[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INTERIOR IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT LEGISLATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 11, 2014
__________
Serial No. 114-12
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
93-279 PDF WASHINGTON : 2015
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin JERROLD NADLER, New York
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
DARRELL E. ISSA, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
STEVE KING, Iowa Georgia
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas JUDY CHU, California
JIM JORDAN, Ohio TED DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
RAUUL LABRADOR, Idaho HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia SCOTT PETERS, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida
MIMI WALTERS, California
KEN BUCK, Colorado
JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas
DAVE TROTT, Michigan
MIKE BISHOP, Michigan
Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina, Chairman
RAUUL LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice-Chairman
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE KING, Iowa LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
KEN BUCK, Colorado SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
DAVE TROTT, Michigan
George Fishman, Chief Counsel
Tom Jawetz, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
FEBRUARY 11, 2014
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of South Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Immigration and Border Security................................ 1
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Immigration and Border Security................................ 3
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary 6
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 7
The Honorable Luis V. Gutierrez, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Illinois, and Member, Subcommittee on
Immigration and Border Security................................ 8
WITNESSES
The Honorable Sam S. Page, Sheriff, Rockingham County, NC
Oral Testimony................................................. 10
Prepared Statement............................................. 13
Frank L. Morris, Sr., Member, Board of Directors, Progressives
for Immigration Reform
Oral Testimony................................................. 21
Prepared Statement............................................. 23
Walter D. (Dan) Cadman, Senior Fellow, Center for Immigration
Studies
Oral Testimony................................................. 28
Prepared Statement............................................. 30
Most Reverend Gerald F. Kicanas, Bishop of Tucson, U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops
Oral Testimony................................................. 47
Prepared Statement............................................. 49
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Material submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a
Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and
Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary..................... 72
Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security................ 89
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
List of Submissions from the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a
Representative in Congress from the State of California, and
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security 119
Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative
in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security................ 120
Response for the Record from Walter D. (Dan) Cadman, Senior
Fellow, Center for Immigration Studies......................... 131
Prepared Statement of Peter Kirsanow, Member, U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights,.................................................. 135
Prepared Statement of Wade Henderson, President & CEO, The
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights..........145
deg.OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record but not Reprinted
Submissions for the Record from the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a
Representative in Congress from the State of California, and
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.
These submissions are available at the Subcommittee and can also be
accessed at:
http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?EventID=102941.
INTERIOR IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT LEGISLATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:03 p.m., in
room 2141, Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Trey Gowdy
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Gowdy, Goodlatte, Lofgren,
Conyers, Smith, King, Buck, Ratcliffe, Trott, Jackson Lee, and
Guiterrez.
Staff Present: (Majority) Allison Halatei, Parliamentarian
& General Counsel; George Fishman, Subcommittee Chief Counsel;
Dimple Shah, Counsel; Andrea Loving, Counsel; Graham Owens,
Clerk; and (Minority) Tom Jawetz, Minority Counsel.
Mr. Gowdy. Welcome. The Subcommittee on Immigration and
Border Security will come to order. Without objection, the
Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any
time.
We welcome everyone; our witnesses and our guests. I would
remind our guests that they are indeed guests and disruptions
will be dealt with by removal. With that, I would recognize
myself for an opening statement and then my friend from
California for her opening statement.
The consensus in our country is that the current
immigration system is broken, unworkable and not functioning
for the best interests of our fellow citizens, and part of that
is the widely held belief among our fellow citizens that our
borders are insufficiently secured and frankly border security
is much broader than simply a negotiating item in an ongoing
immigration debate.
Border security is part of what defines a sovereign nation;
the ability to control who comes and goes and provide
assurances that national security is indeed the preeminent
function of the Federal Government. But even the most secured
of borders will not alleviate the need for further reforms and
off repeated statistics bears mentioning again, which is that
around 40 percent of those who are not in the country lawfully
originally entered through lawful means. Simply put, around 40
percent of the undocumented population were invited here and
overstayed their invitation. And, no fence can be designed or
built to deal with the issue of internal security. We must also
ensure the laws governing immigrants within our borders are
being implemented.
There are three bills before us which takes steps to
improve the efficacy and the efficiency of our immigration
system. One deals with judicial proceedings ensuring they are
expeditious and children, in particular, are not subject to
lengthy proceedings that don't provide them with any security
or safety.
Another bill before us, and one that is particularly
important to some of our Committee Members, provides State and
local law enforcement with the ability to enforce our
immigration laws. There are over 730,000 State and local law
enforcement officers in the United States. If State and local
law enforcement agencies could assist ICE in enforcing
immigration laws on a totally voluntary basis, this would
represent a significant force multiplier for ICE; 5,000 ICE
agents cannot do all that is currently being asked of them
particularly with limitations imposed via memo and executive
fiat.
Most importantly, this bill requires information to be
shared among law enforcement agencies at all levels to ensure,
for example, that individuals with 15 traffic stops including
fleeing from a scene of an accidents and providing false
information to law enforcement, are not allowed to continue to
reside in this country period. National security is the
preeminent function of the Federal Government and it is easy to
argue that public safety is the preeminent function of State
and local governments. That is not to say that there are not
other vital functions, of course there are, but having a system
of laws that are enforce with the certainty of consequences for
failure to comply is the bedrock of a shared citizenry.
State and local law enforcement officers are subject to
exactly the same constitutional restrictions as Federal law
enforcement officers. All of these law enforcement officers are
at the same risk when an unlawful immigrant decides he cannot
handle going back to jail or being sent back to his or her home
country. And make no mistake, being in law enforcement is among
the riskiest jobs in America. We give law enforcement officers
great power and with that power comes great responsibility
because their purpose is so vital.
We trust State and local law enforcement in every category
of crime; from murder to narcotics trafficking, to sexual
assault, to domestic violence, to speeding, to robbery. When we
are in our own districts, it is State and local law enforcement
that come to our town halls and other public events and provide
security for both us and those innocent members of the public
who wish to interact with the people that they have entrusted
to serve. So if those women and men can be entrusted with the
investigation and enforcement of the most serious crimes in our
country, and if those same women and men who we call when we
hear noises outside our home in the middle of the night or when
something terrible happens to us when we are in our district,
why can we not give them the option; just the option of helping
to enforce our country's immigration laws?
There are other bills that are on topic, on the topic of
this hearing, such as to take steps to ensure victims of
trafficking are provided a timely hearing before an immigration
job. Another bill before us takes steps to ensure the asylum
process is not abused and offered only to those with credible
fear of being deported thereby ensuring the program has the
capacity to take care of the immigrants the program was
intended to help.
Lastly, another bill focuses on protecting children who
come into custody along our borders. As we have recently
witnessed, the current system is not equipped to handle such an
influx and we need to focus on determining whether these
children are in danger.
I welcome today's witnesses. I look forward to hearing your
testimony as well as the questions and the answers. And with
that, I would recognize the gentle lady from California.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As many know, I practiced and taught immigration law before
I became a Member of Congress, and I have worked
collaboratively with both Democrats and Republicans over the
years to reform our broken immigration laws. And even though we
were unable to pass meaningful immigration reform legislation
last Congress, I remain hopeful that we will be able to work
together in the future on this problem. And I know the people
who sent us to Washington want us to do that sooner, rather
than later.
Of course, one thing that won't fix our immigration system
is if we withhold funding from the Department of Homeland
Security, the agency tasked with administering the immigration
laws and keeping the country safe. The decision to add
immigration riderss to the DHS Appropriations bill, riderss
that are poison pills and were added only to satisfy demands of
people who are extremely anti-immigrant--I thought was reckless
and dangerous.
Congress needs to pass a clean funding bill--the bill that
Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate already
agreed to so that DHS can continue normal operations without
having to prepare contingency plans for a potential shutdown. I
am disappointed with the Majority's decision to hold funding
hostage and I hope that we are not forced to go through yet
another shutdown in order for the Republican leadership in
Congress to do the bare minimum that is expected of us by our
constituents; that we fund the government and protect the
country.
I am also disappointed that the Committee has approached
the issue of immigration at the very beginning of the 114th
Congress quite differently than we did at the beginning of the
113th Congress. Then, the Committee held hearings on a variety
of topics including opportunities for legal immigration,
challenges facing farmers and farm workers, the importance of
high-skilled immigration to American competitiveness and the
many ways in which families are separated unfairly as a result
of our broken immigration system.
By contrast, in this Congress, we began the year with a
hearing that addressed a laundry list of what I believe are
misplaced complaints regarding the enforcement of immigration
laws. The hearing that I referred to was followed by a hearing
on a bill to make E-Verify mandatory, and today's hearing is on
three deportation-only bills which would make the situation
worse.
This Committee considered the SAFE Act in the 113th
Congress and reported the bill to the floor. I opposed the bill
strongly at that time and I oppose it just as strongly today.
Section 315 of the bill would turn all undocumented immigrants
in the country whether they crossed the border 10 years ago or
over stayed a Visa just yesterday--into criminals. It would
make it a crime for an undocumented mother to remain in the
country to feed and care for her child just as it would make it
a crime for a U.S. citizen to drive her undocumented father to
a doctor's appointment or a member of the clergy to drive
undocumented immigrants to and from religious services. That's
why dozens of national, State, regional and local faith
organizations and leaders wrote to Speaker Boehner in August of
2013 to oppose the bill.
Section 102 of the bill would grant States and localities
the complete and unchecked power to enact and enforce their own
immigration laws as well as Federal immigration laws. For
years, law enforcement leaders have told us that turning local
police officers into immigration enforcement agents will damage
community policing practices and leave communities less safe.
That's why this bill was opposed so strongly in the last
Congress by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Police
Executive Research Forum, the National Organization of Black
Law Enforcement Executives, as well as police chiefs, sheriffs
and district attorneys across the country.
The SAFE Act would also strip protection from the more than
600,000 young people who have come forward, cleared background
checks, and obtained temporary protection from removal under
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program and prevent
the Administration from prioritizing the removal of serious
criminals and repeat offenders. One question that supporters of
this bill need to answer is how this country would be safer if
we focused our detention and deportation resources on the
DREAMers rather than on people who pose an actual threat to
public safety and national security.
The Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act and the so-
called Protection of Children Act both return us to a topic
that consumed much of our time and attention last summer: the
spike in unaccompanied children and families who fled Honduras,
El Salvador and Guatemala and were apprehended along our
southwest border. Both bills appear to begin with the premise
that these women and children must be turned around as quickly
as possible to send the message that the United States will
offer them no protection. The dangerous problem with this
premise is it runs afoul of one of our most fundamental
obligations under domestic and international law: the duty to
refrain sending a person back to a place where he or she will
face persecution.
We learned several important things last summer and in the
intervening months. We learned that 58 percent of the
unaccompanied children who were interviewed by the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees spoke of serious harm that raised
international protection concerns and that the countries they
were fleeing--Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala--are
undergoing a major breakdown in civil society that is marked by
extreme levels of violence. Depending on the source, either
Honduras or El Salvador now has the world's highest murder rate
and all five countries are in the top five.
We also learned that the diminished protection that
unaccompanied Mexican children receive under current law may
expose many of them to further persecution, sex trafficking and
abuse. Whereas UNHCR found that 64 percent of the Mexican
children they interviewed raised international protection
concerns, 95 percent of these children are summarily returned
with little process.
And finally, we learned--and we are continuing to learn--
that when many of the families across the border have received
appropriate legal support, they have been able to demonstrate
that they are refugees under our law and are entitled to
protection from persecution.
In the 6 months that the Artesia facility was in use, 15
families were represented throughout the entirety of their
proceedings by pro bono counsel arranged by the American
Immigration Lawyers Association and 14 of them obtained asylum.
I imagine some of my colleagues might say that that proves our
asylum laws are too generous, but I think it shows how
critically important it is that we not roll back procedural
protections that are needed to literally save lives.
Having learned all this, I'm concerned that these bills
would remove due process protection to make it easier to deport
these children and families.
Despite the flaws in our current treatment of unaccompanied
Mexican children, the Protection of Children Act would subject
all children to the cursory screening process now conducted by
Border Patrol agents. The bill actually weakens the screening
further by permitting Border Patrol agents to permit a child to
so-called voluntarily return to his country without even
assessing whether the child is capable of making an independent
decision to return.
The treatment of unaccompanied children is even worse under
the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act. The bill would
repeal entirely longstanding, bipartisan TVPRA protection for
all children and subject such children instead to expedited
removal. More generally, the bill would gut the heart of our
refugee protection laws by raising the credible fear standard.
When Congress created the credible fear process in 1996
together with expedited removal, we deliberately set the
standard low in recognition of the fact that many refugees do
not arrive at our borders prepared to support fully their
claims of protection. This bill would require that a refugee
essentially prove up his or her claim at the border which will
guarantee that persons fleeing persecution will be deported to
face torture, abuse or death at home.
Most complex problems can't be solved with simple
solutions. We can't fix our broken immigration system and the
problem of illegal immigration by just increasing our
enforcement of that broken system. Children and families are
fleeing extreme violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala
and are showing up in our country in search of protection. We
can't fix that problem by sealing the border and turning our
back on our history as a country that was founded by people who
were themselves fleeing persecution. These are serious problems
that require serious solutions. I would like to think that
Congress is up to the task of coming up with those solutions,
but I admit that I am discouraged by the fact that we can't
even fund the Department of Homeland Security.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your indulgence on
going over the time limit and I yield back my non-existent
time.
Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentle lady from California.
The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Virginia,
Mr. Goodlatte.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
holding this hearing.
In 1986, Congress and the President promised Americans
vigorous interior enforcement of our immigration laws in
exchange for amnesty for 3 million unlawful aliens. And while
the amnesty was granted to the 3 million unlawful aliens, that
promise of enforcement was never kept. Today, nearly 30 years
later, this Committee is holding a hearing on three immigration
bills which will finally deliver on the promise of robust
interior enforcement.
All of these bills were introduced in the last Congress.
One was introduced by Immigration and Borders Subcommittee
Chairman Trey Gowdy and provides for crucial tools for the
enforcement of our immigration laws within the interior of the
United States. The second and third bills ensure that aliens
apprehended along our borders are promptly removed and do not
abuse our generous immigration laws.
The second bill, introduced by Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, deals with asylum
abuse and fraud within our immigration system.
The third bill, introduced by John Carter, Chairman of the
Appropriation Committee's Subcommittee on Homeland Security,
addresses the need to treat unaccompanied alien minors
consistently so that they can be safely and expeditiously
returned to their home countries.
Successful immigration reform must address effective
interior enforcement and the swift removal of those aliens who
are apprehended along the border. This is an integral piece of
the puzzle. We can't just be fixated on apprehending aliens
along the border which undoubtedly is an issue of paramount
concern. We must also focus on what happens to those aliens who
are apprehended; those who make it pass the border and those
who violate the terms of their VISAs. That is what these three
bills do.
The immigration enforcement bill introduced by Chairman
Gowdy decisively strengthens immigration enforcement. The
primary reason why our immigrant enforcement system is broken
today is because Administrations have often ignored the
enforcement of our immigration laws. The current Administration
has turned non-enforcement into an art form.
When President Obama announced unilateral changes to our
immigration system with a wave of his pen and cellphone on
November 20th of last year, he indicated that he would allow
millions of unlawful and criminal aliens to evade immigration
enforcement. He did this with the issuance of new so-called
priorities for the apprehension, detention and removal of
aliens. Under the Obama administration's new enforcement
priorities, broad categories of unlawful and criminal aliens
will be immune from the law. This means that these removable
aliens will be able to remain in the U.S. without the
consequence of deportation.
To make matters worse, in fact much worse, even the most
dangerous criminals and national security threats can cease
being a ``priority'' for removal if there are undefined
``compelling and exceptional factors.'' We cannot allow this or
any other president to shut down Federal immigration
enforcement efforts unilaterally.
Mr. Gowdy's bill will prevent this from happening by giving
explicit congressional authorization to States and localities
to enforce their own immigration laws so long as they are
consistent with Federal immigration laws. The president may be
the boss of Federal law enforcement personnel but he does not
control State and local law enforcement agencies. By granting
this authority to State and local law enforcement, we can
eliminate one individual's ability to unilaterally shut down
immigration enforcement. Furthermore, we could line Border
Patrol agents shoulder-to-shoulder at the southern border and
it would not make the border secure. Why?
Because once apprehended by the Border Patrol, many of the
children, teenagers and adults arriving at the border simply
gain our asylum and immigration laws with the facilitation of
the Obama Administration. The Administration has done little to
deal with the nearly 70,000 minors and 70,000 family units that
entered our country illegally last year other than ensure that
their claims will be heard years down the road. In the
meantime, these aliens can abscond and eventually fail to
appear for their hearings. The Administration has also done
little to deal with the abuse of the credible fear process by
aliens apprehended at the border.
Judge Carter's bill amends the Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 so all unaccompanied
alien minors are treated the same as Mexican youth for the
purpose of removal. Under the bill, minors who have a credible
fear of persecution or who have been trafficked must appear
before an immigration judge within 14 days of their initial
screening. Others will be swiftly and safely returned to their
home country. Further, if Mr. Chaffetz's bill were enacted,
word would get out that the bogus credible fear and asylum
claims are not being rubberstamped and that claimants are not
being rewarded with almost certain release into the U.S. along
with work authorization. The vast increase in claims would
quickly abate.
In the end, it doesn't matter how many aliens are
apprehended along the border. If apprehension itself becomes a
golden ticket into the country, the three bills that are the
subject of today's hearing, along with Mr. Smith's Legal
Workforce Act would finally provide the American people with a
strong immigration enforcement system.
I congratulate their authors for introducing these
important bill and look forward to today's hearing.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Michigan,
the Ranking Member Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman Gowdy.
You ought to be glad you don't have a fourth bill here
today because I would undo the three previous bills that we are
considering but this is the third time this Congress, we met to
discuss immigration but, instead of considering comprehensive
immigration reform, we are discussing three enforcement-only
bills that will criminalize the undocumented community, force
more immigrants under the shadows and strip crucial due process
protection from children seeking protection from violence and
trafficking. And so, we had one hearing in a Judiciary
Subcommittee this morning and I had the great pleasure of
working with Chairman Gowdy on it and Chairman Goodlatte.
Today we are going to hear some incredible commentary and I
don't think we are going to be in--I want to enjoy the same
agreement and cooperation that we had earlier. I am going to be
a couple of other comments and then I am going to yield to the
distinguished gentleman, Mr. Gutierrez, for a comment that I
think, as a leader in the Congress on this measure and
especially with the Hispanic caucus that, he will make. I
understand that there are guests here in the audience and are
families from the Casa de Maryland. And we want to welcome you
and thank you for being here to listen in a good spirit and
cooperatively with everything that goes on.
I respect the effort my colleagues are putting into the
issue, but these bills are not the solution to the broken
immigration system that American families and businesses have
been waiting for. The first bill would criminalize the
immigrant community. Gosh. It would make it a crime,
potentially a felony, to be an undocumented immigrant in this
country and, in addition, turns every police officer in the
country into an immigration agent of sorts. In the eyes of many
communities, that means the public safety mission will come a
distant second.
The second bill, the Protection of Children Act, contrary
to its name does nothing to protect children. In fact, it
subjects children to an increase risk of harm with less due
process.
The third bill, the Asylum Reform and Border Protection
Act, unreasonably raises the credible fear standard to the
point where it no longer acts as a threshold inquiry but would
require refugees to prove their case almost immediately upon
entry.
And so, I will put the rest of my statement--I'd like to
yield now to my colleague, Mr. Gutierrez. I apologize for going
longer than I intended.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you. You are very generous. Thank you
so much.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member.
First of all, I want the public to know that none of these
bills will ever become the law of this country. None of them.
So do not fear. Justice, fairness is on your side. This is the
United States of America and those that challenge the society
in fairness and in openness have always prevailed in the United
States.
Bishop, I'm happy you are here. We look forward to your
testimony and answering questions. I am going to let you know
ahead of time, I am going to ask you to please, to the extent
you can, listen very carefully to my republican colleagues and
what they have to say because I would like to juxtapose what
they say today with the position of my church, your church and
the catholic church here in the United States of America; which
I know will be resoundingly different.
This is not going anywhere, and I look forward to going to
Tuscan. I want my friends to know that we just were in Houston,
thousand people got ready to sign up for the President's
executive. We went to Charleston and Charlotte, North and South
Carolina. Everywhere we go, thousands of people are getting
ready to sign up for President Barak Obama's executive order.
There will be millions of them and, if you want to turn the
tide of history, you are going to turn the tide of history but
what it is going to do is going to bite.
My colleagues in the Republican Party, you will never--you
had a good run. Abraham Lincoln, George Bush, nice run. You
will never elect another republican president of the United
States of America because the immigrant community won't allow
to ever do it again because of specifically these kinds of
legislation.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Illinois and the
gentleman from Michigan.
We have a distinguished panel today. I will begin by
swearing in our witnesses before introducing you. If you would
please rise so I can administer an oath.
Do each of you swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth so help you God?
Let the record reflect everyone answered in the
affirmative.
Just to alert our witnesses and our guests, votes are
scheduled. I will let you know in plenty of time. And so, if
you see us rush out, we are coming back. We have to vote.
So with that, you may be seated. I will introduce you and
then I will recognize you for your 5 minutes. I will introduce
you from left-to-right en bloc.
Sheriff Sam Page is an elected official and Chief Law
Enforcement Officer in Rockingham County, North Carolina, a
position he has held since 1998. Sheriff Page served from 2011
to 2012 as a Chairman of North Carolina Sheriffs Association,
formerly served as president in North Carolina Sheriffs
Association 2010. In addition, he has served on the National
Sheriffs Association's Border and Immigration Committee since
2010. Following graduation of high school, Sheriff Page served
in the United States Air Force from 1975 to 1980. He is also a
graduate of the National Security Institute.
Welcome, Sheriff.
Dr. Frank Morris is testifying today on behalf of the
Progressives for Immigration Reform where he is a member of
their board of directors. He also serves on the board of
directors for the Center for Immigration Studies, the 9/11
Families for Secure America and Federation for American
Immigration Reform. Dr. Morris has previously served as the
Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation, Senior Foreign Service Officer for the Agency for
International Development, and the State Department's Special
Assistant to the Director of National Institute for Education
while serving as a National Educational Policy Fellow. He
received his A.B. with high honors from Colgate, a Masters in
Public Administration from Maxwell School in Syracuse and
completed his doctorate in Political Science from MIT.
Mr. Dan Cadman currently serves as Senior Fellow with the
Center for Immigration Studies. He is a retired INS ICE
Official with 30 years of government experience. Mr. Cadman
served as a Senior Supervisor/Manager at Headquarter as well as
field offices both domestically and abroad within the
Immigration Law Enforcement field. His knowledge and experience
encompass among other things criminal aliens, employer
sanctions, national security and terrorism matters.
And finally, the Most Reverend Gerald Kicanas--if I
mispronounce that, my apologies. Pope John Paul II appointed
the Bishop the Coadjutor. I am having to struggle with some of
this so you bear with me, okay? Bishop of Tucson on October 30,
2001 upon retirement of Bishop Manuel Moreno. Bishop Kicanas
became the sixth Bishop of Tucson on March 7, 2003. He is the
chairman of the Board of Directors at Catholic Relief Services,
a member of the Administrative Committee and the Budget Finance
Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as
a former vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops. He graduated from the University of St. Mary of the
Lake and the theologate graduate level seminary of the
Archdiocese. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of
Chicago on April 27, 1967.
Welcome to each of you.
Sheriff, we'll start with you, recognizing you for your 5
minutes.
There is a series of lights; yellow will encourage you to
wrap up and red means conclude that final remark.
With that, Sheriff Page.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE SAM S. PAGE, SHERIFF, ROCKINGHAM
COUNTY, NC
Sheriff Page. Mr. Chairman, Co-Chairman, and distinguished
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary
Committee, I'd like to thank you for allowing me this
opportunity to talk to you about the Gowdy Immigration
Enforcement Bill of 2013. I give greeting from the citizens of
Rockingham County, North Carolina whom I represent. Currently,
I am serving in my fifth term as elected Sheriff of Rockingham
County and also as a veteran, and also as a civilian law
enforcement officer of more than 33 years in North Carolina.
I believe that our Congress has one of the toughest jobs in
our Nation today. You're being asked to fix our broken
immigration system in the U.S. and to make sure that
legislation will provide a solution that will last for many
years to come. I am just one of 3,080 sheriffs across America
that are asking for your help in solving our immigration and
border security problem that impacts all of citizens across the
U.S. I am not an expert at immigration law or border security
but what I can tell you about is public safety.
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, North Carolina is
second only to the Atlanta Region in the southeast where drug
trafficking routes by the Mexican Drug Cartel. The Drug Cartel
are operating in approximately 1,200 cities across the U.S. In
two to 3 days they are in my county.
In North Carolina, since 2010, I have participated in the
Secure Communities Program. Since that time, we processed 233
persons that have been criminally charged and residing
illegally in the U.S. Nine illegal immigrants previously
removed by ICE have returned to my county to be rearrested for
the second time. Approximately 45 percent of those arrested
were for DWI, 15 percent were charged with assault, 5 percent
for rape or sexual assault, one for death by motor vehicle, and
one person charged for attempted murder.
I personally have traveled to the southwest border of the
United States with Mexico three times over the past 4 years for
the purpose to educate myself about the issues that affect
local, State and Federal law enforcement officers and their,
you know, border security efforts.
Last summer, I traveled to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas
where almost 70,000 illegal immigrants including unaccompanied
children were apprehended by Border Patrol agents. And
according to Border Patrol those persons were Give Ups; they
basically did not try and avoid apprehension.
When visiting one Border Patrol station, I asked why all
the trucks parked outside and they said, ``Sheriff, we're tied
up because everybody is in here processing families and the
unaccompanied children.'' He said they were overwhelmed.
I noted during the Border Patrol visit that some discussion
came up about the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act thus subjecting all illegal immigrants to
expeditious return, minors that is, if they've been trafficked
and don't face the likelihood of persecution. And that was Mr.
Carter's bill. I thought it was a very interesting bill and I
think it could have a very important impact.
The bill would send a clear message to parents of these
children: There is no benefit by putting your children at risk
by contracting, excuse me, by contracting with criminal
smuggling organizations to bring your children to the U.S.
illegally.
And who is profiting from this summer border surge? The
Mexican Drug Cartel and the human smugglers.
What comes through the border doesn't stay there. In just a
few hours or a few days driving time, the drug trafficking,
human trafficking, illegal immigrants and gang members enter
into my State and other States. When you look at the DHS annual
summary, I asked the question: How many illegal immigrants and
criminal offender did you detect and how many others did you
miss?
Our Congress needs to address the misunderstood issue of
detainers. Several of the Sheriffs across the U.S. have
discussed concerns regarding detainers with the National
Sheriffs' Association. The detainers allowed us to complete the
process officially and to avoid having criminal aliens slip
between the cracks and return into our communities and
sometimes kind of flee and then to commit new crimes. We are
also concerned about the pending law suits. We want to
cooperate with ICE and do what we can to see as our duty as
fellow law enforcement agencies. We want to do our part.
We badly need our Congress to step in and clarify the
authority of ICE to issue detainers and our ability and
obligation to comply with those detainers just as we would any
other law enforcement agency in connection with legitimate law
enforcement action. The Gowdy enforcement bill would do that.
My fellow sheriffs and I had the discussion and still the
problems of decreasing number of criminal aliens that have been
taken into custody by ICE from our facilities. Since 2010, we
processed 233 persons criminally charged; 66 percent have been
removed. That's 154 persons out of 233 removed from our
facility. And where they go, I have no idea.
The Gowdy Immigration bill will help us by ensuring that
ICE lives up to its responsibility as a role, as law
enforcement partner and by detaining and removing all the
criminal aliens that we work together to identify. It will give
ICE more tools to make them more efficient and more effective.
What I want as a sheriff is what my citizens in Rockingham
County want, is to know that ICE Agents will be able to do
their job and will actually take custody and seek to remove the
illegal aliens committing criminal offenses up in my county.
Thank you very much and I'll be standing by to answer your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Sheriff Page follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Sheriff.
Dr. Morris?
TESTIMONY OF FRANK L. MORRIS, SR., MEMBER, BOARD OF DIRECTORS,
PROGRESSIVES FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM
Mr. Morris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Committee.
I welcome this opportunity to speak today on behalf of many
American voices are not heard in the immigration debate. But
the focus on comprehensive immigration reform, the focus is of
course on those who are undocumented. But what about the
American citizens? And that is what I want to talk to you
about.
I want to talk to you while we have 8 million illegal----
Go ahead and try it now?
Okay.
Since we have more than 8 million illegal workers in jobs
which they were not supposed to be able to get, this is not the
way it is supposed to be. And, at the same time, we have more
than 9 million American workers seeking any kind of employment
and another 6 million seeking full time employment. The whole
purpose of immigration law, which has been exacerbated because
we have not had effective internal enforcement, has been that
the American citizens are really second class citizens in this
debate.
Myths, which predominate, which have dominated this debate
have worked all to against the American citizens. Myths that
the workforce of the illegal workers are doing jobs Americans
won't do when, in reality, as I point out in my paper which I
hope will be included in the record, especially in construction
jobs, the jobs which 83 percent of them are American workers,
that somehow there is the assumptions that, when we are talking
with the illegal workforce, there's exemptions from the law of
supply and demand and labor. That if you don't have--if you
have a tremendous increase in supply, you won't have either
wage depressing the fact or especially for Black workers, a
labor substitution effect. That's fallacious.
That immigrant workers are the workers that are
disadvantaged when in fact, if you see that immigrant workers
have an average family income of about, illegal immigrant
workers have about $36,000 a year. African American families
have an income of $32,000 a year. I mean, a whole aspect that
there has been a fact of privilege, a legal privilege, for a
non-citizens that trump the citizens of America while we have
the pressing effects of the contact of the criminal and the
civil justice system with illegal workers, American workers, as
I point out, are at a tremendous disadvantage.
Many worker with any kind of contact with the criminal
justice system is that it leads to an exclusionary employment
effect. How can we have this kind of double standard? American
workers, when citizenship is devalued, is especially sensitive
to Black Americans; where citizen costs were tremendous. And
when laws are not enforced to protect the citizens of status,
this an egregious violation of justice.
You know, one of the things that underlies these myths is
the assumptions that American workers, if they are not working,
it somehow due to personal responsibilities. The ignoring of
the competition, especially to Black workers, and this goes all
the way back to the National Academy of Science document, our
common destiny, the workers in the areas that are in
competition with Black workers, Black workers that are
tremendous and Black families that are tremendous disadvantage.
The result of this is that we have unique violations of
law. The President's executive order gives non-citizens who
benefited from the violation of the laws and the non-
enforcement of the labor laws the fruit of the poison tree.
They are able to continue working while we have the still high
American unemployment. Where is the justice, as I ask the
Judiciary Committee?
That's basically my contention. I welcome your questions. I
hope that you will see my statement where I document these
contentions in much more greater detail.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Morris follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Gowdy. Yes, sir. All of your opening statements will be
made part of the record.
Mr. Cadman?
TESTIMONY OF WALTER D. (DAN) CADMAN, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR
IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Mr. Cadman. Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Lofgren and
other Members, thank you for the opportunity to discuss
immigration enforcement at the border----
Mr. Gowdy. Is your microphone on?
Mr. Cadman. Am I there?
Mr. Gowdy. I think so. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cadman. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss
immigration enforcement at the border and in the interior and
to address the three bills being considered.
I believe they go far toward restoring a credible
immigration policy. We are on the verge of a de facto go-free
zone wherein almost everyone who manages to get past the first
defenses of the Border Patrol can live and work unlawfully with
little to fear in the way of consequences. What good is a
picket line at the border, whether human or technological, if
we do not enforce immigration laws in the interior? Congress
can alter this course of events and restore effective
immigration enforcement.
Bills focused solely on border enforcement will prove
ineffectual if the country is to regain control because a
borders-only focus doesn't address the pull factors
contributing so strongly to illegal immigration. But, at the
border, it is important to deter migratory waves, deal promptly
with arrivals, and rapidly repatriate all but those who truly
fear persecution.
When rubber-stamped, credible fear claims encourage future
waves to make the trek and they create a climate of compassion,
fatigue, and cynicism. We witnessed such a wave in the Rio
Grande Valley several months last year and it was not handled
effectively.
The Carter and Chaffetz bills address these issues by
establishing fast track resolution of cases, creating new rules
for handling asylum claims, and modifying those parts of the
Wilberforce laws such as disparate treatment between juveniles
from contiguous versus non-contiguous Nations.
The bills amend flaws in the way special immigrant juvenile
status is defined and create baseline standards for identifying
those who come forward to take custody of juveniles from Health
and Human Services.
Most importantly, they take the government out of the
morally repugnant business of facilitating and thus encouraging
the smuggling of alien minors into our country by acting as the
facilitators who deliver the load to its final destination
while taking a hands-off approach toward the parents who put
their children at such great risk to begin with by hiring
smugglers who are often members of violent cartels.
Ineffectual interior enforcement presents a danger to
public safety through misuse of prosecutorial discretion.
Officers must justify at length and in detail why they should
be allowed to take enforcement action because discretion is the
new norm leaving many alien criminals flying under the radar of
DHS's misplaced priority system which it justifies as a
resource conservation exercise.
The DHS secretary has dismantled the ecure Communities
program which used modern technology to quickly identify alien
criminals in a cost-effective way pushing ICE agents back to
pre-electronics days having to rely on paper and faxes in a
laborious, ineffectual manner guaranteed to result in more
criminals slipping through the cracks.
The secretary has also ended use of immigration detainers,
freeing alien criminals to re-enter communities and to
reoffend, leaving in their wake many more innocent victims;
victims such as Niche Knight of Philadelphia, Briana Valle of
Illinois, and off-duty Border Patrol agent, Javier Vega, Jr.,
and forcing ICE agents to spend time, energy and limited
resources, all of which the Administration claims it wants to
conserve in order to track them down.
At the same time, hundreds of jurisdictions refuse to honor
ICE detainers while they collect millions of taxpayer dollars
via the SCAAP Program. Many ceased honoring detainers because
of lawsuits real or threatened while ICE abandoned its partners
to face those suits alone even declining to file amicus briefs.
The Gowdy bill acknowledges the inter-play of Federal,
State and local interests where immigration is concerned. It
recognizes that State and local governments have a right to
take a hand in controlling illegal immigration given its
adverse impact on their limited police, health, fire, emergency
and social service resources. And, conversely, that ICE agents
have the right to expect cooperation instead of sanctuary
policies that obstruct.
Among other things, the Gowdy bill restores detainers,
reinstates the Secure Communities program, reinvigorates the
State and local role in shared policing efforts, provides them
immunity to the same extent as Federal agents, expands
categories of removable criminal aliens and creates new
standards for detention of dangerous criminals.
Significantly, both the Gowdy and Chaffetz bills establish
a highly desirable new enforcement provision for designating
violent criminal gangs such as MS-13, whose alien members and
associates would be removable and ineligible for any kind of
relief or benefits upon designation of the gang.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cadman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, sir.
Bishop?
TESTIMONY OF MOST REVEREND GERALD F. KICANAS, BISHOP OF TUCSON,
U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS
Bishop Kicanas. Thank you very much.
My diocese, the Diocese of Tucson, extends along the entire
border between Arizona and Mexico. Today, I come representing
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
I would like to thank Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy and
Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren for having me here to testify today.
Before I begin, I would like to remember Kayla Mueller; the
young woman who is from Arizona and recently died while in
captivity in the Middle East. Kayla who dedicated her life to
the service of others represents the best of our country's
values. She spent her life and lost her life in attempting to
help the most vulnerable here and overseas. She felt the pain
and suffering of others and responded. We might learn from the
example of our fellow American.
I was last with you in 2010 when I testified on the subject
of the ethical imperative for comprehensive immigration reform.
Since that time, the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Catholic
community and many other religious communities has not wavered
on their commitment to comprehensive immigration reform; even
though we have not yet gotten there. My written testimony
details all of the specifics of what should be part of
comprehensive immigration reform which includes a path to
citizenship for the undocumented in our Nation.
I would like to address my remarks today to the three bills
before this Subcommittee and explain in general terms our
opposition to them. First of all, the bills adversely impact
immigrant and refugee children, perhaps the most vulnerable
population impacted by our Nation's immigration laws. Among
other things, these bills would first repeal the deferred
action for childhood arrival and would repeal protections for
children fleeing violence in Central America and would keep
children in detention for long periods of time and would weaken
protections for abandoned, neglected and abused children.
Our country is judged by how we treat the most vulnerable,
and the removal of protection from children, the most
vulnerable, flies against human decency and violates human
dignity. It would undermine our credibility as a global leader
in defense of human rights. We should not punish these children
who themselves are innocent and only seeking opportunity and
safety.
My brother Bishop from El Paso Texas, Bishop Mark Seitz,
testified before the House Judiciary Committee last year and
explained that he had spoken with a mother in El Salvador who
explained the tough decisions faced by parents of children
experiencing persecution at home. Bishop Seitz asked her, ``Why
would you let your child make the journey north if she knew it
was so dangerous?"
And she responded, ``Bishop, I would rather my child die on
the journey seeking safety in the United States than on my
front doorstep.''
To use an analogy, Mr. Chairman, the removal of due process
from these children seeking safety as these bills would do is
like a fireman showing up at a burning building and locking the
doors. This would be contrary to our values as a Nation and
contrary to our moral authority as a Nation that has a historic
commitment to refugee protection.
Second, these bills, specifically the Secure and Fortify
Enforcement Act, would among other things criminalize
undocumented presence and those who transport undocumented
persons to assist their wellbeing. Congress has debated this
issue before when the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4437
in December of 2005. That legislation, which had similar
provisions and died in the U.S. Senate, you will remember
sparked protests across the country. As a Nation do we really
want to take the country down this road again? Do we want to
criminalize millions of persons who have built equities in this
country, jail them and separate them families including those
with U.S. citizen children?
Instead of fixing a broken system, would we rather jail
nuns and other good Samaritans who are simply coming to aid of
their fellow human beings consistent with their faith?
Moreover, by allowing States and localities to create their own
immigration laws and to enforce them, the SAFE Act would create
a patchwork of immigration laws across the Nation making the
system more disjointed.
Third, the bills would severely weaken our asylum and
refugee protection system ensuring the vulnerable groups are
sent back to their persecutors against our heritage as a safe
haven for the worlds oppressed. It would raise the standard for
meeting the credible fear standard for the persecuted to obtain
asylum status and it would also repeal the use of parole in
place thus resulting in more family separation.
The Conference of Bishops, the people of faith communities
in our country, and the majority of Americans were terribly
disappointed that comprehensive immigration reform legislation
was not passed in the 113th Congress. You have the opportunity
again to fix our broken system by passing such legislation in a
series of bills or in one in the 114th Conference. We stand
ready to work with you toward this goal.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Bishop Kicanas follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Bishop. The Chair will now recognize
the gentleman from Virginia, the Chairman of the Full
Committee, for his questioning.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Morris,----
[Disturbance in hearing room.]
Mr. Gowdy. I thank the law enforcement. I apologize to our
four invited guests and recognize the gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Morris, I am particularly delighted to have you here.
Mr. Morris. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Goodlatte. Because I want to ask you very specifically
what will be the consequences to American workers and taxpayers
if the United States government doesn't take necessary steps to
stop illegal immigration and enforce our immigration laws?
Mr. Morris. Well, American workers are already at a
disadvantage; some more than others. And that's the focus of
the sum that I talked about.
The interesting thing is that ironically the things that
place them at a disadvantage are contact with the laws and the
contact of the criminal justice system. And that suppression of
that contact of illegal workers is not only unfair, it's
compounded and----
Mr. Goodlatte. And creates a lack of respect for the rule
of law, does it not?
Mr. Morris. Well, it's not only that----
Mr. Goodlatte. They are treated differently from people who
are not lawfully in the country?
Mr. Morris. Yes, and in effect is that you keep the
benefits of that in terms of the jobs.
[Disturbance in hearing room.]
Mr. Gowdy. Thank the Capitol Police and would recognize the
gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. Morris. Sir, there is one more thing I wanted to say.
Mr. Goodlatte. Before you do, Dr. Morris, I just want to
again thank you for being here to speak on behalf of the
American worker.
Mr. Morris. Thank you, sir.
One of the things that I didn't include in my paper is how
much of the recovery has gone to immigrant workers. Immigrant
workers are 17 percent of the economy but they are getting 45
percent of the jobs that have been generated by this recovery
because many times they are in areas such as construction,
health and some of the other areas and increasingly limited
retail that have been generated. So we have American workers at
a multiple disadvantages. Multiple disadvantages that even not
recovered from the recovery and then not having the likelihood
of getting future jobs.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
Sheriff Page, isn't interior enforcement essential in order
to locate and apprehend unlawful aliens who have successfully
evaded the U.S. Border Patrol and aliens who have entered
legally but have chosen not to leave when required to do so? Do
you believe that Mr. Gowdy's bill recognizes the critical
nature of interior enforcement?
Sheriff Page. I do. I do.
And I understand the importance of interior enforcement
because what comes through our borders, and I have been to the
border multiple times, it's open and once this person has come
into our communities and they are identified and they end up in
our facilities and we contact ICE, our expectation is this
person that has criminal offense will be removed from the
United States as it should be. But, and I didn't mean to be
short a while ago, is but when people ask me in my community,
``Sheriff, where do the persons go when they leave here?"
I said, ``I can only assume either temporary detention and
then possibly release.'' And from there, as I read, nearly
900,000 absconders across the United States, and if we don't
have the interior enforcement mechanism, how can we track these
people down? And like you said, 5,000 ICE agents, that's a lot
to be tracking down 900,000 people.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you. Very important. Thank you.
Mr. Cadman, the Administration began a parole program for
minor children of parents from certain Central American
countries who are ``legally'' in the United States including
unlawful aliens who have received deferred action. As the
Administration admitted, it began its program because
relatively few of the minors in El Salvador, Honduras or
Guatemala can meet the refugee requirements. In other words,
the conditions in those countries do not, according to the
Administration's own admission, meet the refugee requirements
for the Administration's in-country refugee processing program.
Even by USCIS's own definition humanitarian parole is used
sparingly and for a temporary period of time due to compelling
emergency.
My question for you is, isn't the Administration's new
parole program a clear abuse of humanitarian parole as defined
in statute? And how would the Chaffetz Asylum bill prohibit the
ability of the Administration to misuse humanitarian parole?
Mr. Cadman. I do believe that the program, as I have read
the documents that have come out from the State Department and
USCIS, to contemplate uses of parole that were not ever
intended by the statute and seem to be beyond the perimeters
and parameters that were intended. It was supposed to be used
sparingly and only in the rarest of cases, and yet it looks to
me like it is going to be used as a pressure valve instead to
try and accommodate people who may not fit the five criteria
that are outlined in both international and in domestic law
with regard to refugee status.
And the fact that it uses the phrase that it will be
accorded to relatives of people who are in the United States
legally presently, frankly that's mushy because that includes
all of the people who were given benefits under the President's
executive action. And that is to my way of thinking, a stretch
of the notion of in the United States legally.
The consequence of all of this is that unless something is
done to reinstitute the notion of parole as it was intended, I
think that it could become a runaway train. I think that the
portions of the bills under consideration that reiterate the
purposes of parole will help that happen. But I would caveat,
quite honestly, that the language in the law is only as good as
the executive's willingness to enforce and abide by it. And
that is a wild card.
Mr. Goodlatte. My time has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentleman from Virginia.
The Chair will now recognize the gentle lady from
California, Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before going into my questions, I would ask unanimous
consent to enter into the record 13 letters from the following
organizations in opposition to all of the bills under
consideration today: the Immigration Council; the Church World
Service; the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society; the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious; the Lutheran Immigration Refugee
Service; Network; Human Rights First; the National Immigrant
Justice Center; the First Focus Campaign for Children; the
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles; the ACLU;
the Tahirih Justice Center; and the U.S. Committee for Refugees
and Immigrants.
I also ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a
letter from a Coalition of the Evangelical Organizations in
opposition to the SAFE Act.
And finally, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record a letter signed by 19 groups in opposition to the Asylum
Reform and Border Protection Act.
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
Ms. Lofgren. I just wanted to make a couple of corrections
before getting into questions.
First, Mr. Cadman, you indicated in your testimony that the
change in the Secure Communities would take us back to pre-
electronic days. And that's incorrect. The automatic sharing of
biometric data was not affected by the Secretary's recent memo.
In fact, the memo says the exact opposite.
So I would ask unanimous consent to enter the memorandum
that addresses this into the record, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
Ms. Lofgren. I also noted that there was a suggestion that
the existence of DACA had somehow instigated the number of
child, unaccompanied minor children coming in. And we just
received a report prepared by the Niskanen Center examining the
unaccompanied minor child/DACA link that pretty much proves
that there is no link. It is actually prepared by David Bier
who worked for our colleague, Mr. Labrador, before leaving and
joining the non-profit. And I would ask unanimous consent to
enter that into the record as well.
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
Ms. Lofgren. You know, I am happy that everyone took time
to be here today. You know, a lot of people don't realize that
the witnesses are volunteers just to try and help us. And so we
do appreciate that.
I wanted especially, I know it is hard for you, Bishop, to
get here given your schedule. And I am wondering, in terms of
the proposals we are considering today, the Protecting our
Children Act and the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act,
they would have particularly harsh provisions for unaccompanied
children and would very, substantially restrict due process
protections for these children and likely lengthen the amount
of time that little kids are held in detention.
Last summer, of course, we saw a surge in border crossings
by immigrant refugee children from Central America. Have you
been able to speak with any of these children? And if so, can
you talk a bit about your experiences with that? Can you share
any of their stories with this Subcommittee?
Bishop Kicanas. Thank you very much, Ms. Lofgren.
Yes. I have had an opportunity. We have two places in
Tucson currently where unaccompanied children are being kept.
One is Sycamore Canyon which is a small number of young people.
And then, in Southwest Key which has probably about 70 children
at this point. And, in both places, I have had the opportunity
to pray with them and to hear some of their stories. And they
are stories that are deeply troubling, both in their home
country and in their journey trying to get to a safe place of
safety.
They speak of gangs; gang recruitment. They speak of
violence and fear of violence for themselves and their
families. Some of them have very horrendous family situations;
very troubling situations. They speak of tremendous poverty, a
sense of hopelessness, and a fear for their lives. And these
are young children. I mean, at Southwest Key, some of these
children are as young as 7 years of age. They also have had
babies there. They weren't there when I said the mass. These
are girls and boys, the most polite and respectful young people
that I have met in a sense of their prayerfulness, their
reflectiveness. So it was a very powerful and very moving
experience, I must say.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
I know my time has expired but I want to ask this final
question and I don't know if you can answer it or not. You
recently delivered a letter from the Pope to a border group in
Arizona. Can you tell us what the Pope said in the letter or is
that secret?
Bishop Kicanas. Sure, I would be happy to.
It was a thrill, really. You know, Pope Francis received
some letters from what are called the Kino Teens which are
young people working along the border with an organization
called the Kino Border Initiative run by the Jesuits. And I
invite, by the way, all of our Congress persons here to come
and see Kino Border Initiative and to really engage and
experience the face and voice of the migrant. It is a very
powerful moving experience. Perhaps the only thing that really
changes attitudes.
But these young people wrote letters to the Holy Father
telling him about their work with migrants and inviting him to
come to the border. Usually the Holy Father does not respond
personally to letters; he receives millions of them. But
Cardinal O'Malley was able to give these letters to him
personally and he took the time to write a letter
congratulating these young people for their sensitivity, for
their care for these vulnerable people and his encouragement to
them to stay the course. That this is what America is about.
This is what our country is about; responding to people who are
vulnerable and in need. And he actually signed it Francis.
Ms. Lofgren. So Bishop, my staff is better organized than I
am. Apparently, the letter is not a secret and it is a
beautiful letter. And I would ask unanimous consent to make it
part of the record, and of course we are very much looking
forward to Pope Francis when he comes here in the fall.
Bishop Kicanas. Yes. I think, as you know, he is going to
be speaking before the Congress and I can't imagine that this
issue is so terribly close to his heart, will not come up and
that he will not be encouraging our Congress to address the
immigration question.
Ms. Lofgren. My time has expired.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your indulgence.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentle lady from California.
The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Iowa, Mr.
King.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank all the witnesses for your testimony today.
And I want to make sure that I am clear on the position
that I have long taken in my time as a private citizen, my time
as a State senator, as a son of a father who was deeply
involved in law enforcement and steeped me in respect for the
supreme law of the land, the Constitution and the rule of law
and our ordered society, and remind people that there is no
liberty without justice. And we have seen an example in here,
during this hearing, of what happens when people have contempt
for the law.
I think it would be to safe bet to submit that a good
number of the people that disrupted this place are unlawfully
present in the United States. They have been, at least in
theory, granted a pass by the President of the United States in
a lawless way also, I would add, in defiance of his own oath to
the Constitution, defiance of the very law that requires that
when people unlawfully present are encountered by immigration
officers, that they place them in removal proceedings. And the
President has ordered ICE agents to ignore that law. And now we
see the results of it. The results of being rewarded for
breaking the law with more contempt for the law in the
disorderly conduct that took place within this hearing.
We can expect to see more and more and more of that until
such time as we can restore the respect for the rule of law in
this country and that has been my central objective in all of
the years that I have been involved in immigration policy. And
it has been nothing else. It has been about the Constitution,
the rule of law, and the sanctity and the security of our
borders. And in doing so, we can build an even greater country
and in exporting the values that we need to restore here.
We can help all the world but, if we allow our system to
break down and reward people for breaking that system down, we
are going to end up in the third world, the place they came
from. They came from a lawless place and they are bringing
lawlessness here. That is what we have witnessed here today.
But I wanted to turn to Your Excellency, and I appreciate
you coming back. And I appreciate the tone and the delivery of
your remarks and the faith that emanates from you, Your
Excellency. And I wanted to ask this question. I missed a
couple of words, but you told a narrative about parents of a
child coming from Central America, I presume. And I wrote this
down, ``Rather have child die on the journey than,'' could you
complete that statement? I missed the conclusion of it.
Bishop Kicanas. I would be happy to.
First of all, could I say, Representative King, it is
unfair for people to impute intentions to people, as I am sure
you feel was done here, but it is also we need to be careful
about the attentions of others. Maybe it is not so much a
desire to break the laws as a passion and a fear and a concern
that is in the hearts of many people right now.
But I think what I was saying at that time was that this
mother, and I have heard this by others, this mother said that
I would rather have my child experience the danger of crossing
to the United States rather than die here in our porch or our
home. Because the situation in Central America,--I talked to
Bishop Ramazzini from Guatemala who is deeply involved,
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga in Honduras, they are very
concerned about the circumstances in their country and the fear
with which children are living.
Mr. King. Bishop, if I could, and I know our clock is
ticking, I have made a number of trips to the border, I have
not track, but in one of those recently, in McAllen area, went
through Brownsville, McAllen area, each location that I could.
I talked with people that were taking care of the, your phrase,
migrants. And asked a series of questions, and in transfer
centers also: How many of the unaccompanied alien juveniles are
sexual assaulted on the way? And they told us there is a range
of answers. Somewhere from a third to 70 percent are sexually
assaulted on the way.
Of the girls, from seven different sources, they told us
that every one of them receives a pill before she leaves, or a
pharmaceutical too, because the expectation of being raped
along the way is so high. And I am going to presume that that
pill, and I don't know whether it is an abort efficient, and so
to keep her from getting pregnant as a result of rape. Can you
imagine being a father or a grandfather, or a mother or a
grandmother, and going to the drug store to buy a pill that
ends a life of an innocent unborn baby and sending your
daughter across the continent because we are not sending them
back, they are sending them here?
And everyone down there told us, ``Until you send them
back, they are going to keep coming and they are going to be
subjected to that kind of rape, that kind of violence, that
kind of death of innocent unborn babies.''
Bishop Kicanas. As you know, Representative King, the
Catholic Church has been the most outspoken in its opposition
to abortion as one of the many life issues from conception to
natural death that we seek to uphold.
There is no doubt that these young people are experiencing
trauma at home and in the journey here. And that is why it is
so incredibly important that there not be something like
expedited removal for these children before they have an
opportunity to present their situations and be treated
carefully because they are highly traumatized.
And the sensitivity of having Border Patrol do this kind of
investigation, which is not their responsibility, it is a
mistake and something that I think could further traumatize
these children when they are returned home.
I know when the huge number of children came in and many
that were being housed in Nogales, in a Border Patrol station,
and the Border Patrol said to me, ``Bishop, this is not our
job. We don't know how to take care of kids. We're here to
detain people, we're here to enforce the law. This is not our
job.''
And so, to have a bill that would entrust to the Border
Patrol this responsibility of determining whether a child has
an asylum reason I think would be a mistake.
Mr. King. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy. The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from
Michigan, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I ask unanimous consent to put into the record a statement
for the record for a Frank Morris and a statement for the
record for a Mr. Dan Cadman.
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much.
Bishop, I appreciate your presentation and recognition that
we do have a responsibility of dealing with millions of
hardworking and law-abiding undocumented immigrants in our
country. What occurs to you to be a just and principle way to
deal with this issue, sir?
Bishop Kicanas. I didn't hear the comment.
Mr. Conyers. How do you believe we should deal with this
undocumented immigrant issue in our country? What steps should
we take as opposed to the very harsh criminal approach of the
three bills that are before us? I am glad there weren't more
than three.
Bishop Kicanas. Certainly, enforcement has to be a portion
of the solution but it is not the only solution and not even
perhaps the first solution.
The Conference does support the need for enforcement. We do
believe that countries have a right to secure their borders.
But we must have policies that are in keeping with our values
and these particular pieces of legislation I don't think
reflect well the values of our country.
What we believe is that it would be extremely important to
address the 11 million people who are in this country without
documents to find a way to legalize their presence especially
those who are simply cooperating, participating, engaged. And
in our, all of our States there are such people who have no
documentation but who are our neighbors who are working hard,
who are contributing.
We would like to see a way for workers to come to this
country to legally, so that they don't have to come illegally
into the country, to address issues. And we are concerned that
there will be family unification, excuse me, unification
because right now it is far too long for families to be
separated from one another.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you so much.
I would like to ask you one other question and that is
about the DREAMers. We have struggled with this. We passed the
DREAM Act and the 111th Congress couldn't overcome the
conservative filibuster in the Senate. We put the DREAM Act in
the comprehensive immigration reform that passed the Senate in
2013 but the bill was never brought up for a vote in the House
controlled be conservatives.
Now the president, in 2012, extended temporary protection
for deportation to many of these young people, over 600,000 at
this point, through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
DACA. The SAFE Act contains a provision that would eliminate
DACA relief from the dreamers. Do you have a view about this
and how do you think we should treat these young people? What
do you think our solution should be?
Bishop Kicanas. You know, one of the strong reasons why we
would oppose the SAFE Act is its repealing of DACA. This is a
big mistake.
I have talked many of these young people, some here in
Washington, when we gathered after the mass that was celebrated
at the border in Nogales by Cardinal O'Malley. And your heart
goes out to these young people. They don't know any other
country. They don't know any other experience than being here.
They grew up here. They are a part of our society. They do
respect the law. They do want to contribute to the community.
It is time to find a way to defer action against childhood
arrivals. That is the most decent thing we can do. It is a
limited thing but is certainly an important thing.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you so much.
I have a question for Sheriff Page that I will submit to
him and he can send me a response. And I have another question
for you, Bishop, and you can send me a response as well.
My time has expired. I yield back and I thank the
witnesses.
Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Michigan.
The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Colorado,
Mr. Buck. Former District Attorney in Colorado, Mr. Buck.
Mr. Buck. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Sheriff Page, a couple quick questions for you. Have you
ever or has your department ever arrested an illegal immigrant
for, say, a DUI charge?
Sheriff Page. I am sure we have, sir.
Mr. Buck. Okay.
Who pays the salary of the Sheriff's Deputy who makes that
arrest?
Sheriff Page. The county pays.
Mr. Buck. And how about the booking officer who books that
illegal immigrant into the jail?
Sheriff Page. Likewise, the county.
Mr. Buck. And how about the jail officer who watches that
cell overnight?
Sheriff Page. And the county. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. Okay.
How about the transport officer that brings that prisoner
to the courthouse for a hearing on bond?
Sheriff Page. It is all county funded. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. And the courtroom deputy who is in the courtroom
at the time when that bond hearing is held?
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. The county?
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. Okay.
The judge, judge's salary?
Sheriff Page. The judges are paid by the Administrative
Offices of the Court through the State.
Mr. Buck. The State of North Carolina?
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir, State of North Carolina.
Mr. Buck. All right.
And the Judicial Clerk, the assistant in the courtroom, is
that also a State function?
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir. Through the State.
Mr. Buck. All right. In the State salary?
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. And the prosecutor who is in the courtroom at the
time of the bond hearing. Who pays for that individual?
Sheriff Page. The State of North Carolina.
Mr. Buck. And how about the public defender's office, if
the defendant qualifies for a public defender?
Sheriff Page. The State.
Mr. Buck. And tell me something. If the individual is
released, you have a Pretrial Services program in North
Carolina?
Sheriff Page. We do, sir.
Mr. Buck. And do you have pretrial service officers?
Sheriff Page. We do, sir.
Mr. Buck. And who pays the salaries for those pretrial
service officers?
Sheriff Page. The county does.
Mr. Buck. And how about after sentencing if an individual
receives probation? Who pays for the probation officer's
salary?
Sheriff Page. The State of North Carolina.
Mr. Buck. Do you have a victim compensation fund run
through the State of North Carolina?
Sheriff Page. We do, sir.
Mr. Buck. So if an illegal immigrant, during that DUI, were
to hit a guardrail, for example, owned by the county or owned
by the State? Those would be public funds that would pay for
that guardrail?
Sheriff Page. They could ask for restoration through the
defendant to pay back.
Mr. Buck. If the defendant was not able to pay, who would
pay for it then?
Sheriff Page. The State would incur the cost.
Mr. Buck. And how about for the victim? If the defendant
wasn't able to pay for damage done to a car or something, would
the victim compensation fund run by the State pay for----
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir.
There is some compensation back to the victims through the
State. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. And I just wanted to ask you a more open-ended
question. Do you have an opinion as to who bears the cost for a
broken and failed Federal immigration system?
Sheriff Page. You and I do, sir. The taxpayer.
Mr. Buck. Okay. I yield back.
Thank you.
Mr. Gowdy. The Chair would now recognize the gentle lady
from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chairman and the Ranking
Member. We are doing a lot of double duty today. So I thank the
witnesses very much for your presence here today. And I think,
Bishop, you have shared with us before, as I recall. We are
certainly aware of your service. Frankly, we are aware of the
Pope's service as well, as he came in to set a new tone for the
world which is to use our better angels no matter what
ecumenical view we have and to try and find a common thread of
humanity.
I just finished, an hour or two ago, a hearing on ISIS. In
that hearing I offered my sympathy for the death of the young
woman from Arizona who we can be so proud of because her
definition was I am going to the most vulnerable places to help
the most vulnerable people. I don't know whether she was an
immigrant in a faraway land, but I do know she was a Good
Samaritan. I also offered sympathy to three Muslim persons here
in the United States at a school my daughter went to and
graduated, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, seeking a
better life who were murdered. I can only imagine because of
the intolerance that someone felt they had to act upon.
I would only offer to give my own opinion on where we are
today with respect to the legislation and never attribute to
anyone any untoward thoughts. But I do know that I have been
working on this Committee for almost 20 years fighting for
comprehensive immigration reform because I never thought that I
would have to be concerned with a tax by unaccompanied children
or mothers who are simply trying to reunite with children.
I think we can answer the questions of a number of
colleagues who have offered legislative initiatives by a
comprehensive approach that is not inhumane, it is not harsh.
Because, I would much rather find the dastardly actors who
follow the ideology of ISIS who may, for some reason, have the
opportunity be overstay such as the 9/11 terrorists as opposed
to families who are simply trying to reunite.
So Bishop, would you give me just a moment. I have another
question so I want to make sure I get one in. Would you give me
a comment on that aspect of humanity and how some of the
legislative initiatives before us, and I know you have not
looked at them in detail, may be contrary to what we are trying
to do?
Bishop Kicanas. We are all very proud of our country and
the values that are the foundation of this country. And part of
those failures are the respect for the dignity of every human
being and a concern for those who are vulnerable and who are in
situations of danger.
You know, our country would never say to a receiving
country who is receiving people who are living under
persecution to close their doors. And we can't be a country
that even though we have received a number of children from
Central America who have lived in very traumatized situations
we have received them, we have brought them to a place where
they can now address their issues, we can't close our door when
there are true asylum needs and refugees seeking to find the
place of safety. Those are the values our country stands for.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you for that. That is a note I
would like to leave on. And I understand that many are asking
for an addition of immigration judges.
Mr. Chairman, I would hope that you would join me on my
bill that has added more judges. Immigration Judges might help
all of us no matter what our position is. And so, I ask
unanimous consent to introduce the Immigration Judges bill that
I have offered? I ask unanimous consent to put it into the
record?
Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I also wanted to put into record, Mr.
Chairman, I'm concerned about a number of statements contained
in Mr. Cadman's testimony today. I ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record a report prepared by the Department of
Justice, Office of Inspector General, detailing Mr. Cadman's
role as the INS Miami District Director in receiving a
Bipartisan Congressional Taskforce that traveled to Miami in
1995 to investigate complaints regarding the Krome Detention
Facility in Miami International Airport? The report highlights
Mr. Cadman's efforts to hinder the OIG's investigation stating
that Cadman has actively participated in efforts to mislead and
impede official efforts to learn the truth.
I also ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an
article in the Broward-Palm Beach New Times further describing
this incident. The article quotes the previous Chairman of this
Committee, Elton Gallegly, as saying, ``I think it is a
disgrace that the bills we've been entrusted enforcing the laws
of the land would themselves violate the law. It is clear to me
that some INS employees are on the wrong side of the bars.
There is no question that Mr. Cadman violated the law and
obstructed justice.''
I ask unanimous consent to put this report in the record?
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Gowdy. And the report will speak for itself.
And Mr. Cadman, at the appropriate time you will have an
opportunity to respond to whatever is in that report. I noticed
that you wanted to do so.
They have called votes. We are going to try to get the
gentleman from Texas and perhaps the gentleman from Illinois if
we can before votes. With that, former U.S. Attorney, Mr.
Ratcliffe.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
the recent promotion however brief that it may have been.
I am grateful to everyone here providing their testimony
today to inform the opinions of this Subcommittee going
forward. So thank you all for being here.
As a context for my questions for you today, I want to
relate that back in 2008, when I was the U.S. Attorney for the
Eastern District of Texas, I worked with ICE on one of the
largest worksite enforcement actions in this country. We
arrested 338 illegal aliens in 1 day, but due to limited
resources our focus on that day back in April 2008 was on folks
that were not just in this country illegally but folks that,
once they were here illegally, had committed additional crimes
against Americans.
Sheriff Page, I would like to start with you because in
your testimony you stated that since 2010 only 66 percent of
the incarcerated criminal aliens in your facility had been
taken into custody by ICE. Did I read that correctly?
Sheriff Page. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay.
So I think my question for you is this: Of those folks that
were not picked up by ICE and were subsequently released, are
talking about folks that had just entered the country illegally
or had they entered the country illegally and then committed
additional crimes?
Sheriff Page. I don't have the breakdown other than I know
that persons that were in our facility were charged with
criminal offenses and, post-arrest, we reprocessed through
Secure Communities, notified ICE, if ICE did not pick those
persons up then we would have to release according to our
bylaws.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. Thank you.
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ratcliffe. So last week, the Full Committee took
testimony from several witnesses. One of them was Mark
Rosenblum who is the Deputy Director at the Migration Policy
Institute and he provided testimony that was, it largely
defended the Obama Administration's immigration enforcement
efforts. But during his questioning, I asked him about
something the President Obama's own Acting Director of ICE had
said in April of 2014. And what John Sandweg, the then Acting
Director of ICE, had said was this: ``If you are a run-of-the-
mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported
are close to zero.''
When I asked Mr. Rosenblum about that statement, he
conceded that in his opinion that was true.
I would like to start again with you, Sheriff Page, since
you are on the frontlines on this issue. Would you agree with
that statement based on your personal experience?
Sheriff Page. That is a pretty close commentary that I have
made. I, in past years since 2010, worked on this program and
following what ICE and ICE authorities are doing and their
priorities, it would appear that the message that is being
pumped out--and actually what is happening, if a person is not
committing any criminal offenses and is basically just under
the radar, they don't have anything to worry about. If they are
committing criminal offenses there is a better chance you will
be deported but again, like I said, a lot of people also know
we do not, at the local level, enforce any immigration law.
So if you don't have the ICE agents actually doing the work
in the interior, who is doing it? Who is getting it done?
Mr. Ratcliffe. So as a follow up to that to what extent has
the Obama Administration's refusal to enforce those laws
created problems for you on the frontlines?
Sheriff Page. Well, if a person is not removed from my
community, then that person is released on his own and into
where he goes from there to either reoffend or get lost in the
community or within the immigrant community. I mean, I don't
know. And I can't answer that to the citizens that I serve and
protect.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you.
Sheriff Page. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Dr. Morris, how do you think the Chairman
Gowdy's bill would assist American minorities?
Mr. Morris. I go into it in a number of places in the full
testimony. One of the things, the options for local authorities
to help, as I mentioned, the 9 million American workers and the
other five, six, they need all the help that they can get in
terms of jobs. And the fact that there is non-enforcement
against 8 million illegal folks who hold jobs is a devastating
impact on that, and especially in areas where they compete
effectively with American workers and in areas where they
compete with African American workers and especially in
construction and health and so forth. This has a devastating
impact.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Dr. Morris.
And I again, I thank all of you for being here.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentleman from Texas. We now recognize
the gentleman from Illinois, my friend Mr. Gutierrez.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I would like to just kind of go over what we
have heard so far from the first three witnesses and maybe put
some of this in some context in terms of what we have heard.
So, we heard Mexican Drug Cartel seven times; DUI; rape;
attempted murder; Mexico; criminal aliens, criminal offenses.
Then we went from Black workers are being hurt because of--as a
matter of fact, undocumented workers make more money than Black
workers in America. So we have heard the second witness pit one
minority group against another minority group particularly in
construction because repeated and repeated to race the issue of
race. And I have always been on this Committee and we try, at
least I have, not to raise the issue of race. And I know that
when Members of this side raise the issue of race Members of
the other side always say, ``Don't raise the issue of race
here.''
But today I guess there was an exception to the rule and we
got to raise the issue of race on numerous occasion because
that seems to be the fundamental point.
And then we went to, after that, we went to again, the
third witness, talking about the children coming with violent
criminal gangs, and again violent cartels. And then we finished
up with one of my colleagues talking and accusing those that
protested here of being illegally in the country as though he
knows. But then, I don't know if he ever saw anybody of color
he didn't think was illegally in the country and wasn't a
suspect. And I think that is fundamentally what is wrong with
so much of the testimony.
Look, with all due respect and deference to all of those
that have submitted legislation, this legislation isn't going
anywhere; isn't going to be approved in the Senate, it may not
even be approved in the House of Representatives. And the
President will never sign it.
So why don't we get about the business of fixing our broken
immigration system and being serious. Instead of raising
scurrilous charges which makes them--look, if I were one of
those protestors and I heard all of you testify, I would be a
little upset, a little angry too. If every reference made to
people, they were like the protestor, were drug cartels,
criminals, rapists and murderers.
Now, I bet if I went out to South Carolina, North Carolina
and went out to those fields, I would see some of those
undocumented workers, those illegals that you talk, making sure
that those farms, doing backbreaking work on those farms. I'm
sure. You know how I know? Because I have been there and I have
seen them. And nobody wants them all taken away.
We are going to have the food placed on our tables each and
every day handpicked by foreign hands in foreign countries or
picked by foreign hands in the United States of America? That
is just the truth, and I will be the first one to submit to
everybody here that my wife and I did not get married, raise
two children to work in the fields. As honorable as that work
is, we sent them to school, we sent them to college, we sent
them to do other work, but someone must do that work and I
don't see Americans protesting that people are doing their
work.
I traveled to your districts. I go in the back; I go to
Chinese restaurant, I go to Greek restaurant, I go to Italian
restaurant, and it just seems to be that there are people who
speak Spanish cooking those meals. They are very diverse. I go
to hotel rooms and nobody says, ``Oh, I'm not going to eat that
meal. I'm not going to rest in that hotel room.''
So think about how it is you speak about a community of
people and, when you speak of them in terms of them being all
criminals, because none of you ever said that you saw one of
them that worked hard was here to contribute and should be able
to stay in the United States of America. You see no merit. I
heard all three of you speak, the first three witnesses speak,
you never uttered a one instance any merit to those work. Yet,
we know that the vast majority of those who work in agriculture
are undocumented and put the food that you eat each and every
day on your table.
I would like to end by saying, Bishop, we're going to visit
you out in Tucson to sign people up and make sure there are
more dreamers. And I would just like to say, what do you think
His Holiness, our Holy Father--could you give us what he would
think when he comes to speak to the Congress of the United
States?
Bishop Kicanas. Well, I have no idea what our Holy Father
will say when he comes to speak to the Congress, but I do know
the issue of immigration is dear to his heart. One of his first
initiatives was to go to Lampedusa which is an island that many
people are crossing the ocean at great risk to their lives. And
he wanted to be there because saw these people as people
wanting a better way of life and in danger of their life, and
he wanted to be there among them which is what he does. He
lives what he says. He speaks with authority.
And I think he will prod the Congress to move forward with
courage and conviction in doing a comprehensive bill that
includes enforcement as an ingredient, but certainly many other
areas like a pathway to citizenship, like legal ways for people
to come here, like reuniting families, like helping these
sending countries so that people don't have to come. Nobody
wants to leave their own country whether at home in their
culture and their language, but some have to and we have to
understand that.
Mr. Gutierrez. I can't wait to hear from the Pope.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentleman from Illinois.
And in my final act of compassion to you, I'm going to try
and go before we leave to go votes that way you don't have to
wait around an hour for me to vote and come back. So if I talk
fast, it is only for that reason.
I want to say something about my friend Luis Gutierrez. I
have never spent a moment wondering about his motives. We may
disagree. In fact, we do disagree on certain things, but I have
never once questioned his motives. I think that he and the
gentle lady from California are both interested in solutions as
opposed to the issue.
But Bishop, a year ago, sitting exactly where you are
sitting right now was the former Mayor of San Antonio, and we
could not get him to quit repeating this mantra of citizenship
for 11 million aspiring Americans. Call me skeptical, I don't
know any group of 11 million except perhaps nuns that could all
pass a background check. God knows 11 million Members of
Congress couldn't pass a background check; 11 million of no
category could.
So if you are talking about 11 million as one homogeneous
group, all of whom could pass background checks, all of whom
aspire to citizenship and not just legal status. That tells me
that that person is more interested in having a political
discussion than a factual discussion.
And I want to say, what you said about the young lady from
Arizona, so perfectly captured her life. And I want to thank
you for remembering her. I have to be candid with you. When you
were describing her characteristics, I was thinking about the
guy sitting on the other end of the desk from you because the
cops that I worked with were willing to give their lives for
other people and in many instances for people who did not
appreciate what they were doing.
So it is hard for me to understand, with respect to people
like the sheriff and my own sheriffs, how we trust them with
every other category of crime; murder, sexual assault, robbery,
speeding, narcotics. Who do we call when we hear somebody
prowling around at night? Who do we call as Member of Congress
when we are in our districts going to town halls and we need
security? We trust him for that.
Sheriff, just so you know, they will trust you to provide
security for them at one of their town halls or one of their
public events. God knows why they don't trust you to enforce
immigration laws. They will trust you for everything else.
Bishop, there is this notion going through my head that we
are a Nation of laws but we are a people of humanity and
compassion. We are a Nation of laws but a people of humanity so
how we synthesize those too.
And I appreciate what Mr. Gutierrez said. I actually have
no idea what someone's legal status is by looking at them. I
wouldn't begin to try to guess. I have no idea. I would never
ask anybody, frankly.
So I come to it with a law enforcement bias; that the
number one function of government is public safety. And I can
tell you that I would be at a loss to explain to the victims of
any crime how someone got here through unlawful means,
committed another crime, was released, remained here, and then
committed another crime. I'm not a good enough lawyer to
explain that.
So let me ask you, not people who cross the border, but
people who overstay VISAs. What is you internal security plan?
Because overstaying a VISA is not a crime. So how are we going
to identify--and we certainly don't want to treat VISA over
stayers from Germany differently than we do border crossers
from Guatemala. So what is your internal, interior security
plan for folks who overstay their VISAs?
Bishop Kicanas. Thank you very much, Chairman Gowdy, and I
know you are, like many in our Congress, struggling with some
very complex issues. And it is not easy.
First of all, with regard to local law enforcement, Arizona
has been doing that road; SB 1070. This is not the expertise of
local enforcement officers. This is a complex issue;
immigration law, asylum determinations. We have to be very
careful of entrusting to people for whom that is not their
expertise.
There are many police chiefs in this country who do not
want that responsibility. They feel it would put their officers
at great risk for racial profiling, they are concerned that it
would disrupt the community being able to bring forward
allegations of criminal behavior because they might be
deterred.
And so, I think it is the responsibility of our Federal
Government and we have to give them the responsibility to
handle that so we don't have a disjointed system, we can't have
50 immigration policies in our country. That would be tragic.
As far as, you know, the 11 million people, obviously there
are some that will need to be deported. You know, President
Obama has actually deported 2 million people; that is an
incredible number, even more than under previous
Administrations in his 6 years. So yes, there will be some. But
we also have to carefully look at individual situations because
not everyone is the same.
I ask----
Mr. Gowdy. I don't want to cut you off, but I don't want
these two to miss votes and I am over time.
I would just say this in conclusion: In South Carolina, the
murder statute is one sentence long. Murder is one sentence
long in South Carolina. Our DUI statute is 16 pages long. It is
incredibly complex. So if we trust State and local cops in
South Carolina to understand the labyrinth that is our DUI law,
I think they can figure out immigration law.
And the only other thing I will say about racial profiling,
racial profiling is wrong whether it is traffic offenses,
narcotics offenses, certainly in immigration. It is wrong
across-the-board, but we trust Sheriff Page in narcotics cases,
traffic violations.
Five thousand ICE agents is not going to get it done and,
before we can get to the rest of immigration reform, you are
going to have to convince your fellow citizens that we are
actually serious about enforcing the law. That is just a
political reality.
And with that, I want to thank all four of you. I apologize
for the disruption. Frankly, it is not persuasive. What is
persuasive is hearing Zoe and Mr. Conyers and Luis make their
arguments. Disrupting four invited guests and others who were
playing by the rules is not persuasive but that is up to them
whether they want to do it or not.
So with that, this concludes today's hearing. Thanks, all
the witnesses for attending. Without objection, all Members
will have 5 legislative days to submit additional written
questions for the witnesses and materials for the record.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:52 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
List of Submissions from the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Immigration and Border Security
Prepared Statement of the American Immigration Council
Prepared Statement of the Church World Service (CWS)
Prepared Statement of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
Prepared Statement of the Leadership Conference of Women
Religious (LCWR)
Prepared Statement of the Lutheran and Refugee Service, Kids in
Need of Defense, and the Women's Refugee Commission
Prepared Statement of NETWORK, A National Catholic Social
Justice Lobby
Prepared Statement of Human Rights First
Prepared Statement of the National Immigrant Justice Center
Prepared Statement of First Focus Campaign for Children
Letter from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los
Angeles (CHIRLA)
LPrepared Statement of the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU)
Prepared Statement of Tahirih Justice Center
Prepared Statement of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants
Prepared Statement of a Coalition of Evangelical Organizations
Letter from Law Enforcement Officers
Memo from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Report of the Niskanen Center
Letter from Pope Francis
--------
Note: These submissions are available at the Subcommittee and can also
be accessed at:
http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?EventID=102941.
__________
Material Submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Immigration and Border Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]