The Obama Administration has been issuing passports to people involved in sex tourism since the beginning of his presidency. The reason, they did not know that in December 2008 then President Bush signed a law to deny these people passports. Considering Obama was the President-elect you would think that he might what to pay attention to what laws were going into affect right before he took office, or at least have someone pay attention for him. The GAO (Government Accounting Office) says that it wasn't until this April that the state department was informed of this law.
This is dereliction of duty by the President and his Sec of State. To not be aware of a law that is supposed to keep children safe from sexual predators is abhorrent. Oh and it gets worse, "In one case study, the sex offender was issued a passport in his name while in prison, which is allowed under federal law, while another was issued a passport after becoming delinquent in child support, an offense for which State must deny passports. Based on interviews with local police departments, several of our cases showed that sex offenders left the country and moved to Mexico." Mexico is a country listed as a sex tourism destination by our State department. I guess these people are now having a good time having sex with children in Mexico.
Now you would think the State Department would just take responsibility say we'll make sure this doesn't ever happen again and be done with it. However their response was something quite different, The State Department also took issue with the title of the GAO report, "Passports Issued to Thousands of Registered Sex Offenders," calling it "misleading." We are concerned that it conveys more 'shock value' than factual accuracy," reads the response. The title also fails to convey that GAO found no evidence that the offenders used their passports to commit sex offenses abroad," the letter reads.
Well of course these people didn't use their passports to commit sex crimes abroad they just wanted to go to a country that the U.S. list has a sex tourism destination to get a tan. GIVE ME A BREAK! Now I'm not saying every person that goes to Mexico is involved in sex trafficking, but if your already involved in that industry I think it's a pretty good bet that's why your going there.
Surely that's all the bad news out of this report, unfortunately no.
Additionally, 30 of the sex offenders who are federal employees were identified through salary data provided by the Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Postal Service and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.
"It also is disturbing that the GAO found examples prior to that new law where the State Department issued passports to convicted sex offenders who fled law enforcement, received government housing subsidies and work for the Post Office. This report raises a lot of serious questions about how effectively the government protects us from child predators," Grassley said.
WOW! Let me see if I have this right not only were they fleeing from law enforcement that were also give government housing and jobs. Not just any jobs, but jobs in the postal service which means they might be putting the mail in my box every day. If that doesn't scare you I guess nothing does. I think it should go without saying that sex offenders should not be allowed to have federal or state employment. I like to think we could find a better character of person to work in our government, but wait there's more.
According to GAO, about half of the 4,500 sex offenders who received passports lived in five states -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Michigan -- and at least 12 individuals were approved landlords in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 8 housing program during the two years before the study's time frame.
So it's not bad enough that people have to live in government housing, but now they have a sex offender has their landlord. Would you want a sex offender coming to your door collecting rent once a month. I'm not saying they need Donald Trump to be the landlord but could we at least find someone who isn't a sex criminal.
Finally, "The GAO acknowledged that the number of sex offenders it found receiving passports might have been low, because the data compared passport database records to the National Sex Offender Registry, which could lack or contain invalid Social Security numbers."
So the GAO is saying that with all the bad news in this article the situation is probably worse than we know.
Now not all this happened on President Obama's watch, but President Bush signed a law aimed at dealing with this and President Obama basically didn't bother to find out about that law. How can you be President and not know about a law that was signed about one month before you took the Oath of office? It's not like it was signed 30 years ago and everyone had forgotten about it, or that it was an unimportant and seldom used statue that just appeared in a line of a bill. This was a law written to protect children and punish sex traffickers from other countries.
The GAO lays out some examples of what it is talking about on pages 11-13 of it's report. You can find the report at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10643.pdf
However I should warn you that it is very disturbing.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/15/thousands-sex-offenders-issued-passports-travel-abroad/
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