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Take Your Criminal Outlaws Back

Volume
Volume 158 , Number 50
Pages
Pages H1629
Legislative Body
House
Date
Tue, March 27, 2012

(Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Rep. Ted Poe

legislator photo
Party
R
State
TX

Mr. Speaker, Vietnamese citizen Binh Thai Luc was convicted of armed robbery of a Chinese restaurant in California in 1996. He received 10 years in prison. He was also ordered by an immigration judge to be deported back to Vietnam. But Vietnam has never taken back the lawfully deported criminal. U.S. law does not allow indefinite incarceration, so after an additional 180 days, Luc was released on American streets. Last weekend, Luc struck again. This time, he murdered five people in San Francisco.

Mr. Speaker, there should be consequences for countries like Vietnam who fail to take back their lawfully deported criminals. There are several thousand criminals ordered deported back to their native lands where their nations just don't ever get around to taking them back. So I have introduced the Deport Foreign Convicted Criminals Act to prohibit the issuance of diplomatic visas to nations who do not take back their outlaws in a timely matter.

The blood of those five murdered victims is not only the fault of Luc, but it's also on the hands of the Vietnamese Government.

And that's just the way it is.