Statewide Iowa — Senator Joni Ernst is the lead sponsor of legislation that would make it clear immigrants and refugees seeking asylum should be barred from entering the United States if they have been convicted of a serious sex crime.
Under current federal immigration law, those seeking entry into the U.S. may be barred or deported if they have been convicted of an aggravated felony or deviant behavior in another country. Ernst suggests federal law should be more specific.
Eleven Republican Senators are co-sponsoring the bill, including Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. Ernst says there’s no hard data about how many foreign nationals with a sex crime conviction may have been admitted into the United States.
The U.S. Border Patrol recently announced it had arrested a Guatemalan man in Texas, near the Mexican border, who had been convicted a dozen years ago of a felony sex crime in Buena Vista County, Iowa. The agency said the man had been properly processed, but it’s not clear if that means the man was held in U.S. custody or deported.
