Paloma Chacón, Principal Deputy Spokeswoman for the Department of State Joins!

Nigel Jason Hammer (0:00)

My name is Nigel Jason Hammer, right over there with a very special guest on the hotline.

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

Man, we got such a loaded hour here, this is awesome.

Nigel Jason Hammer (0:08)

We do.

SPEAKER_2 (0:08)

Principal Deputy Spokeswoman for the US State Department, Paloma Chacón joins us. Let's get into it here. Marco Rubio, not that long ago, had a big speech, and it was talking about a lot of folks that had their visas revoked.

Walk me through what that speech was about and why that's important.

Paloma Chacón (0:32)

Well, thanks so much for having me on. And yes, you're correct. Just this week, the State Department announced that we have, under the Trump administration, now revoked more than 250,000 visas.

And we are sending a very clear message. Visa security is national security. We are not going to allow individuals who have committed crimes, who have violated the terms of their visas, or who have called for violence against US citizens to be able to stay in our country on a visa and to be able to have that privilege. So this is just another way that we are keeping the American people safe by ensuring that we know who's coming to our country and what they're up to once they're here.

Nigel Jason Hammer (1:15)

Paloma, do we know if...

Obviously, there's probably many, many, many people here in the United States because of the Biden administration, of course, that are here illegally, that have their visas... They've already been revoked. Do we know how many that is?

Paloma Chacón (1:32)

Well, we are looking up to potentially hundreds of thousands of individuals who have had a visa and they have now had it revoked under the Trump administration for a whole host of reasons. Some of those reasons include maybe they've committed a crime. We've seen thousands of people who have driven under the influence, who have stolen from stores, who have assaulted Americans. We've seen individuals who violated their terms of the visa. Obviously, if you overstay your visa, you've overstayed your welcome and you are now in the country illegally. So there are a whole host of reasons why we are revoking visas and we are working with DHS to ensure that those individuals do not stay in the country.

Nigel Jason Hammer (2:16)

And yes, you explained that in the opening part of the segment. I was talking about people that were already here.

Are these people that are trying to come into the country? Or is it a mix of both?

Paloma Chacón (2:31)

I would say we're looking at all. We are looking when people apply for a visa, when they're trying to come into the country. We obviously don't want to allow anyone who is lying about who they are or who is lying about why they want to come here to come into the country. But we also don't want criminals or anyone who threatens national security to come in the country. And then in addition to that, we're also looking at those individuals who are already here in the US. And to get to your earlier point, if you had a visa and you're here in the United States and that visa expired, you are now in the country illegally and the Department of Homeland Security will remove you from the country.

SPEAKER_2 (3:10)

Paloma, there might be a lot of people hearing this that, OK, maybe this goes a little bit over their head. Walk me through why so many people have these visas and what the downside is to it.

Paloma Chacón (3:25)

Well, look, the United States welcomes millions of people a year to come to our country. We want to have people who want to do business in our country. We want people to see the beautiful national parks, to be able to go to amusement parks, to be able to come to America and see the best of America and contribute. However, the downside to what you're saying is we don't want people to take advantage. And that's what we've seen is up to hundreds of thousands of people who have taken advantage of this system, who have come here and they say that they want to go shopping or they want to go see an amusement park. And then once they get here, they're committing a crime. Or we've seen these instances of these people who have done something called birth tourism, which is where they've come to the country. And then they're actually, they say they're coming for one reason. And then they're actually here for the purpose of giving birth. So that child can have American citizenship.

So is that a big deal?