who actually issue the visas overseas), the universities and other sources.  The US Dept. of Justice has started a program for the universities, where the International Student Office at a university will upload their student information over the Internet, including information on whether the student is currently registered for the minimum coursework and is attending classes.  The INS will then be able to cross check this information against their alien records and determine which students have dropped out and need to be tracked down.

Ckapsl, I agree that INS needs to be reformed. It appears that the rate at which they work or don't work probably causes some people to fall "out of status".  I am not suggesting that local police enforce immigration law.  What I suggest is that if thepolice stop you for speeding and find that you are "out of status" that they simply detain you for INS. Currently, the policewill detain you if you have warrant for failure to appear in court for something as small as speeding tickets. The INS will have to get there act together before this could ever work.

I heard something on the radio this morning that seemed to be a good idea.  Prior to Sept. 11 Florida issued  driver license to aliens for a full six years independent of the duration of their visa. After Sept. 11 they now issue a drivers license for only the duration of the visa.

ckapsl

Its all true.  You went to the wrong office!

Exactly.