Sex offenders file to bring wives, kids into U.S.
McALLEN — Women and children from other countries may be put at risk by American immigration laws.
In fiscal year 2005, nearly 400 convicted sex offenders filed 420 petitions with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to bring their non-citizen spouses, fiancées and children into the United States, according to a Government Accountability Office report released earlier this month.
And 45 percent of those petitions have been approved. Only 1 percent of the petitions have been denied, and the rest are pending.
Under current immigration law, convicted sex offenders are not prohibited from petitioning to bring family members, or fiancées and their unmarried children, to this country.
“You have to keep in mind that 20 percent of sexual assaults are ever reported,” said Karen Rugaard, communications and marketing director for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.
Even fewer cases ever go to trial and fewer suspects are found guilty.
“In reality, it’s probably a much greater number (of sex offenders),” she said.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act in Sept. 2005 that would have prevented felons convicted of sexual assault, domestic violence and elder abuse from making petitions, but it was shot down by the Senate in conference.
“Too often we hear heart-wrenching stories of how sex offenders prey upon their victims, particularly children, and wonder, ‘How could this happen?’” said U.S. Rep. John Hostettler, R-Indiana, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims. Hostettler ordered the report.
“I am determined to examine every possible legislative remedy to ensure that our immigration system does not put women and children in harm’s way by allowing convicted sex offenders to file petitions to bring them to the United States,” he said in a statement.
The study was ordered after congressmen learned about the problem through discussions with the Department of Homeland Security.
“(U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) only began checking the background of petitioners against multiple criminal databases after 9/11 — in 2002,” said committee spokesman Terry Shawn in an e-mail. “Before that, (the agency) only checked the criminal history of beneficiaries. When they started (checking petitioners), they started getting ‘hits’ against the national sex offender registry.”
The national registry, available to the public online at www.nsopr.gov, collects data on convicted sex offenders from most states, including Texas. The database contains information on 413,000 sex offenders guilty of crimes ranging from rape, indecent exposure and incest with both adults and children.
The GAO report reveals that most of the people the sex offenders were trying to bring to the United States were spouses and fiancées, but the number of petitions for children could be underestimated.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service data only includes information on the primary beneficiary.
For example, a petition filed for a fiancée, the primary beneficiary, could also include her children, the derivative beneficiaries.
So while only 33 petitions for children were filed, at least 60 unmarried children under 21 years of age could be affected.
Under the Violence Against Women Act, citizenship officials must disclose to fiancée beneficiaries if their petitioners has a criminal history, Shawn said.
But there is a push within the House to change the law to make it illegal for sex offenders to have their family-based petitions accepted, he added.
Allison Taylor, executive director for the Council on Sex Offender Treatment doesn’t see a blanket law banning a specific sect of criminals from having families as the answer.
“We’ve got to take a rational approach to sex offenders,” she said.
There is a difference between a 48-year-old pedophile and a 19-year-old boy who has sex with his 16-year-old consenting girlfriend, she said. The data doesn’t distinguish the sex offenders. Steps need to be taken to accurately identify the types of sex offenders you are dealing with and assess their risk.
“You never assume a sex offender is not dangerous,” she said, adding, “… sex offenders are not a homogenous mixture.”
Eighty to 90 percent of sexual abuse occurs within the family.
Instead of looking at the problem with a purely punitive approach, laws should focus on proven prevention methods, Taylor said.
“It’s not illegal for a sex offender to have a family,” Rugaard said.
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