GOP bill proposes to prohibit illegal immigrants from boarding commercial flights

EXCLUSIVE — A senior House Republican is poised to introduce legislation that would ban illegal immigrants from flying into the United States from abroad or from the border without the same documents that the general traveling public must have, the Washington Examiner has learned.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) will debut the Verifying that All Illegal Aliens Have Legitimate Documents, or VALID, Act on Thursday in an attempt to shut down lawful pathways for immigration that the Biden administration has rolled out and admitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the country through.

“While Americans must show proper identification to board their flights, illegal immigrants are not required to do so,” Green said in a statement. “Illegal immigrants should have to comply with the same laws as American citizens, especially when it comes to valid identification. Refusing to enforce these laws poses severe national security risks.”

Green’s bill specifically forbids the Department of Homeland Security agency the Transporation Security Administration from admitting airline passengers through security checkpoints at U.S. airports if they do not have proper travel documents, a standard that millions of illegal immigrants released from the border into the country under the Biden administration have been allowed to get around by showing immigration papers obtained while in federal custody.

The bill would also clamp down on foreign and domestic airlines by banning them from transporting passengers who use immigration documents as identification to board a flight.

Green cited DHS agency U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s “CBP One” app as a mechanism that the Biden administration has used to direct immigrants in Mexico to show up at ports of entry along the southern border for appointments, where more than 9-in-10 immigrants are paroled into the country.

“The Biden administration is recklessly allowing migrants to use the CBP One app or even their Border Patrol arrest documents as identification. This puts Americans at risk,” Green said.

The bill has 17 co-sponsors so far. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is backing similar legislation in the Senate.

“Every American needs to show ID to enter our country. So why do we make it simpler for illegal immigrants to come in than for our own people?” Lee said in a statement.

In January 2023, DHS announced it was expanding the CBP One app to allow immigrants who had made the journey to northern Mexico but had not yet crossed into the U.S. to apply for an appointment with a U.S. customs officer rather than enter illegally.

By using the app, immigrants could submit biographical information in advance and schedule an appointment at a specific time and date to determine if they met the criteria for being released into the country while waiting for immigration proceedings.

Information provided by users, including a picture, could be reviewed and screened against criminal and terrorism databases.

Still, former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf from the Trump administration said the vetting that federal law enforcement does of immigrants who apply for appointments was inadequate.

“Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s policy of allowing illegal aliens to use documents with unverifiable and unvetted information to board commercial aircraft defies common sense and congressional will and makes it easier for illegal aliens to travel than U.S. citizens and legal immigrants,” Wolf, executive director of the America First Policy Institute, said in a statement.

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Seventeen co-sponsors have signed on to the bill as of Thursday morning, including Reps. Andy Ogles (R-TN), Burgess Owens (R-UT), Troy Nehls (R-TX), Jake Ellzey (R-TX), Bob Good (R-VA), Tom Tiffany (R-WI), Bill Posey (R-FL), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Randy Weber (R-TX), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Dale Strong (R-AL), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ), and Scott Perry (R-PA).

DHS did not respond to a request for comment.