Senator JD Vance stands against politicization of DOJ

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator JD Vance (R-OH) followed through on his promise to hold nominees to the Biden administration's Department of Justice (DOJ). Senator Vance originally announced his hold policy in June in response to the Biden DOJ's unprecedented political prosecution of President Donald J. Trump.

In an objection to an effort by Senate Democrats to confirm a DOJ nominee by unanimous consent, Senator Vance issued the following remarks:

Senator Vance: "The Biden administration is not sending its best to the Department of Justice. Many of the nominees are unqualified, some of them seem actively corrupt and some, I assume, are good people. But the problem is not this specific nominee. The problem is the fact that the Department of Justice has been corrupted under the Biden administration, and there needs to be some reckoning with the American people and with this body and with the nominations process before we allow these nominees to glide path to the confirmation process.

"Let's just talk about a tale of two leaders in this country right now, one a Democrat and one a Republican. Of course, the president of the United States, his son, Hunter Biden, has multiple federal charges, multiple federal investigations that implicate directly on the president's business dealings, may very well implicate the president directly, and plausibly could lead to some significant problems for the president in the presidential election. Yesterday, the plea deal that the Department of Justice cut with Hunter Biden fell apart under minimal scrutiny from the federal judge in that case. 

"That is how the Department of Justice treats the Democratic leadership in this country: with kid gloves, even in the face of very serious corruption. Now, let's ask ourselves how they treat the former Republican President in the face of a classified document 'scandal' where, literally, the claim is that the president of the United States mishandled the documents of his own administration.

"Now, nobody doubts that President Trump had the right to declassify the documents at issue in this case. The argument is that he didn't and therefore they want to throw him in jail. Is that really what we're doing at the height of a presidential campaign? Trying to throw the former president in jail, the likely leader of the opposition in prison, because he didn't cross the T's and dot the I's on the classification or declassification process?

"This is a ridiculous scandal in our entire country. And look, whether these nominees are qualified or not qualified, we should have a vote and make that determination as a body. It's not, at the end of the day, as I've learned in eight months, all that difficult and all that hard to vote. But we have to stop giving these nominees the glide path until Merrick Garland commits to using the Department of Justice for justice and not for politics as it's being used today."

For Background:

Senator Vance's hold on the Biden Administration's DOJ nominees ensures nominees face confirmation votes before the entire U.S. Senate, rather than confirmation without debate through unanimous consent.

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Vance introduces legislation to 
crack down on illegal visa overstays

Senator JD Vance (R-OH) has introduced legislation to crack down on illegal visa overstays. According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there are nearly 700,000 visa overstays each year. 

The Timely Departure Act would create a visa bond system requiring non-immigrant visa recipients to deposit a sum of money into a holding account with DHS before entering the United States. That money would be returned to visa holders if they depart the country in accordance with the terms of their visa. However, DHS will retain the money in the event of an illegal overstay.
 
“America is a welcoming nation, but we are also a nation of laws,” said Senator Vance. “There are millions of people in this country who have abused our visa system and circumvented our legal immigration process. It is a slap in the face to the working-class Ohioans whose wages are suffering – I will not stand for it. I'm proud to introduce this legislation and bring some sanity to our broken immigration system.”
 
The required deposit under this legislation would fall between $5,000 and $15,000. In the event of an illegal overstay, DHS would retain the forfeited deposit in an account that can only be used to fund the detention and removal of illegal aliens. 

Under the Timely Departure Act, overstayers who fail to claim asylum before the expiration of their visas would be ineligible to make a defensive asylum claim after their visas expire. The visa bond program created by this legislation would not apply to aliens from countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program, whose overstay rates are relatively low.