[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HINDER THE ADMINISTRATION'S LEGALIZATION TEMPTATION (HALT) ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
IMMIGRATION POLICY AND ENFORCEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 2497
__________
JULY 26, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-50
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERROLD NADLER, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia Virginia
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ZOE LOFGREN, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
MIKE PENCE, Indiana MAXINE WATERS, California
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
STEVE KING, Iowa HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona Georgia
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
JIM JORDAN, Ohio MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
TED POE, Texas JUDY CHU, California
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah TED DEUTCH, Florida
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina
DENNIS ROSS, Florida
SANDY ADAMS, Florida
BEN QUAYLE, Arizona
[Vacant]
Sean McLaughlin, Majority Chief of Staff and General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement
ELTON GALLEGLY, California, Chairman
STEVE KING, Iowa, Vice-Chairman
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
TED POE, Texas MAXINE WATERS, California
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
DENNIS ROSS, Florida
George Fishman, Chief Counsel
David Shahoulian, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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JULY 26, 2011
Page
THE BILL
H.R. 2497, the ``Hinder the Administration's Legalization
Temptation (HALT) Act''........................................ 3
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Elton Gallegly, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Immigration Policy and Enforcement............................. 1
The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary....... 8
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Immigration Policy and Enforcement............................. 9
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on the
Judiciary...................................................... 10
WITNESSES
Chris Crane, President, National ICE Council
Oral Testimony................................................. 17
Prepared Statement............................................. 20
Jessica M. Vaughan, Policy Director, Center for Immigration
Studies
Oral Testimony................................................. 29
Prepared Statement............................................. 32
Margaret D. Stock, Adjunct Professor, University of Alaska-
Anchorage
Oral Testimony................................................. 39
Prepared Statement............................................. 42
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Prepared Statement of the Honorable David Vitter, a U.S. Senator
from the State of Louisiana.................................... 14
Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative
in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement............. 66
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of Richard T. Foltin, Esq., Director of
National and Legislative Affairs, Office of Government and
International Affairs, American Jewish Committee............... 107
Letter from Nelson Peacock, Assistant Secretary, Office of
Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Homeland Security...... 109
HINDER THE ADMINISTRATION'S LEGALIZATION TEMPTATION (HALT) ACT
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration
Policy and Enforcement,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:11 p.m., in
room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Elton
Gallegly (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Gallegly, Smith, Gohmert, Gowdy,
Conyers, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, and Pierluisi.
Staff Present: (Majority) George Fishman, Subcommittee
Chief Counsel; Marian White, Clerk; and (Minority) Hunter
Hammill, USCIS Detailee.
Mr. Gallegly. I call to order the Subcommittee on
Immigration Policy and Enforcement. Good afternoon.
Two weeks ago, Ranking Member Lofgren held a press
conference to denounce the HALT Act. Last week, 75 Democrats
sent a letter to President Obama to tell him that they would
work to sustain a veto on this bill.
The HALT Act, if enacted, would prevent the Obama
administration from engaging in the mass legalization of
illegal immigrants. Clearly, the lines are drawn between those
who support upholding the laws of the United States and those
who believe they should be ignored.
Immigration advocacy groups have been working for years to
convince Congress to pass mass amnesty legislation for illegal
immigrants. Upon the failure of those efforts, they have been
trying to convince the Administration to bypass Congress and
administratively legalize millions of illegal immigrants.
These groups have apparently made headway. Last month, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued two memos that laid
the groundwork for just such a mass legalization. We will hear
from witnesses today about the pressures that ICE officers are
now under to refrain from enforcing immigration laws.
In reaction, Chairman Smith and Senator Vitter introduced
the HALT Act, and amnesty advocacy groups have strongly
condemned the bill. Congress simply cannot allow the
Administration to grant parole or deferred action, except in
narrow circumstances. Congress cannot allow the Administration
to grant extended voluntary departure or cancellation of
removal, to grant work authorization except where authorized by
law, to grant temporary protective status, or to waive the bars
of admissibility for immigrants who are here illegally.
How do we handle extraordinary humanitarian situations that
are bound to occur in the interim? Congress can always act by
passing private bills to help non-U.S. citizens in the U.S. or
outside the U.S. when we deem it wise, just, and prudent.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. And at
this point, we expect the Ranking Member here shortly. But
until she comes, I will defer to the Chairman of the full
Committee, Mr. Smith, the author of the bill.
The bill, H.R. 2497, follows:]
__________
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The American people have called upon Congress to defeat
several amnesty bills in recent years. Following Congress'
rejection of these attempts, the current Administration now
wants to grant a ``backdoor amnesty'' to illegal immigrants.
What had once been rumor fueled by leaked Administration
memos is now official Department of Homeland Security policy as
of last month. The Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement issued two directives on the scope of DHS officers'
prosecutorial discretion that could allow millions of illegal
and criminal immigrants to avoid our immigration laws.
The memos tell agency officials when to exercise
prosecutorial discretion, such as when to defer the removal of
immigrants, when not to stop, question, arrest, or detain an
immigrant, and when to dismiss a removal proceeding.
The directives also tell officials not to seek to remove
illegal immigrants who have been present illegally for many
years.
Millions of illegal immigrants have been in the U.S. since
the 1990's. So the ICE directives literally apply to millions
of illegal immigrants.
DHS's plan to open the door to mass administrative amnesty
is a rejection of Congress' constitutional rights and shows
utter disdain toward the wishes of the American people.
Prosecutorial discretion is justifiable when used
responsibly. In fact, I and others asked Clinton administration
INS Commissioner Doris Meissner to issue guidelines recognizing
that ``true hardship cases [involving legal, not illegal,
immigrants] should exercise discretion.''
Commissioner Meissner did so, but she was careful to point
out that prosecutorial discretion ``must be used responsibly''
and that ``exercising prosecutorial discretion does not lessen
the INS's commitment to enforce the immigration laws to the
best of our ability. It is not an invitation to violate or
ignore the law.''
Just this March, Meissner stated that, ``Prosecutorial
discretion should be exercised on a case-by-case basis, and
should not be used to immunize entire categories of noncitizens
from immigration enforcement.''
Unfortunately, the ICE memos make clear that DHS plans not
to use but to abuse these powers. If the Obama administration
has its way, millions of illegal immigrants will be able to
live and work legally in the United States. This unilateral
decision will saddle American communities with the costs of
providing education and medical care to illegal immigrants. It
will also place our communities at risk by not deporting
criminal immigrants.
As a result, Senator Vitter and I introduced the HALT Act.
This legislation prevents the Obama administration from abusing
its authority to grant a mass administrative amnesty to illegal
immigrants.
The Obama administration should not pick and choose which
laws it will enforce. Congress must put a halt to the
Administration's backdoor amnesty.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back.
Mr. Gallegly. The gentlelady from California, the Ranking
Member, my good friend Ms. Lofgren?
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The bill we are considering today is irresponsible and
blatantly political. Bills in Congress sometimes have no basis
in fact, but this one takes that to a whole new level. It is
designed around a conspiracy theory that really boggles the
mind. And if I weren't sitting here, I wouldn't believe that
the U.S. Congress would actually waste time and money on such a
bill, but here we sit.
According to the majority, the bill is a response to a
series of recent ICE memos that lay out immigration enforcement
priorities and provide guidance on the use of agency discretion
to best meet those priorities. Actually, anyone who reads the
memos will see there is nothing sinister about them.
Like every other law enforcement agency on the planet, ICE
has limited resources, and it must lay out enforcement
priorities so that resources are not squandered. As crazy as it
sounds, these memos put terrorists, criminals, and otherwise
dangerous individuals at the top of that list.
If we can only deport a limited number of people, around
400,000 this year, the memos say, then ICE should focus its
resources on those who would do us harm. That is just common
sense.
But rather than see common sense, the majority apparently
sees a diabolical plot. They allege a grand scheme to avoid
enforcing immigration laws, even while the Obama administration
has set all-time records with respect to removals, prosecution
of immigration violations, worksite enforcement actions, fines,
jail time, and assets at the border.
In 1999, a number of congressmen sent a letter to former
Attorney General Reno stressing the importance of prosecutorial
discretion in the immigration context, asking her to issue
necessary guidance. In that letter, the congressmen cited,
``Widespread agreement that some deportations were unfair and
resulted in unjustifiable hardship,'' and they asked why the
INS pursued removal in such cases when so many other more
serious cases existed.
They urged for a prioritization of enforcement resources,
asking the Attorney General to develop INS guidelines for the
use of its prosecutorial discretion similar to those used by
U.S. attorneys.
The letter was signed by the current Chair of our Judiciary
Committee, as well as many other very conservative Members of
the House, including former Chair Henry Hyde, former Chair Jim
Sensenbrenner, Brian Bilbray, Nathan Deal, Sam Johnson, and
David Dreier. I guess prosecutorial discretion wasn't so bad
back then.
Ironically, it was the 1999 letter signed by the Chairman
that started the chain of events that lead us to the two ICE
memos at issue today. Months after Chairman Smith signed the
letter asking for guidance, guidance finally came.
Memos outlining guidelines for the use of prosecutorial
discretion were issued by the INS general counsel in July of
2000 and then issued by INS Commissioner Doris Meissner in
November of 2000 and later issued by the first ICE Director
Julie Myers in November of 2007.
These early memos are the predecessors of the two memos the
majority is complaining about today. The majority never said
anything about those earlier memos or the factors listed in
those memos until now.
In a recent ``Dear Colleague'' letter seeking support for
the HALT Act, Chairman Smith questions many of the factors
listed by ICE for exercising discretion, focusing on certain
factors, such as length of presence in the U.S., family ties,
whether a person is DREAM Act eligible, as clearly indicating
the Administration's plan to grant amnesty to millions of
undocumented immigrants. But these factors are not new in any
way. They are the same factors we have been considering for
years.
In fact, length of presence, family ties, entry during
childhood have been specifically listed as positive factors for
agency discretion since they were first listed in the memos
published by INS in 2000 in response to the Chairman's letter.
By eliminating prosecutorial discretion, it says that ICE
cannot prioritize criminals over the spouses of soldiers. It
says that ICE must go after innocent children the same way it
goes after murderers and rapists. That is absurd, and so is
this bill.
If this bill were the law, we could not grant waivers to
the spouses of U.S. citizens who would suffer extreme hardship
if they were separated; parole to the U.S. widows so they could
attend the funerals of spouses killed in action while serving
in our military; parole in orphan children to be with their
U.S. citizen grandparents; parole in orphans being adopted by
United States citizens, as we did after the Haitian earthquake;
grant TPS in case another catastrophe like the Haiti earthquake
were to happen again; grant deferred action to victims of human
trafficking and violent sexual abuse; parole in child bomb
victims in Iraq who need prosthetic limbs; or prevent
businesspeople from getting--who are lawfully present in the
United States from getting advance parole so they can do their
business abroad and be able to return home to work.
You know, in the District of Columbia, it is a crime to
engage in prostitution. In July of 2007, Ms. Deborah Palfrey,
known as the ``D.C. madam,'' who had been convicted under this
statute, published her phone records indicating that one of our
witnesses was her client. Later, Senator Vitter said, ``This
was a very serious sin in my past, for which I am, of course,
completely responsible.''
Under the D.C. criminal statute related to solicitation,
the Senator could have faced 90 to 180 days for each
solicitation, but he never faced trial. In fact, prosecutors
never brought charges. Sure looks like he benefitted from
prosecutorial discretion.
I would not mention this incident today if it didn't expose
the hypocrisy of seeking to prevent the use of discretion to
benefit others when one has enjoyed the benefit himself.
Now I notice that Senator Vitter has not, in fact, showed
up today, but we do have his testimony. It is a part of our
record. And I think it really takes the cake to get the benefit
of discretion and urge that it be denied to others.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Gallegly. The gentleman from Michigan, the Ranking
Member of the full Committee, Mr. Conyers?
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman Gallegly and Chairman
Smith.
This is an unusual matter. H.R. 2497, the ``Hinder the
Administration's Legalization Temptation Act.'' Could I yield
to anyone to tell me whose title that is? Was it originated by
Members of Congress or some brilliant staff person? Did you
want me to yield to you?
Mr. Gallegly. I can't answer that question.
Mr. Smith. I will be happy to respond to the gentleman, if
he wants to yield?
Mr. Conyers. Of course.
Mr. Smith. We thought that was a particularly appropriate
acronym, H-A-L-T. And I won't say who we should give the credit
to, but it was obviously a creative mind. But it so happens
that acronym is very, very appropriate, since we are trying to
halt the Administration's efforts to engage in backdoor
amnesty.
And thank you for yielding.
Mr. Conyers. Well, that is fine. I just--Hinder the
Administration's Legalization Act of Immigration. That would
have been a title I wouldn't raise an eyebrow about, but the
Hinder the Administration Legalization Temptation Act? I have
never heard the word ``temptation'' involved in a title of a
bill in my years in the Congress. But there is always a first
time. So this is it.
If anybody ever uses that word again, with or without an
acronym, I will remember that it started in the House Judiciary
Committee by some unknown creative mind. [Laughter.]
So the majority, and particularly my dear friend, the
Chairman of the Committee, full Committee, my friend Lamar
Smith, thinks President Obama cannot be trusted with the
authority that every other President has had. The bill's sunset
date, January 21, 2013, says that Obama is such a great threat
that he and only he must have his authority withdrawn.
So this is not an attack on the presidency, but an attack
on the President himself. And I am just wondering am I being
overcritical? And I would yield to anyone who suggests that
maybe this is not the case.
This is not an attack on the office of the President. This
is an attack on Barack Obama himself. Now----
Mr. Smith. If the gentleman would yield, I would like to
clarify that, if I could?
Mr. Conyers. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smith. This is not a personal attack on any individual.
What it is, is an effort to halt what many of us perceive as
being abusive executive decisions that would lead to the
backdoor amnesty that I think we would like to prevent.
And in this particular instance, it is this President who,
in my judgment, who has been abusing the privileges of the
Administration. I would be happy to have this apply to any
other President in the future.
It just so happens that the individual who is serving as
President today is the one whose officials within the
Administration are abusing the process. And that is the purpose
of the bill is to stop those kinds of procedures.
Mr. Conyers. Well, I thank you, Lamar Smith, for that
explanation.
Do you want me to yield to you?
Mr. Gallegly. No. I was just going to ask a question.
Mr. Conyers. Sure.
Mr. Gallegly. Maybe it is a rhetorical question, but if it
is, forgive me. When you alluded to January 2013, were you
conceding that that would be the end of President Obama's
presidential career?
Mr. Conyers. Well, much to your sorrow, no. [Laughter.]
Mr. Gallegly. Just checking.
Mr. Conyers. That is what the bill says. The bill's sunset
date is January. They are assuming that perhaps they won't have
this President that endorses backdoor immigration won't be
here.
Ms. Lofgren. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Conyers. Yes. May I have an additional 2 minutes, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Gallegly. Without objection.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, sir.
And I yield to Zoe Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. I thank the Ranking Member for yielding.
I would just note that the Department of Homeland Security,
during the last 2 years of the Bush administration, averaged
29,343 grants of deferred action and parole a year. For the
first 2 years of the Obama administration, the average was
27,800 of grants of deferred action and parole a year, actually
less than the Bush administration.
So this, you know, drama of--I mean, I actually personally
wish it were more. But it is less. There have been more
deportations and less grants of parole and deferred action
under the Obama administration than under the Bush
administration.
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Conyers. Thanks, Zoe.
Lamar, did you know that? You couldn't have known that and
then written the kind of statement and bill that you have
written. I think the basic premise of the bill is that
President Obama cannot be trusted to enforce our immigration
laws, and I think that is just plain wrong and very unfair to
the President, as Ms. Lofgren has pointed out.
In the first 2 fiscal years under President Obama, the
Department of Homeland Security deported more than 779,000
people. These are record numbers and an 18 percent increase
over President George Bush's last 2 years in office.
Lamar, did you know that? Because if you did, you couldn't
possibly be saying that the President can't be trusted to
enforce our immigration laws.
Mr. Smith. Well, if the gentleman will yield?
The President may be enforcing some of the laws. My point
is that he is not enforcing all the laws. And if you want to
look to comparisons, look at this current Administration
compared to the Bush administration when it comes to worksite
enforcement, which is down 70 percent in just 2 years.
So, clearly, this President is not taking advantage of the
various immigration laws. And in this particular case, we are
talking about the application of administrative amnesty
possibly to millions of individuals. That was never
contemplated by any other Administration.
And when we talked about the previous Administration, we
talked about prior uses of prosecutorial discretion. In the
case of the letter that I wrote--and I don't think the
gentlewoman from California was present when I mentioned it, or
she wouldn't have said what she did and she would have had the
facts. The letter that was referred to mentioned specifically
legal permanent residents. It does not apply to illegal
immigrants.
And it also was on a case-by-case basis, not giving whole
groups of individuals administrative amnesty. So I am afraid
that that letter can't be relied upon or used in the way that
the gentlewoman from California was trying to use it.
I will yield back.
Mr. Gallegly. The time of the gentleman has expired.
We have three distinguished witnesses today. In response to
the comment that the Ranking Member made as it related to
Senator Vitter, Senator Vitter was here. And because of the
delay of getting started, almost an hour, he could not stay. As
a result of that, without objection, his written statement will
be entered into the record of the hearing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Vitter follows:]
__________
Mr. Gallegly. The remaining witnesses are as follows. We
have Mr. Chris Crane, who currently serves as the president of
the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118,
American Federation of Government Employees. He has been
working as an immigration enforcement agent for U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of
Homeland Security since 2003.
In his capacity as an immigration enforcement officer, he
worked in the Criminal Alien Program for approximately 5 years
and also served as a member of an ICE fugitive operation team.
Prior to his service at ICE, Chris served for 11 years in the
United States Marine Corps.
Ms. Jessica Vaughan serves as the policy director at the
Center for Immigration Studies. She has been with the center
since 1991, and her area of expertise is in the Administration
and implementation of immigration policy, covering such topics
as visa programs, immigration benefits, and immigration law
enforcement.
Prior to joining the center, Ms. Vaughan was a Foreign
Service officer with the U.S. Department of State. She holds a
master's degree from Georgetown University and a bachelor's
degree from Washington College in Maryland.
Our third witness, Ms. Margaret Stock, is an adjunct
faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the
University of Alaska in Anchorage. Professor Stock has
frequently testified before Congress on issues relating to
immigration and national security and has authored numerous
articles on immigration and citizenship topics.
She is a retired military officer and recently concluded
service as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
Independent Task Force on Immigration Policy. Professor Stock
taught at the U.S. military academy at West Point, New York,
from June 2001 until June 2010.
Welcome to all of you. We will start with you, Mr. Crane.
TESTIMONY OF CHRIS CRANE, PRESIDENT,
NATIONAL ICE COUNCIL
Mr. Crane. Good afternoon, Chairman Gallegly, Members of
the Committee.
On June 25, 2010, ICE union leaders publicly issued a
unanimous vote of no confidence in Director John Morton. To my
knowledge, it is the only time in ICE or INS history that
officers and employees of enforcement removal operations issued
a no confidence vote in their leadership.
These unprecedented acts by ICE employees should send a
loud, clear message that something is seriously wrong at ICE.
ICE union leaders are in the media like never before, speaking
out about gross mismanagement and matters of public safety,
warning that ICE and DHS are misleading the public.
And mislead the public they do. A Federal judge recently
stated, ``There is ample evidence that ICE and DHS have gone
out of their way to mislead the public about Secure
Communities.''
It is reported that the DHS Office of Inspector General
will be investigating claims that ICE leadership misled public
officials regarding the program. To be clear, ICE officers
disagree with efforts to end the Secure Communities Program.
But to be equally clear, we abhor the actions of any agency
official who lies to or misleads the American public.
That is why, in the union's vote of no confidence 13 months
ago, we reported ICE's misleading of the public, specifically
citing the Secure Communities Program as an example.
Federal judges, law enforcement agencies, State
representatives, special interest groups, ICE officers in the
field, everyone says there is an integrity issue with ICE
leadership. That is exactly where this conversation has to
begin.
Does ICE leadership need oversight? The answer is yes.
There needs to be oversight. There needs to be transparency.
I was recently appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory
Committee on Secure Communities. While ICE states that there
are immigration agents, plural, on the committee, I am the only
one. Approximately 50 percent of the committee's members appear
to be immigrants advocates. Not one committee member is a
public advocate for reforms through stronger enforcement.
A solid majority of members appear to favor the immigrants
advocacy viewpoint. The appearance is that ICE has selected a
stacked deck for this committee. Most alarming to me, on the
second day of our first meeting, the committee was told that
our findings and recommendations had been written for us, when
we hadn't even begun discussion of either.
Members of the Committee protested, but the Chairman
overruled the group. When I requested that the agency's
misleading of the public regarding Secure Communities be
included in the findings, it was not permitted.
While I deeply respect the Members of the Committee as
individuals, I am troubled by the Committee's activities and
the methods used by ICE to select its members. In my opinion,
efforts must be made to provide oversight and transparency to
the activities of DHS and ICE regarding this Committee.
However, oversight and transparency may be most needed with
regard to ICE's law enforcement programs. Virtually all of
ICE's enforcement policies should be public, but ICE leadership
refuses to put many directives in writing because they don't
want the public to know that ICE agents and officers, as an
example, are under orders not to arrest certain groups of
aliens, that officers generally don't have prosecutorial
discretion, that ICE is ordering this to happen.
Other policies that ICE puts in writing are misleading,
much in the same way the Secure Communities Program was
publicly misleading. The new prosecutorial discretion memo has
been publicly spun by ICE as giving ICE officers more
discretion when, in reality, it takes away discretion.
It has been advertised as better utilizing limited ICE
manpower resources, when, in fact, it has the potential to
overwhelm officers with more work. The policy cannot be
effectively applied in the field, which may explain why ICE
itself has been unable to develop training and guidance to
officers in the field on how to enforce its own policy.
Other new ICE policies and pilot programs are equally
troubling. Call-in letters that rely on aliens incarcerated in
jails to self-report to ICE offices after they are released
from jail, and new ICE detainers instructing jails to simply
release aliens not convicted of a crime.
These policies are not an exercise of prosecutorial
discretion. They are not law enforcement actions. They are the
opposite. These policies take away officers' discretion and
establish a system that mandates that our Nation's most
fundamental immigration laws are not enforced.
In conclusion, we applaud the efforts of any Member of
Congress who attempts to bring oversight to this troubled
agency. And it is a troubled agency.
The safety of our officers is of little concern to agency
leaders. There is no oversight as ICE investigates itself. As a
union and as employees, we would very much like to work with
Members of Congress to be your eyes and ears inside the agency,
with the goal of providing much-needed oversight of ICE and its
leadership.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Crane follows:]
__________
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you, Mr. Crane.
Ms. Vaughan?
TESTIMONY OF JESSICA M. VAUGHAN, POLICY DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Ms. Vaughan. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be
here today to discuss H.R. 2497.
Our work at the Center for Immigration Studies is focused
on examining the impact of all forms of immigration on American
society and the effects of any proposed changes to our
immigration policies.
In my analysis, this bill would not have much of an effect
on immigration levels, on immigration law enforcement, or on
how the immigration agencies and their staff routinely do their
jobs. But what it would do is to prevent any further harm to
Americans and legal workers that would result if the White
House or its appointees in the immigration agencies were able
to expand their efforts to bring about an unpopular and ill-
advised legalization scheme through executive action.
Just to set the stage, the last decade was the largest 10
years of immigration in American history. About 13 million
immigrants settled here, legally and illegally. We also
admitted several hundred thousand guest workers over the same
time period every year.
Meanwhile, our economy lost 1 million jobs over that same
decade. In 2008 and 2009 alone, 2.4 million new immigrants
settled here, while 8.2 million jobs were lost in our economy.
In this economic climate, it is pretty hard to make the
case that immigration regulations should be relaxed to permit
illegal workers to stay, especially when most of them would be
vying for the very same jobs as many unemployed U.S. workers
and where there is already an oversupply of labor. Yet that is
exactly what the Obama administration says it wants to do.
In various public statements and memoranda, officials say
that the goals are to waive in as many immigrants as possible,
to drastically scale back immigration law enforcement, and to
legalize as many of the 11 million illegal aliens as possible.
And it is not just talk. They have been acting on these plans.
For example, telling consular officers and benefits
adjudicators to overlook things that should disqualify
applicants or restricting what ICE field office staff can do,
telling ICE lawyers to drop charges on thousands of illegal
aliens at a time, or letting sanctuary States stay out of
Secure Communities.
These actions display a shocking disregard for the public
trust and for congressional authority over immigration law, not
to mention the wishes of Americans. At least two-thirds of
voters consistently express a desire to see stricter
immigration law enforcement, not weaker.
Polls show that only about a fourth of voters approve of
the way the Obama administration has handled immigration
policy. They understand all of the costs and problems. That is
why over the last 5 years Congress has repeatedly declined to
authorize an amnesty or legalization program on any scale.
It is important to consider, too, that there is no shortage
of qualified immigrants who are willing to play by the rules
and go through the process the right way. At last count, the
State Department reported that there were nearly 3 million
people who have been sponsored for green cards who are waiting
their turn overseas, and some of them for as long as 15 years.
Offering illegal immigrants a path to residency in front of
these applicants is patently unfair and undermines our legal
immigration system.
And not enforcing immigration laws just exacerbates the
crime and public safety problems. According to ICE statistics,
there are nearly 2 million criminal aliens living here, more
than half of whom are at large in our communities. ICE is
focused on just the worst of the worst, through excessive
prosecutorial discretion and stingy use of detention, leaves
too many of the worst still on our streets. And as a result,
people are getting hurt needlessly.
People like 10-year-old Anthony Moore, who a couple of
months ago was walking to the bus stop in Florida, when he was
mowed down and killed by an unlicensed illegal alien driver.
This illegal immigrant had at least two prior charges for DUI
and a probation violation, but he was not enough of a priority
either for Florida prosecutors or ICE to take action before the
fatal accident.
And this kind of story is repeated over and over again all
over the country, far too regularly. So the lack of enforcement
is bad enough, but apprehension numbers for ICE, as opposed to
removal numbers, have actually been going down for several
years, according to ICE statistics.
But just declining to arrest or remove an illegal alien
does not give that person real legal status. To accomplish
that, the Administration has to rely on the parts of
immigration law that are specified in this bill. These tools
are designed to be used for exceptionally compelling cases.
They are immigration law luxuries and not intended as a way for
the executive branch to bypass Congress and its unique
authority to make immigration law.
Again, while the Administration claims that these are only
ideas, in fact, they already have begun trying out different
forms of administrative amnesty, for example, by relaxing the
extreme hardship standard for the illegal aliens who try to
apply for green cards, but are disqualified and come under the
3-year/10-year bar.
Last year, about 19,000 people in that category
successfully obtained extreme hardship waivers, and you have to
ask yourself how extreme can these cases be if that many people
are able to qualify every year? And the percentage of people
who qualify has about quadrupled in the last 4 years.
Common sense tells you these aren't extreme hardship cases.
They are certainly bitterly disappointed to be denied, perhaps
financially stressed, and inconvenienced certainly, but not
really facing what the law defines as extreme hardship.
The fact that the Administration has already started
tinkering with forms of relief I think illustrates the need for
this legislation. The tool of deferred action is especially
susceptible to abuse since there are no statutory guidelines,
and the agency has never publicly published statistics on how
often it is used. So no one can monitor what is being done.
Mr. Gallegly. Could you please wrap up? We appreciate your
testimony, but we really need to stick with the time limits.
Ms. Vaughan. So this bill would help uphold sound
principles for immigration policy, namely that immigration to
the United States should occur through legal, fair, and open
processes.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:]
__________
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you, Ms. Vaughan.
Ms. Stock?
TESTIMONY OF MARGARET D. STOCK, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY
OF ALASKA-ANCHORAGE
Ms. Stock. Chairman Smith, Chairman Gallegly, Ranking
Member Conyers, Ranking Member Lofgren, and distinguished
Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to be here to provide
my testimony.
I am an attorney with the law firm of Lane Powell PC,
working in its Anchorage, Alaska, office, and my other
credentials are in the record. The opinions I am expressing
today, however, are my own.
The HALT Act is costly, misguided, irresponsible, and will
undermine immigration law enforcement. I am pleased to have the
opportunity to explain why the HALT Act should not be enacted.
Among other things, the HALT Act would hurt many Americans and
their families, hurt hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants,
harm the Government's power to respond to foreign policy
emergencies, interfere with the President's constitutional
authority over foreign affairs, and lead to untold hardship for
many noncitizens in cases where the rigid and complex nature of
U.S. immigration law provides no avenue for them to enter or
stay in the United States legally.
I would also disagree vehemently with Ms. Vaughan's no
impact assessment. This bill will cause huge harm and impact on
all three agencies within DHS, not just ICE, but also CBP and
USCIS.
The Members of this Subcommittee are undoubtedly aware of
the reality of our Nation's broken immigration system. The
discretionary authorities that the HALT Act seeks to overturn,
albeit temporarily, are important safety valves within this
broken system. The following cases are some individual examples
of situations where the executive branch has used
administrative discretion to promote justice in individual
immigration cases, but would be unable to do so if the HALT
bill were to become law.
The HALT Act would prevent the Government from granting
parole to persons in need of urgent medical care where there is
no imminent threat to life, such as the Afghan woman who was
paroled into the United States last year after her husband cut
off her nose and ears.
The HALT Act would halt the opportunity that military
families have to seek parole in place and deferred action on a
case-by-case basis only to prevent separation during
deployments and to allow disabled military members and veterans
to have their family members with them as they undergo medical
treatment.
The HALT Act ends all Cuban paroles, a longstanding,
decades-old program, and the only categorical program that
existed under Doris Meissner and other immigration
commissioners.
The Members of this Committee are no doubt aware of the
case of Hotaru Ferschke, the widow of deceased U.S. Marine
Michael Ferschke. Mrs. Ferschke was recently the beneficiary of
an exceptionally rare private bill. Only two of those have
passed in the last few years.
Enacted by Congress and signed into law by the President
because the technicalities of U.S. immigration law prevented
Mrs. Ferschke, a person who was seeking lawful immigration to
the United States, from obtaining an immigrant visa to come
here after her husband was killed in combat in Afghanistan.
Mrs. Ferschke wanted to come to the U.S. to raise her infant
United States citizen son, Michael Ferschke's child, in
Sergeant Firski's hometown in Tennessee.
While Mrs. Ferschke was ultimately able to obtain relief
through a private bill, the process was very lengthy. And
during that process, Mrs. Ferschke needed parole in order to
remain in the United States and to travel internationally while
the private bill was being pursued.
The HALT Act would terminate the ability of DHS agencies to
allow such persons to remain in the United States and to travel
internationally while Members of Congress and Senators pursue
the very lengthy legislative process of enacting a private
bill.
If the HALT Act is enacted, American families will
experience more separations and hardship, as their family
members will not be able to qualify for cancellation of removal
after demonstrating exceptional and extremely unusual hardship
to a judge.
Military families will be harmed by the HALT Act, as
cancellation removal has been granted in cases such as the one
that I attached to my written testimony. Interestingly,
Chairman Smith, the HALT Act would retain cancellation of
removal for criminal aliens who have green cards. The
noncriminal ones would lose cancellation.
In my written testimony, I provide many more examples of
individuals and vulnerable, compelling groups who could no
longer be protected if the HALT bill becomes law. I am pleased
to hear Mr. Gallegly say that he would be willing to support
private bills on behalf of these folks, and I will ask the
people I listed in my testimony to request private bills
because I do believe that is one solution if HALT is enacted.
But it is a difficult one and lengthy.
Ironically, the HALT Act will create chaos in the legal
immigration system, as hundreds of thousands of adjustment
applicants, many of them skilled workers, college professors,
business executives, outstanding athletes, scientists, and the
immediate relatives of U.S. citizens will no longer be able to
travel internationally while their adjustment applications are
pending. These are the qualified immigrants that Ms. Vaughan
was discussing.
They will be deprived of their advance parole authority,
which they use to travel internationally during the many months
it takes for USCIS to process their adjustment applications.
The HALT Act's stated purpose is to prevent a backdoor
amnesty by the Obama administration. But none of the provisions
targeted by HALT provide any amnesty or permanent legal status
to anyone. Instead, the HALT Act suspends an extremely narrow
set of protections that the Government only extends on a highly
selective and case-by-case basis for the most part when there
are humanitarian concerns or other compelling circumstances and
no other avenue of relief is available.
Justice requires some reasonable flexibility and
administrative discretion in the enforcement of immigration
laws. Ms. Lofgren already quoted the letter from 1999 in which
many congressmen on both sides urged the agency to develop
guidelines for the use of its prosecutorial discretion.
The recent memoranda issued by John Morton, like other
prosecutorial discretion memoranda issued by prior agency
heads, respond directly to this congressional demand for
guidelines on the use of prosecutorial discretion. It makes no
sense for Congress to suspend statutory provisions allowing for
the use of prosecutorial discretion because an agency head has
attempted to answer a congressional suggestion to create
guidelines for the use of that discretion.
Some level of enforcement and prosecutorial flexibility is
present in every law enforcement program in this country. Local
police, for example, do not devote the same level of
enforcement effort to minor property crimes or prostitution as
they do to violent felonies.
The costs of deporting someone are substantial. Deportation
costs include the expenses of arrest, detention hearings, and
physical removal. DHS and specifically ICE need the discretion
to be able to prioritize their enforcement activities to those
who present threats to our public safety and national security,
such as those who have committed violent felonies. Our Nation's
safety and security depend upon it.
Deportations and worksite enforcement have substantially
increased under the Obama administration, as compared to the
prior Bush administration. I should note that on the same day
the prosecutorial discretion memos were released, the Obama
administration broke records by issuing 1,000 notices to
employers around the country about worksite enforcement.
In fact, this enforcement is so much so that the
President's own supporters are complaining about the level of
it. There is no basis for asserting that the Obama
administration has implemented any amnesty program and, thus,
no need for the HALT Act.
Instead of improving an already-broken and dysfunctional
system, the HALT Act would worsen the current dire situation.
Instead of constituting a step toward sensible and
comprehensive immigration reform, the HALT Act would constitute
a major step backwards.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Stock follows:]
__________
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you, Ms. Stock.
First of all, I would like to respond to your reference to
me being willing to entertain consideration on special bills.
I think the record is clear on this. I have been on this
Committee for over 20 years, and I have voted on many, many,
many special bills in the affirmative. Not all, but most. And I
would say that I am not the only one up here that has voted on
special bills.
And I would think that the Chairman would certainly be in
that category as well, who has voted on special. So that is a
mechanism that we do use.
Ms. Stock. Could I request one on behalf of two people that
are listed in my written testimony?
Mr. Gallegly. Through regular order, we will be happy to
see that that takes place, through regular order.
Ms. Lofgren. Would the Chairman yield?
Mr. Gallegly. I have really very limited amount of time,
but I would yield.
Ms. Lofgren. I would just note, in fact, that the Chairman
has voted for private bills. I acknowledge that. But because of
the difference between what the Senate is doing, we have only
passed 3 private bills in 8 years that have actually become----
And I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Gallegly. Well, the leadership on the Senate is a
little different than our leadership over here, to my good
friend from California, as we will probably see in the next few
days.
With that, Mr. Crane, the leadership over at DHS and the
policies of DHS and the will of DHS in enforcing our
immigration laws by many is concerning. How would you define
the will of the leadership in DHS to actually enforce our
immigration laws?
Mr. Crane. I think officers in the field, sir, would tell
you that the motivation is purely political. They are trying to
do a balancing act between a PR campaign to make the American
public think that they are actually taking the necessary law
enforcement actions and somehow satisfying immigrants advocacy
groups.
I don't think our real focus right now at the headquarters
level really is law enforcement. And I think if you look at the
folks that we have up at ICE headquarters, you will find out
that they don't have a background in this business. Most of
them are attorneys. They are folks from other law enforcement
agencies. They came from homeland security investigations,
which really doesn't do immigration work. They don't really
have a foundation in what we do, and it has just become a
political motivation, I think, in everything that we do.
Mr. Gallegly. From your perspective, does ICE have
sufficient resources to remove any of the most serious criminal
immigrants, or is this simply an excuse not to enforce laws
that the Administration doesn't agree with?
Mr. Crane. I think that DHS and ICE have both
oversimplified our resources out in the field and how it
actually works in the field. There are those days when we have
the ability, you know, we don't catch all the worst of the
worst every single day of the week in every single location
across the country.
And in that regard, we do have the ability to have a more
balanced approach to immigration enforcement but, at the same
time, focus on the worst of the worst, which is what we do. But
there are those days when we have the ability to concentrate on
lower-priority cases, and that is what we do.
Now, in terms of resources, absolutely we need more
resources. But it is not that simple. We do have the ability to
go out----
Mr. Gallegly. Well----
Mr. Crane. I am sorry.
Mr. Gallegly [continuing]. The real question really had to
do with considering the limited amount of resources you have.
Are there sufficient resources to deal with the most serious
criminal aliens, or are some of those passed over, as I said,
because of philosophical differences with the law, rather than
the fact that I guess in the--to do it selectively rather than
by the rule of law?
Mr. Crane. I think at this point, based on the folks, the
people that are here that we are able to identify, I think we
do have the resources to remove or apprehend and arrest the
worst of the worst.
Mr. Gallegly. Ms. Vaughan, is it appropriate for the
Administration to use deferred action and other types of
prosecutorial discretion in order to achieve the policy goals
that Congress has clearly rejected?
Ms. Vaughan. No, absolutely not. I mean, Congress has the
authority to make immigration laws. And while the executive
branch needs some discretion for the most exceptional cases
sometimes, it is not appropriate to use these tools to bypass
Congress when it can't get its way.
And I think deferred action has the potential to be abused
on a very grand scale if Congress were not to exercise some
oversight over the Administration. And because it doesn't have
a statutory basis, like there are definitions for temporary
protected status and for other parts--some of the other forms
of relief that are listed in the bill, but deferred action has
not been utilized in the same way and doesn't have the same
kind of controls on it.
And deferred action is also one specific form of relief
that has been put out there to be used for a general amnesty in
memos that were circulated within USCIS. So it is clear that
that has been the plan.
Mr. Gallegly. Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. Vaughan.
Ms. Stock, same question?
Ms. Stock. Well, I would disagree that you need to enact a
law that gets rid of deferred action in order to deal with
particular cases where you feel that it may have been granted
in error.
Mr. Gallegly. That really wasn't the question.
Ms. Stock. Well, the bill would eliminate the----
Mr. Gallegly. No. The question I had, if you will indulge
me, is, is it appropriate for the Administration to use
deferred action or other types of prosecutorial discretion to
achieve immigration policy that has clearly been rejected by
the U.S. Congress? That is the question.
Ms. Stock. Well, the problem is I haven't seen them do
that. They usually do it in response to----
Mr. Gallegly. That is still not the question.
Ms. Stock. They do it in response to congressional
requests. As I put in the record, a letter from Members of
Congress on both sides of the House requesting the use of
deferred action on behalf of military personnel.
Mr. Gallegly. Okay.
Ms. Stock. And I put that letter in. I didn't have time to
read it all into the record. But----
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you.
Ms. Stock [continuing]. The letter in my testimony.
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you, Ms. Stock.
I still don't think you answered the question, but I
respect your right.
Ms. Lofgren?
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just a couple of comments. I am a product of a union
household. My grandfather was a Teamster. My dad was recording
secretary of Local 888 of the Teamsters. My grandfather on the
other side was a business agent for the Machinists Union. So I
certainly respect unions, but I also respect management.
And there is a role for management, and it seems to me when
it comes to law enforcement, it is just like a city police
department. I mean, when the mayor and the city council and the
chief of police say we are going after auto thefts,
gangbangers, and burglaries, the guy on the street is not
supposed to go out and spend his time ticketing jaywalkers.
I mean, the priorities are set by the civilian authorities.
And I think that the testimony from Mr. Crane really flies in
the face of that.
I am not a defender of the department. In fact, I had
tremendous criticism of ICE because they told local communities
that participation in Secure Communities was optional. And in
my county, the chief of police for the City of San Jose, the
10th largest city in the United States, didn't want to
participate because it was interfering with his community
policing strategy. And the sheriff of the county didn't want to
participate.
And there was a unanimous vote, Democrats and Republicans
on the county board, saying they didn't want to participate.
And then it changed. In terms of an IG investigation, I asked
the IG to investigate what happened, and I hope to find out
what happened. I was not happy with that.
But having said that, this bill, I think, as I said before,
is a huge mistake. Because it is not about the personalities.
We will find out what happened and whatever. If it was wrong
instead of error, corrective action will be taken.
I have some questions for you, Colonel Stock, if I could?
You have talked in your written testimony about the hardship
that could result if the HALT Act were enacted. Can you
elaborate on some of the use of discretion and how it benefits
military men and women?
I think about a case that was in Los Angeles, and I wasn't
involved in the case, but I read about it in the LA Times of a
guy who came back from Iraq with some traumatic injuries. His
wife didn't have her documents. He was an American soldier.
Their kids were American citizens, and she was caring for him.
And I think she got deferred action so she could take care
of her husband. Would that be possible if the HALT Act were
enacted?
Ms. Stock. I believe you are talking about the Barrios
case? And she was granted parole in place. She also would have
been cancellation eligible, but the agency realized that it
didn't make sense from a cost perspective to put her through a
whole deportation proceeding to pursue cancellation.
Under the HALT Act, however, she would not have been
eligible for any relief. Her husband would have been left in
the United States with their children. She would have been
forced to go back to her home country for 10 years before
returning to the United States.
Luckily, the HALT Act had not been enacted when her case
came into the news. And she, I believe, had also attempted a
private bill, but nothing had ever come of that.
Ms. Lofgren. Let me ask you about the deferred action. The
statistics are this. Last year, 12,338 people were granted
deferred action. 11,796 of those were victims of domestic
violence, human trafficking, or serious crimes, seeking legal
protection specifically created by Congress for such vulnerable
individuals.
Why is deferred action in cases like that important, for
example, for domestic violence victims?
Ms. Stock. Well, it is very important so they don't get
deported, which is usually what their abusers want. In fact,
one of the common tools that abusers use to try to subjugate
their spouses in this situation is the threat of deportation.
They will call agencies and try to have their spouses deported.
And it is important understand the reason their spouses
don't have any papers is because they won't file them for them.
You know, these are people who are entitled to be lawful, but
they are being abused----
Ms. Lofgren. So they are victimized. Their abuser is using
the system.
Ms. Stock. They are victimized, and deferred action is
important to allow them to stay in the United States to get
work permission so they can get away from their abuser and
pursue the remedies which----
Ms. Lofgren. I would note that is why the U Visa was a
product of bipartisanship here in the Congress, to prevent
that.
Let me talk about the extreme hardship, and there has been,
Ms. Vaughan mentioned, an increase in the number of extreme
hardships granted. It occurs to me that a substantial number of
the people who are seeking those waivers are from Mexico. And
we now have--we have had over 40,000 people murdered by the
drug cartels in Mexico.
It seems to me, and we are paying hazard duty pay to
Americans who are working in our embassies there because it is
so violent and so dangerous. If it is a 10-year bar, you are
basically telling the American spouse, and you and your wife
are going to live in Ciudad Juarez for the next 10 years, where
the bodies are piling up. Could that be a factor in the extreme
hardship area?
Ms. Stock. Yes, indeed, Ms. Lofgren, it is a factor. In
fact, that is one of the reasons why DoD requested the
discretionary remedies for military families. Because some of
the military families were being targeted by the bad guys down
in Mexico.
And there are an extremely large number of people seeking
waivers in Mexico. To separate them for 10 years, to have a
military family that can't have the person providing childcare
in the country for 10 years is definitely an exceptional and
extremely unusual hardship. And it is relatively easy to show
that burden by putting in all the proper documentation and the
psychological reports, the reports about violence in Mexico,
and so forth and so on.
Ms. Lofgren. My time has expired, Mr. Chairman.
I wonder if I could ask for a unanimous consent request to
put in the record a letter signed by over 70 national, State,
and local organizations that work with immigrant survivors of
domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other
violent crimes. Letters from five persons who adopted or are in
the process of adopting Haitian orphans admitted through
humanitarian parole, as well as organizational statements from
the First Focus Campaign for Children, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society, the National Association of Latino Elected and
Appointed Officials Educational Fund, the ACLU, and the Asian
American Center for Advancing Justice.
Mr. Gallegly. Without objection, they will be made a part
of the record of the hearing.
[The information referred to follows:]
__________
With that, I would yield to the gentleman from Texas, the
Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Gallegly.
Mr. Crane, let me direct a couple of questions to you. You
mentioned the unprecedented vote, I think, 13 months ago. It
was a vote of no confidence in the ICE officials. Have you seen
any action by this Administration since that vote of no
confidence to change your mind about this Administration and
its apparent unwillingness or intentional desire to not enforce
some immigration laws?
Mr. Crane. No, sir. I think, from our perspective, things
are actually getting worse. I think that the most recent
policies kind of point that out.
Mr. Smith. What do you mean, specifically? Why are things
even worse than 13 months ago?
Mr. Crane. Well, I think, you know, issues like the
prosecutorial discretion memo, I think those, you know, present
some real obstacles for us. We see them as being purely
political in nature. The agency, when they issued that policy,
didn't even issue guidelines or training to the field to let
people know how to enforce it. It was just kind of a knee-jerk
reaction to satisfy certain groups.
Mr. Smith. Now you mentioned that you feel that there are,
in fact, orders not to arrest some individuals, some illegal
immigrants. Why do you think that is the case? Do you have
evidence of that?
Mr. Crane. I don't know if we can actually give you
physical evidence of it. We could possibly give you witness
statements, officer statements from the field. ICE has gone to
a system where they hardly put anything in writing. Everything
is done verbally, even the directives coming from headquarters,
because they don't want anything slipping out to the media.
They don't want the public to see what they are doing behind
closed doors.
So our officers are absolutely being told on operations you
can't run background checks. You can't run criminal checks. You
can't run immigration checks. You can't talk to anyone when you
go out in the field.
If you have a target to arrest and you walk into a house--
and this individual was convicted of drug distribution and you
walk into a house, and he is in there with five other
individuals, all sleeping on the floor, all with pockets full
of cash, you can't talk to anybody. Get your target and get out
of the house.
Mr. Smith. Do you think there are some ICE agents who would
be willing to testify as to what you have just said before a
hearing of this Subcommittee, or would they lose their job?
Mr. Crane. They will definitely ruin their careers if they
do it. ICE is a horrific place for retaliation. That is
something that we have been talking about since 2009 when I
gave my first testimony. The internal investigations are
corrupt. Our management officials, they really lack integrity,
and I don't think--I would certainly be willing to ask, sir.
But we would be asking a lot for them. They would be putting
their whole careers on the line.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Perhaps there will be some way for us to
get their testimony and still protect their identity. And if
so, we will pursue that with you because I think that is
incredibly damaging comment about this Administration and
certainly reinforces the need for us to pass legislation to try
to counter that mindset, that unwillingness to enforce the laws
or unwillingness to deport individuals.
Because the result of all that is that a lot of Americans
may lose their lives, may be injured. You don't know what the
consequences are. And that actually takes me to my next
question to Ms. Vaughan.
Do you feel that Administration policy has already resulted
in some innocent Americans losing their lives and in other
innocent Americans being unnecessarily injured or maimed?
Ms. Vaughan. Yes, I do. I feel quite confident that that is
the case, not just Americans, but also immigrants as well.
There was one case up near where I live in Massachusetts of a
woman and her 4-year-old son who were murdered by an illegal
alien who had been arrested and charged with acts of violence
on more than one occasion before, both in New York State and in
Massachusetts, and who was not detected because he used false
names.
If the Secure Communities Program, for example, had been in
place, he would have been detected. And I have heard from
individuals who are in a position to know that that is a case
that they would have prioritized, if they had known that he had
been arrested.
But ICE is allowing States, effectively, to not participate
in Secure Communities for political reasons. They have not
required Massachusetts to participate, even though they have
both the mandate and the authority to do so. So I believe that
her life and her son's life, as does the district attorney, who
is now trying to extradite that former illegal alien from
Ecuador, also believes that it would have saved two lives in
that situation.
Mr. Smith. And I assume that there are dozens, if not
hundreds or thousands, of similar cases across the country
where crimes were committed by individuals who should not have
been allowed to remain in our country.
Ms. Vaughan. Definitely. Their family members often write
to me and ask what can be done.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Thank you all for your testimony.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gallegly. I thank the Chairman.
From Puerto Rico, my good friend Mr. Pierluisi?
Mr. Pierluisi. I will yield my time, my turn to
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
Mr. Gallegly. Ms. Jackson Lee?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank my very----
Ms. Lofgren. If I may, Mr. Chairman? That was my mistake,
and I don't think Mr. Pierluisi needs to yield his time. Ms.
Jackson Lee should be recognized before Mr. Pierluisi.
That is my mistake.
Mr. Pierluisi. I appreciate that very much.
Mr. Gallegly. Very good.
Ms. Lofgren. My error.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, I thank both of my colleagues, and I
thank Mr. Pierluisi for being such a distinguished colleague
and friend. We all have overlapping Members, and I thank the
Ranking Member for his courtesies.
This is an important hearing, and I thank the Ranking
Member for establishing a framework that I know was established
before--Ms. Lofgren and Mr. Conyers before I came.
But I do want to acknowledge that Mr. Smith and I have
worked together in years past on a number of legislative
initiatives, and I even enjoyed his support on a letter that I
know he knows, the famous letter that was signed by a late
colleague and certainly adored Member of this Committee, Mr.
Hyde. That in the second paragraph mentioned, ``However, cases
of apparent extreme hardship have caused concern,'' and the
gist of the letter is asking for discretion. I think 1999 was
still the presidency of President Clinton.
I also want to say that I look forward to this Committee
and Homeland Security embracing our ICE officers to ensure--I
will join anyone on their increased pay and compensation. I
don't, in any way, want to diminish the important work that
they do, and most of all, I want to see them safe and secure
and express my sadness for the tragic losses that they have
experienced and most recently. I think that is an important
statement, and we all need to own up to the important work that
ICE does.
At the same time, I think it is important for law
enforcement to be collaborative and not be afraid of
policymakers who are making decisions that are rational and
speak to the wide diversity of the work that law enforcement
has to do. So, for example, let me be very clear on the record,
I abhor criminal aliens who may prey upon our citizens, and I
believe that we have provided all manner of resources to ensure
that criminal aliens who are violating the rights of our
citizens and their family members maybe are brought to justice.
We salute ICE for its work. But I can't, for the life of
me, believe that Mr. Morton, who has taken an oath of office,
would in any way give oral demands to do untoward things. And
he is not here today, and I want to say that he has a right to
defend himself. And I have, in the course of my interaction
with ICE, I have seen the performance of Mr. Morton on behalf
of this Nation and his support for his men and women in ICE,
fighting for them.
We were on an airplane where he was headed down to the
family in Brownsville, a tragedy that happened and that we are
all working together to ensure that that doesn't not happen. So
let me be very clear on that, and I stand as a person that
takes no backseat to support of unions and labor and employee
organizations. But I think that we have to be balanced in our
representation for someone who is not here.
Let me, Colonel Stock, pose this question quickly to you.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you, Mr. Crane, for your service. And Ms. Vaughan.
But I believe you served in the U.S. Army and taught at
West Point for many years. It is my understanding that it is
considered best practice among military, governmental, and
public policy decision-makers to be presented with the full
range of options available to them, but that outlining all
options is not the same as endorsing such options.
Does this comport with your understanding of this process?
Do you think that the draft USCIS memorandum on administrative
options from last year is significant enough to raise concerns
of an impending amnesty?
Ms. Stock. Thank you for that question, Congresswoman
Jackson Lee, and I think that is a really important question
because I can't quite understand the uproar that is being
caused by people having leaked what looks to me like a standard
options memo that every public policy student is allowed to
write to decision-makers.
That is standard practice in the Federal Government, and in
public policy schools, they teach this--that when you have a
new boss and he is unfamiliar with the authority that he
exercises, you are supposed to write him an options paper,
laying out all possible options to solve a problem. This is
called the scientific decision-making process. In the Pentagon,
they call it the military decision-making model.
It doesn't mean you are actually going to implement all the
options. It is to lay them all out so you can study their
feasibility, acceptability, and suitability, which includes the
political aspects of them. So----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Using----
Ms. Stock [continuing]. To criticize that is somewhat
misguided, and I suspect that there is an options paper out
there at the Internal Revenue Service right now about the
amnesty that they have going on.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So that the procedures, if I might, that
are rumored to be throwing away the keys, letting criminal
aliens run wild, and not being with good judgment is not the
case. This is a situation where mercy cases, hardship cases are
being allowed to be considered by thoughtful law enforcement to
decide what to do.
Is that what the case is?
Ms. Stock. Well, that is my understanding of what is going
on. But the memo that they are talking about was simply an
options memo that is a standard practice in public policy. It
is standard at the Pentagon, except usually there, they
classify it so they can jail the guy that leaked it to the
Hill.
It is a standard thing to lay out these public policy
memos, and for example, if you have a crisis in a foreign
country, you might say one option is to send in the 82nd
Airborne. The second option is to issue temporary protected
status to nationals of that country, which will cause a money
flow and help stabilize that foreign country.
So what they were doing there at DHS was simply standard
public policy practice, and it goes on every day in every
agency of the Government. And I seriously----
Ms. Jackson Lee. So passing the HALT bill is not something
that you think is imperative?
Ms. Stock. You don't need to eliminate the discretionary
authority of CBP, USCIS, and also some discretionary authority
of ICE in order to address the fact that people are laying out
options memos internally within an agency, no. That would be a
gross mistake.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chairman, and I agree----
Mr. Gallegly. Time of the gentlewoman----
Ms. Jackson Lee [continuing]. The HALT bill should not be
an imperative and should not pass.
And I thank the Chairman for his courtesy, and I yield
back.
Mr. Gallegly. I thank the gentlelady.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers?
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With all due respect to Pedro Pierluisi, I am going to
yield some time to Zoe Lofgren.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Gallegly. The gentlelady from California?
Ms. Lofgren. Well, thank you, Mr. Conyers.
I did have a question, Mr. Crane, for you. You are under
oath, of course, and you indicated that unnamed individuals
would be fearful of coming forth to identify orders that might
constitute misconduct. But you are here today, and I am
wondering if you can tell the Committee who in ICE gave those
directions?
Mr. Crane. I am not prepared to give you those names right
now, ma'am. I could not. But----
Ms. Lofgren. Well, if you won't give us the names, I don't
believe what you are saying is true. I mean, you are here----
Mr. Crane. I will get you the names, ma'am.
Ms. Lofgren. You are known.
Mr. Crane. I will get you the names.
Ms. Lofgren. I have another question for you. We are
conducting not an oversight hearing, but a hearing on this
bill. In your testimony, you specifically comment on the
actions of the Secure Communities Advisory Committee.
Now it is my understanding that the bylaws of this
Committee require confidentiality of the proceedings to ensure
fair process and debate of these issues. How is it that you are
able to publicly comment on these activities, when all the
other Members of the Committee are prohibited from doing so?
Mr. Crane. I don't know that that is completely true,
ma'am. I know that there were----
Ms. Lofgren. So you are saying the bylaws permit you to
talk about what is going on?
Mr. Crane. What I would like to say is that there was
actually at the last meeting that we attended, there was some
very strong language about our ability to go out and talk
publicly about what was being said, that we couldn't give out
the actual recommendations and findings.
So that is my understanding of the process. They have----
Ms. Lofgren. Okay. Well, we will look into this further
then and not in the Committee, as that is not my understanding.
But we will come to an understanding of it.
I would like to ask you, Colonel Stock, you know, I come
from Silicon Valley, and we have a tremendous number of really
amazing inventors, engineers. Some of them come from countries
where there is tremendous backlog in petitions, for example,
India or China. And because Silicon Valley and the technology
world is multinational, if you are going to be successful in
business, you sometimes have to travel.
Many of these individuals get advance parole if they have
to go over to Europe or someplace to do something for their
company. If the HALT Act was passed, how would these scientists
and engineers go and attend to the business overseas and get
back in?
Ms. Stock. Well, they wouldn't. That is the problem. Once
they have applied for adjustment of status, the current
requirement is they have to get advance parole to travel
internationally, and that is going to be the biggest impact of
the HALT bill, if it is enacted, is suspending the ability of
hundreds of thousands of these folks while the bill is in
effect. Until January 2013, none of them will be able to travel
internationally once they have filed for adjustment of status.
This is not just going to affect Silicon Valley. It is
going to affect the spouses of U.S. citizens, and it is going
to affect people who need to go overseas for a funeral. We have
had military cases where we have needed advance parole for
somebody with a pending adjustment application so they could go
to a spouse's funeral overseas.
So that is actually the biggest impact. And I looked at the
numbers, and we have had more than a million people getting
advance parole in the past several years. And during the period
that this bill will be in effect, if it is enacted, there will
be probably about 500,000 people who are legal, have never
broken immigration laws, and will be unable to get travel
permission to travel internationally because the parole
authority has been eliminated or suspended.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, I think that is a serious--I don't know
if anybody has done an analysis of the economic impact on the
American economy. But it just seems to me that that would be a
pretty severe blow to--I mean, the Valley is coming back. The
tech world is coming back.
Ms. Stock. Yes.
Ms. Lofgren. That would be a severe problem, it would seem
to me.
You know, one of the things that everybody is for is
orphans. And I am wondering if you could outline the impact
that this--we had a number of letters here from adopting
families. How often are these discretionary tools utilized with
families that are adopting children?
Ms. Stock. It is used frequently, and I have handled some
of those cases. And it is not just the traditional ones that
you are thinking about. But I handled a case, for example, once
where USCIS paroled somebody in because a U.S. citizen was
killed overseas, and there was a baby. And the baby had not yet
derived U.S. citizenship.
I know you are familiar with the complicated rules
regarding derivative U.S. citizenship.
Ms. Lofgren. Right.
Ms. Stock. The grandparents wanted to take custody of the
baby and bring the baby back with them to live in the United
States of America, and there was no option under immigration
law for them to do that, absent parole. There is no grandchild
visa for tragic circumstances like this.
A private bill would have taken a very, very long time to
get through, and this was a baby that needed to be in the
immediate care of the grandparents. So that is the kind of
situation.
There are also orphan and adopted children cases that get
messed up for technical reasons. The parole authority is used
in those cases. There are after-acquired child cases, where a
child is born to somebody who has been approved to come to the
United States in some category, and there is no way to get the
child in because of the complicated procedures. So the parole
authority is used at USCIS headquarters to bring the child in.
Those cases would be halted under the HALT Act.
Mr. Gallegly. The time of the----
Ms. Lofgren. I would yield back to the gentleman, and
thanks----
Mr. Gallegly. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Conyers. Thanks a lot, Zoe.
Mr. Gallegly. Without objection, I will give the gentleman
one additional minute.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield to Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much.
I think when we talk just about statistics and policies,
let me share with you the case of Nelson Delgado, who is a
military veteran, a husband, and the father of two young U.S.
citizen children, 9-year-old Esmeralda, 4-year-old Angel.
He served 1 year in Iraq, 4 years in the Marines on active
duty, another 4 in Reserve. Nelson, who immigrated legally,
married Olivia, an undocumented immigrant who came from Mexico
in 1995. A few years later, Olivia went back to Mexico to visit
her sick father and reentered.
Because of her departure after years of unlawful presence
triggered a 10-year bar, Olivia was barred from seeking legal
residency for 10 years, now faces deportation. This baffles
Nelson because he served his country, and now he is being
separated from his wife and his children.
Mr. Crane, could you find it in your heart and within the
laws and a flexible policy to be able to be responsive to Mr.
Delgado?
Mr. Crane. To be honest with you, ma'am, we do see cases
that, you know----
Ms. Jackson Lee. And you would be willing to have some
flexibility and be well to receive that kind of counsel to be
flexible in the deportation of his wife? Would you take into
consideration his service, his willingness to die for his
country?
Mr. Crane. Well, first of all, ma'am, in the process, of
course, that wouldn't be my place.
Ms. Jackson Lee. But do you see the viability of that?
Mr. Crane. Yes, I do, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And Ms. Stock?
Ms. Stock. Well, the problem is, if the HALT Act were
passed, there is no solution. You can't solve that.
Ms. Jackson Lee. That is correct. And it allows no broad
discretion using judgment and determining that this is a viable
case in terms of her deportation, separating her from her
military spouse and the children.
Ms. Stock. That is correct, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. That cuts off everything.
Ms. Stock. She is just stuck outside the United States for
10 years.
Mr. Gallegly. The time of the gentlelady is expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Gallegly. Mr. Gowdy?
Mr. Gowdy. I thank the Chairman.
Mr. Crane, I see the word or the phrase ``prosecutorial
discretion,'' and I always thought that prosecutorial
discretion was held by a prosecutor in deciding whether or not
there were sufficient facts to warrant the reasonable
likelihood of a successful conviction.
Giving discretion to law enforcement officers or ordering
law enforcement officers not to pursue certain criminal
violations is not prosecutorial discretion. That is something I
am not familiar with. So let me ask you from your perspective,
it says ICE must prioritize the use of its enforcement
personnel, detention space, and assets. What do you think about
being told which laws to enforce and which ones not to enforce?
Mr. Crane. Well, I think that prosecutorial discretion as
officers is something that we have to exercise because there
are simply too many cases that we can't apprehend every single
individual. We do have to have law enforcement priorities in
the field.
However, I think that what we are seeing in the field as
officers right now is more of a mandated order to allow certain
individuals or certain groups of individuals to not be charged
or arrested under immigration law. So that is our issue with
it.
Mr. Gowdy. I guess a cynic would suggest that the
Administration was trying to get through memoranda what it
could not get legislatively. Is that an overly cynical way of
looking at it?
Mr. Crane. I think it certainly has that appearance, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Is there someplace where we can sign up for an
email blast and we can find out which criminal laws will be
enforced today and which ones will not? Is that kept secret?
Because I would love to know which Federal laws will be
enforced by Federal law enforcement on a daily basis and which
ones are not. That might help me direct my daily activities a
little better.
Mr. Crane. I couldn't agree with you more, sir. I think
everyone in the American public needs to know exactly what ICE
is doing. However, there is not even an email like that for
employees to see.
Mr. Gowdy. I can't imagine the frustration. I have worked
with ICE and its predecessor agency for 6 years. A lot of
respect for those special agents. I can't imagine having your
hands tied by memo.
Have you expressed your frustration at having your badge
limited? And if so, what was the result?
Mr. Crane. We don't really have a lot of interaction with
Director Morton. He has not been friendly to the unions, to the
employees. I absolutely believe that management has a place in
this process, very strongly. But they are not really
participating with us in that way. They don't seem to want to
know the officers' opinion from the field.
Mr. Gowdy. Do you think the policies are driven by
something other than an apportionment of law enforcement
resources? Could there possibly be a political component to any
of this?
Mr. Crane. Absolutely. I mean, we are completely confused.
I know Secretary Napolitano came to the Appropriations
Committee I believe it was last year and told congressmen that
ICE doesn't need any more resources. We have all the people
that we need because we have this magical thing called Secure
Communities, which is this great force multiplier, which is
absolutely false. It is incorrect.
It is not an arrest multiplier for us by any means. If
anything, it creates more work for us. Yet at the same time, we
have the agency come out and say we don't have enough
resources. We don't have enough manpower to arrest all these
folks. So we need to make changes to our policies.
So from our perspective, the agency can't have it both
ways. They have got to start being straight with the American
public about what resources we have and we don't have. And
quite frankly, give our officers the appropriate priorities and
training, but let us really exercise prosecutorial discretion
in the field, and I promise everyone on this Committee that we
will do a good job of it. And if we are not, we will be held
accountable for it.
Mr. Gowdy. Have any officers been disciplined for eschewing
the memo and actually following the law as it is passed by the
House, Senate, and signed by the President?
Mr. Crane. ICE really doesn't do business like that for the
most part. Generally, when something like that happens, it
involves retaliation at some kind of level.
You won't see future promotions. You will find yourself on
a different detail. But very rarely do they step out, that wide
out into the open and let anyone see that they are actually
taking an action against an officer for something that
specific.
Mr. Gowdy. So the Administration does not ask for
additional resources, but hides behind a lack of resources and
setting nonlegislative priorities for the enforcement of ICE?
Mr. Crane. That is my appearance of the situation, yes,
sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Special Agent.
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you, Mr. Gowdy.
Mr. Pierluisi?
Mr. Pierluisi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is clear that Members of this Subcommittee hold
differing views on immigration policy. But I hope that all of
us can agree on one point, that the executive branch should
target its limited immigration enforcement resources on the
removal of dangerous criminal aliens.
If that is, indeed, our goal, as I believe it should be,
then the HALT Act represents a step backward, not forward.
Passage of this bill would make us less, rather than more,
secure. With the Federal Government tightening its budget, ICE
does not have unlimited funding. In fact, ICE only has
resources to remove approximately 400,000 aliens per year. With
limited resources, whom should ICE deport?
Should it deport the alien murderer or rapist? Or should it
deport the noncriminal undocumented spouse of a U.S. military
serviceman? I think most reasonable people would agree that ICE
should deport an alien murderer or rapist above the noncriminal
spouse.
Yet under the HALT Act, the executive branch would lose its
discretion to prioritize its resources. The result would be a
de facto lottery, where undocumented immigrants are removed in
the order in which they are processed, not on the basis of
their danger to the U.S.
This approach confounds common sense, and let me add a
couple of thoughts, hopefully within the timeframe. I am
troubled, actually, that the bill has this language about
temptation. I mean, I am tempted to say lots of things, Mr.
Ranking Member. But I am going to keep it civil.
Now one thing, this is like putting the carriage in front
of the horse. There is no record here. I hear you, Mr. Crane.
But the statistics do not support what you are saying.
And when you are asked to give some names and specifics,
you refuse to do so. You say that, well, in due course, you
will. Well, that puts us in a very uncomfortable position
because the first thing that should be done by this Committee
is to do oversight, the oversight that you were complaining
about that hasn't been done.
Once you do oversight and you determine that there has been
abuse, then you take action. But there hasn't been any
oversight, and the statistics, by the way, if anything, show a
lot of enforcement in this last couple of years by this
Administration.
In fact, I was even amazed that you have the impression
that immigration and advocacy groups are very pleased with this
Administration. Let me tell you, sir. It is the opposite. I
mean, I have yet to hear any immigration advocacy group praise
ICE or DHS. So that confounds me.
At the same time, I see that there is talk about these
memos, and I tell you there is a difference between a
decisional memo and a deliberative memo. A decisional memo
binds officers to do X, Y, and Z. A deliberative memo is like
what you were saying, Ms. Stock. It is simply options that are
laid out, specifics that are laid out for the benefit of the
officials who have this prosecutorial discretion.
Lastly, prosecutorial discretion, but of course you have
it. I am a former attorney general. You have it at the State,
at the local, at the county level. You have it. And in the
Federal Government, of all places, you have it a lot. And there
is more than any time before with the limited resources that we
have.
So now, having said all of that, let me ask a couple of
questions. Ms. Stock, if this were to become law, would the
Government now be able to deport all individuals who are not
legally present in the United States? Or would the Government
still be able to deport only a certain number of individuals?
Ms. Stock. Well, the Government would only be able to
deport a certain number of individuals because Congress has
only given a certain amount of money and resources to the
agencies. And there simply are not the resources available to
deport every single unauthorized immigrant in the United
States. That is borne out by numerous studies.
There is a mismatch between the numbers and the resources,
and that is why priorities are important. And I think it is
also important to point out that ICE is going to take a big
budget hit on this particular bill because one of the tools
that ICE uses investigatively is parole authority. They will
give parole to an undocumented immigrant that they are using
for the purpose of an investigation, and they will give that
undocumented immigrant work permission to perhaps infiltrate an
unscrupulous employer, go to work for that employer and support
himself while this informant is in the country working for ICE.
They are going to lose the ability to give work permission
to those folks. So they are now going to have to support those
individuals. They will still be able to use them for law
enforcement purpose parole, but they are going to have to come
to Congress for the money to support those individuals--
housing, food, et cetera. And they are going to lose the tool
of being able to give them a work permit to go use for purposes
of the investigation.
So there is going to be a budget hit on this, and I also
mention in my testimony that the Pentagon is going to have
budget implications because they also parole people in and
expect them to get work permits and go to work as translators,
for example, for the Pentagon. That authority is taken away.
Even in the exceptions that are in the bill for national
security and law enforcement, those people aren't allowed to
work.
So there are going to be budget impacts to this bill, and
you will have to ask ICE how many people they parole in for law
enforcement investigative purposes. But I know because I have
worked with them that they do that.
Mr. Gallegly. I thank the gentleman. The time of the
gentleman has expired.
I want to thank the three witnesses that were here today
for your testimony and your patience, since we had to get a
little late start. But unfortunately, there are certain things
we don't have total control on around here, if you hadn't
noticed.
In any event, I look forward to working with you in the
future.
I thank the Members of the Committee on both sides for
attending today and look forward to working on this issue in
the near future.
With that, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:39 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record