President Trump can’t solve every problem America faces. But the recent arrests of two crooks in New York City highlight two problems he can solve: loose visa-waiver standards and obstacles to removing criminal aliens.

On Feb. 4, FBI agents arrested Dimitriy Nezhinskiy and Juan Villar, who ran a pawn shop that, according to authorities, fenced luxury goods stolen by Chilean professional burglars who entered the U.S. via the Visa Waiver Program.

Mr. Nezhinskiy, a Georgian national living in New Jersey, is believed to be linked to the December 2024 robbery of NFL quarterback Joe Burrow’s home in Ohio. In January, four Chilean nationals were arrested as suspects in that case.

Mr. Nezhinskiy and Mr. Villar also have ties to Bryan Leandro Herrera Maldonado, a Chilean who was reportedly responsible for a string of home burglaries across the country in 2019 and 2020.

A different South American crime ring (also likely Chilean) was responsible for the simultaneous burglaries of Kansas City Chiefs players Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce last October.

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So how did all these Chilean professional burglars succeed in entering the U.S.? The answer is simple: through the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).

The VWP was created in 1986 to allow travelers from low-risk countries to visit the U.S. for 90 days or less without a visa – simply after filling out an online form. Currently, 40 countries are members of the program, but Chile (admitted in 2014) is the only one from Latin America.

To gain admission to the program, Chile had to sign formal agreements promising that it would share its criminal records promptly with the U.S. But over the past few years, U.S. officials have become concerned that Chile isn’t keeping its promises.

In June 2023, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for DHS to suspend Chile from the VWP. In July 2023, two Democratic congressmen from California wrote to the Chilean ambassador complaining about a rash of Orange County burglaries reportedly committed by Chileans who had entered using the VWP.

Until Chile takes measures to prevent criminals from exploiting the VWP, its participation in the program should not be automatically continued. The U.S. should suspend Chile from the program until we can be sure that they share real-time criminal records with the Department of Homeland Security.

Apart from Chile and the VWP, the arrest of Mr. Nezhinskiy underlines another problem: obstacles the U.S. faces in deporting foreign criminals.

Nezhinskiy is a Georgian national with a U.S. criminal history that dates back to 2001. In 2003, an immigration court ordered that he be deported.

But according to his recent arrest charges, Nezhinskiy “cannot be returned to his home country.” Presumably, this means that some immigration judge deemed it unsafe to send him back to Georgia.

Whether Georgia is a safe country is debatable, but what is not debatable is that U.S. citizens never invited Nezhinskiy here in the first place but are bearing the burden of harboring recidivist criminals like him.

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The U.S. shouldn’t force innocent Americans to bear the risk of foreign criminals in their midst; instead, we should raise the pressure on “recalcitrant” countries (those who refuse or unreasonably delay taking back their people) by applying economic sanctions or halting visa issuance.

Mr. Trump showed the power of such measures when he used the threat of tariffs to persuade Colombia to take back two planeloads of its people on Feb. 1.

In cases where a country is truly unsafe, there’s still no need for us to let high-risk ex-convicts continue to live here. Instead, we should send them to another country that’s willing to accept them.

Recently, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele offered to accept as many criminal aliens as we want to send, at a reasonable cost.

The U.S. should jump at such an offer—not only will it save taxpayers money, but it’ll accelerate the removal of illegal aliens with criminal records (who are statistically likely to re-offend). Some of these aliens might even decide their home countries aren’t so unsafe after all and return there on their own.

So no, Mr. Trump can’t fix every problem, but he can take immediate action to fix the visa program and amend deportation practices. If he does, he’ll have made America a much safer place.