Congress Shuns Passenger Safety in FAA Reauthorization
By Joe Guzzardi
The summer vacation travel schedule is just weeks away. Those who journey by air worry about the terrifying sequence of near-disasters that occurred during the past year, and are keeping their fingers crossed that their flights will take off and land without incident. Boeing has been at the forefront of quality concerns; after a six-week audit, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the agency found “multiple instances” of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, which supplies the aircraft manufacturer with fuselages, of failing to “comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.” As potential passengers look for ways to know what plane they’ll likely be on, airlines and booking sites offer alternatives for customers including omitting the troubled Boeing Max 9 from flight search results.The summer vacation travel schedule is just weeks away. Those who journey by air worry about the tThe summer vacation travel schedule is just weeks away. Those who journey by air worry about the terrifying sequence of near-disasters that occurred during the past year, and are keeping their fingers crossed that their flights will take off and land without incident. Boeing has been at the forefront of quality concerns; after a six-week audit, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the agency found “multiple instances” of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, which supplies the aircraft manufacturer with fuselages, of failing to “comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.” As potential passengers look for ways to know what plane they’ll likely be on, airlines and booking sites offer alternatives for customers including omitting the troubled Boeing Max 9 from flight search results.
While passengers worry that doors may blow out mid-air or tires might fall off during take-off, another grave but mostly unknown danger lurks. Unvetted illegal aliens are allowed on commercial flights, thanks to the Biden administration’s ongoing commitment to welcoming to America millions from around the world whose backgrounds and intentions are unknown. Currently, no U.S. citizens, lawful permanent resident immigrants, or legally present nonimmigrants may board an aircraft traveling to or within the United States without presenting a valid, government-issued photo ID or presenting one of numerous TSA-acceptable documents that will be closely scrutinized. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and unvetted parolees can board aircraft for travel to or within the U. S. based solely on the biographic information they provided on the CBP-One app or verbally gave to the Border Patrol agents that processed them before releasing them into the interior. The name they provided could be fictional. Worse, the illegal aliens could have a criminal record and/or criminal intent.
This sequence of events regarding illegal aliens’ movements is, from beginning to end, illegal and unconstitutional. Border patrol agents should arrest, not release illegal aliens. The CBP-One app is an illegal scheme that the Biden administration cooked up to ease entry for inadmissible aliens at an official port of entry, and thereby make the masses accumulated at border less dramatic, and less politically damaging. The bogus app, not congressionally approved, eventually leads to parole and work permission. Biden has unconstitutionally abused the parole privilege, legally intended to be granted on a case-by-case basis, and not handed out en masse to thousands of illegal aliens. Through March 2024, 326,000 illegal aliens have arrived via air; the most adversely affected cities are Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and New York with respectively, 91,821, 60,461, and 14,827.
An opportunity to right Biden’s criminal wrongs regarding aliens’ air travel arrangements depends on Congress which has begun its deliberations on the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Congress can close the policy loophole that threatens public safety, allowing unvetted individuals with unverifiable identification to board aircraft traveling to or within the U.S. This is a clear and unacceptable public safety and national security risk. The FAA’s stated mission is “to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.” On September 11, 2001, the U. S. learned the hard way that the nation must put primary emphasis on “safest” when it comes to air travel. As a direct result of 9/11, Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005, which requires states to fortify the security features of driver’s licenses and verify the citizenship or lawful immigration status of recipients of such licenses. Real ID was originally set to be enforced in 2008 but, because of congressional disinterest in enforcement, it has been delayed multiple times. The revised Real ID deadline for compliance with the identification requirements is 2025.
By allowing illegal aliens and parolees to board aircraft based only on the information they entered on the CBP-One app or that an overworked, dispirited Border Patrol agent filled in on Notice to Appear (NTA) or Notice to Report (NTR) forms, air carriers and the Department of Homeland Security are putting citizens or legally present immigrant passengers at risk. Such disinterest is especially troubling when FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned of an elevated threat from foreign terrorist organizations and admitted that record numbers of known terrorists have crossed the southern border. In FY 2023, agents apprehended 736 known or suspected terrorists at the Southwest border, the largest total in U.S. history.
The May 1oth deadline FAA reauthorization is at hand and legislators must move quickly to reach an accord on the 1,o68-page aviation bill. But seven last-minute proposed amendments threaten to derail what several senators are referring to as “must-pass” legislation. Some of the amendments included changes to credit card swipe fees, pilots ages, flights into and out of Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport. Congress should have included in the legislation to reauthorize the FAA Utah Senator Mike Lee’s S. 4051, the Verifying that all Aliens have Legitimate Identification Documents Act (the VALID Act). The VALID Act closes the dangerous loophole by prohibiting air carriers and DHS from accepting the CBP-One app, NTAs, or NTRs to board aircraft traveling to or within the United States. The simple result of passing legislation that includes VALID Act provisions is that every passenger on every flight operating in the U.S. will have presented verifiable photo identification prior to boarding. Without the VALID Act included in the reauthorization legislation, the FAA will not be able “to provide the safest…aerospace system in the world.” Introduced on March 22nd but, as of May 7th, the VALID Act has only ten co-sponsors, all Republicans. Travelers should be outraged that their security has been compromised so that illegal aliens can move about the country they don’t belong in with utmost ease, a disappointing revelation about how little either side of the aisle cares about citizens’ safety.
Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.
Congress Shuns Passenger Safety in FAA Reauthorization