[Senate Hearing 117-808]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-808
H.R. 6, AMERICAN DREAM
AND PROMISE ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 15, 2021
__________
Serial No. J-117-21
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
www.judiciary.senate.gov
www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-506 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California Member
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota JOHN CORNYN, Texas
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TED CRUZ, Texas
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii BEN SASSE, Nebraska
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
Joseph Zogby, Majority Staff Director
Kolan L. Davis, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Durbin, Hon. Richard J........................................... 1
Grassley, Hon. Charles E......................................... 4
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne........................................... 8
Padilla, Hon. Alex............................................... 5
Cornyn, Hon. John................................................ 7
WITNESSES
Edlow, Joseph.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Responses to written questions............................... 76
Mejia, Dr. Manuel Bernal......................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 69
Ponthieux, Rony.................................................. 17
Prepared statement........................................... 73
Rodriguez, Leon.................................................. 14
Prepared statement........................................... 71
Responses to written questions............................... 79
Root, Michelle................................................... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 52
APPENDIX
Items submitted for the record................................... 51
H.R. 6, AMERICAN DREAM
AND PROMISE ACT
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TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2021
United States Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in Room
106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. Durbin,
Chair of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Durbin [presiding], Leahy, Feinstein,
Klobuchar, Coons, Blumenthal, Hirono, Padilla, Grassley,
Cornyn, Lee, Cruz, Sasse, Hawley, Cotton, Kennedy, Tillis, and
Blackburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Chair Durbin. This hearing will come to order.
I was mentioning to several witnesses that the hearing on
the DREAM Act, or DACA, has an interesting, somewhat checkered
history.
The first hearing on the DREAM Act was scheduled for the
week of September 11th, 2001. Obviously, it was postponed. It
wasn't until 10 years later that the actual hearing--first
hearing on the DREAM Act occurred. So, this is the second
hearing on the DREAM Act.
Ten years and two administrations ago, I was honored to
gavel in the first hearing on this legislation. Today, I'm
honored to gavel in this hearing as Chair of the Committee. It
was 20 years ago--20 years ago, that I first introduced the
DREAM Act with the Chair of the Committee at the time,
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch. Senator Hatch said it was his
idea. There was some dispute over that, but since he was in the
majority, I deferred to him as the lead sponsor of the first
DREAM Act.
Our stories about the DREAM Act have touched the hearts of
Americans. The phrase itself, DREAMers, which was not
identified early on with this cause, has now become common
parlance. We revel in the stories of those who are affected by
the DREAM Act and DACA because they are the stories of America
and our history of immigration.
Before we get started, I'd like to ask my colleagues to
join me in viewing a video on this issue.
[Video is shown.]
Chair Durbin. It was 9 years ago today when President Obama
walked into the Rose Garden and announced a new policy that
would change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people
in our country. It is called Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals, better known as DACA.
DACA allows young immigrants who arrived in America as
children to safely remain in the only home they've ever known.
If they register with the Government, pay a substantial fee,
clear criminal and national security background checks, then
they can receive temporary, renewable protection from
deportation.
Since 2012, more than 800,000 DREAMers have stepped out of
the shadows to enroll in DACA. The program has been a life-
changer. It has allowed them to work, pursue higher education,
and serve in America's military. DACA has unleashed the full
potential of DREAMers.
August 15th, 2012, is a date I will never forget. It was
the first day that DACA applications were accepted. I was at
Navy Pier in Chicago for a workshop to help DREAMers apply for
DACA. We weren't sure if anyone would show up. Then we weren't
sure how many would show up, and then what happened astonished
us. Thousands, thousands of young people showed up on that day.
Filled the entire boardwalk. Some gathered with their parents
at midnight before the actual opening that morning. Some drove
in from neighboring States.
That's how eager these young people were to officially
become part of America, even if on a temporary, renewable
basis, and that's what's really the key word when it comes to
DACA. It's temporary. When President Obama first announced it,
he said, ``Because this is temporary, Congress needs to act.
There's still time for Congress to pass the DREAM Act this
year,'' he said. ``Because these kids deserve to plan their
lives in more than 2-year increments.''
Well, that year has turned into 9 years. Over the years,
the DREAM Act has been a victim of a filibuster on the floor of
the Senate five different times. As the DREAM Act has
languished in the Senate, hundreds of thousands of young people
have been left with their futures in doubt.
But that hasn't stopped them from fighting for their dreams
and giving everything they can to this country. It has been my
honor to be the voice of the DREAMers for 20 years. They have
been an inspiration. I've had the privilege of sharing over 125
of their personal stories on the Senate floor. The posters,
colored photographs that you see around you represent just a
small fraction of the stories that I've told.
DREAMers have taught children in our Nation's classrooms,
dazzled audiences at world class music venues like Carnegie
Hall, fought in American wars, and have started American
businesses. During the past year, as our Nation was ravaged by
a pandemic, and we were cheering on the healthcare heroes who
risked their lives for us every minute of every day, DREAMers
were saving American lives.
According to the classification used by President Trump,
more than 200,000 DACA recipients are essential, critical,
infrastructure workers. Among them are thousands of frontline
healthcare workers: doctors, intensive care nurses, paramedics,
respiratory therapists.
We are lucky to be joined by one of those heroes today.
Manuel Bernal Mejia--or Doctor Bernal, as I'm going to call
him--first arrived in the United States at the age of 2. Grew
up in Memphis, Tennessee, graduated at the top of his class in
high school, and developed a passion for medicine. That passion
led him to my home State of Illinois, where he enrolled in the
very first medical school in the Nation to admit DACA
recipients, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of
Medicine.
Today, Dr. Bernal has taken a break from the work that he's
doing in an emergency room on the South Side of Chicago in one
of the busiest trauma hospitals in our community. During this
pandemic, Dr. Bernal has literally risked his life every day to
serve our country and save lives.
In 2017, the former President attempted to terminate DACA.
Just imagine what it would have meant for our country if the
Supreme Court had not stopped him from deporting heroes like
Dr. Bernal to countries they hardly remember.
The legislation we're focusing on today, the Dream and
Promise Act, recognizes DREAMers aren't the only immigrants
with a dream. They are far from the only people falling through
the cracks of our broken system. This includes 400,000 people
living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status,
TPS. Like DACA recipients, TPS recipients have saved lives
during this pandemic. More than 130,000 TPS holders are
essential, critical, infrastructure workers, including 11,600
healthcare workers.
We're going to hear from one of them this morning. His name
is Rony Ponthieux. I think I pronounced that close to correct.
Is it? Good. Bien. He was granted TPS after a devastating
earthquake hit Haiti in 2010. He and his wife resettled in
Florida, where they've raised two children, and where Mr.
Ponthieux works as a nurse in the respiratory unit of his
hospital treating COVID-19 patients.
After former President Trump attempted to eliminate TPS for
Haiti in 2017, Mr. Ponthieux pleaded with him to ``Help us stay
in this country with peace of mind, so we can save the most
people possible.'' That is all TPS recipients like Mr.
Ponthieux and DREAMers like Dr. Bernal are asking for. They're
not asking for a handout, but an opportunity to continue to
serve and save lives in America.
We need people just like them. DACA and TPS recipients and
their households contribute an estimated $17.4 billion in
Federal taxes, and $9.7 billion in State and local taxes every
single year.
By enacting the Dream and Promise Act, we can increase our
Nation's GDP by an estimated $799 billion over 10 years and
create more than 285,000 new jobs. There is a mistaken notion
that we have a static number of jobs in America, and we all
have to fight over them. We are finding that by bringing
talented people in to serve this country and to create
businesses, we actually have a dynamic that increases the size
of employment in our economy.
We need a functioning immigration system that welcomes
immigrants, so we can grow our economy and put America on track
to be a winner in the 21st century. The challenges we face at
the border are no excuse for inaction. I've spoken to Senator
Cornyn and Senator Sinema about the southern border. We are not
going to ignore that reality, but this is a reality as well.
There is no excuse for inaction. For too many years, Congress
has looked the other way and found another excuse to put off
this decision. It's time to allow these individuals, these
future Americans, to finally become American citizens. That's
why we must join the House in passing the Dream and Promise
Act. I recognize Senator Grassley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF IOWA
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to
all of our witnesses that will be testifying today and
answering our questions.
Today's hearing addresses a topic of interest to many
Members of Congress and Americans around the country, and it's
a very important issue for me because, like you, Mr. Chairman,
I have worked to find a legislative solution to addressing the
DACA populations. In 2018, I did just that when I introduced
the Secure and Succeed Act with several Members of this
Committee.
I know this is an issue of great importance to you, and I
know that you have been leading bipartisan discussions in
recent weeks to try and reach an agreement. As Ranking Member
of this Committee, I look forward to participating in those
discussions moving forward.
I'd like to take two brief points that I'd like to make
about the ongoing debate over legal status of undocumented
young people brought here as children. I start with the
assumption that children brought here by their parents did not
violate our laws, but their parents did by violating our laws
coming to this country.
First, any legislation providing legal status for those
young people must include meaningful border security and
immigration enforcement measures. The need for robust border
security and enforcement measures has been demonstrated by the
current crisis at our southern border, a crisis that is in
direct result of this administration's policies.
Whether it be terminating physical barrier construction at
the border, severely limiting the ability of ICE to enforce our
border immigration laws, or supporting sanctuary cities, the
administration has actively sought to undermine border security
and immigration enforcement. Therefore, it shouldn't be a
surprise that last month, the total encounters at the southern
border were up 675 percent from May 2020. For unaccompanied
children, encounters were up 1,305 percent from last May, and
for family units, it was 4,143 percent up. These numbers are
staggering.
The administration doesn't seem to be doing much about it.
The President and Vice President still have not even been to
the border to see firsthand the problems. When the Vice
President was asked about it last week, her response was, ``And
I haven't been to Europe either.'' Like most of this
administration's responses to crisis at the border, it was a
truly baffling statement.
If we want to provide legal status for DREAMers, we must
secure our border so that we don't find ourselves in the same
situation again 20 or 30 years from now. Unfortunately, the
administration doesn't appear to be serious about doing that,
and the bills we're discussing today don't even attempt to do
that.
When I was at the border a couple months ago, I had the
opportunity to hear the Border Patrol say to us that they had
an opportunity to brief the incoming administration before the
January 20th date of Inauguration, and they advised the
incoming administration to leave everything that was then in
place in place, and obviously, on January the 20th, the
administration took contrary action. What do we have? We have
the crisis that you see on television every day with people
crossing, wading through the Rio Grande to get here.
Finally, it is important that any bill providing legal
status to undocumented young people, especially DACA recipients
be properly sculped. The act that we're having the hearing on
and the DREAM Act fail that test in a number of ways. Highlight
just a few.
First, they would provide legal status to millions of
illegal immigrants who have no connection at all to the DACA
program, including illegal immigrants who were not even in the
United States when DACA was created. In the case of the
American Dream and Promise Act, the illegal immigrants need
only have been in the United States since January 1st of this
year in order to qualify.
Second, as we will hear from some of the witnesses, these
bills would allow illegal immigrants with criminal records to
be eligible for legal status. That simply defies common sense.
Third, they would allow illegal immigrants with a Final
Order of Removal to legalize anyway.
Finally--this is finally--they don't contain a cutoff date
for entrance or maximum age. As an example, it seems like I've
read about a 68-year-old person entering the country illegally,
in the United States, illegally, at the age of 17 in 1970,
would qualify as a DREAMer under these bills. Again, that
defies common sense.
All that being said, I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses today, and hope that we can ultimately come up with a
rational and bipartisan solution, because as I said previously,
people who were brought here by their parents did not violate
the laws, but people that brought them here violated our laws.
I see justice being done for DACA as a legitimate thing to do.
Chair Durbin. We have Senator Padilla has asked for
recognition, and he is Member of--Chairman of the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety.
Senator Padilla.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ALEX PADILLA,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Senator Durbin. Colleagues, as
a proud son of immigrants, I am honored to participate in this
hearing, and to help highlight the contributions of DREAMers
and TPS recipients. Contributions that they're making to this
country each and every day.
You know, in California, we are lucky to be home to more
than 250,000 DACA and TPS recipients, the most of any State in
the Nation. It's safe to say that no State has more at stake in
passing a solution for these individuals than California.
I want to start by thanking Senator Durbin for your
tireless leadership on behalf of DREAMers. I've seen you work
diligently across the aisle to build support of the DREAM Act
year after year after year. As you mentioned, this marks the
20th anniversary of the first time you introduced a DREAM Act
in the U.S. Senate.
As you referenced, we're also marking the 9th anniversary
of the DACA program, an executive action by President Obama,
intended to provide temporary protection for undocumented young
people while Congress took action on a permanent solution. The
last 9 years are a testament to the passion and resilience of
DACA recipients and advocates.
Hundreds of DREAMers have come forward to share their
stories with the world, risking deportation to fight for their
futures. For 4 years, DREAMers successfully opposed efforts to
destroy the DACA program. They even demonstrated the
unlawfulness of these efforts before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The past 9 years also represents a failure on the part of
this body. Congress has repeatedly failed to pass a permanent
solution, creating a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers and
other long-term residents of our communities. DACA was enacted
as a stopgap measure. It was never enough, nor intended to be
enough, for the hundreds of thousands of undocumented
immigrants who work, study, and have made their lives here in
the United States.
Over the last 20 years, DREAM Act measures have received
support of bipartisan majorities, in both the House and Senate,
only to be blocked by the filibuster. It's no surprise that
protecting DREAMers is a bipartisan issue in Congress. In fact,
overwhelming majorities of the American people, yes, Democrats,
Republicans, and Independents, support a path to legalization
for undocumented young people.
The American people recognize our urgent need to do justice
by DREAMers. Still, Congress has left hundreds of thousands of
young people and their families to live in limbo for years, and
years, and years. In that time, DREAMers have continued to make
their lives in communities across America, as have TPS
recipients. They've shared their intelligence, their
dedication, and their skills, despite constant living in fear
of a potential change in their status.
Twenty-nine thousand DACA recipients and more than 11,000
TPS holders are healthcare workers. Essential, frontline
workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These brave individuals
were able to pursue their ambitions to serve others only
because of the temporary legal status. They risked their lives
to care for COVID-19 patients throughout the country. That's
just in healthcare. Another more than 500,000 DACA recipients
and TPS holders have held jobs in industries classified as
essential. From agriculture and food service to sanitation and
construction, these immigrants have put their own health, and
their families' health, on the line to keep America running.
Most DACA and TPS holders only know the United States as their
home.
Colleagues, it is past time for Congress to recognize that
reality into law. Creating a pathway to citizenship for
DREAMers and TPS holders isn't just the right thing to do, it's
also key to strengthening our economy. A new report from UC
Davis and the Center for American Progress finds that the
American Dream and Promise Act would create hundreds of
thousands of new jobs and raise wages for all American workers.
DREAMers, TPS holders and other long-term permanent
residents of our country have been waiting too long for
Congress to act. Lady, a DACA beneficiary who advocates on
behalf of farmworkers like her parents, needs our help.
Patricia, a TPS beneficiary from El Salvador, who works for a
cleaning company in San Francisco, needs our help. Erica, a
DACA beneficiary, whose parents are TPS beneficiaries from El
Salvador, is working as a medical assistant at a pediatric
hospital in Dublin, California. She needs our help.
The names and the stories go on and on and on. The American
people are calling on us to pass permanent protections for the
people that they know as doctors, as teachers, as neighbors, as
parents.
Mr. Chair, I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses
about the urgent need for a path to citizenship, and the
strength that immigrants bring to our Nation. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thank you.
Senator Feinstein. Chairman, may I just say a few words?
Chair Durbin. I'm going to first recognize Senator Cornyn,
and then I'll be right--you'll be the next.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Please. Chairman Padilla, thank you. As
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, I'd like to
allow Senator Cornyn the opportunity to make opening remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN CORNYN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Senator Cornyn. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that very much.
Thank you. In the 9 years since President Obama announced the
DACA program, the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, the
young men and women whose futures it sought to secure have been
sent on a high-stakes roller-coaster journey. Their lives have
hung in the balance of court rulings, even though they
themselves did nothing wrong. They were brought here by their
parents as children, and in America, we do not hold children
responsible for the actions of their parents.
The only way to eliminate the uncertainty caused by
President Obama's likely unconstitutional action is through
legislation. I say that because there's a pending court case in
the Southern District of Texas challenging the legality of the
DACA program that's been pending before Judge Hanen for some
time now, and he could well issue a permanent injunction
enjoining the DACA program, causing further chaos and
disruption.
I have previously voted for legislation to let these young
people stay multiple times over the years, but each time,
Congress has failed to muster the necessary support to get a
bill on the President's desk.
Every person in this room can tell you the bill being
reviewed by this Committee today will not move us any closer.
In fact, the American people would like to know, I bet, that
there is not a single bill that deals with the DREAM Act or the
DACA recipients. In fact, the original DACA made 1.3 million
young people eligible, but only 640,000 are still active today.
Then there was the Secure and Succeed Act of 2018, which
sought to provide a pathway to citizenship for 1.3 million DACA
recipients, and unfortunately, that was not successful. Then
there's the DREAM Act of 2021, sponsored by our Chairman, which
would extend a pathway to citizenship for 3 million migrants.
Then finally, the bill that we're talking about here today, the
American Dream and Promise Act would extend a pathway to
citizenship for more than 4.4 million people.
As an example of how far afield we've gotten, the American
Dream and Promise Act would not just apply to those who come to
our country as children, but this would extend a pathway to
citizenship to adults who've entered the United States as
recently as January 1, 2021.
This legislation, of course, goes far beyond the original
DACA issued by President Obama to include TPS. What Temporary
Protected Status has to do with the DREAM Act or the DACA
population is lost on me.
This bill would also create a pathway to citizenship, as I
said, for adults who've entered the country illegally as
recently as January 1, 2021.
To be clear, I support DACA recipients because they were
brought here at a young age, through no fault of their own, and
they know no other country. The American Dream and Promise Act
has completely abandoned the justification in favor of
rewarding very recent illegal entries a pathway to citizenship,
and further incentivizing other migrants who may want to
illegally immigrate to the United States, contributing to the
flood of humanity that we are seeing at our border now that the
President refuses to acknowledge as the crisis that it is.
Radical policies that reward illegal immigration will not
pass the Senate, and it's unfair to the DACA recipients to tie
their fate to such ill-considered legislation. If our
Democratic colleagues are truly interested in passing
legislation on DACA, especially the 640,000 active DACA
recipients, a clean, bipartisan bill is the only path forward.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cornyn. Senator Feinstein.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
want to begin by thanking you for really your tireless efforts
over 2 decades to pass the DREAM Act. I also want to say that I
really believe now this bill will pass. I think people are
beginning to realize certain facts.
This bill can secure a better future for millions of people
who live in a lot of uncertainty about their place in our
country, really through no fault of their own. Let me just put
a few things--facts in the record.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, there are
nearly 198,000 DACA recipients in California. That's more than
any other State. They pay $2 billion in Federal taxes, and
nearly $1 billion in State and local taxes every year.
Nationwide, 80 percent of them are working or in school, and in
California, 8,600 are medical workers who have been on the
frontline of the pandemic.
Like DREAMers, TPS recipients have established deep roots
through many American communities. On average, TPS recruits
have lived in the United States for nearly 20 years. In
California alone, Mr. Chairman, they contribute $446 million in
Federal taxes, and $237 million in State and local taxes. These
are our colleagues, our neighbors, our friends, and they should
not have to live in fear that they could be deported if the
future administrations end TPS or a court strikes down DACA.
I'm very proud to be one of your cosponsors, and I want to
thank you for 20 years of service in bringing this legislation,
I hope, finally to passage.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Feinstein. You're more
than a cosponsor, you have been a steadfast ally in this
effort, and I thank you for the kind words that you expressed
this morning.
We have five witnesses who are going to testify about the
Dream and Promise Act. I'm going to introduce the majority
witnesses, and then I'm going to turn to Senator Grassley to
introduce his.
Our first witness is Dr. Manuel Bernal Mejia, third-year
emergency medicine resident of Advocate Christ Medical Center
in Chicago. That is his photograph, taken at an earlier time.
Thank you.
The Honorable Leon Rodriguez served as Director of U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services at USCI's CIS from 2014 to
2017. Prior to that, he served in Civil Rights leadership post
in the Obama administration, and worked as a Federal and State
prosecutor. Currently a partner at Seyfarth Shaw Law Firm.
The third witness is Mr. Rony Ponthieux. Serves as a
registered nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Gardens,
Florida.
Ranking Member Grassley, would you like to introduce your
witnesses?
Senator Grassley. Yes. Today, I have the pleasure of
introducing Ms. Michelle Root. Michelle's daughter, Sarah Root,
was killed by an illegal immigrant drunk driver in Omaha,
Nebraska on January 31, 2016. Sarah, a native of Iowa, had just
graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA hours just before she was
killed. Sarah's killer fled the country within 3 days after
making bail.
The Obama administration's U.S. Customs and Immigration
Enforcement refused to place a detainer on him, despite
repeated outreach from the Omaha Police Department requesting
that they do so. He remains at large to this very day. I've
known Michelle for a number of years, and I'm a proud cosponsor
of Sarah's Law, which would require ICE to detain illegal
immigrants who have been charged with a crime that resulted in
death or serious bodily injury of another person.
Michelle has previously testified in Congress regarding the
same about Sarah's tragic death. Her testimony at this hearing
will highlight the importance of making sure that we don't
offer legal status to illegal immigrants with a criminal
record. I just don't understand the opposition to such a simple
bill to bring justice to the injustice of the lack of
prosecution of crimes like Sarah's death.
We thank Durbin very much for his leadership in this area.
We also thank somebody like Michelle for her constant fight for
justice for her daughter.
I also am introducing Mr. Joseph Edlow. Mr. Edlow is
founder of the Edlow Group. He served as Deputy Director for
Policy at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and in
that role, served as Acting Director of the agency from
February 2020--January 2021. Prior to that, he served as chief
counsel of USCIS from July 2019 to February 2020, after serving
as Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of
Justice from June 2018 to July 2019.
Prior to joining the executive branch, Mr. Edlow served as
legal counsel in the office of Congressman Raul Labrador, and
as a counsel to the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on
Immigration and Border Security.
He began his career in Federal service in Baltimore, where
he spent almost 7 years as an assistant chief counsel with
U.S.--ICE, litigating before the U.S. Immigration Courts. Mr.
Edlow received his undergraduate degree at Brandeis University
in Waltham, Massachusetts, and a JD degree Case Western Reserve
University School of Law, Cleveland, Ohio.
I welcome both witnesses, and all witnesses.
Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Grassley. The procedure will
be well known to the Members, but I'll repeat it for our
guests. After we swear in the witnesses, each witness will be
given 5 minutes to provide opening statements. There will be a
round of questions, with each Senator having 5 minutes, and I
ask them to please do their best to remain within the allotted
time.
We'll start with administration of the oath. Would all of
the witnesses please stand.
[Witnesses are sworn in.]
Chair Durbin. Let the record reflect that the witnesses all
responded in the affirmative. They will each be given an
opportunity for opening statements, then I will ask a round of
questions, and invite Senator Padilla to come up and Chair the
remainder of the hearing, as Chairman of the Immigration
Subcommittee. We've done this as a joint hearing for the full
Committee and Subcommittee. Thank you.
Dr. Bernal, please proceed with your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DR. MANUEL BERNAL MEJIA,
EMERGENCY MEDICINE RESIDENT, ADVOCATE
CHRIST MEDICAL CENTER, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Dr. Mejia. Good morning, Senators. My name is Dr. Manuel
Bernal Mejia. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share
my journey of becoming an emergency medicine physician as an
undocumented individual. First, I want to make sure to thank
Chair Durbin and Ranking Member, Senator Grassley, as well as
Senator Graham for introducing the DREAM Act with Senator
Durbin. I would also be remiss if I also did not thank Senator
Blackburn for her service to my home State of Tennessee.
It is an honor to be with you all and share a bit of my
story. Also, I want to recognize my sister, Jasmine Bernal, who
is here with me today to share this special moment.
My mother was 24 and my father was 27 when they made the
difficult decision to leave everything known to them to come to
the United States in search of a better life for their 2-year-
old son. Little did they know their decision would lead to my
career as an emergency medicine doctor.
Day after day, I provide critical care to save American
lives on the front lines of the pandemic, even as my own future
in this country remains uncertain. My memories of my birth
country are shaped only by family pictures that were shown to
me as a child. To be honest, the United States is the only home
that I know.
Home is the beautiful State of Tennessee, where I grew up
and had quite the average upbringing as a kid. As a kid, I was
enrolled in way too many extracurriculars, from karate to swim
team, all while living in blissful ignorance of the gravity of
what it meant to be undocumented. It was not until I first
attempted to obtain a driver's permit that I started to grasp
the extent of the many barriers I would face as an undocumented
person. Nonetheless, I forged ahead, diving deeper into my
studies to distract myself from what my undocumented status
might mean for my future.
I'm proud to tell you that I was 1 of 36 individuals
accepted to the university honor's program at the University of
Tennessee at Chattanooga, where I eventually graduated summa
cum laude. I developed an appreciation for the medical
profession early on when I witnessed the compassionate care a
loved one received at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
This transformative experience served as my first true exposure
to field of medicine and helped me embrace the idea that my
unique skill sets and talents could be best utilized delivering
medical care to others.
In college, and later on as a medical student, I realized
that a career in emergency medicine was the best avenue for
combining my love for serving marginalized communities and
pursuing medicine. While in college, I had the unique
opportunity to serve as a medical scribe for doctors in the ER
of a small hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There, I worked
side by side with emergency medicine doctors, and I eagerly
absorbed as much as possible about serving ill patients. I saw
first-hand the inherent vulnerability that patients face in the
ER, and how the vulnerability is exacerbated by language,
cultural, and educational barriers.
I observed the ER's role in the community as the axis point
to healthcare for people from marginalized communities. And all
while my desire to become an emergency medicine physician grew
stronger by the day, I knew that being accepted to medical
school as an undocumented student would be almost impossible.
I spent endless nights drafting emails to numerous medical
schools, inquiring whether my undocumented status would
obstruct my dreams of becoming a doctor. Repeatedly, those
conversations would end in disappointment. It seemed like my
hopes of becoming a doctor were getting further out of reach.
The DACA program changed everything and opened many new
doors for me. Importantly, it allowed me to enroll at Loyola
University of Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine, where I
eventually went on to graduate within the top third of my
class.
Fast forward to today, I am now less than 1 week away from
completing a 3-year residency training program, specializing in
emergency medicine. While DACA has been a lifeline, only a
pathway to citizenship granted by Congress would allow me the
ability to live free from fear, safe with the knowledge that I
can continue to serve my community.
As an ER doctor, I have taken care of patients at all
stages of life, from delivering babies taking their first
breath to providing comfort care measures for dying patients
during their last moments of life. I trained during the height
of a global pandemic, taking care of a too high to count number
of critically ill COVID-19 patients, all while fearing the
possibility of deportation because the previous administration
was working relentlessly to dismantle DACA.
I know that no protections are truly permanent save for the
ones provided by legislation, which only you all have the power
to grant. I'm honored to serve my community during this
pandemic, and to help save lives when our country has
collectively experienced great loss, even as I face my own
uncertain future. While it is true that most DREAMers are not
doctors, we all contribute to this country in our own special
way.
America is our home, and on behalf of the millions of
DREAMers living in the U.S., I ask that we be allowed to give
back to our home permanently after being allowed to earn
citizenship.
I've been offered a position as an attending doctor in a
hospital in Illinois, where I will continue to serve the
American people. While I know I'll work my hardest every day,
only a pathway to citizenship will allow me to serve fully and
continue my career as an ER doctor.
I encourage the Members of this Committee to help ensure
that young people like me who have built our lives here can
contribute fully to the communities we know and love by passing
a pathway to citizenship. Thank you again for allowing me to
share my story with you today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bernal appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Dr. Bernal. I'm going to take the
privilege of the Chair for just one moment and salute Loyola
University in Chicago. With their School of Medicine, they were
the first medical school in the United States to open
competition to DACA recipients. There was no quota, no
guarantees. You were just in the running with all the other
applicants, and I believe over 30 were accepted to this school,
and you're, of course, one of the best and most successful
graduates. I wanted to give Loyola a shout out for that
opportunity they gave you and so many others.
Our next witness is Mr. Joseph Edlow.
STATEMENT OF MR. JOSEPH EDLOW,
FOUNDER, EDLOW GROUP, POTOMAC, MARYLAND
Mr. Edlow. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Grassley, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
present testimony on H.R. 6, the American Promise and Dream Act
of 2021. Before we discuss the bill, it is imperative to begin
with the current landscape. We have an unmitigated disaster at
the southern border that threatens the integrity of the U.S.
immigration system. With border apprehensions rising,
inconsistency in the processing of aliens arriving at the
border, and the administration taking actions in contravention
of U.S. immigration laws, we are at great risk of the entire
immigration system failing.
So far in this fiscal year, almost 930,000 aliens have been
encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP, over
633,000 of whom were encountered from February through May
2021. With 4 months left in the fiscal year, this country is on
track to see a record number of apprehensions along the
southwest border. These are just the numbers we know. It is
estimated that at least another 40,000 people per month cross
illegally and are not apprehended.
Apprehensions of aliens with criminal convictions has
increased significantly in this fiscal year, as well. In the
first 8 months of this year--this fiscal year, Border Patrol
has encountered over 6,900 aliens with criminal convictions,
more that twice as many as in all of FY 2020.
Make no mistake, this is a humanitarian crisis as everyone
who makes this journey, from adults to families to
unaccompanied minors, are putting their lives at risk while
relying on smugglers, often associated with cartels and other
criminal organizations. As smugglers get bolder, the trip gets
more arduous and perilous.
Accordingly, Border Patrol has seen an uptick in life-
saving efforts this fiscal year. Through May, agents at the
southwest border have performed almost 6,900 search and
rescues, eclipsing the totals for all of FY 2020 and FY 2019.
As the Department of Homeland Security continues to make
its own rules and ignore the statutory and regulatory
mechanisms and procedures provided under law, the magnet
drawing migrants to the United States grows exponentially.
President Biden's DHS has waged war on immigration
enforcement. It has ended successfully implemented programs,
such as the Migrant Protection Protocols, attempted to halt
deportations, limited ICE enforcement priorities under the
guises of limited resources and prosecutorial discretion, and
has disregarded expedited removal and released thousands of
aliens into the interior of the country in the vain hope that
they will report to ICE at a later date.
In short, the President has opened the borders. It is a
constitutional crisis when the President abandons a core
function of the executive branch and allows lawlessness and
invasion along our borders. Congress must focus on the root
cause of this surge. The Senate should be focusing on undoing
the Biden border crisis and securing our borders. It must
ensure that the law is being followed, and that the executive
branch is enforcing the law as it is written, and not merely by
executive and departmental memos.
It must then address the other pull factors, such as the
Flores Settlement Agreement and the disparate treatment of
unaccompanied minors under the Trafficking Victims
Reauthorization Act.
The haunting images that we have seen over the past few
months at the border will only get worse and more frequent
unless the United States makes clear that disregard for our
laws and our borders will simply not be tolerated. One of the
largest pull factors is the continued promise of amnesty.
Today's hearing on H.R. 6 is an advertisement for that
promise, and ultimately will make the crisis worse. The bill is
bad policy and will propagate hopes of amnesty for generations
yet to come. Among H.R. 6's many problems are that the bill
would overwhelm USCIS resources, create blanket waivers for
criminal aliens, invite fraud through low standards of proof,
impose stringent and unnecessary confidentiality requirements
on DHS, and ultimately overwhelm many of our Federal district
courts.
H.R. 6 is simply the wrong bill at the wrong time. It will
exacerbate the crisis along the southern border, and if passed,
will serve as an impetus for any foreign national with no legal
right to enter or remain in the United States, to flagrantly
disregard the law while they await their turn for amnesty down
the road.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bernal appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Durbin. Mr. Leon Rodriguez.
STATEMENT OF MR. LEON RODRIGUEZ,
PARTNER, SEYFARTH SHAW, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Rodriguez. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, Chairman,
Ranking Member Grassley, Members of the Committee. As I sit
here before you today, I can't help but recall my confirmation
hearing as USCIS Director now more than 7 years ago. I remember
pretty much every question that Senator Grassley asked, every
question that Senator Durbin asked, and every question that
Senator Feinstein asked.
Even though those questions were difficult questions from
both sides of the aisle and challenging to answer, that day for
me was one of the joyous days of my life because as the child
of refugees from Cuba who was born just a month after they had
fled that dictatorship, it was, in many respects, a miracle for
me to be here. In fact, the vagaries of U.S. law could easily
have meant that I would have grown up in that dictatorship,
rather than in freedom here in the U.S.
I remember the topic we were talking about that day 7 years
ago was pretty much the same topic we're talking about today.
We were talking about the southern border, we were talking
about DACA, we were talking about the DREAM Act. I wasn't
surprised to hear Senator Durbin early this morning cite to a
version of the DREAM Act being introduced 20 years ago. In
other words, we have been trying to tackle this issue through
separate legislation dealing with the plight of the
undocumented, as well as in comprehensive immigration reform
packages, one during President Bush's administration, and
another during President Obama's administration.
I think we've reached the point where we need to simply get
this done. If we look at the history, the bar has always moved.
It has always been the wrong time, the wrong formula. I think
we've run out of time. We've run out of time for the simple
reason that the cost of not finding a pathway for wonderful
individuals like Dr. Bernal, like Mr. Ponthieux, is
unacceptable to the American people.
For them to live at the mercy of a biannual DACA renewals,
and for us to be at the mercy of not, as Senator Padilla
suggested, be able to fully benefit as a country from their
skills, is an unaccepted reality.
It is one of the many criticisms I've heard of the DREAM
Act, of DACA, and in the positions that Democrats have taken
those Acts, that we only lift up the cases like Dr. Bernal's
and Mr. Ponthieux--the doctors, the lawyers, the nurses, the
teachers. The fact that if you look at the DACA population, 89
percent are employed in and contributing to our economy.
Thousands of them are going to school. They are doing exactly
the kinds of things that we would want them to do.
They are, with some exceptions, law-abiding. The way the
DACA program has been administered is in many respects the
blueprint and the test case for how this DREAM Act would be
administered, and has resulted in a population that, on the
whole, has been a remarkably law-abiding and productive
population whose contributions could only be that much greater
if this Act passes.
I have to very specifically respond to the proposition that
the fate of the DREAMers needs to be linked to our solution to
what's going on on the border. The idea, and I agree with my
colleague, Mr. Edlow, we do need to address the root causes.
The root causes are the desperation of the people coming to our
borders. They are the result of coming from countries that
boast the first, second, and fifth highest homicide rates in
the world.
There is nothing that we will do that will stop that
migration, notwithstanding the exploitation by smugglers,
notwithstanding whatever walls we built, unless those
conditions that are driving them to migrate are addressed.
In the meantime, though, we can't wait to solve the case of
the DREAMers. It is one thing to treat people as pawns in
larger political debates for 3 months, 5 months, 6 months. It's
quite another for 20 years to have passed without a solution.
What I love about our country is that we are a country that
fixes things, solves things, and makes them better. The time
has come to do exactly that.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rodriguez appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez. Ms. Root.
STATEMENT OF MS. MICHELLE ROOT, CO-FOUNDER,
ANGEL FAMILIES, COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA
Ms. Root. I don't think it's going on. Can you hear me?
Okay. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Grassley, and
distinguished Members of Committee, thank you so much for
inviting me to testify on this important topic today.
I'm here to honor my daughter, Sarah, who was murdered by
an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk on my daughter's
graduation night. Sarah had just received her Bachelor's in
Criminal Investigation and a 4.0 the night she was killed by
Eswin Mejia. Sarah was just starting to get to the best years
of her life. She was taken way too soon because people failed
to follow our laws, and the administration at the time failed
to secure our borders. To date, justice has not been served for
my daughter, and her killer remains on the loose.
Sarah was my only daughter, and she made me want to be a
better person because she was so kind, caring, loving. She put
others before herself, and no matter how busy she was, and she
was busy, she made time for family and friends. She was smart,
worked hard. She treated people with kindness, and had a great
relationship with her only brother, my son, Scotty. She wanted
to pursue a master's degree after graduating.
My baby girl had dreams, too. Sarah was a true dreamer, and
her dreams were crushed because people believe they can enter
our country illegally, carry out criminal acts without
recourse, and because some Members of Congress are determined
to let them.
As a parent, I sympathize with those who want a better life
for their children. We would all do what it takes to make a
better life for them. However, you have to understand that
rewarding illegal behavior only means we get more of it. The
DREAM Act, if enacted into law, would benefit people who are
charged with crimes. It would legalize people in this country
who have been convicted of violent crimes. This isn't about
rewarding valedictorian DREAMers. Even the data shows criminals
are getting to use this.
Allow me to talk about a few problems with this House bill.
This is a legalization bill for more than just children.
There's no age limit. This is a legalization bill for
criminals. Charges, even the most serious criminal offenses,
are completely ignored. This bill allows illegal immigrants who
have been deported from the United States previously, to still
apply. This bill protects people who simply apply by giving
them safe harbor to remain in the United States while their
application is pending.
This Committee needs to urgently consider bills like
Sarah's Law. This bill, in honor of my daughter, would require
the Government to detain someone who entered the country
illegally and is charged with a crime resulting in death or
serious bodily injury. I thank those who have sponsored this
bill, including my home State Senators, Senator Grassley,
Senator Ernst, and then our neighboring State of Nebraska,
Senator Sasse and Senator Fischer.
Another key provision of Sarah's Law, which is missing from
the DREAM Act, would ensure that there is an office for the
American people devoted to helping them when they are harmed or
affected by the actions of an illegal immigrant. An Office that
does this, the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement, or
VOICE, was established by the Trump administration, and without
it, many families, like mine, would not find answers or be able
to seek justice. This Office has helped many families, and it
appears that the Biden administration wants to dismantle it.
In fact, last week, they changed the name of the Office and
vowed to help illegal immigrants who claim to be victims to
gain access to support services, diminishing its sole mission
of helping Americans. The administration has also removed the
VOICE's Office most wanted list, which Eswin Mejia, the killer
of my daughter, is on. It is no longer on their website.
I urge you all to make the VOICE Office stronger. It's very
important to the American people and important to families that
have nowhere to turn. Put American families first. Give other
mothers and dads an avenue to get answers.
Today, there is no trust in our Federal Government to carry
out our laws. Let me close by saying that it has been 5 years
and almost 5 months since we lost Sarah. The pain doesn't go
away. Every day I grieve her loss. I hope none of you ever have
to endure what I have.
I know people come here to live a better life, to live out
their dreams. My family, like many American families, holds no
ill will toward people who desire the American dream. But there
have to be limits and boundaries. People need to be vetted, and
they have to be deported when not eligible for immigration
benefits.
We cannot forget that our laws are intended to keep us
safe, and this legislation does not do that. It rewards the
illegal behavior that my daughter's killer carried out. It
excuses their criminal history and does not make America
better. Thank you for allowing me to testify and share my
daughter's story.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Root appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Ms. Root. Mr. Ponthieux.
STATEMENT OF MR. RONY PONTHIEUX,
REGISTERED NURSE, JACKSON MEMORIAL
HOSPITAL, MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA
Mr. Ponthieux. Good morning, Senators. I would like to
start by thanking Senator and Chair of the Judiciary Committee,
Dick Durbin, and his phenomenal staff for your leadership and
this opportunity. I would like to thank and greet Ranking
Member Senator Chuck Grassley and the other Members of this
important Committee.
My name is Rony Ponthieux. I'm a Haitian immigrant, a
worker with temporary protected status, a registered nurse, and
essential worker during COVID-19. I'm also a member of Family
Action Network Movement, FANM. I would like to thank the
Almighty for protecting me during the pandemic period. I would
also like to send some words of comfort to those who lost their
loved one, a family member or friend.
I work at Jackson Memorial Hospital, COVID-19 battleground,
where I save lives every day. I've been here for 22 years now,
since 1999, and since 2006, I've been a nurse. I'm currently
working for Jackson Memorial Hospital in a unit specialize for
COVID-19. I put my life in danger and on the line to save
American lives. Every day, I'm exposed to COVID-19 in order to
save other people's lives.
Many TPS holders are healthcare providers. I'm one of them.
I put my life on the line every day to save American lives. I'm
asking the U.S. Government to permit me to remain here with
permanent residency.
I came to the U.S. 22 years ago with my wife, Marjorie
Ponthieux, and we have established our lives here. I was
granted Temporary Protected Status, TPS, by immigration
officials when the earthquake left Haiti in shambles a decade
ago. My wife and I have had two U.S.-born children, Christopher
Ponthieux and Eunid Christina Ponthieux.
We put ourselves through nursing school and bought a house
in Miami-Dade. My son, Christopher is an E4 specialist in the
U.S. Army. Christina is a young leader at FANM. She's the co-
chair of CFR, Children for Family Reunification. My family
risks their lives for this country. We have served this country
and feel that we are Americans, but our immigration status has
remained temporary.
Given the contribution of TPS holders to this country. I
respectfully urge the U.S. Senate to support the Dream and
Promise Act that includes a pathway to permanency for immigrant
youth and Temporary Protected Status holders. Permanent status
will allow TPS recipients to be more productive, continue
paying more taxes. Thirty percent of TPS holders are homeowners
who add to our local economies through sales and property
taxes.
TPS holders play an active role in our children's lives. We
attend the school meetings, recitals, and sports games. As of
2017, 273,000 children have parent with TPS status. Over 50,000
of these children live in Florida. If permanency is not
granted, our children would face serious risk. These children
would be forced to face separation from their parents or be
forced to relocate to a country that is foreign to them.
It would be current extremely difficult for me and my
family if I were to be forced to leave after 20 years of living
in the American States and return to a country in shambles. Not
only am I thinking daily about saving lives and taking care of
my family, but in addition to that, I have to think about the
possibility of leaving the United States eventually if I'm not
granted permanent status.
We believe in your compassion. We believe in your
understanding. We believe in your good judgment, and more
importantly, we believe in your leadership. We believe you will
make the Dream and Promise Act a reality. More than 300,000 TPS
holders are waiting. More than 270,000 U.S.-born children are
waiting. Let's walk together, Democrats and Republicans, to
have immigration reform that will change the lives of millions.
TPS recipients will keep their ends of the bargain by
working hard, paying taxes, contributing to build the social,
economic, and political fabric of this great nation. May God
bless you. May God bless America. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ponthieux appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Ponthieux. Let me
also thank your family, and especially your son, who is serving
the American people in the U.S. military. We thank you very
much for all of your presence today. Let me say, Ms. Root, it
breaks my heart to hear Sarah's story. I'm sorry for the loss
that you and your family have suffered as a result of that. I
strongly support any efforts of law enforcement to locate the
person responsible, and to bring them to justice.
I want to address one issue that you mentioned, and Mr.
Edlow mentioned, as well. That is the provisions in the law
related to past criminal behavior. Dangerous criminals are not
eligible for status under the Dream and Promise Act. In fact,
all of the bars that apply to immigration and naturalization
automatically apply to anyone who's seeking to become a citizen
under the Dream and Promise Act.
It also bars individuals who are guilty of any felony, any
three misdemeanors, or any crime of domestic violence. I will
readily concede that in 20 years and 20, at least, different
versions of this bill, there have been a lot of different
definitions, but that is the standard of H.R. 6 that we are
considering today. The notion that somehow, as Mr. Edlow said,
we are going to give amnesty to criminal aliens couldn't be
further from the truth. I'm sorry that you said that in the
record, because it doesn't reflect the reality of this bill.
I might also say that to call Dr. Mejia and Mr. Ponthieux
somehow flagrant violators of the law is to ignore the obvious.
Mr. Mejia had very little to say when his family decided to
come to this country. Mr. Ponthieux came here under
extraordinary circumstances in his own country. They don't
really fit in a definition of flagrant violators of the law, as
I see it. That's why the DACA population has been considered in
a difference context as others.
In terms of the current situation at our southern border,
as Mr. Rodriguez said, it is challenging, and I could certainly
give a defense to what we face today. It's not the first
challenge, and if our standard on changing any immigration law
is that we must have perfect compliance of all other laws,
we'll never do anything. I think that would be a mistake.
Personally, I support comprehensive immigration reform.
Join the Gang of Eight, put the bill to the floor. It passed
the Senate. I believe we should consider the fact that our
immigration system is broken at this point. The fact is it
didn't pass the House of Representatives; did not become of
law.
In terms of where we go from here, I have accepted Senator
Cornyn's invitation rather than challenge, I'll call it, to act
on the southern border as part of any conversation that we have
about any aspect of immigration. I think that is a good faith
effort to try to find some common ground on a very challenging
situation.
Dr. Mejia, before we go any further, have you run into
obstacles in terms of your medical licensure and such because
of your undocumented status?
Dr. Mejia. Thankfully, I have not. In the State of
Illinois, I have not. I'm sure that I would run into issues if
I want to expand my medical license to other States in the
United States.
Chair Durbin. It's State by State in terms of your status?
Dr. Mejia. That is correct.
Chair Durbin. You, thank goodness, are going to continue to
practice in the State of Illinois. Yes?
Dr. Mejia. Yes.
Chair Durbin. That is good news. Mr. Rodriguez, you've
heard the testimony of Mr. Edlow and others about the situation
with those with a criminal status. I can't recall a version of
the DREAM Act or DACA that has not included a bar to those who
were guilty of criminal misconduct.
Mr. Rodriguez. That is correct from my understanding, as
well, and I think your point that the existing
inadmissabilities that run across all of immigration law will
continue to apply here, as well. Those are structured
specifically to exclude felons, serious criminals, even in many
cases, those who've only committed one misdemeanor.
Chair Durbin. That is the case--with TPS, I believe, that
is exactly the case. TPS holders, they make ineligible anyone
with one felony or more than one misdemeanor conviction under
the bill. There's no waiver for a crime that makes someone
eligible for TPS included in the bill, so, we maintain these
standards, as we must, and if we expect any bipartisan support
for this bill, we're going to have to watch that very
carefully. I'm sure that's an important consideration. Senator
Grassley.
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks all of
you for your testimony. I'm going to start with Ms. Root. I
know in your testimony that you discussed the VOICE Office
established during the Trump administration. I was concerned to
see that last Friday, this administration announced changes to
the VOICE Office that appeared designed to dismantle it. Can
you just describe in a little more detail how that Office
helped your family and other families that have lost loved ones
to crimes committed by illegal immigrants, and why it is
important to maintain it?
Ms. Root. As I said in my testimony, for me, it was a place
I felt I could go and get answers, you know? Again, I'm
grateful for the State that I live in, because I had a lot of
support from my Senators and my Congressmen. However, if I did
not have that support, it was nice to have the VOICE Office to
call, get any updates on anything dealing with Eswin Mejia.
Other families that I know that use the VOICE Office, they
felt the same way. It was nice to have a contact that would
direct them in what they needed to do or help them through the
weeds, as we call it. Because when you are mourning the loss of
a loved one, you don't know where to turn, and there was
nothing out there for us. Then once the VOICE Office started,
there was an avenue for us to go to and get answers and get the
help we needed.
Senator Grassley. Mr. Edlow, in your testimony, you point
out a number of facts about the DREAM Act and Promise Act that
concern me. Facts that are also relevant to the Senate
counterpart, the DREAM Act. Could you comment on how these
bills benefit those with criminal records, and how very broad
the criminality waivers are? After that, can you comment on how
the eligibility provisions of these bills are so different that
the eligibility parameters of the DACA program, specifically
when it comes to issues such as age cutoffs and maximum ages?
Isn't it true that these bills go far beyond the kids that we
so often hear about?
Mr. Edlow. Thank you, Senator. Let's start with the
criminality. I appreciate Senator Durbin's comments, but let me
correct a couple things there. First of all, in terms of
dangerous criminals, we're not talking about dangerous
criminals under this bill, we're talking specifically
misdemeanors, felonies, and there are plenty of misdemeanor
convictions that would be someone that I think we would all
consider to be dangerous.
Drunk drivers, as Ms. Root has testified about, would be
dangerous, and yet, that's a misdemeanor. They're certainly
potentially eligible for relief under this bill. Same thing
with potentially a misdemeanor child sex offense. That is
something, in certain States, that would give rise to a
misdemeanor conviction that again, somebody would then be
eligible.
The waivers that we see here excuse behavior for things
that we've always found to be inadmissible, including crimes
involving moral turpitude, commercialized vice, and even
misdemeanor convictions that would involve smuggling--drug
smuggling and prostitution. In terms of the term felony,
definitions do matter. In this bill, we see a definition of
felony to be more than 365 days.
Certain States have a different definition of felony. For
example, in California, you can have a felony conviction for
364 days, so that was somebody who would be convicted of a
felony under State law but would not be considered a felon
under this definition.
Additionally, the expungements that are allowed under this
bill would include expungements for vacaturs for any reason,
including for rehabilitative purposes to get relief under this
bill. That is new, that is something that is completely outside
the scope of what we've normally seen in immigration law,
where, typically, a vacatur for that purpose is not
appropriate.
In terms of the DACA eligibility, very quickly, Senator,
you're, of course, correct. We have no age cutoff here, so
anyone who has been here for 4 years as of the 1st of January
who have previously entered when they were 18 is eligible for
this. Under DACA, it's 16, and they would have to have been
here by June 2012--20, I'm sorry. That's certainly a 5\1/2\
year gap that we add additional people in.
Additionally, in terms of the lack of an age cutoff, your
example is absolutely accurate. Somebody who entered years and
years ago, and then even potentially went home, as long as they
entered initially when they were 18, they could be 70, 80 years
old now, entered 4 years ago, and they're going to be eligible
under this. It's a lot more--a lot larger population that just
the DREAMers.
Senator Grassley. My time's up. I'll have some questions
for answer in writing.
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Padilla. [Presiding]. Thank you. Senator Leahy.
Senator Leahy. Thank you very much, and I just want to take
a moment to compliment Senator Durbin, who has fought on this
issue for years, and has been really the clearest and best
voice in the U.S. Senate on the issue of DREAMers.
We're a nation of immigrants. It becomes almost a cliche,
but we are. My parents and I immigrated to this country, my
wife was born here, and we've been married now for 59 years. My
grandparents--maternal grandparents immigrated to this country,
and my mother was born here, and I still have relatives in
Italy that we--I meet often. It's important we're having this.
It's important to note that everybody--some seem to be
talking about everything except DREAMers, the reason for this.
Maybe that's because they know the majority of Americans, and
that includes almost 70 percent of 2016 voters who supported
Donald Trump, believe that DREAMers deserve to live and work
legally in the United States. Certainly, I do. I think
Americans who believe in equal opportunity for DACA recipients,
and that is the majority of Americans, would be dismayed to
learn that DREAMers are currently banned from working in the
Federal Government.
While DREAMers bring their considerable talents to
virtually every other U.S. employer, including Fortune 500
companies, including State and local governments, as in my
State, they're shut out from working as Federal public servants
in the country they love.
Mr. Rodriguez, it makes no sense every other employer in
the country could benefit from DREAMer's talents and skills
except the Federal Government. Do you agree with that, and if
so, why?
Mr. Rodriguez. Yes, I have to say that that is an issue
that I think requires some careful study. Many positions
throughout the Federal Government actually require U.S.
citizenship as a prerequisite of admission, so I would be--I
simply lack the expertise to make a representation today on
that point.
Senator Leahy. There are some positions in the Federal
Government that require very specific things. Certain security
clearances and everything else. This is blanket. Every employer
in this country can hire DREAMers except the Federal
Government. Does that seem a little bit weird?
Mr. Rodriguez. I certainly think a lot of potentially
helpful talent is being lost by the Federal Government,
probably in places where it could be used, but again, I would
be hesitant to make a sweeping statement about how citizenship
status and immigration status should be applied by the Federal
Government without having fully studied the issue.
Senator Leahy. The reason I say this, we're seeing, and all
of us have seen this, the Federal Government experiencing a
very serious brain drain. I look at a March 2021 report by the
House Science Committee. There's been a concerning decline in
our Federal scientific workforce at agencies that are in the
frontline of keeping America competitive, or trying to keep
America globally competitive.
There are thousands of DREAMers with undergraduate STEM
degrees pursuing advanced STEM degrees who would jump at the
opportunity to use their skills in service to America to help
fill that gap that we acknowledge exists.
As you know, the Senate just passed an overwhelmingly
bipartisan bill, Democrats and Republicans alike voted for it,
to improve America's competitiveness against global
adversaries. Do you think that allowing DREAMers to work in our
Federal Government would bolster--help bolster America's global
competitiveness, something that both parties have voted for?
Mr. Rodriguez. I have no reason to think otherwise. I have
met, and particularly during my time as USCIS Director, but
even after in the community where I live, literally hundreds of
DREAMers doing all kinds of things. Doctors, nurses, investment
bankers, lawyers, teachers, HVAC technicians, all of whom I
think are people who could contribute in every part of our
society. I have no problem with that idea.
Senator Leahy. I'll simply close with this. I think this
country, almost goes a cliche, this country built on
immigrants, but I think if we all go to swearing in ceremonies
of new citizens, and I think of one where a Federal judge in
our State spoke at one. He had had a blood clot in his brain,
came within a very short time of dying, was on the operating
table. The physician successfully operated on him and saved his
life. As he said when he woke up, he realized a number of years
before, he had given the oath of citizenship to the doctor that
saved his life. Let's start opening our doors. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Padilla. Senator Cornyn.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Mister Chairman. Is it Dr.
Mejia?
Dr. Mejia. Yes, that's fine.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you, doctor. What year did you apply
for a deferred action?
Dr. Mejia. I applied the year--as soon as it was available
to me.
Senator Cornyn. Okay. There's no question that you've made
incredible contributions to our country as an emergency room
physician, and I think the reason you're here is because an
exemplary of the type of young person who's applied for and
received DACA who's life has been cast into uncertainty because
of the fact that this has not been something that actually
resulted from congressional action and consensus building. I
personally support trying to provide a permanent solution for
people like you.
I think you heard me say that there is a number of
different iterations of the DREAM Act and DACA, starting with
the original DACA, which now has 640 active individuals. The
bill before us today would provide a pathway to citizenship for
4.4 million people. If it is politically unlikely for us to be
able to pass something like the American Dream and Promise Act,
which I agree--I believe it is impractical and unlikely to
happen, would you support Congress passing a bill that would
provide relief for a smaller population that could be agreed on
by Republicans and Democrats alike, say, the 640,000 active
DACA recipients?
Dr. Mejia. I can only speak on behalf of my personal
experiences, and I know--I personally have watched the DREAM
Act throughout the years from the very beginning, and I
remember watching C-SPAN as a high schooler when the DREAM Act
was first being talked about and discussed on the Senate floor
in Congress. Personally, I would support such a legislation if
it meant a permanent solution for me and all the other DACA
recipients currently, because it's been many years and,
frankly, we're all tired of waiting and having our life up in
the air. I think we're ready for a permanent solution.
Senator Cornyn. As you probably heard me mention, as well,
there's a pending court case in the Southern District of Texas
which could result in a permanent injunction against the DACA
program because of legal problems associated with the original
action. I think that should give all of us a sense of urgency.
As many people have said earlier, Senator Durbin has
championed this issue for many, many years. What's different
today is that Chairman Durbin is Chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, and Senator Schumer is the floor Leader, the
Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. If Senator Durbin wanted to
put a bill--to mark up a bill in this Committee, he could do
it, and he wouldn't have to ask permission of everybody. Then
the Judiciary Committee could work its will if we were able to
report a bill, then Senator Schumer could schedule it for floor
action.
I think we've been talking about this issue for as long as
I've been in the Senate and trying to solve a very complex
issue. An emotional issue for many, which is immigration
reform, but I think, for me, I think starting with the original
DACA recipients, that would be a good place to start. We
wouldn't have to stop the discussion beyond that, but Senator
Durbin could put that bill here before the Committee, we could
mark it up, Senators could offer amendments, and then once it
received a majority of support, it could go to the Senate floor
for action. I think what we need is action and less discussion,
which seems to continue without end.
Mr. Edlow, I wanted to ask you--you made a statement that
we could well see the failure of our immigration system
completely unless the situation at the border that's currently
occurring--this surge of humanity. One hundred eighty thousand
new migrants just last month. The cartels and human smugglers
have figured out our immigration laws and how to exploit the
vulnerabilities and overwhelm our capacity to deal with them.
Fully 40 percent of the border patrol are off the front lines
because they're taking care of children.
Particularly with Title 42, the Public Health Title
expiring on June 21st, could you explain to the Committee what
you think the consequences would be if there's not some other
plan put in place when the Title 42 expires?
Mr. Edlow. Senator, without Title 42, there's going to be
no way to remove people based on the public health crisis that
we've seen. You know, in terms of how many more migrants we're
going to see coming to either the ports of entry or between the
ports of entry, I couldn't tell you, but it will--it will
expand exponentially.
I would also note that in terms of what the Border Patrol
and what Office of Field Operations are seeing, they're seeing
this increase because yes, we're at one point saying don't come
to the country, but then at the same time, we're giving mixed
messages as we've dismantled the interior enforcement, and
people are able to essentially move through the ports of entry
as quickly as possible. No one is staying there, no one is
being processed under expedited removal. They're just being
released.
I think that is ultimately what the draw is going to
continue to be, and yes, without Title 42 in place, it's just
going to expand.
Senator Padilla. Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I want
to concentrate my questions on unaccompanied children. I'm
really very concerned about it, and in 2008, we passed the
Trafficking Victims' Protection Reauthorization Act. It
includes legislation I authored to ensure unaccompanied
children are transferred to Health and Human Services
facilities consistent with their best interests while they
await. I'm told that today we have 17,000 children in custody.
That is mind blowing, candidly.
I would like to know more about these 17,000 children. We
may disagree over the best way to address their arrival, but
they should be treated humanely at all times, placed with their
parents or other appropriate adults as soon as possible.
Mr. Rodriguez, would you begin with this 17,000 number, and
break it down for us as to what is happening today with
children in custody, please?
Mr. Rodriguez. Senator, not having been in the Government
now for about 4\1/2\ years, and knowing most of what I know
from reading the papers, I can only agree with the proposition
that we do need to break down and understand why that
population is what it is, what the component parts of that
population are, and why it is that that population has not been
moved out of a detention setting. That's horrifying by any
definition.
Senator Feinstein. Can anybody else respond on that
question? Seventeen thousand children, and we don't know where
they are?
Mr. Edlow. Senator, I'm sorry. We don't know--know where
they are.
Senator Feinstein. Then, perhaps you would tell us.
Mr. Edlow. Senator, of course, I'm no longer in the
Government either, and I was not with Health and Human
Services, but when the children are put into Health and Human
Services custody, they are then moved to sponsors, as you
noted. My concern there is I don't know that the sponsors are
always close family, there is not follow-up with those sponsors
to make sure that these children are put into safe places, so,
there's a humanitarian crisis there.
Going back to TVPRA, I think the treatment--disparate
treatment of children, unaccompanied minors, between those that
can be quickly returned to countries, contiguous countries, and
those that can't, from other countries, is really what is
driving this because we have to find a safe way to address
that, and a humane way to address that. The best way would be
to return them to their family if their family is back in their
home countries, which we cannot do right now.
Senator Feinstein. This is an area that I have some
interest in, and I would appreciate other members of the panel
commenting--what actions would you recommend Congress take to
better protect unaccompanied children in immigration custody?
Anybody have any suggestions?
Mr. Edlow. May I give you another suggestion, Senator?
Senator Feinstein. Sure.
Mr. Edlow. Okay. For those that are placed with sponsors,
ensure that those sponsors are, in fact, their parents or their
legal guardian, and ensure that either Health and Human
Services or the Department of Homeland Security, whether it be
HSI, with ICE, or somebody else takes responsibility for
ensuring that those children have been safely placed.
We have seen far too many instances where children have
been placed in homes and have been the victim of sexual abuse
and other horrific crimes. We've got to make sure, but right
now, there's no one in the Federal Government that's going to
take responsibility for that role of making sure that they're
okay.
HHS says it's not them, and HSI--I don't think it's them
either, so, we've got to figure something out there.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you for that. Mr. Chairman, this
is an area that I've had a lot of interest in. What's happening
with 17,000 unaccompanied children? Where are they? What is the
oversight? In 2008, we passed a bill, it's called the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. It included
legislation I authored to ensure that these unaccompanied
children were transferred to Health and Human Services.
I thought they would have a better plan to take care of
them. I don't know what the plan is at this point of time, but
I would like to know it, and so, I would like to ask that the
Department give this Committee exactly what the status is of
these 17,000 children. I am hopeful that this Committee will
follow up and see if we are doing the best we possibly can to
see that they are in good and secure circumstances.
Chair Durbin. Mr. Chairman.
Senator Padilla. Senator.
Chair Durbin. I share your concerns, Senator. We don't have
a current representative of the administration on this panel,
but we certainly should be doing our duty in oversight in this
important area.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you. Thank you.
Senator Padilla. I, too, commit, as Chair of the
Subcommittee on Immigration and your colleague from California
to work with you to follow up with the appropriate agencies to
get you the information.
Senator Feinstein. Good. Good. Thank you, thank you very
much.
Senator Padilla. Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In
September 2019, then Presidential candidate Biden promised
that, should he be elected as President of the United States,
there would be immediate surges at the border. He said, ``If
you want to flee, flee oppression, you should come.''
Given President Biden's open invitation while he was a
Presidential candidate, it's not at all surprising, in my view,
that we have record-breaking surges at our southern border that
are causing a full-blown crisis at the border.
Since February, over 632,000 people, that is, that we know
of, embarked on an incredibly dangerous journey, and have
entered the country illegally, with hope of eventual amnesty. I
went to the border in March with nearly two dozen of my
colleagues, and I saw this crisis firsthand, and I saw it as
one who had spent 2 years of my life living along the U.S.-
Mexico border, and saw that the risks had gone up substantially
since I had last visited.
What exactly are we here to do today? The majority has
scheduled a hearing, not to address the crisis at the border,
at least not in a way that would make it better or alleviate
it, but rather to discuss amnesty. The amnesty proposal in this
bill would ensure that this unprecedented crisis at our
southern border continues indefinitely, in perpetuity, perhaps.
What we should be discussing today is what can be done and
what should be done to stop the border crisis that we now face,
and to stop the abuse of women and children who embark along
this perilous journey, and to stop the smugglers and the
cartels from earning record-high profits from exploiting this
crisis.
Mr. Edlow, what's the difference, if you can explain it to
us, between the I-95--I-85 Notice to Report, which we're told
that CBP currently is issuing to those crossing the border
illegally. What's the difference between the I-85 Notice to
Appear on the one hand, and a mandatory Notice to Appear?
Mr. Edlow. Thank you, Senator. I believe it's the I-385 is
the Notice to Report, and frankly, Senator, it's a new one on
me in terms of seeing this being given with any regularity
along the border. Essentially, what that document is, is
telling--it's a document that says that the person has been
encountered, and that when they get to where they're going,
they, per that document, are supposed to report themselves,
turn themselves in to ICE in whatever city, community that
they're in.
This is not the same thing as a Notice to Appear. A Notice
to Appear is a statutory document that has a--all of the
elements are laid out in the Immigration Nationality Act that
commences an immigration court proceeding. It says how the
person entered, it alleges certain facts about the situation,
and then gives a charge of either inadmissibility or
moveability for the court to ultimately make a determination.
It's essentially the civil immigration version of almost--a
little different, but kind of like an indictment. It gets the
immigration court process moving. The expanded use--we're
seeing, I've heard numbers upwards of 30,000 plus Notices to
Report that have been handed out along the border. This is not
even catch and release. I mean this is catch and release beyond
anything we've seen. This is almost catch and welcome, so that
people can then find where they're going.
Senator Lankford spoke on the Senate floor, I believe it
was back in March, and said that out of 24,000 people that he
knew of that had received this Notice to Report, only about
1,800 had ever actually turned themselves in to ICE when they
got to where they were going.
Senator Lee. How will this bill that's likely to extend to
include at least three million people, quite arguably more, how
will that impact the crisis at our southern border? Will it end
it? Will it slow it?
Mr. Edlow. I think it exacerbates it. I think it adds to
the crisis as more people will see that the comments, the
promises that have been made by the current administration, by
the Biden administration are coming to fulfillment.
Senator Lee. Does it contain any provision--enforcement
provisions that might deter future illegal immigration, or even
that might deter people from voting illegally while they're
here illegally?
Mr. Edlow. No, in fact--thank you for mentioning voting.
Voting illegally is one of the factors that is easily waived in
this bill. There is a specific waiver here for any alien that
has come into this country and voted illegally.
Senator Lee. Why would we want to do that?
Mr. Edlow. I don't have any idea. We wouldn't want to do
that, nor do we want to waive criminal activity that we're
seeing in this bill.
Senator Lee. Thank you very much.
Chair Padilla. Next, we have Senator Klobuchar virtually.
Senator Klobuchar, are you still with us?
Senator Klobuchar. All right. Thank you, and thank you so
much, Senator Padilla for your great leadership and for doing
this hearing, and also thank you, of course, to our Chair.
Minnesota is actually home to thousands and thousands of
DREAMers. We also have a really strong history of TPS people
because Somalia was designated for TPS. We had the biggest
number of Somalians in the country, and we have fought for that
to be extended for all of our, of course, TPS groups, both in
my State and across the country. Like DREAMers, for many TPS
and DED recipients, the U.S. is the only home they've ever
known, and I am a strong supporter of this bill.
Along those lines, I just want to clear up one thing at the
beginning, Mr. Rodriguez. When we are talking about DREAMers
and people with TPS and DED status, are we talking about people
seeking asylum at the southern border by any means?
Mr. Rodriguez. No, and actually, I had meant to talk about
that in my opening statement. No, those are distinct. While
they are different kinds of humanitarian relief, we're talking
about distinct pathways to that relief.
Senator Klobuchar. Would any of the recent arrivals after
January 1st at the border be eligible for the pathway to
citizenship provided by the American Dream and Promise Act?
Mr. Rodriguez. No, they would not.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Is providing a pathway to
citizenship to DREAMers and people with TPS and DED going to
slow down the administration's efforts at the border to either
reunite families or other things? Would that be a deterrent to
some of the work that's being done there.
Mr. Rodriguez. Not at all. In fact, you know, I'm a former
State and Federal prosecutor. I was a prosecutor in Brooklyn,
New York at the height of the crack epidemic, and I know that
one thing we need to do in the law enforcement world is to
prioritize where we're going to focus not only our
prosecutorial efforts, but also our administrative resources,
and how we're going to focus those.
Part of what we're doing here is taking the focus away from
people like Dr. Bernal and Mr. Ponthieux, and really focusing
them on illegal border crossing and focusing them on criminal
conduct, and not places where those energies don't need to be.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Very good. I wanted to just turn
to something a little bit related here, the Conrad 30 Program.
I am the lead sponsor of that bill, but we also have Senator
Collins, Rosen, Ernst, King, Boone, Merkley, Capito, Blunt, and
I hope our colleagues will consider sponsoring it. This is the
one that helps underserved areas, particularly rural areas, for
doctors to complete their postgraduate medical training in the
U.S. and practicing in the U.S. after they've completed that
training, rather than having to leave the country for 2 years,
which to me is just nuts given that we need these doctors in
the rural areas.
Of course, there's other provisions that we're looking at
for nurses and the like. Could you talk about why this is
important, this program?
Mr. Rodriguez. Yes, actually a significant part of my
current law practice actually is with healthcare providers of
different types. We do have shortages at many--many different
levels of the healthcare industry, not only shortages of
doctors in certain places, which I think is what Conrad 30 is
trying to address, but also other types of healthcare
providers. Nurses, in particular--thank you, Mr. Ponthieux--is
one particular area of shortage. This is, I think, a very
important step for the American people.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay, thank you. Thank you, and thank
you for that segue to Mr. Ponthieux, your wife is also a nurse
serving your community in Florida, your 20-year-old son is in
the Army, your daughter is a middle school honors student. How
has living with this constant uncertainty affected your family,
and maybe prevented you from making investments that you would
normally have made?
Mr. Ponthieux. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for the
question, and I would like to say that after I finished my
registered nurse license, I planned to go to the University to
do--to pursue a career to become a nurse practitioner. Because
of this uncertainty--that means the possibility of being
deported--that told me I could not go further. I even went to
the hospital because of high blood pressure, and I'm on
medication at this time. Even I'm saving lives, I'm taking care
of patients, but also I have to think of myself because now I
have high blood pressure.
With the--if you vote yes for this bill, I already wishes
to for--to go to the University to pursue this career, to go
for nurse practitioner. I would like to become a nurse
practitioner to serve this country, because I feel that this is
my calling. Even sometimes nurses call in sick because they are
afraid of the COVID. I always there, and I pray God to help me,
not only to give the medication to take care of the patient,
but to save their lives.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
Mr. Ponthieux. Now, I will be able, with this bill,
continue to go to school for higher education and be able to
take care of my family. Thank you.
Senator Klobuchar. Oh, so beautifully said. Beautifully
said. I want to thank you, and also you, Mr. Mejia. I'll send
you a question on the record but thank you both for being here
and all of the witnesses.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
Senator Padilla. Thank you. Senator Cruz.
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Right now, we have a
massive crisis at our southern border. My home State of Texas
is bearing the brunt of this crisis. In the last month, CBP
agents encountered 180,034 illegal immigrants crossing the
border. That is a 674 percent increase from last May. That is
stunning. We are on path to have over 2 million people cross
the border illegally this year, the highest rate in 20 years.
Where were we last year? Last year, we had the lowest rate
of illegal immigration in 45 years. To my Democratic colleagues
on this Committee, I ask you, why haven't you gone down to the
border? Joe Biden refuses to go to the border. Kamala Harris
refuses to go to the border. Indeed, Kamala Harris seems to go
everywhere else except our southern border.
In 6 months, the Senate Judiciary Committee has not had a
hearing on the crisis at the border. The approach of
Congressional Democrats is they don't want to know. The
approach of President Biden and Vice President Harris is they
don't want to know. When asked about it, Vice President Harris
laughed and said, ``Well, I haven't been to Europe, either.''
You know what? Joe Biden's in Europe right now. Maybe it's time
for the person ostensibly in charge of the border from this
Administration to go to the border.
There's a reason Joe Biden doesn't want to go to the
border. There's a reason Kamala Harris doesn't want to go to
the border. There's a reason Senate Democrats on this Committee
don't want to go to the border. Because they know if they go to
the border, the TV cameras will come with them, and they have
no answer for this humanitarian crisis that is playing out.
I challenge my colleagues on the Committee. Go look at the
Biden cages. I've seen them, cage after cage after cage of
little boys and little girls packed in. Seventeen hundred
percent capacity. COVID rate of positivity, 10 percent. Go look
at the children that are paying the price for this failed
immigration policy. Let's be clear. This crisis is the direct
result of decisions made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The very first week in office, Joe Biden immediately halted
construction of the border wall. The very first week in office,
Biden returned to the failed policy of catch and release. The
very first week of office, Biden ripped to shreds the Remain in
Mexico international agreement that had produced the lowest
rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris caused this crisis and
congressional Democrats are perpetuating this crisis by hiding
from it and keeping the policies that aren't working. Let's be
clear. It is evident to anyone who looks at the problem what
the cause is. Here's what the President of Guatemala said when
Joe Biden took office. ``The very next day, the coyotes were
here organizing groups of children to take them to the United
States.'' That's the President of Guatemala.
How about the President of Mexico? Here's what he said. He
said that people see Biden, ``as the migrant President. So many
feel that they're going to reach the United States.'' The
message from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the traffickers, to
the cartels is the gates are open, come on in. The message is
give us your children, and I will tell you, to my colleagues,
look in the eyes of the little girls and little boys that are
being physically abused, that are being sexually abused.
This is not compassionate. This is not humane. Children are
suffering because of your policies. What do Senate Democrats
do? Don't have a hearing on the crisis, let's have a hearing on
amnesty instead. The two bills here, one would grant amnesty to
3 million people, another would grant amnesty to 4.4 million
people.
Mr. Edlow, what message do the traffickers hear? What
message do the people thinking about coming illegally hear?
What message do the parents getting ready to give their small
children to traffickers to come to America hear when Congress'
message is we will grant amnesty if you come? What's the effect
of that message?
Mr. Edlow. Now is the time to come. That is the message.
Come across now. You have a good chance of being able to stay
here, either under the radar and wait for the next amnesty, or
you may even be able to benefit from this one, because the
availability for documentary requirements here include, at
minimum, two affidavits from people. It's very easy. That
invites fraud. It's so easy to get two affidavits to say that
you've been here since before January 1st of this year, even if
you haven't.
Now is the time to come because nothing is going to happen.
The enforcement mechanism of this country--immigration
enforcement, has been turned off. Prosecutorial discretion is
ruling the day just like it did back in the Obama era, and the
result is going to be the same with flagrant disregard for the
law by criminal aliens and by those that want to exploit our
laws now like the smugglers.
That's why we see things--even months ago, like horrific
car accidents where close to 20 migrants were found in an SUV
that was overturned and many were killed and seriously injured.
That's because of these policies. There is absolutely no
enforcement along the southern border. There is absolutely no
enforcement except for a small, little bit of what's left from
ICE in the interior of this country and immigration courts are
being told to just go ahead and terminate cases if they don't
meet the stringent requirements that they're needing to for
priority. Because suddenly, priority is based on limited
resources that seemingly just turned up overnight.
I don't understand what's going on right now because I can
tell you, Senator, how it's supposed to be at the border. I can
tell you how we're supposed to see people when they come over
and what's supposed to happen under Section 235 of the Act. I
have no idea what is going on and I can tell you, Senator,
whatever border patrol and ports of entries you visited--
whatever border patrol sectors you visited, you are only seeing
what's going on there. I don't know what's going on at the
other ones and I don't believe there's any consistency in the
way that it's being administered.
Senator Cruz. Thank you.
Senator Padilla. Thank you. Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you. Senator Padilla, I'd like to open
by thanking Chairman Durbin for his two decades of tireless
effort to focus our attention on DREAMers, on those who've been
brought here by their parents when they were children and who
have contributed to our society over decades. There are
literally millions of undocumented people who are working here,
living here, paying taxes, serving in our military or, in the
case of two of our witnesses today, as frontline essential
workers who have contributed to saving lives in this pandemic.
None of these people should have to live in the shadows of
the only home they have ever known. It was in 2018 that I was
honored to partner with the late Senator John McCain in
introducing and advancing the Uniting and Securing America Act,
which was a bipartisan proposal to pair the DREAM Act with
commonsense border security measures. While that got just 52
votes on the floor of the Senate, I'm happy to be continuing
conversations across the aisle now with Chair Durbin and
Senators Graham and Cornyn, Tillis and others in an attempt to
try and find some compromise that can address these issues that
have challenged us for decades.
While all of us have the ability to give stemwinders and
soliloquies to grow our viewers and supporters by attacking
each other, I think our real challenge is to try and solve this
problem. What I hear in Delaware and what I've heard across the
country is that Americans would like us to actually solve the
problem rather than swing wildly back and forth from on
administration to the next in our tone, tenor, and actions with
regards to immigration.
I want to thank the witnesses today for sharing your
relevant and inspiring perspectives. The challenges you've
faced or the work that you've done or the service you're
currently providing and for those who are essential workers who
testified today, I just want to thank you for being on the
front lines of both advocating for TPS and DREAMers but
providing lifesaving support for Americans with COVID-19.
Dr. Mejia, if I might, I think it's important for folks
watching to recognize the impact on your life of having an
uncertain status, of lacking a permanent legal status here. You
have two younger siblings who were born citizens, so you've got
a personal experience around this, yet you continue to persist,
and engage, and advance, and I'm so grateful to Loyola for
providing you the opportunity at a medical education and
hopeful that your residency will soon conclude and lead to your
position as a physician in Oak Lawn.
Delaware State University, in my own home State, offers
opportunity scholarships that Don Graham funded. More than 150
DREAMers have now attended and graduated from Delaware State
University, including one, Indra Isles, who I got to know, who
is also interested in following your footsteps as a medical
professional. In Delaware, we've seen the same sorts of things.
I've heard from her, but I'd like to hear from you. What was
the impact on your life of having uncertainty as you grew up
and as you pursued your dream of becoming an emergency medical
room physician?
Dr. Mejia. Sure. Thank you for your question, Senator.
Throughout my career, from, like I mentioned earlier, from the
very beginning of me trying to attempt to get a driver's
permit, that's when I first started noticing these barriers.
They were only more evident after that. From me applying to
colleges to me later on trying to see if I could even go to
medical school, there was barrier after barrier. Somehow, you
know, whether it was the time when President Obama's DACA
memorandum or my innate resiliency, somehow, I found ways to
overcome these barriers, and that's led to my successes as an
ER doctor and will continue to lead to my success.
There's no doubt that I've faced many barriers, and I will
continue to face barriers, but, as long as I'm given the
opportunity to reapply for DACA every 2 years, I will continue
to do so because that just takes one thing away. It gives a
little bit of security. Although temporary, it does give a
little bit of security to my career and everything I've faced.
Senator Coons. Both you and Mr. Ponthieux, who has served
as a nurse in a critically necessary role in an important
hospital, have no permanent status, and that uncertainly, I
think, must impact your service in your communities.
I was proud to reintroduce this year, along with Senators
Cornyn, and Young, and Collins, Leahy and Durbin, the
Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act to recapture 25,000 Visas
for nurses, 15,000 for doctors to help in the fight against
COVID.
Mr. Ponthieux, could you also speak to the impact
uncertainty has had on your career, and what you've seen in
terms of staffing shortages at the hospital where you serve,
and what impact it might have if we were to provide some
certainty in a path forward for medical professionals like
nurses?
Mr. Ponthieux. Yes, like I say there earlier, as a
healthcare provider, I've been facing death every day because
of the COVID-19, and every day I go to work, and I think that I
have a responsibility to take care of patients to save lives.
It is my goal to save as many as possible, and with my
temporary status, I always think that I'm limited. I cannot go
further, but now, if the Senate were to vote to give the yes, I
will be able not only to continue to work to help more
patients, to save more lives, but I will be able to continue to
pay taxes and to take care of my family. This is what we want.
We only want the chance.
In 2006, I've been given a chance to go to school. I have
financial aid, and I went to Sheridan Technical Center, where I
get my practical nurse license, and since then, I was able to
work, and after that, when I went to college, I was able to pay
the tuition from my pocket because the school didn't have
financial aid.
The same way I want the Senate to give those 200,000 people
a chance to have a higher education, and to continue to work to
take care of their family, and to stay in the United States.
Senator Coons. Thank you. Thank you both for your testimony
and thank you to all the witnesses for participating in today's
hearing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Padilla. Senator Cotton.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. I have to say that we heard from
Senator Coons terms that we often here about children who are
brought here through no fault of their own who have never known
another country, and that's why we need a solution like the
House bill. The House bill would give a green card, though, to
say, an 18-year-old who arrived here in December. That's very
different than what Senator Coons portrayed, or what the
Democrats portrayed that this legislation would do. That's why
this hearing itself is so ill-advised. We have a crisis at the
border. Illegal migrant flows that we haven't seen in a
generation.
The Vice President galivanted around Central America and
Mexico last week, looking for the root causes. I could have
saved the taxpayer the travel expenses. The root causes are
right up the street at 1600 Pennsylvania. It's Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris running on an open borders campaign, that message
being heard across the world, and hundreds of thousands of
illegal aliens showing up at our border. Not just from Mexico
and Guatemala, but literally all across the world, to include
Europe and Africa and Asia, because they know that our borders
are open.
As Mr. Edlow testified earlier, the very fact that the U.S.
Senate is having hearing on granting a massive amnesty under
these conditions will simply exacerbate this crisis. It will be
used tonight, tonight, by traffickers and smugglers to induce
more desperate parents to send their children to our border, to
encourage more people from around the world to make that very
dangerous trip that will then put even more stress on our
border and our law enforcement agencies. Lead to more crime in
this country, to lower wages and fewer jobs for the American
people.
Mr. Edlow, I'd like to ask a few more questions about this
bill that my Democratic colleagues are promoting today. The so-
called DREAM Act portion of this bill is falsely portrayed as
being focused only on those children, as I mentioned earlier,
but isn't it true that the bill allows green cards and
citizenship for illegal aliens who enter the United States
before January 1, 2021, as long as they were under 19?
Mr. Edlow. Yes.
Senator Cotton. In my hypothetical, an 18-year-old shows up
at our border on December 31st and gets in. He is just as
entitled to a green card under this legislation as some of the
witnesses that we have here today and many other of the DACA
program recipients that were, in fact, children when they came
here, and who have, in fact, lived in this country for decades.
Seems to me like a very inequitable piece of legislation.
Another question, Mr. Edlow. Let me give you another
hypothetical. Let's suppose there's a Colombian family of
three. A married couple and their 13-year-old adult son, who
also happens to be a gang member. They heard Joe Biden in the
campaign last year. They also began to immigrate here, but they
didn't quite make it by December 31st. They arrived in January,
so technically, they're not eligible under this legislation.
Isn't it true that all they have to do is find two other
illegal aliens to attest in a document that they arrived here
before January 1, and they also will be eligible for a green
card?
Mr. Edlow. They can certainly present that as the evidence,
the documentary evidence.
Senator Cotton. In your long history--in your long history
of enforcing our Nation immigration laws, have you ever known
illegal aliens to commit fraud in an effort to stay in our
country?
Mr. Edlow. Absolutely. When I was in immigration court, all
the time.
Senator Cotton. Shocking. I can't believe that people who
have risked everything and spent their life's savings to come
from places, again, not just Mexico, as far afield as Romania
and Bangladesh have been encountered on our southern border in
the last few months, would also be willing to lie on a piece of
paper to a Federal bureaucrat so they can stay here in this
country.
Mr. Edlow, isn't it also the case that President Obama's
DACA program, even if you included all the expansions, never
had more than about a million and a half people eligible under
its terms?
Mr. Edlow. As it's already been said here, we had about
640,000-650,000 who are currently enrolled in DACA, and then,
looking at the Migration Policy Institute, they were estimating
somewhere around 1.5 to 1.8 million would have been eligible,
but that's an estimate.
Senator Cotton. Who were eligible?
Mr. Edlow. Yes.
Senator Cotton. This bill, this bill from the House would
not make those 650,000 to 700,000 DACA recipients eligible
alone. It wouldn't even make those 1.5 to 1.8 million DACA-
eligible persons covered. This bill would allow more than 4
million people to gain amnesty. Isn't that correct, Mr. Edlow?
Mr. Edlow. That's correct, Senator, and I would also just
quickly point out that the second part of the bill, dealing
with--the Promise Act, dealing with TPS, right now, under the
statute cannot be considered by the U.S. Senate. Statutory bar
under INA 244(h) requires a supermajority of the Senate to
allow any measure that would consider adjustments of status or
permanent residency for temporary protective status-holders to
pass through that supermajority before it can even be
considered or brought up on the floor of the Senate. That part
of the bill, in my opinion, can't even be brought up at this
point.
Senator Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Edlow. One final point, Ms.
Root. I would be remiss if I didn't express my deepest
condolences and sympathy for your loss and your family's loss,
and my great admiration for your courage in appearing here
today and speaking out over the years for all the thousands of
American citizens who have been the victims of illegal alien
crime. I'm very sorry.
Chair Durbin. Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for holding this hearing. Outside of this building, outside of
the bubble that is the U.S. Congress and its neighborhood,
DREAMers are wildly popular, and the reason is that they have
such a profoundly sympathetic story. It's the American story.
As we all know, they were brought here at ages where they made
no decision, they had no part in the decision to come here.
English is usually the only language they know. America is the
only country that they know, and they are part of this great
Nation, and they make it greater.
The more Americans know about DREAMers, the more they
believe that they should be given a chance at the American
dream, which their situation represents.
DREAMers and holders of TPS and Deferred Enforcement are by
and large really remarkable people, not only for their
accomplishments, which are impressive in their own right, but
also because they've been able to attain those accomplishments
and live day to day in the face of uncertainty and instability,
and I have met countless numbers of them that face life with a
bravery and strength that is awe-inspiring.
I hear incredible stories from DREAMers and others all over
Connecticut, stories like Evelyn Garcia, a 26-year-old who
immigrated to Danbury, Connecticut at the age of 3, grew up
undocumented, later received DACA status. Put simply, she
embodies the American dream. Evelyn Garcia. In 2017, she
graduated summa cum laude from Western Connecticut State
University, with a degree in biology and community health, and
thanks to the benefits provided by DACA, Evelyn was able to
pursue various rewarding academic and professional experiences,
including prestigious fellowships at places like the Yale
School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman
School of Medicine.
After college, she worked at a research lab at Harvard on a
family centered obesity prevention program for low-income
immigrant families enrolled in Head Start in the greater Boston
area. She's now a full-time student and Presidential Scholar at
the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she
studied global health and infectious disease, epidemiology.
I could go on with other stories, and I have on the floor
of the U.S. Senate, and I will do it again, just as Chairman
Durbin has done, because the American Dream and the Promise Act
will ensure that Evelyn and millions of others like her have
the opportunity to continue their lives and make positive
contributions to society here in the United States. It is
beyond me why we would do anything other than welcome Evelyn
Garcia and her contemporaries and everyone like her with open
arms to the United States.
Let me ask you, Director Rodriguez, one thing I've heard
from opponents of the Dream and Promise Act is that USCIS is
not capable of effectively and safely implementing the
legislation. You touched on this issue briefly in your
testimony, but I'd like you to elaborate because it is an
important issue. As a former Director of USCIS, can the agency
handle the practical challenge of implementing the American
Dream and Promise Act?
Mr. Rodriguez. If you take the DACA experience, which I
think, as I alluded in my oral testimony, was the test case,
the pilot, in essence, for implementation of this Act, that
was, in fact, certainly during my tenure and I believe since my
tenure, one of the most cost-effective adjudication lines at
USCIS. It paid for itself. The fees paid by the requestors of
DACA status were sufficient to pay for the activity, including
the very rigorous background checks.
It is the case that USCIS has experienced some pretty
significant financial and operational challenges over roughly
the last year and a half, maybe a little bit more. Those do
need to be addressed, but I am confident, because I have
tremendous confidence in the USCIS workforce, including its
career managers, that they can remedy those challenges and be
able to meet the challenge of implementing this bill.
Mr. Edlow. Senator, may I respond to that?
Senator Blumenthal. If the Chairman allows you to. My time
is expired, but please go ahead.
Mr. Edlow. As a more recent Acting Director of USCIS, I do
not believe right now without a significant appropriation,
which as you know, is not something that we typically get at
USCIS, and with the ability to have at least a year and a half
to hire additional adjudicators, and to train those
adjudicators to handle these types of applications, the agency
would simply not be able to handle it. The backlogs continue to
grow. Frankly, there's a front log now that continues to grow.
We've got to address that first. USCIS must address that first
before it could begin to tackle a new application, and I think
at the end of the day, what you would see----
Senator Blumenthal. What I hear you saying is that fiscally
strangling the USCIS, as the Trump administration did, it would
have to be reversed.
Mr. Edlow. Senator, you and I had conversations when we
were having financial issues, and we've gone through why we had
those financial issues when I was there, and it was nothing to
do with what the Trump administration had done. It was COVID
and then it was other factors that came in, and we were able--I
was able to successfully salvage that and to prevent a shutdown
that would have frankly eviscerated our ability to handle any
immigration adjudication.
You know, we made the progress that we needed to, but--
we're still--that agency needs to continue to grow before it
can--financially--before it can handle something like this, and
I just don't think the resources are there in place right now
to be able to handle that, and frankly, your going to see--your
constituents who are calling you and calling all of you already
about long backlog and wait times for adjudications of their
petitions, you're going to see that grow exponentially if we
had 4.4--potentially 4.4 million new applications into the
pipeline.
Senator Blumenthal. As you know, when we spoke, I'm a
strong supporter of resources necessary to do the job, and----
Mr. Edlow. Absolutely, you and I had great conversations
about this. Yes.
Senator Blumenthal [continuing]. You can look back and heap
blame.
Chair Durbin. Senator, we have----
Senator Blumenthal. I want to look forward, provide the
resources necessary to do the job here because America deserves
it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Senator, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but
there are other Members we want to give a chance to speak, but
I want to make one point. Since we've extended it into this
conversation, Mr. Edlow, when you contacted Members of the
Judiciary Committee on behalf of the USCIS last May, you
stated, at least to my office, that a previous Trump
administration official made a decision to spend hundreds of
millions of dollars from the USCIS rainy day fund at the
agency, reducing the rainy day fund from $1 billion to $400
million, and you said you would have not made that same
decision if you'd been at the agency at that time.
I wanted to put that in the record as part of the
conversation about the funding of this important agency.
Mr. Edlow. May I respond to that, Senator?
Chair Durbin. I'm going to defer to the other Senators here
waiting.
Mr. Edlow. Okay.
Chair Durbin. Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'm glad that
we have the opportunity today to talk about what is happening
on the border, and to have a chance to look at and examine what
is, I think, a humanitarian crisis. It is a national security
crisis. It is a drug crisis. It's also frankly a moral crisis.
When you see what these cartels are doing on our border, when
you see the children being exploited and smuggled for profit by
these cartels at the border, when you see the lies that these
cartels are telling innocent people to get their money and
bring them across the border, and when you see the effects of
the drugs that are flowing across this border into every
community of my State--I come from the State of Missouri.
You can't visit a community in my State that is not frankly
awash in drugs. From where? From across the border. Our border
is in a state of total crisis, and it is a crisis that is
affecting every single person in my State and in this country,
and I suggest to you we have a moral obligation, and this
administration has a moral obligation, to address the crisis it
has created at the border for children, for families, for
American citizens. I'm glad we get to talk about this.
You know, the statistics tell the story. I mean the number
of family units crossing the border is up 4,143 percent from
last May. Four thousand one hundred forty-three percent. That
border crossing is not safe. The border is not open, and yet
the Biden administration has sent the message that it is open,
and it has effectively encouraged this illegal smuggling, it
has encouraged this exploitation of children, it has encouraged
the drug crisis we see with its policies.
That's a hard truth, but it is the truth, and the American
people are owed the truth, and the moral consequences of these
policies have to be confronted and addressed and owned up to.
I'm afraid I can't support the legislation we're considering
today because I think it goes in exactly the opposite
direction. I think creating new loopholes for illegal
immigrants who have criminal records, sending the message that
more people ought to come here illegally while devaluing legal
immigration is exactly the wrong way to go.
Mr. Edlow, let me just ask you about some of the details of
this bill. It allows individuals to receive permanent residency
status regardless of age. It contains no commitments to reduce
illegal immigration, no commitments to strengthen our border,
and it seems to allow the Federal Government to waive
restrictions on all sorts of criminal violations that you have
experienced in administering immigration laws. If we enact this
legislation into law, what would be the practical effect of
these criminal waiver provisions, for example?
Mr. Edlow. Thank you, Senator. In terms of the criminal
waiver provisions, this bill has them in the full discretion of
the Secretary to make determinations as to whether those
waivers are appropriate, and also to whether an individual
should be deemed a public safety risk. There are many
exceptions to that. The ultimate effect would be a series of
very severe crimes, including crimes that are considered
aggravated felonies under our immigration laws, crimes of
violence, and theft offenses that would carry a year sentence
at least that would not be deemed felonies--that could
potentially not be deemed felonies under this Act because this
Act defines felonies as a year or more, where certain States
would--I'm sorry--with a year or more, whereas that would only
require a year sentence.
I'm sorry. Let me repeat that. More than a year, not a year
or more, but more than a year. Three hundred sixty-six days,
not 365. That is a huge difference there. Additionally, looking
at the DACA provisions from when DACA was initially introduced,
there was no felonies or significant misdemeanors, and that is
not here, either. Pretty much most misdemeanors can be waived,
especially if they're aged. Old misdemeanors, one within 5
years or two within 10 years can be waived, and that does have
serious consequences in terms of the types of crime that we
could see people then getting this done.
No, Senator, if I may, I think I misspoke briefly when I
was answering Senator Grassley's questions about the DACA
eligibility versus this. I said that the DACA enrollees had to
be here by June 2012. I misspoke. It was June 2007 they have to
be here, and they have to be under 31 in 2012. I just wanted to
correct that for the record.
Senator Hawley. Thanks for that. Back to the criminal
violations, the waiver restrictions. Am I right in thinking the
bottom line here that very serious criminal offenders could
find a way under this legislation to obtain lawful residency
status?
Mr. Edlow. I absolutely think so, and even if the waiver
doesn't apply to them--the waivers are broad, but even if the
waiver doesn't apply to them, the definition of expungement
under this Act, which would allow any expungement for any
reason or any vacatur of any reason to be the bases--to allow
consideration under this bill would create a real problem.
That's very contrary to our understanding of immigration law,
to the precedent that we have in certain matters that have been
decided before the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Senator Hawley. Thank you for that. My time has expired. I
just want to say in closing that I think what today's hearing
and this legislation betrays is a pretty fundamental difference
of opinion between us on these sides of the aisle about what
our immigration system is about and should be trying to do.
I'll just say, Mr. Chairman, from my point of view, the reason
I can't support this legislation is I think the point of our
immigration system should be to encourage and facilitate legal,
lawful immigration, should be to protect the American people,
to prioritize American workers and American families, and to
secure and protect our border, and I think this does exactly
the opposite. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Padilla. Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a time
when there was bipartisan agreement that our immigration system
is broken in effect, and 2013, we actually worked on a
bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate. Perhaps
we'll be able to get there, but obviously, that's not where we
are now.
I have a question for Dr. Mejia. I hope I'm pronouncing
your last name correctly.
Dr. Mejia. Yes.
Senator Hirono. Your hard work and dedication to emergency
medicine is impressive, and yes, you are 1 of some 800,000 DACA
participants, one of the exemplary people in the DACA program,
but you don't have to be exemplary in order to get the
protections that DACA affords. These are hundreds of thousands
of people who were brought to this country as children who just
want to have a chance at a good life in our country.
In the meantime, Dr. Mejia, you talked about what DACA
meant to you. If the DACA program wasn't created, what do you
imagine your life would be like right now?
Dr. Mejia. Sure. Thank you for your question, Senator. DACA
was a major life changer for me. Particularly, it allowed me to
fund my education and fund my medical school degree to a degree
that was not possible beforehand. If DACA was never
implemented, I'm not exactly sure what my life would look like
right now. All I can say is that whatever I had chosen to
pursue that I would have done a good job at it and done well at
it and continued to contribute to the American society in
whatever capacity I would be allowed to.
Certainly, I think that becoming a doctor would have been
close to impossible without DACA, and then even downstream,
there's no way that I would have been employed as a doctor
without DACA, even if I had been able to get medical degree.
Senator Hirono. Of course, you would have faced
deportation----
Dr. Mejia. Of course.
Senator Hirono [continuing]. Especially after the DACA
program was summarily ended, there were hundreds of thousands
of you who faced deportation.
This is for Mr. Ponthieux. The Trump administration tried
to end the TPS designation for Haiti, declaring the country
safe for people to return, despite it being declared a level
four do not travel country by the State Department.
Just last month, the Secretary Mayorkas announced a new 18-
month TPS designation for Haiti due to serious security
concerns, a social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses,
crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources which are
exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. What would have happened
to you--to your family had you been forced to return to Haiti?
Mr. Ponthieux. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I
appreciate that. This is the situation. I've been here for 22
years, and I built a life here. I have two U.S.-born children
that never know Haiti. My daughter is with me, she's always
with me coming to Washington, DC, and she never knew Haiti. You
know the situation in Haiti. The country is in shambles, and
there's no way I can go back to Haiti with my kids to have a
life. In order for me to be here for them--like my daughter
wants to become a lawyer, so she will need me to help her--to
guide her, because if I go back to Haiti, it's going to be
disaster.
With the new rule of the TPS, that helped me to take care
of my children, to take care of myself, my children, my family,
and to continue to serve the community to work as a nurse as a
healthcare provider to save lives.
Senator Hirono. Clearly, this 18-month extension is
critical to you and your family.
For Mr. Rodriguez, last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held
in Sanchez v. Mayorkas that TPS recipients who enter the
country without inspection are generally not eligible to adjust
status to a lawful permanent resident. This decision resolved a
circuit court split, which means that TPS holders who are in
this situation across the Nation will not be able to adjust
their status. H.R. 6 addresses this issue and will allow TPS
holders to use existing pathways to citizenship.
Of course, the process itself of going through and getting
TPS status, even if they did not go through that process upon
entry into our country, in my opinion, should have enabled them
to be able to get citizenship. Some argue that TPS was always
meant to be temporary. Can you talk about why it's important to
give these TPS holders a path to a permanent status?
Mr. Rodriguez. I think as I mentioned in my written
testimony, many TPS recipients, when they first request a TPS
never imagined that the conditions that would enable them to
return safely to their country would not come to pass, that
years and years would pass before that was a realistic
possibility. In that time, careers have been launched, families
have been built, homes have been bought, contributions have
been made to our economy.
Very similar to the DREAMers, they are now part of the
fabric of our society, and so I do believe that it makes sense.
I don't think, by the way, that the few circuits that were
permitting adjustment based on TPS ended up having that much
impact, because you still had to be qualified for a green card,
either through marriage or through some other path. There
really weren't that many people who were able to take advantage
of that construct.
I do think that what this bill is doing with TPS recipients
is necessary.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Padilla. Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy. Mr. Edlow, I'm pleased we're having this
hearing today, but it just seems to me the timing is bad. The
house is on fire, and we're discussing new tires for the fire
truck. Does a fire truck need good tires? Sure. Is that
important? Of course. Not when the house is on fire. I want to
talk about the house fire.
I've been to the border. I used to have a beagle. His name
was Roger. I loved Roger. I cried like a baby when he died. But
Roger, like most beagles, was incorrigible. About every third
day, he'd run away, and eventually he'd come home, and he like
to collect roadkill. He'd bring that roadkill into my backyard
and hide it under my back porch.
The border enforcement that I've seen looks like some of
the roadkill that Roger kept hidden under my back porch. Why
are we having a crisis now at the border? In 1 minute.
Mr. Edlow. It's the administration policies that we've seen
since the first day after Inauguration, with the first
Executive order to halt deportations with executive action to--
I'm sorry, not Executive order, but Executive order to make
things easier for immigration with the Department of Homeland
Security halting deportations, with ICE guidance to return to
prosecutorial discretion where only certain types of offenses
can be prosecuted--I'm sorry, can be enforced and can be put
into immigration court, or set for removal, where we ignore the
fact that there are over a million people in this country with
final orders of removal, none of which seem to be a priority
for----
Senator Kennedy. Mr. Edlow, let me interrupt you. I
apologize. If we had the same policies in place today that we
had on December 31st, 2020, in your considered judgment, would
we be having this crisis?
Mr. Edlow. No.
Senator Kennedy. Did the Biden administration--strike that.
Let me try it another way. Did you meet with Representatives of
the Biden administration to talk about border security?
Mr. Edlow. I can tell you that I had at least one meeting
with the transition team, with Ur Jaddou, who was running the
transition team, and I know that that team met with many people
at USCIS, every different department at USCIS, and same with
other agencies within DHS.
Senator Kennedy. Did the people--good people on the Biden
transition team express an interest in changing border policy?
Mr. Edlow. I don't--based on my conversation, Senator, no.
It was more just trying to understand what was going on and
where things were.
Senator Kennedy. Did you and your colleagues explain to
them what would happen if we changed border policy?
Mr. Edlow. I did not, and that was not the questions that
were being asked to me, but I know that others within the
Department did have that frank conversation with those team
members.
Senator Kennedy. The members of the Biden transition team
knew if they changed the border policies, we would have a
crisis?
Mr. Edlow. I think any change in border policy that is so
extreme would result in this, and I think they had to have
known that.
Senator Kennedy. They did it anyway.
Mr. Edlow. Correct. Especially the withdrawal and the
ending of the MPP, Migrant Protection Protocols.
Senator Kennedy. Why do you think they did it if they knew
there was going to be a crisis? If they knew that people from
all over the world were going to be able to walk into our
country? We don't have the slightest idea who they are. Why do
you think they would allow that to happen?
Mr. Edlow. It could be several reasons. It could have been
a tactic, a political tactic to then come back and try to fix
the border themselves. It could have also been what we've seen
time and time again, that Trump equals bad, so anything the
President would have done--that the former President would have
done had to be overturned, no matter how successful and how
important it was in maintaining order at the border. That's
what I see this as.
President Trump did a phenomenal job of giving the right
people the keys to make sure that we could address the crisis
along the border. That we could make sure that enforcement was
where it needed to be, and unfortunately, that was just
derailed on January 20th.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Padilla. Colleagues, in order of the questioning
here, it's my opportunity to ask a few questions before
recognizing the next Senator. I want to begin by commenting on
what I thought was an original analogy of the house being on
fire. Sadly, we've heard it previously in the meeting of the
Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration. At the time, it was,
``When the house was on fire, it's not time to start painting
the house.'' Today, it's, ``When the house is on fire, it's not
time to buy tires for a truck,'' when I think the reality is
when the house is on fire, let's not forget the people who are
inside the house. Including people inside the house who may be
risking their own lives to save life and property, if you want
to have that analogy.
Let's get back to the actual topic of today's hearing. When
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or the DACA program
was first announced by President Obama 9 years ago today, he
said that the program was not a path to citizenship or a
permanent fix. It was a temporary stopgap that would provide
some relief and hope to talented young people while Congress
would work on the permanent fix.
DACA was rescinded by President Trump in 2017 and has been
litigated in the courts for years. So far, it's been largely
upheld by the Federal courts. Those are the facts.
My first question is for Mr. Rodriguez. You were part of
the Obama administration when DACA was announced. Why do you
think the Obama administration focused on this specific
population, and why do you think the program has largely
remained intact over the last 9 years, particularly in light of
legal challenges?
Mr. Rodriguez. Yes, I think Members actually in this
Committee on both sides have alluded to the reason, and that is
that it is a population that is viewed as blameless. They came
here by whatever different means as children, and therefore,
there is actually a broad consensus among the American people
and among our political leadership that this is a population
that deserved that relief. For that reason, this was meant as a
stopgap in two ways, actually, Senator.
One is a stopgap for the DACA recipients themselves, but
also as a stopgap in terms of addressing this population first.
Not saying that this would be the only population that would
benefit from relief.
Senator Padilla. Thank you. Changing the topic slightly for
the next question. I want to make reference to a 2018 article
by The Military Times, where they estimate that there's nearly
12,000 service members who have a spouse or family member at
risk of deportation. This means that there's currently American
troops who, in addition to carrying the heavy burden of
protecting our Nation and taking care of themselves in
dangerous situations, have the additional worry that one of
their family members may be deported when they come home.
These are service members putting their lives on the line
for our country and yet we cannot provide for them the peace of
mind that their families will be there intact when they get
back. The military prides itself on providing support for
family members for service members. This seems like a pretty
big oversight, so, my question is for Mr. Ponthieux. According
to your written testimony, you have a United States citizen son
who is currently serving in the U.S. Army. Can you just share
with us how he may feel about you and your wife not having
permanent status in the United States while he's on active
duty?
Mr. Ponthieux. His name is Christopher Ponthieux, and he is
a reserve in the U.S. Army. He just came from deployment. He
was deployed for 10 months, and he feels that it's unjust. It's
not fair that his family are facing deportation when he put his
life on the line to protect the country. I think we can change
that. I cannot do anything, but you, you can change it and make
it fair for the TPS holders and DACA recipients.
Senator Padilla. Thank you both and thank you to all the
witnesses. We now turn to Senator Tillis.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here. You know, if somebody were watching this hearing
right now on this specific bill, they may think that there are
not willing Members on both sides of the aisle to come up and
address some of these problems along with Senator Durbin and
Senator Padilla.
I'm participating in a bipartisan working group trying to
solve this problem, and if time allows, I'll get into some of
that, but Ms. Root, I want to make sure that the record
accurately reflects what you said. When you were referring to
criminal--illegally present criminals, you weren't talking
about the violation of crossing the border. You were talking
about other egregious acts that occurred after that, is that
correct?
Ms. Root. That is correct.
Senator Tillis. Yes. I just wanted to be absolutely certain
for the record, because there seemed to be some confusion
earlier on. Mr. Edlow, I also want to get down to what's really
causing a fundamental--I voted for a path to citizenship, not
only for the 600,000 plus who are already enrolled, but for
those who are eligible under the DACA program, as have more
than 40, almost 45 Republican Members a couple of years ago. We
favor a bill that has those provisions in it.
Mr. Edlow, when we look at the bill before us, the Dream
and Promise Act, I am really concerned with the form of blanket
waiver. I want to go back and talk about what that waiver would
enable an administration to do. It would allow them to waive
assault on a law enforcement officer, assault on a Member of
Congress, blackmail, bank robbery, and unlawful voting in a
Federal election. It would allow them to issue a waiver for
persons who have violated State law that include assault, child
abuse, child molestation, prostitution, certain weapons
possession offenses, burglary, theft, sex abuse, sexual
misconduct, public lewdness, and perjury. And gang membership.
Am I--because I've heard other people say, no, that
waiver's not really in there. Am I misreading section three of
this bill?
Mr. Edlow. I don't believe you are, Senator. That waiver is
in there, and all of those crimes potentially could be waived.
Senator Tillis. Yes. That's the concern. Because if you
remove that, then you change the population, and you get it
back to the exemplary models that we have right here. Mr.
Ponthieux, I've got a certain affinity for nurses. My daughter,
who was pregnant with my second grandchild, was on the front
lines last year before she had her--our baby, my grandbaby back
in August.
When you, in your opening testimony, talked about
permanence, are you asking for an amnesty or citizenship, or
just some permanence and maybe some path in the future to where
if you chose to pursue citizenship you would have it? Are you
just looking for permanence, not worrying about in any given
day, your temporary status could be removed?
Mr. Ponthieux. We ask for a permanent status.
Senator Tillis. Do you think that in providing you
permanence that we should have a waiver that would somebody
that's under the same protected status that you have that's
guilty of any of these crimes that I just delineated in the
Dream and Promise Act? Do you think that they, too, should be
given permanence?
Mr. Ponthieux. I don't have to go there, but there is a
Justice Department to do its job. I think they should do their
job, but as for me and most of the TPS recipients, we are not
criminals.
Senator Tillis. You deserve it, and you and your family
deserve it and you--
Mr. Ponthieux. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Tillis. I also thank your son for his services.
Over 820 people who are DACA eligible who are serving in the
military. They deserve some permanence, as well.
Mr. Rodriguez, I have to say--you know how Congress works,
and I have to say that we can't turn a blind eye toward the
crisis at the border, and only solve the permanence problem
that some of the witnesses have legitimately testified here
today. Vice President Harris has made a pledge of $130 million
to Mexico to try and work on some of the systemic problems in
Mexico to reduce future flows. That's roughly $1 per Mexican
citizen.
Every 9 days, the cartels make about $130 million dollars
through human trafficking across the border. Those same cartels
are responsible for abandoning people on this side of the
border. Over 7,000 lifesaving rescues have occurred this year.
Why are they doing that? Because then they can get the 300 or
400. This is something that's very important for those of you
that were trying to get to a good outcome, 300 or 400 got
aways, people who are trying to evade border patrol to get into
this country.
Thousands come in, 180,000 last month, they submit
themselves to border patrol because they want to be processed.
They know how the policy's going to favor them. They'll be
released. What do you think those 300 or 400, where the cartel
set a pick. They send these children, men, women, and children
300over to engage border patrol so they can have 300 or 400
people cross this border every single day, evading arrest.
Do you really think that they're likely to become a doctor?
Or a nurse? Or are they likely coming here because they
themselves are already criminals in their country of origin?
Three hundred to 400 a day. When you hear this conversation
here--I'm about to wind up, Chair Padilla. When you hear this
conversation is we're trying to strike a balance between a fair
outcome for you all and thousands, hundreds of thousands like
you, but we also have an obligation to the American people to
protect our borders and to protect our populations.
Ms. Root, I also want to mention I'm on Sarah's Law, I'm a
cosponsor on that bill. We have an obligation to protect this
Nation, because one of the reasons why people are fleeing here
is that they know when they get here, they'll be protected. If
we continue to erode public safety, we can't do what is one of
the most important things we can do as Members of Congress. I
hope that we continue to work on a bipartisan basis to provide
you all with some permanency, to reward you for your exemplary
behavior. At the same time, understand our obligation to
protect this country, and to defend its borders. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Senator Padilla. Senator Blackburn.
Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
each of you for being here today. I appreciate your time, and I
want to start with one question. It's a yes or no, so we'll
just go right down the list. Is it Dr. Bernal? You have a
Memphis tie, and I appreciate knowing that. Here's my question
to each of you. Do you support the rule of law in this country?
Yes or no? Dr. Bernal, start with you.
Dr. Mejia. Yes.
Mr. Edlow. Yes.
Ms. Root. Yes.
Mr. Ponthieux. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. Mr. Rodriguez?
Mr. Rodriguez. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. Thank you. You know, we're here because
we all support the rule of law, but what is frustrating, and
you've heard it from my colleagues, there are hundreds of
thousands of people that have come across our southern border
since President Biden raised his hand and took the oath of
office. There was 183,000 alone in the month of May, and this
is not right. Those are individuals who are choosing to evade
the rule of law. Because there is a right way and a wrong way
to come to this country, and why in the world would we make any
decision that encourages people to evade U.S. law?
Another yes or no. Dr. Bernal, starting with you. Should we
encourage--should we, as elected officials, encourage people to
break the rule of law in this country? Yes or no.
Dr. Mejia. To simply answer your question, I would say----
Senator Blackburn. No, no. Yes or no? Yes or no?
Dr. Mejia. No.
Senator Blackburn. Okay.
Mr. Edlow. No, Senator.
Mr. Rodriguez. No, but I think it's a far more complex
question that deserves a far more elaborated answer.
Senator Blackburn. No, just yes or no.
Ms. Root. No.
Mr. Ponthieux. No.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. See, and I agree with that. We
should not take actions that are going to encourage people
around the rule of law. Ms. Root, I want to come to you. My
heart breaks for you. It honestly does. As a mom and a
grandmother, I can only imagine the heartbreak you experience
every single day. It was Mr. Mejia?
Ms. Root. Mejia.
Senator Blackburn. Mejia. Okay, there was a warrant out for
his arrest prior to the accident, right?
Ms. Root. Correct.
Senator Blackburn. Do you remember what the warrant was
regarding?
Ms. Root. Failure to appear was what the warrant was for.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. How many days did he spend in jail
after killing your daughter?
Ms. Root. I want to say he was in jail 5 days maybe when he
posted bond and fled.
Senator Blackburn. What was that bond amount?
Ms. Root. It was $50,000 and he paid 10 percent, which was
$5,000.
Senator Blackburn. In other words, this is a guy who has a
warrant out. Did he have a criminal record?
Ms. Root. Prior misdemeanors.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. A criminal record, there is an
outstanding warrant for his arrest, and he's in jail for 5 days
and pays $5,000 and he's gone, and your daughter is still dead.
Ms. Root. Correct.
Senator Blackburn. That's right. Never coming home.
Ms. Root. No. No. Separated permanently.
Senator Blackburn. You said in your testimony that she was
a dreamer.
Ms. Root. Yes.
Senator Blackburn. That she had dreams.
Ms. Root. She did.
Senator Blackburn. Give me a couple of things that she
wanted to do.
Ms. Root. Like I said, she was going to go on for her
Master's. She had just graduated with a 4.0 in criminal
investigations, and she had dreamed to, again, become a wife,
have children, get her Master's. Hard telling what else she
would have done that was cut too short, I'll never know.
Senator Blackburn. That was her version of the American
dream.
Ms. Root. Correct.
Senator Blackburn. It all ended----
Ms. Root. Yes.
Senator Blackburn [continuing]. Because someone who was
illegally in the country who had prior convictions with an
outstanding warrant took your daughter's life.
Ms. Root. That is correct.
Senator Blackburn. That to me is absolutely heartbreaking.
In FY 2020, ICE said that they account for 103,603 arrests. 90
percent, 90 percent of these illegal immigrants that were
arrested. One hundred and three thousand and six hundred and
three. They had criminal convictions or pending criminal
charges at the time of the arrest. This is why we are very
concerned about this issue. I've spent a good bit of time
talking to Angel Moms and to Angel Families and hearing their
concerns about what has happened since the DACA program, and as
Senator Cornyn mentioned to you all, this is something that was
not legislative action.
Mr. Chairman, I'll finish is just a second. This is an
action, an executive memo. This is a program that got stood up
on executive memo by President Obama, and you know, while we
know that there has been a push to find a way for people such
as yourself, Dr. Bernal, to find a way to be legally
recognized, we also know that any kind of blanket amnesty with
a wide net would involve so many people who have come to this
country with ill intent, or with criminal convictions, and have
cut the lives of many American citizens short, and deprived
them and their families of the right to pursue their version of
the American dream. I yield.
Senator Padilla. This concludes questions from Senators,
and before some brief closing comments, I feel compelled to
allow Mr. Rodriguez to briefly, emphasize briefly, respond to a
statement, an accusation we heard, frankly, we heard from
several of our colleagues here today that DACA serves as a
magnet. Again, just briefly, can you give us--given your
experience and observations, does DACA serve as a magnet?
Mr. Rodriguez. I think you have to look at the propeller,
not the magnet. When we're talking about the rule of law, the
complete absence of the rule of law in the Northern Triangles,
the highest homicide rates on the planet, are what's driving
migration. Until rule of law in those countries is addressed,
and they're not going to be able to do it without international
support, we will--and, by the way, these high levels of
migration, except for last year, the COVID year, there were
high levels of migration across the southern border, even
during the Trump administration; even with all of the bellicose
rhetoric of that administration.
The fact is that, while those conditions exist in the
Northern Triangle, we will continue to see people at our
border.
Senator Padilla. Thank you. I want to thank all your
witnesses for your participation in today's hearing. I hope
this hearing--I have found it helpful in shedding light on the
human impact of our broken immigration system. A lot of
references have been made today about the ``situation'' at the
southern border, where the reality is numbers are way down
compared to just a couple of months ago.
You know, this hearing is in context of broader discussions
and negotiations going on about immigration reform. If there's
a question about whether or not Democrats are willing to
discuss border security, let me answer it now. The answer is
yes, as long as it's smart and driven by data and experience,
and we know specifically at the ports of entry is where the
vast majority of the security concerns are, and they need
border security elements of a single bill, multiple bills
should be driven by that.
Let me be clear, the questions concerns raised about people
approaching the southern border today, tonight or in recent
months is a population very much separate and apart from
DREAMers, TPS holders and other long-term immigrant residents
of this country who have been living here, have been working
here, have been contributing to the economic success and
resiliency of the country.
That's why the Dream and Promise Act was approved by the
U.S. House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis. Because
people across the aisle recognize that.
I also want to make a quick comment about one of the
questions or concerns, if I'm generous here, about the numbers
are growing. As you said repeatedly today, the DACA program was
put in place 9 years ago, and when it was put in place, it did
recognize folks that came through no fault of their own,
children, brought here by their parents.
When the program was put in place, there was a sort of a
look back date set for people who had been here prior to a
certain year. The reason the numbers change is because that
year has changed, because 9 years later, Congress still hasn't
done its job, and so, we shouldn't be surprised that we're now
talking about a larger number of people who still fit the same
criteria established in DACA many years later, because the
dynamic has continued.
It also highlighted the distinction between folks who might
have been eligible to apply for DACA versus those who actually
did apply for DACA, given their courage, as we have again heard
here today from our witnesses.
With that, I want to thank again all you witnesses for your
participation and your testimony today, and for highlighting
once again the urgency for Congress to act. I turn it back now
to Chairman of the Committee, Senator Durbin.
Chair Durbin. Chairman Padilla, it was an honor to have you
preside over this hearing, and I thank the witnesses as well,
and I will be very brief.
If you were wondering at the introduction why this measure
has been pending for 20 years, and witnessed this hearing, you
have some indication why. There clearly are differences of
opinion on immigration policy. It is interesting that a nation
of immigrants has such mixed feeling about the next immigrant
to come into this country.
It is pretty clear that some of my colleagues don't want to
see that next immigrant, whoever it might be, though the fact
is about a million people are legal immigrants of the United
States each year. Still, when we talk about those eligible
under DACA or the DREAM Act, there are people who are hesitant,
clearly on this Committee, for fear of sending a message to
others that this is a welcoming nation.
I think we can find justice for people who are eligible
under TPS and the DREAM Act without suggesting that the door is
open and anyone can come to this country without any kind of
scrutiny whatsoever. Incidentally, we have faced serious
challenges at the border since the beginning of this year. We
are being tested by coyotes and others to see just how far our
system will go, and whether it will work, and I believe that's
a very real challenge.
I'm working on a bipartisan basis, Senator Padilla, Senator
Cornyn, Senator Tillis and others to put together a southern
border security bill. We are not ducking the issue, we are
addressing it directly, as we should.
I will say it's interesting when people hear we're
referring to this border crisis, they talked about the
thousands that were presenting themselves at the border. They
didn't finish the thought. Seventy-four percent of the
individuals encountered at the border have been expelled.
Seventy-four percent have been expelled of the people who come
to the border. The Biden administration is up against large
numbers, but they are clearly not welcoming and opening the
door to everyone who presents themselves in this situation.
Let me say a word, too, about criminal background. You
cannot be in the DACA program except on a biennial basis going
through a criminal investigation about yourself, and anything
you have done to break the law disqualifies you from DACA. The
suggestions have been wildly across the field here as to what
DACA eligibility includes.
From the beginning with the DREAM Act, we have always said
that if you are guilty of serious criminal misconduct, you are
ineligible for the DREAM Act and DACA. The definition has
changed over the years, but for the bill that's before us now,
H.R. 6, the so-called waivers that we've heard over and over
again, the testimony back and forth, I commend to my colleagues
the section, it's waivers for certain misdemeanors--
misdemeanors, not felonies. In terms of the inability of one of
our witnesses to figure out what a felony offense might be, I
refer him to the definition section of this same bill that
defines the term felony offense. It's already there.
We're going to be serious about this. If we can make this
the law of the land, it's going to be clearly with the
intention to make sure that our national security is never
compromised. Second, to make sure that we have opportunities,
not for people to sell drugs in this country, but for people
like Dr. Bernal to prescribe them to save the lives of
Americans. Mr. Ponthieux, in your work, as well.
I also want to make a point. It's been made a couple times.
It should be made again. Your son tells the story better than
any testimony that can be given. The fact that he came as your
son, an American citizen now, and turned quickly to volunteer
for this country tells a great story of what we're here for
today. We clearly have challenges and many more to come, but we
know that we have work to be done.
I ask that a number of statements be entered into the
record from a wide variety of organizations supporting the bill
before us today, and without objection, they will be so
entered.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Chair Durbin. Thanks again to the witnesses. Thank you all
for being here, regardless of your point of view, we welcome
your participation in this, and I can assure you that the
battle will continue.
The Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:02 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
A P P E N D I X
Miscellaneous submissions:
American Business Immigration Coalition (ABC).................... 106
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO)....................................... 112
American Friends Service Committee............................... 151
Anti-Defamation League (ADL)..................................... 109
Bradley, Neil, Vice President and CPO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.. 179
Business Roundtable (BR)......................................... 83
CASA Statement................................................... 91
Children Thrive Action Network................................... 128
Coalition for the American Dream................................. 123
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)................... 124
Communities United for Status and Protection (CUSP).............. 134
Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).............................. 97
County of Ventura................................................ 140
Church World Service (CWS)....................................... 139
Dorsonville-Rodriguez, Reverend Mario E., testimony.............. 98
Fair Immigration Reform Movement Action (FIRM)................... 141
IBM Corporation (IBM)............................................ 155
Immigration Hub.................................................. 153
Improve The Dream................................................ 157
Intuit, global technology platform............................... 162
Latin American Working Group..................................... 163
Loyola University Chicago........................................ 165
Montoya, Reyna, Testimony........................................ 116
Nascimento, Juliana, Senior Advocacy Manager..................... 188
National Association of Manufacturers............................ 86
National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).......................... 174
National Domestic Workers Alliance............................... 169
National Immigration Law Center.................................. 175
National Retail Federation (NRF)................................. 177
New American Economy (NAE)....................................... 168
Powderly, Timothy, Senior Director............................... 150
Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration......... 94
Roybal-Allard, Representative Lucille (CA-40).................... 149
Schulte, Todd, Statement......................................... 144
TheDream.US Statement............................................ 88
UnidosUS......................................................... 180
Workday.......................................................... 82