Today’s Immigration debacle and how Congress has failed Americans. Congress ordered an automated entry-exit system in 1996, that wasn’t a typo It is 2026. We still cannot tell you who left but we can tell you who came. Every overstay figure you have seen quoted is an estimate built backward from airline manifests, because there is no complete biometric exit at our land borders, not bad data, No data! Meanwhile other countries, and I won’t list them all, have a system! Thailand scans your passport on departure. Overstays pay 500 baht a day, capped at 20,000, paid at the counter before you board, plus a re-entry ban that scales from one year to ten. Indonesia: 1,000,000 rupiah a day at the departure desk. You stay past 60 days it becomes a deportation case and automatic detention! Malaysia: 300 ringgit a day. Vietnam: $25 a day. The Gulf states, Singapore, Japan, Korea, the Philippines all do it. A country that takes its own borders seriously counts people out as carefully as it counts them in. We need to finish the biometric exit. Air, land, sea. Per-day penalty at departure. Re-entry bar that has teeth !Today’s Immigration debacle and how Congress has failed Americans.
— Scott Mechkowski (@ScottMechkowski) September 13, 2026
Congress ordered an automated entry-exit system in 1996, that wasn’t a typo It is 2026. We still cannot tell you who left but we can tell you who came.
Every overstay figure you have seen quoted is an estimate…
We are not only failing to enforce the law. We are failing to measure it effectively and hold those accountable to it.
