[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





                       THE CONSEQUENCES OF CATCH
                       AND RELEASE AT THE BORDER

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
                    THE BORDER, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                                 of the

                         COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                           AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________


                           FEBRUARY 15, 2024

                               __________


                           Serial No. 118-90

                               __________


  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability





                 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]




                       Available on: govinfo.gov
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov


                               ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

54-867 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024










               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Jimmy Gomez, California
Byron Donalds, Florida               Shontel Brown, Ohio
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina      Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Greg Casar, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Dan Goldman, New York
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York            Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                

                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                James Rust, Chief Counsel for Oversight
                        Sloan McDonagh, Counsel
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                                 ------                                

   Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs

                  Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin, Chairman

Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Robert Garcia, California, Ranking 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Minority Member
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Dan Goldman, New York
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Maxwell Frost, Florida
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Vacancy
Vacancy                              Vacancy









                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on February 15, 2024................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

Matt O'Brien, Director of Investigations, Immigration Reform Law 
  Institute
Oral Statement...................................................     5
Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for 
  Immigration Studies
Oral Statement...................................................     7
Jason Houser (Minority Witness), Former Chief of Staff, U.S. 
  Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Oral Statement...................................................     8

Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are 
  available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document 
  Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * Adjudication Statistics, Comparison of In Absentia Rates, 
  EOIR; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Article, The Washington Post, ``Chance of Mass Release by 
  ICE''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Article, Axios, ``How Biden Botched the Border''; submitted 
  by Rep. Biggs.

  * Article, Axios, ``Funding Deadlock''; submitted by Rep. 
  Garcia.
  * Report, American Immigration Council, ``11 Years of Gov Data 
  ''; submitted by Rep. Garcia.

  * Article, The Hill, ``GOP Border Proposals Are Human 
  Trafficker Dream''; submitted by Rep. Goldman.

  * Press Release, USCIS; submitted by Rep. Goldman.

  * Article, CIS, ``Biden's Immigration Enforcement Policies 
  Benefit Criminal Aliens''; submitted by Rep. Grothman.

  * Article, CIS, ``Interior Immigration Enforcement Decline 
  Under Biden''; submitted by Rep. Grothman.

  * Article, Cato Institute, ``New Data Show Migrants Were More 
  Likely to be Released''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. O'Brien; submitted by Rep. 
  Grothman.

  * Questions for the Record: to Ms. Vaughan; submitted by Rep. 
  Grothman.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.









 
                       THE CONSEQUENCES OF CATCH
                       AND RELEASE AT THE BORDER

                              ----------                              


                      Thursday, February 15, 2024

                     U.S. House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

   Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs

                                                    Washington, DC.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:03 p.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Glenn Grothman 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Grothman, Gosar, Foxx, Higgins, 
Sessions, Biggs, LaTurner, Fallon, Perry, Garcia, Goldman, and 
Raskin (ex officio).
    Also present: Representative Timmons.
    Mr. Grothman. This hearing of the Subcommittee on National 
Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs will come to order.
    Welcome, everybody.
    Without objection, I may declare a recess at any time.
    Without objection, Representative Timmons of South 
Carolina, Representative Boebert of Colorado, and 
Representative Burchett of Tennessee are waived on to the 
Subcommittee for the purpose of questioning the witnesses at 
today's hearing.
    I am going to recognize myself for the purposes of making 
an opening statement. Here we go.
    Since President Biden has taken office through the end of 
2023, there were over 6.2 million encounters of illegal 
immigrants at the southern border. And in the first few months 
of Fiscal Year 2024, the numbers at the southwest border remain 
historically high and have already passed a million encounters.
    I am confident that the number of people who crossed the 
border and stayed in the U.S. in December was the highest it 
has ever been.
    Make no mistake, the Biden Administration is not detaining 
and deporting even a significant fraction of these illegal 
crossers.
    In December, according to DHS, Border Patrol encountered 
250,000 individuals at the southwest border who illegally 
crossed between points of entry. The Administration released 
190,000 of those individuals on their own recognizance with 
nothing but a notice to appear at a future date. That is a 77 
percent release rate in the month of December for illegal 
immigrants.
    Since January 2021, the Administration has released more 
than 3 million illegal immigrants into the U.S. who illegally 
crossed in between points of entry or who were paroled through 
illegal categorical parole programs.
    These numbers do not include another 1.8 million illegal 
immigrants who evaded apprehension entirely and were not 
arrested by the overwhelmed Border Patrol agents, kind of what 
we know as got-aways.
    Rather than detain illegal aliens who have no lawful basis 
to remain in the U.S., the Biden Administration releases the 
majority of them into the country or invites them through 
illegal parole programs, incentivizing more and more people to 
come to the U.S.
    After their release, illegal immigrants are free to travel 
where they please while they wait for their immigration court 
date.
    These immigration courts are backlogged with over 3 million 
cases. Most illegal immigrants released by the Biden 
Administration will not get their final immigration hearing for 
years.
    Another way to show the lack of commitment to keeping 
troublesome immigrants out of America is what the Biden 
Administration does to these migrants who commit new crimes. 
And we have not spent anywhere near enough time on what we do 
once you commit a crime in this country.
    The Biden Administration issued a policy memo tying the 
hands of our Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, 
restricting when they can enforce the law against immigrants 
who commit new crimes once they come to this country.
    Secretary Mayorkas issued a memorandum for DHS restricting 
priorities for enforcement on September 30, 2021, emphasizing 
that criminal activity on its own is not enough to make an 
illegal alien a priority.
    Let me repeat that. Committing a crime once you get here is 
not enough to make kicking you out a priority.
    Instead, only current threats are enforcement priorities, 
and then only because of serious criminal conduct, whatever 
``serious'' means.
    Visa overstays are not priorities at all. This is a 
departure from the norm under previous administrations, and we 
will examine that today.
    While millions of illegal aliens are released into the 
country, ICE attorneys were ordered by a policy memo 
implementing Secretary Mayorkas' guidance to dismiss tens of 
thousands of cases in immigration court.
    In Fiscal Year 2023, they dismissed 84,000 cases on top of 
the 91,000 cases dismissed in Fiscal Year 2022. ICE only 
removed 142 illegal aliens last year despite a historic 3.2 
million new encounters.
    The Judiciary Committee has assessed that the Biden 
Administration is effectuating final orders for removal for 
only 1 out of every 26 illegal aliens.
    The message sent by the Biden Administration is clear: 
Violations of our immigration laws--and even breaking laws once 
you are in this country--will seldom be met with consequences.
    By the way, we are going to hear that that is worse than 
even under, like, President Carter or President Obama. 
Certainly not.
    In most cases, detention removal are off the table. Even 
criminal history is no longer sufficient on its own to make a 
removable alien an enforcement priority from the Biden 
Administration.
    The American people, states, and local communities are 
facing consequences of this massive catch and release campaign. 
American citizens, lawful immigrants, and taxpayers are footing 
the bill: costs of criminal justice, healthcare, education, 
housing and transportation, and other services.
    According to documents provided by the Committee from FEMA, 
just in Fiscal Year 2023, FEMA reimbursed over $380 million to 
local jurisdictions and nongovernmental organizations for 
expenses related to released illegal aliens.
    I am especially concerned about the national security risk 
this chaotic situation presents for our country by giving 
opportunities to cartel criminals, gang members, and just all-
around criminals, including members of foreign terrorist 
organizations, who are going to take advantage of this 
situation.
    The Biden Administration must take action to enforce 
existing law and the incentive to cross illegally and restore 
order to the existing chaos.
    Now we will turn things over to the Ranking Member, Mr. 
Garcia.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    We are here, of course, for another hearing on the border, 
which we seem to have a lot of. And I want to make sure--it is 
important that we have facts as we discuss always an important 
issue, I think, to both Republicans and Democrats.
    And as a reminder, I think, to the Majority, the Majority 
just recently rejected a bipartisan national security bill that 
included border provisions within that bill.
    And I know that the Majority likes to blame, as they will 
in this hearing, all of the issues along the border to 
President Biden. But they refuse to accept legislative 
proposals or funding deals that can help solve problems within 
DHS and certainly all across the southern border.
    Now, House Republicans are blocking billions in vital 
funding to hire additional border agents, asylum officers, and 
immigration judges. That money could actually help process 
migrants faster or clear the asylum backlog. But many do not 
seem to be interested in any of that.
    Instead, the Majority is wasting time and resources to 
cater to the demands, of course, of Donald Trump. After months 
of bipartisan negotiations, Donald Trump pressured Senate 
Republicans in this border policy process. And, of course, we 
know he does not want President Biden to have any sort of wins 
leading up to an election.
    Now, the Republican Speaker of the House has admitted to 
FOX News and others that he is taking his orders on the border 
from Donald Trump. And after speaking frequently with the 
former President, he determined that the bipartisan border deal 
would be, quote--and I am quoting him--``dead on arrival as 
soon as it makes it to the House.'' And we have heard the 
Speaker kind of reconfirm that.
    I wanted to also just note, as an immigrant myself, this is 
the kind of rhetoric that the former President is using that is 
very concerning.
    Donald Trump speaks about immigrants with the same rhetoric 
that is invoked by authoritarians and dictators in the past, 
claiming that immigrants like me and my family, quote, 
``pollute the blood of this country.'' And that is his exact 
quote.
    We know he spent the weekend doubling down on his promises 
to launch mass deportations with National Guard soldiers from 
Republican states, dragging more people into camps, and is 
promising to divert the FBI away from criminal investigations 
to help.
    So, this is all about fear and chaos and not solutions.
    And I think it would be a better use of the Committee's 
time if we hold hearings on the threats that Donald Trump 
actually poses to border security when he threatens to destroy 
our alliances and allow Russia to invade more countries in 
Europe.
    But I also want to talk about some of the facts and what 
Donald Trump, who leads this Majority, what his actual policies 
and proposals have been.
    Now, the spike in migration we know started first under 
Donald Trump. That spike tripled in the last 8 months of his 
Presidency. And that is actually during a period of time when 
he proposed some of his more insane and disruptive policies.
    [Chart.]
    Mr. Garcia. And I have actually shown these in other 
hearings, not in this Committee, but these are actually Donald 
Trump proposals along the border that he has actually made. He 
has suggested, at one time, that maybe we should build 
alligator moats. He has suggested that we should maybe 
electrify the fence along the border. There have been 
suggestions to maybe shoot migrants in the legs, or maybe to 
even bomb parts of northern Mexico.
    Now, we know that these are insane ideas, but they are ones 
that are embraced by some members of the Majority and certainly 
by the leader of their party.
    Mr. Biggs. Would the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Garcia. I am going finish my comments, sir.
    I want, like any, an orderly and safe border, as does 
anyone. I want people to come to this country legally and have 
a process to seek asylum and come for a better life.
    We also want real solutions to fentanyl deaths. We also 
know that fentanyl in the U.S. is mostly carried by citizens 
through legal ports of entry. We should be addressing those 
issues.
    But we also have to ensure that we are pushing back on some 
of the most extreme ideas that will do nothing to solve our 
crisis at the border.
    Democrats want to solve the border crisis. We want to 
ensure that we do so in a way that is bipartisan. And there 
have been bills that have come across from the Senate to do so 
that have been rejected.
    So, unfortunately, we have not had real immigration reform 
in this country for over 30 years. And I hope that, in some 
parts of this hearing, we will actually be able to hear some 
data or information that will get us to an actual solution.
    And with that, I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much.
    I just want to make a little comment, as you comment on 
what causes Republicans to do whatnot.
    I have not talked to Donald Trump in years. And I made it 
clear to my Speaker that that so-called bipartisan deal that 
was cut is a no-go, and I mean I am typical of most 
Republicans. The idea that President Trump was calling us and 
telling us what to do is preposterous.
    OK. Now, I am pleased to introduce our witnesses today, 
left to right.
    First of all, we have Matt O'Brien, Director of 
Investigations of the Immigration Reform Law Institute. He has 
nearly 30 years of experience in immigration law and policy. In 
addition to experience in private practice, he has also served 
as an immigration judge and held various positions within the 
Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies, 
including ICE and USCIS.
    Second, we are going to have Jessica Vaughan, Director of 
Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, where 
she has worked since 1992 on immigration enforcement and public 
safety issues. She was previously a foreign service officer 
with the State Department.
    And our final witness, Jason Houser, former Chief of Staff 
for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Biden 
Administration.
    First of all, pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the 
witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God.
    OK. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the 
affirmative.
    Thank you. You may take a seat. We appreciate you being 
here today and look forward to your testimony.
    Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written 
statements, and they will appear in full in the hearing record. 
We would like it if, as close as possible, you can limit your 
oral statements to 5 minutes.
    As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in 
front of you so it is on, and Members can hear you. When you 
begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. 
After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red light 
comes on, your 5 minutes is expired and hopefully you can wrap 
up as soon as possible thereafter.
    We are going to lead off with Mr. Matt O'Brien for your 
opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF MATT O'BRIEN

                       DIRECTOR OF INVESTIGATIONS

                    IMMIGRATION REFORM LAW INSTITUTE

    Mr. O'Brien. Thank you. Chairman Grothman, Ranking Member 
Garcia, and Members of the Committee, it is a privilege to 
appear before you today, and I thank you for the invitation and 
the opportunity to speak to you.
    You have heard my bio. I have a significant amount of 
experience dealing with border management and immigration 
issues. And I can honestly say that our border is less secure 
now than it has ever been in the three decades that I have been 
involved in immigration.
    The current crisis is the result of catch and release run 
totally amuck, and there is absolutely no reason for it to be 
happening.
    The Border Patrol has been turned into a cross-border 
courtesy shuttle for illegal aliens. U.S. Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement has been rendered a domestic travel service 
for foreign nationals. And USCIS has become a rubber-stamp 
operation that recklessly hands out benefits to insufficiently 
vetted foreigners.
    We have a CBP One phone tablet app that is essentially 
Expedia for illegal aliens, and it has been used 64 million 
times to request entry into the United States. And when entry 
is granted under that, it bypasses the restrictions that are 
put forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
    And we now have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million 
foreign nationals who have entered the United States just since 
the beginning of the current Administration. And to put that 
into context, that is ten times the population of the city of 
Philadelphia.
    We have absolutely no reasonable way to vet any of these 
individuals to determine whether they are criminals, 
terrorists, or foreign intelligence operatives.
    And it is happening in a complete violation of the terms of 
the Immigration and Nationality Act. It is an executive branch 
usurpation of Congress' authority to set the immigration laws 
of the United States.
    But worst of all, this prioritizes the economic interests 
of foreign nationals above the public safety and national 
security interests of U.S. citizens, because, make no mistake 
about it, the real reason that the vast majority of these 
people have come here is to escape the poor economic conditions 
in their home countries.
    And I listened to thousands of asylum applications when I 
was an immigration judge. Very few of the ones that I heard had 
anything approximating a valid asylum claim.
    The situation is dire, of that there can be no doubt.
    However, the key point that I would like to make is that 
fixing this problem is not rocket science. It is actually very 
simple. It requires one thing and one thing only: Congress must 
insist that the executive branch follow the Immigration and 
Nationality Act as Congress wrote it and stop engaging in 
irresponsible catch and release tactics.
    What we are seeing repeatedly this Administration, and it 
has been done by administrations in the past, simply ignore the 
provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that they do 
not like or that they find politically inconvenient, and that 
is not how things are supposed to work in the United States.
    Our immigration system is not broken. Far from it. There is 
more than adequate authority, as the Trump v. Hawaii case that 
went before the Supreme Court proved, to deal with any of the 
crises with which we are currently confronted, if only someone 
had the idea of applying the authorities as they are written 
and as they are put forth in the Immigration and Nationality 
Act.
    I think the problem that we are seeing is that the moral 
compasses of the individuals who are charged with enforcing the 
INA are broken.
    But the INA, as I said, contains more than ample authority 
to address the current crisis should anyone in a position of 
responsibility over immigration matters choose to use it, and I 
cited chapter and verse showing this in my written testimony.
    So, to conclude, it is well beyond time that we end catch 
and release and that we start requiring foreigners who wish to 
be guests in our country to knock at the front door and wait to 
be invited in. Otherwise, we are going to have never-ending 
crisis, and eventually it is going to lead to something 
terrible, like another 9/11 terrorist attack, more serious 
problems than fentanyl.
    And it is a simple solution: We need to apply the law as it 
is written.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    Ms. Vaughan.

                      STATEMENT OF JESSICA VAUGHAN

                       DIRECTOR OF POLICY STUDIES

                     CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES

    Ms. Vaughan. Thank you, Mr. Grothman and Mr. Garcia, for 
the opportunity to testify.
    The mass migration disaster instigated by the Biden 
Administration's misguided immigration policies has caused 
incalculable harm to American communities.
    The catch and release policies that are the key to the 
Biden open borders doctrine have brought in more than 3.3 
million illegal migrants, not counting another 1.7 million got-
aways.
    Only a tiny fraction, less than one percent of those 
allowed to enter after crossing illegally, have been removed 
after their overly generous due process. The rest have settled 
into American communities and are being supported by taxpayers.
    As I detailed in my written statement, Biden's policies 
have so far cost taxpayers billions of dollars in the short 
term for shelter and support, and likely will cost hundreds of 
billions more over the long term for welfare benefits, whether 
to continue to support a population that is unlikely to ever be 
self-sufficient or to deal with processing and repatriating the 
large numbers who are unlikely to ever qualify for a legal 
status.
    And the expansion of illicit border-crossing opportunities 
has led to the abuse and exploitation of migrants on a mass 
scale and an explosion in human trafficking, including luring 
children into forced labor and worse. It has greatly damaged 
the integrity of our immigration system and exposed Americans 
to new national security and public safety threats.
    While employers seeking cheap labor and the NGO's getting 
lucrative contracts love these policies, it is the Mexican 
cartels who love them the most. They are reaping unprecedented 
profits to the tune of $30 million a day. And as a result, they 
represent a serious threat to civil society and the rule of 
law, even in the United States.
    This cannot be allowed to continue.
    The Biden Administration has no intention of changing these 
policies. So, it is past time for Congress to reclaim its 
authority over our immigration system and bring about changes.
    The Senate-negotiated bill was not the answer. It would 
have actually codified and mandated the continuation of catch 
and release on a similar scale and would have provided nearly 
$7 billion in funding for it.
    Until more constructive legislation can be enacted in the 
short term, the House could exercise more control of policy 
through the appropriations process.
    First, the House must work to deny funding to the Biden 
catch and release machine.
    Instead of $7 billion to FEMA, HHS, and ICE for hotels, 
meals, work permits, counselors, ankle bracelets, and asylum 
officers for released illegal migrants, Congress should direct 
more money to removing not only criminal aliens as a priority, 
but also prioritize removing those aliens who have failed in 
their immigration proceedings or failed to even show up for 
them.
    Instead of subsidizing the sanctuary jurisdictions, 
Congress should be funneling more money to Texas, Florida, 
South Carolina, and the other states that are helping to secure 
the border, disrupting human trafficking, discouraging illegal 
employment, and arresting criminal aliens.
    Instead of using just taxpayer funds for enforcement, 
Congress could direct the Feds to skim off money from the 
hundreds of millions of dollars in remittances that are sent 
out of this country each year, which are, in part, the proceeds 
of the illegal human and drug smuggling and trafficking.
    And as for this Committee's jurisdiction of oversight, I 
would recommend that you investigate the dismantling of 
enforcement policies, find out who ICE is letting go, where 
they were released, what their criminal histories were.
    You should also look into the transformation of certain 
visa programs, like the U and the T and the special immigrant 
juvenile visas that appear to be set up now with regulatory 
changes to serve as a de facto amnesty for Biden's illegal 
migrants.
    Finally, we have to face the possibility that some share of 
these millions of illegal migrants let in under the catch and 
release policies are going to be here for the long term, 
legally or not. And, therefore, Congress needs to begin 
considering how to reduce legal immigration to mitigate the 
fiscal costs and labor market distortions that are caused by 
this infusion of illegal migrants.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    Mr. Houser.

                      STATEMENT OF JASON P. HOUSER

                         FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF

               IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE)

    Mr. Houser. Chairman, Ranking Member, distinguished Members 
of the Oversight Committee Subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege.
    As the former Chief of Staff of Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the DHS Office of 
Intelligence and Analysis, and a former senior advisor of 
Customs and Border Protection within the Department of Homeland 
Security, I am deeply honored to speak with you before this 
Committee.
    My experience has afforded me a unique vantage point from 
which to witness the dedication and resilience of the men and 
women who serve in our immigration enforcement agencies.
    First, I am testifying today as a private citizen expert, 
not an administration or government official. The views and 
opinions I express are my own and do not reflect the opinions 
of the Presidential Administration, DHS, Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement, or the government.
    Our Nation faces multiple immigration and national security 
challenges, from managing the flow of migrants at the border, 
to addressing the humanitarian needs of those seeking refuge 
within our borders, to removing those without a legal basis to 
remain. The complexities of immigration enforcement are vast 
and multifaceted.
    I pray daily for the men and women working within our 
security agencies, and I am grateful for their sacrifice.
    In my personal views, built upon my professional work, the 
mission of DHS is paramount to protect national security and 
public safety by enforcing our immigration laws with integrity 
and professionalism.
    Let me state clearly that the law enforcement agencies like 
ICE are critical to maintaining order and security within our 
borders. They are tasked with upholding the rule of law and 
ensuring that our immigration system operates fairly, justly, 
and consistently with our Nation's values and our laws.
    I have also seen, in my professional career, the strength, 
courage, compassion, and discretion that ICE officers apply 
every day.
    However, the current state of the immigration system is 
broken. Outdated policies, inadequate resources, and a lack of 
legislative reform over time have left our immigration 
enforcement agencies struggling to keep pace with the ever-
evolving landscape of enforcement.
    Additionally, there are currently multiple humanitarian 
crises across the Western Hemisphere, which exacerbate these 
challenges. Economic instability, political turmoil, and 
rampant violence in countries like Venezuela, Honduras, Haiti, 
and Guatemala are driving thousands of desperate individuals to 
seek refuge in the United States, the everlasting beacon of 
hope and freedom.
    We must, in partnership with our allies across the 
hemisphere, solve the issues that are driving these refugees 
from their homes.
    Notably, many of the solutions to decrease encounters at 
our southern border, including expanding legal pathways for 
asylum seekers, which is an immediate need, while also 
mitigating disruptive migratory flows across the hemisphere, 
are not within the sole primary purview of the Department of 
Homeland Security. Nor is it solely a matter of domestic 
immigration enforcement.
    In my view, personal view, DHS has little authority to 
affect the push factors driving refugees and migrants to our 
borders.
    Moreover, it is imperative to recognize that those who 
refuge in the United States and embrace the values of American 
life should be welcomed as a testament to the enduring allure 
of the freedom and opportunity that our Nation represents.
    Concerning this hearing's focus, I am grateful for the 
Committee's concerns and focus on alternatives to detention. 
The operational needs of DHS, the development of noncustodial 
oversight, and the management of noncitizens within our 
immigration system is critical.
    It is imperative to address the operational complexities 
that CBP and ICE face concerning detention and the release of 
noncitizens from their custody.
    While detention is necessary for national security, public 
safety, flight risk, and other operational reasons, it is 
crucial to recognize the importance of alternatives to 
detention.
    Alternatives, such as electronic monitoring, case 
management, or community-based programs, can be effective in 
ensuring compliance with immigration proceedings while also 
respecting the dignity and rights of the individual, while 
allowing ICE to do its enforcement mission.
    Maybe as importantly, these alternatives can alleviate the 
strain on detention facilities and resources, allowing CBP and 
ICE to focus on those higher national security and public 
safety threats.
    Supporting law enforcement, maintaining order in our 
immigration system, and supporting the virtues of those 
desiring the American way of life are not mutually exclusive. 
We can and must pursue the policies that are both compassionate 
and effective.
    In closing, I express my continued admiration for the men 
and women of ICE, CBP, and the entire Department of Homeland 
Security. They serve our country with courage, integrity, and 
professionalism. Indeed, they are the backbone of the 
immigration enforcement effort, and we must support them and 
their mission.
    Thank you again for the opportunity.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much.
    I guess they are a little behind on the Floor. Somewhere 
during the questions, we are going to take a break for about 20 
minutes so we can vote. But we will wait until the votes are 
called before we do that.
    A variety of questions here.
    I would like to ask Ms. Vaughan a question as far as public 
benefits for people who are coming here illegally. I know they 
are not supposed to get public benefits. But could you comment 
on that as far as what impact that is having on our society?
    Ms. Vaughan. Well, it is true that theoretically illegal 
immigrants are not entitled to certain benefits. But the 
reality is that many states actually use some of the Federal 
Medicaid funding, for example, or their own funds, taxpayer 
funds, to provide all manner of benefits, whether it is 
Medicaid or cash assistance programs or housing and so on.
    And it is an enormous cost to taxpayers that exceeds any 
taxes, local taxes, sales taxes, or any other kind of revenue 
that comes back to the government.
    The largest expenses that we found through our research are 
Medicaid for the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and 
public schools, the education, especially with this recent 
migrant crisis where so many of the people coming here 
illegally are bringing families with them because that is like 
a deportation shield.
    And that is a strain on the communities where they end up. 
And we have calculated that on average an illegal alien will 
cost $68,000 over their lifetime just in the welfare benefits 
alone, not counting other costs to society.
    And that is an average figure. But that puts the cost of 
just this border crisis and the recently arrived illegal aliens 
at hundreds of billions of dollars.
    Mr. Grothman. OK.
    Either Mr. O'Brien or Ms. Vaughan, whoever wants to answer 
this question.
    I always kind of wonder what happens if people come here 
illegally and commit a crime. You know, people talk about law-
abiding, da, da, da.
    If you commit a crime--and I would like you to maybe 
compare the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration to 
the Obama Administration or Clinton Administration--what 
happens to you if you commit a crime? And how does this compare 
to, like I said, if you had committed that crime 6 years ago?
    Mr. O'Brien. Mr. Grothman, as to the first part of your 
question, if you have committed one of a wide variety of crimes 
which are set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act, the 
way the law is written, you are supposed to be placed into 
removal proceedings and get a hearing.
    Unfortunately, I think over time the hearings have been 
analogized to a criminal proceeding, but they are not. They are 
very similar to a driver's license revocation proceeding.
    So, if you have been convicted by an Article 3 court of 
law, the crime stands on its own. And what you get--we call 
them a notice to appear now--but you get an order to show 
cause, essentially to show why you should not be removed from 
the United States.
    And those crimes can range from things that are classified 
under the INA as aggravated felonies, which are set forth in 
101(a)(43)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, to things 
that are classified as crimes involving moral turpitude.
    So, everything from shoplifting to murder can potentially 
get you deported. There are some crimes that are considered 
lower level enough that they would not. And if you have 
committed certain low-level crimes, you can apply for relief 
from removal.
    But anything that is classified under the INA as an 
aggregated felony crime is supposed to result in your removal 
from the U.S. and then you being barred from returning for a 
certain number of years.
    Mr. Grothman. Has the rigor at which we enforce these 
rules, has this changed between the Trump or even Obama 
Administrations than President Biden?
    Mr. O'Brien. Yes, it has changed significantly. There seems 
to be significantly less willingness under this Administration 
to use the administrative and expedited removal procedures 
wherein, if people have been removed from the United States 
after committing a crime and find themselves back here, they 
can actually be removed without a hearing.
    I also found that, when I was an immigration judge, I later 
tried to determine how many of the people that I had ordered 
removed, that their removal had actually been effectuated from 
the United States, which was something that was fairly easy to 
do under prior administrations.
    But I could not substantiate that a single individual that 
I had entered an order of removal against had actually been 
removed by this Administration.
    Mr. Grothman. That is shocking.
    Could you give me examples of the crimes where you think 
they have been removed under Trump but are not removed now, 
type of crimes you commit?
    Mr. O'Brien. They ranged from everything from simple 
shoplifting to more serious things like drug trafficking and 
murder.
    I can say definitively under the Trump Administration there 
was an effort to prioritize the serious violent crimes for 
removal.
    Sometimes it is not always possible to easily remove 
someone if their country of citizenship does not wish to issue 
them a travel document or, for whatever reason, does not wish 
to take them.
    But the effort was made regardless, and in most cases it 
was successful. Under this Administration, I do not think that 
the effort is even being made.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Eventually, I would like you to maybe 
give us something in writing, following up on that sort of 
thing.
    Mr. O'Brien. Certainly.
    Mr. Grothman. Mr. Garcia.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you to our witnesses for their testimony.
    Mr. Houser, thank you for your service to our country.
    I am just wondering, Mr. Houser, is it possible for the 
Biden Administration to improve conditions at the border if 
congressional Republicans continue to block the extra resources 
that the President has actually requested?
    Mr. Houser. Thank you, Ranking Member, for the question.
    Not providing the proper resources that are needed to 
handle the volume that we are seeing at the southern border is 
going to drastically decrease Border Patrol's ability, along 
with ICE and the agencies across the Federal Government that 
support sort of the immigration continuum and the immigration 
process.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
    And I want to just--I will, I think, remind the Committee 
also that Donald Trump has ordered Speaker Johnson, 
essentially, to block any border bill so that it could cause, 
of course, more chaos, in my opinion, along the border.
    Now, we also--we have talked about some of the former 
President's strategy of actually dealing with the border, 
whether it has been some of these crazy ideas we discussed 
earlier.
    As a reminder to everyone, the right to seek asylum is, as 
we know, enshrined in law.
    Mr. Houser, does the Trump strategy of violence and 
deterrence work to stop migration?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, over my time at the Department, the idea 
that sort of detention and deterrence and punitive measures 
would sort of deter migrants from seeking asylum in this 
country is farcical.
    Mr. Garcia. And without any action to address, like, push 
factors----
    Mr. Grothman. Would you yield just a second? Could you 
yield just one?
    Mr. Garcia. Am I going to keep my time.
    Mr. Grothman. Sure. Absolutely.
    I just want to comment, because he is not here to defend 
himself. I know Mike Johnson. I knew Mike Johnson since he came 
in the legislature before Donald Trump was President.
    I am sure Mike Johnson does not have to wait for Donald 
Trump's orders to say that that bipartisan bill is inadequate. 
I mean, that is just a slander against him when he is not here. 
I am sure he is not doing that because Donald Trump ordered him 
to.
    Mr. Garcia. I mean, I think he said so on FOX News, that he 
was doing that actually. That is exactly what he said. And, he 
actually has been taking the exact direction of Donald Trump 
and has said so publicly in their conversations. But I will 
continue.
    Now, without action to address push factors and legal 
pathways, there is also--there Is no possibility of an orderly 
and secure border.
    [Chart.]
    Mr. Garcia. I want to also put up another quote that was 
recent that the former President said, which I think is 
telling. It says, ``It is only common sense that when I am 
reelected, we will begin, and we have no choice, the largest 
deportation operation in American history.''
    Now, Stephen Miller has said in an interview that he would 
target 10 million people and would, and I quote, ``go around 
the country arresting illegal immigrants in large-scale 
raids,'' unquote. This would involve, again quote, ``large-
scale staging grounds near the border, most likely in Texas,'' 
unquote, to serve as camps for migrants designated for 
deportation.
    Now, he outlined how this could mean sending National Guard 
troops from Republican-controlled states and what he called, 
quote, ``unfriendly states'' to conduct mass arrests.
    Mr. Houser, can you explain to the American people what 
exactly this kind of proposal would look like and what that 
would actually mean?
    Mr. Houser. Yes, sir. In my personal expert--or my 
opinion--at the sort of expulsion rates or removal rates that 
they are looking for, sort of the logistical transportation, 
security apparatus, along with sort of the at-large arrests, 
would be dramatically taxing, not only on ICE and CBP, where 
they are not resourced to sort of meet those levels.
    Additionally, pulling from other law enforcement agencies 
across the Federal Government--ATF, DEA, FBI--the burden that 
it would place on the national security community would be 
extreme.
    In that, you would also have to look at the fact that what 
would our law enforcement community not be focused on--human 
smuggling, human trafficking, criminals, violent criminals, et 
cetera.
    I must also say that those sort of deportations and 
removals, as my colleagues on this panel stated earlier, would 
be controlled by the receiving country receiving those mass 
returns and removals.
    Mr. Garcia. And----
    Mr. Houser. And as we----
    Mr. Garcia. Please continue, briefly.
    Mr. Houser. And that has been one of the controlling 
factors of ICE continuing to do its job.
    Mr. Garcia. And this plan, as outlined by Miller, the one 
you are discussing as well, would also target long-term 
residents who have actually not committed crimes, correct.
    Mr. Houser. I have no sort of knowledge of sort of that 
plan, sir. But what I would say, at that scale, targeting long-
term sort of individuals that have been in this country--there 
is no disagreement that the numbers of encounters at the border 
are exacerbating our ICE and CBP officers.
    Mr. Garcia. And this operation, would it even be legal?
    Mr. Houser. I cannot speak to that, sir.
    Mr. Garcia. But I do not believe so.
    But this is the kind of, I think, general chaos that is 
being discussed, oftentimes, in the Majority. But it has no 
real solutions along the border. It does nothing to make us 
more safe or more secure.
    But we know that there actually are solutions we could 
focus on in a bipartisan way, but there does not seem to be any 
interest on that from the Majority.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    We are going to go straight to Paul Gosar.
    Mr. Gosar. Mr. O'Brien, I heard today Mr. Houser used a 
very clever word in his testimony. He said the current state of 
our border is ``broken.''
    Who broke that system?
    Mr. O'Brien. I would say the current Administration broke 
that system. The border is broken; the Immigration and 
Nationality Act is not. There is more than ample authority to 
do everything that we need to do in order to secure the border. 
It is that this Administration does not have an interest, for 
whatever reason, in doing that.
    Mr. Gosar. Now, who put out the budget in regards to 
homeland security? Was it the President, Donald Trump, or was 
it President Biden?
    Mr. O'Brien. Well, I think Donald Trump has a proven track 
record of reducing the number of illegal crossings and 
maximizing the ejection of people who broke the law to come 
into the United States and then broke it after they were here. 
The current President does not have an established track record 
in that regard.
    Mr. Gosar. But I heard Mr. Houser talk about money to 
facilitate it, that this Administration is saying that they 
need more money. Well, the problem is, is their policies are 
driving up the costs, are they not?
    Mr. O'Brien. Well, their policies are driving up the costs. 
And as far as I know, budget-wise, every time that the 
Department of Homeland Security in the history of its existence 
has asked Congress for money, Congress has either given it what 
it asks for or given it more.
    I believe that Alejandro Mayorkas was the first Secretary 
of Homeland Security to actually go in and ask for less than a 
prior year's budget.
    Mr. Gosar. OK. So, one more question for you.
    Are you familiar with the OPT program.
    Mr. O'Brien. Yes, I am.
    Mr. Gosar. So, this is an end-around around immigration 
numbers, is it not?
    Mr. O'Brien. It is.
    Mr. Gosar. So, what this basically does--and I challenge my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle--this is crony 
capitalism to a T. This allows these big corporations, like 
Google and Meta and Facebook, to hire overseas workers at a 
much-reduced rate. And then they are given the accolades of 
giving a 15.5 percent discount, which is their Social Security 
and Medicare costs. They get a bypass on that.
    And these are uncapped, right? So, we have no idea how many 
of these people are coming in. But it bypasses our immigration 
status, does it not?
    Mr. O'Brien. Well, it bypasses it. It is also a program 
that has no basis in statute. It was created out of whole cloth 
by, I believe, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and 
nobody really understands why it was created.
    Mr. Gosar. It is an unauthorized program, so it was sort of 
an appendage. It should go away. I absolutely agree with that.
    Ms. Vaughan, you made a comment, an end-around the current 
immigration law based upon the catch and release. Is there a 
legislative solution for us to be able to stop that?
    Ms. Vaughan. Yes, I think there is. I think there is a 
legislative solution and there is an appropriations solution to 
it.
    The House has already passed H.R. 2, which would address a 
lot of the loopholes and the problems in the law, the 
authorities that have been abused under the Biden 
Administration and sometimes the Obama Administration before 
it. And you can target certain pots of funding that are being 
misused.
    But fundamentally, the law is sound if it is actually 
enforced. I do not think it is a question of resources. ICE, 
especially, is doing less work with more resources than ever 
before.
    Really, the critical issue is the policies. If the laws 
were enforced, and we know this from experience, both under the 
Trump Administration and before that, then we actually can 
control the border and we can restore an environment in which 
there is a significant attrition of the illegal population 
because people see that if they cannot get a job, cannot get a 
driver's license, cannot get a library card, then there is no 
benefit to staying here, and they go home on their own.
    Mr. Gosar. So, let me ask you a question. So, those who 
petition for asylum, how many will actually get that? Is it one 
out of ten? Is it ten out of ten? Is it nine out of ten? Most 
do not, cannot apply for it. Is that true?
    Ms. Vaughan. That is true.
    There is a couple things we know from Department of Justice 
statistics. That half the people who are allowed to come in 
saying that they fear persecution, do not even apply for 
asylum. They just were using that.
    Of those who do, half of them do not show up for their 
immigration proceedings. Of those who do, about 10 percent, 
depending on which country they are from, are not found 
qualified by an immigration judge, and they are ordered 
removed.
    And the House Judiciary got some data recently from the 
Federal Government showing that the Biden Administration is no 
longer even bothering to process asylum claims for the vast 
majority. I think they found that something like six percent of 
the new arrivals were even processed for credible fear 
screening.
    Mr. Gosar. Well, I thank the gentleman. I had other 
questions, but I will yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. OK.
    Dr. Foxx.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I thank our witnesses.
    Mr. O'Brien, one of DHS' core values is to, quote, 
``relentlessly identify and deter threats that pose a danger to 
the safety of the American people,'' end quote.
    However, since January 2021, the Biden Administration has 
released nearly 3.5 million people into the United States and 
is threatening to release thousands more for purely political 
reasons.
    In your opinion, is it possible, thoroughly, to vet people 
who may pose a threat to the United States when more than 1 
million people are being released into the country on an annual 
basis?
    Mr. O'Brien. No, it is not possible at all. I actually ran 
the vetting program at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration 
Services. None of the agencies have the capacity to vet people 
in those numbers.
    But even more importantly, vetting is something that 
happens because people have a background that can be traced.
    In the United States, from the time we are born until the 
time we die, we are laying down a paper trail of transactions. 
We apply for driver's licenses. We make bank transactions. All 
of those things can be used to substantiate somebody's 
identity.
    When you are talking about people coming from rural 
villages in Guatemala or places like Yemen, there are not any 
records like that. And in a lot of cases, even when records 
exist in places like Iran, the governments in those countries 
do not give us access to them.
    So, I would estimate that something along the lines of 90 
to 95 percent of the people that have come in in this wave of 
migrants are totally unvettable. We have no reasonable way of 
determining who they are or what their intentions are.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
    Another question, Mr. O'Brien.
    The Biden Administration established policies for 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys not to prosecute 
so-called, quote, ``nonpriority,'' end quote, cases of illegal 
aliens in what is known as the Doyle memo.
    That memo stated that the preferred way to handle 
nonpriority cases is either non filing of the notice to appear, 
or if the NTA has already been filed with the immigration 
court, dismissal of proceedings.
    In Fiscal Year 2023, ICE attorneys affirmatively sought and 
obtained, quote, ``84,000 dismissals in the exercise of 
prosecutorial discretion,'' end quote.
    Does this guidance sound like the President and Secretary 
Mayorkas need new powers to enforce immigration laws at the 
border or is the Administration refusing to enforce laws that 
are already on the books?
    Mr. O'Brien. The Administration is refusing to enforce laws 
that are already on the books. In fact, it is tripping over 
itself to not enforce them, which is perfectly illustrated by 
the example that you just brought up.
    And the whole prosecutorial discretion thing in the civil 
context of immigration proceedings is a red herring. 
Prosecutorial discretion exists in criminal proceedings in 
order to ensure that a prosecutor is not forced to charge 
someone before it is ready, before--excuse me--the case is 
ready to be proven, or that there is no political influence.
    Administrative discretion is entirely different. 
Administrative discretion is for the convenience of the 
government in order to be able to do its job. It is not to 
allow the government to sidestep seeking the administrative 
remedy.
    Ms. Foxx. Great.
    Well, I think you have alluded to this already in your 
answer to my colleague's question, but, in your opinion, would 
H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which we passed last year, 
help alleviate the crisis at the border?
    Mr. O'Brien. Yes, indeed, it would. It has solid measures 
to reinforce the laws that are already on the books and to 
require compliance with the laws that are on the books.
    Ms. Foxx. Let me ask a quick question to Ms. Vaughan.
    Last year, in testimony before the Homeland Security 
Committee, you stated that President Biden inherited what many 
claim to be the most secure border in United States history and 
policies that deterred migrants from crossing illegally. I 
certainly agree that the southwest border was more secure under 
the Trump Administration than it has been under President 
Biden.
    Can you provide some examples of policies that were 
enforced under President Trump that the Biden Administration 
has rolled back or eliminated?
    Ms. Vaughan. Well, the first and most important probably in 
the context of the border is the policy to either detain or 
require that people seeking entry for asylum go back to Mexico 
to await their proceedings and wait there.
    Ms. Foxx. That is the Remain in Mexico policy.
    Ms. Vaughan. Correct.
    And with respect to the interior, the policy under the 
Trump Administration was to allow immigration enforcement 
officers to enforce the law and not to make exceptions for 
people because--for various reasons that are under the Mayorkas 
policies, to let them actually do their job.
    And by the way, they were overwhelmingly focused on 
removing criminal aliens that came to their attention because 
they had been arrested for a state and local crime.
    Ms. Foxx. The Trump Administration was doing that.
    Ms. Vaughan. Yes.
    Ms. Foxx. Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for having 
this hearing. It is clear from our witnesses that H.R. 2 would 
be a very effective way of shutting down the border and that 
the Biden Administration is undoing the policies of the Trump 
Administration and opening the border for people. It is a 
terrible situation, and it is why we impeached Secretary 
Mayorkas.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    A quick word here from Mr. Garcia.
    Mr. Garcia. Yes. I want to just seek unanimous consent. I 
seek unanimous consent to enter into the record an Axios 
article titled, ``Funding Deadlock Threatens to Make the Border 
Crisis Worse,'' which highlights how House Republicans' effort 
to stall border funding further exacerbate issues on the 
southern border.
    And then also unanimous----
    Mr. Biggs. I would object to that coming in.
    Mr. Garcia. It is an article. It is an Axios article.
    Mr. Biggs. Hey, you know, if you are going to submit the 
article, submit it. Do not give me a filibuster on it. I can 
read it. So, I object.
    Mr. Garcia. It took 10 seconds.
    Mr. Biggs. I object. I object.
    Mr. Garcia. Well, I also seek unanimous consent to enter 
into the record the Axios article titled, ``Funding Deadlock 
Threatens to Make the Border Crisis Worse.''
    Mr. Biggs. I am OK with that.
    Mr. Garcia. I seek unanimous consent to enter the American 
Immigration Council report titled, ``11 Years of Government 
Data Reveal that Immigrants Do Show Up for Court,'' into the 
record, which found that--a 2021 article--overwhelmingly, 82 
percent of immigrants show up to their immigration court 
hearings.
    Mr. Grothman. OK.
    Mr. Grothman. Is there somebody else you want to waive on 
here? No?
    Mr. Garcia. No, just those two into the record right now.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. We are going to--so I say it just right--
the Committee stands in recess subject to the call of the 
Chair. We will consult with the Minority to provide adequate 
notice to Members when we reconvene.
    Are they voting now? They are voting?
    Why don't we--should we shoot for 2:10, 2:15?
    We will consult with the Minority to provide adequate 
notice to Members of when we will reconvene.
    The Committee stands in recess.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Grothman. OK. First of all, the Committee should come 
to order.
    Second, I would like to submit for the record two articles 
by the Center for Immigration Studies, one by Jessica Vaughan 
and one by Jon Feere. So, so ordered.
    Now, I guess, the next person up out of the shoot, Mr. 
LaTurner, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you all for being here today to address the Biden 
Administration's misguided and dangerous catch-and-release 
policy at our border. Catch and release allows for detained 
illegal immigrants who have blatantly violated and circumvented 
proper immigration procedures to be released from custody 
consequence free. This fundamentally undermines our Nation's 
rule of law by sending a dangerous message that illegal 
immigration will go unpunished.
    Since President Biden took office, his administration has 
released more than 3.3 million illegal immigrants into the 
United States, more than the entire population of my home state 
of Kansas. Recent data indicates that there are over 600,000 
illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or pending 
criminal charges that have been released into our communities 
by the Biden Administration.
    This number does not even take into account the number of 
got-aways who evaded law enforcement and entered our country 
undetected. President Biden, with the stroke of a pen, could 
end catch and release today. But he will not, because it is 
blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that President 
Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have no interest in taking 
meaningful action to end this worsening invasion.
    To create cover for his Administration's negligence and 
score some political points, President Biden called on Congress 
to pass an immigration package which, among other things, 
codifies catch and release by giving the architect of this 
disaster, Secretary Mayorkas, unchecked authority to release 
migrants into the United States. We can and must do better. It 
is time for President Biden to take the action necessary to 
secure our borders and put an end to this national security and 
humanitarian crisis.
    Mr. O'Brien, thank you for joining us today. Last month at 
a press conference, the President was questioned about the 
border and asked directly if he has done everything he can to 
do with his executive authority. His answer was, quote, ``I 
have done all I can do,'' end quote. Do you agree with this 
statement?
    Mr. O'Brien. No, not remotely.
    Mr. LaTurner. What immediate steps do you believe the 
Administration could take? If you could outline those for us, 
it would be helpful.
    Mr. O'Brien. Sure. Well, the first and most obvious thing 
would be to invoke the President's power under section 1182(f) 
to shut down the border. That was the provision of statute that 
was at issue in Trump v. Hawaii. The Trump Administration 
clearly won on that. The Supreme Court has said that in an 
emergency situation or other type of crisis at the border, the 
statute, the Immigration and Nationality Act, as well as 
potentially the powers inherent constitutionally in the Office 
of President, enable the President to shut down the border and 
to designate certain classes of aliens who would not be 
admissible to the United States, and the President has the 
authority to do that for as long as he wishes until he 
determines that the threat has passed.
    Mr. LaTurner. Mr. O'Brien, you are a smart guy. You think 
about this stuff and talk about this stuff. What is your best 
guess on why the Administration is acting the way that they 
are?
    Mr. O'Brien. I think there is a perception within this 
Administration that the United States is responsible for all 
the ills in the world, and therefore, we have some sort of an 
obligation to let all of these people in here as a reward for 
America being less than pure. It is absurd, but that seems to 
be the predominant ideology behind these moves.
    Mr. LaTurner. Ms. Vaughan, thank you for being here today. 
I would like to address the broader implications of the border 
crisis. While much attention is understandably placed on border 
states, it is important to recognize that the effects are felt 
nationwide, including my home state of Kansas. Can you share 
some of the social and economic impacts that an open border has 
on the entire country, not just border states?
    Ms. Vaughan. Sure. And that is a great question, because 
our immigration laws are not some obsolete laws that should not 
be enforced anymore. When we do not enforce our immigration 
laws, first of all, it is very costly for taxpayers to provide 
services to people who are coming who are not well-prepared to 
be self-sufficient in our country.
    Second, it distorts labor markets and allows employers to 
bypass available U.S. workers, of which we have millions in the 
country today, who have dropped out of the labor market. It 
allows employers to get away with hiring illegal workers 
instead of American workers. It facilitates human trafficking 
for labor purposes and other purposes, you know, allows 
criminal organizations to fly under the radar----
    Mr. LaTurner. Well, and on that point--my time is about up, 
but I want to ask the question--in your testimony you talked 
about the profiting of the drug cartels and other transnational 
organizations. Talk about how the Biden Administration's 
immigration policies have contributed to the enrichment of 
these criminal groups.
    Ms. Vaughan. Well, the policies entice migrants to come 
here to put themselves--and pay money to criminal smuggling 
organizations because they know that they are going to be 
released into the country, allowed to stay indefinitely with 
almost no threat of enforcement or being sent back home even if 
they do not comply with their immigration proceedings.
    And the cartels are making more money from human smuggling 
now than they are from drug smuggling, and that is--you know, 
they are nimble enough to adapt their business model to our 
loose policies at the border, and they are not going to give it 
up very easily.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you for your indulgence on time, Mr. 
Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    Mr. Goldman.
    Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank our witnesses for being here.
    I just came in a minute ago, Mr. O'Brien, but you said that 
the President has the authority to shut down the border right 
now. Under what authority do you refer to?
    Mr. O'Brien. As I said, Section 1182(f) of the Immigration 
and Nationality Act, which was the statutory provision that was 
at issue in Trump v. Hawaii. It is a provision that allows the 
President, by proclamation, to temporarily suspend the 
admission of certain classes of aliens into the United States.
    Mr. Goldman. So, why didn't Donald Trump use that?
    Mr. O'Brien. He did. That is why the Trump v. Hawaii case 
went all the way to the Supreme Court.
    Mr. Goldman. But then why was it relied on title 42?
    Mr. O'Brien. Well, there was a pandemic on. I mean, title 
42 is pitched at a very different set of circumstances. It is 
specifically at a public health crisis. 1182(f) is pitched at a 
general power to manage the border in confrontation of a 
crisis.
    Mr. Goldman. Mr. Houser, what is your response to that?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, the idea--operationally, from my personal 
experience, the idea of shutting down the border, one, puts 
grave risk of death for the migrants that are being transited 
toward the border and those that are seeking asylum; 
additionally, it does put Border Patrol in sort of operational 
challenges to sort of continue to control the flow as it would 
come toward the border. That is not a panacea that would solve 
the problem that we are seeing across the Western Hemisphere 
that is causing the problem.
    You know, notably, an example is, if you look at the 
increase of encounters over the last 2 to 3 years, as we have 
seen, which are very significant, the delta between the 
encounter numbers between the Trump Administration and the 
Biden Administration really are from two or three or four, sort 
of the large bulk of them, from three countries: Cuba, 
Venezuela, and Colombia.
    So, for instance, in the last--between fiscal years 1922 
and 1923, 470,000 Cubans were brought into the country through 
the asylum process. The idea that you would have had those 
populations continue to back up in Mexico is a drastic 
situation that would be a huge humanitarian crisis. 
Additionally, you look at the idea that the full expulsion of 
these populations, at those numbers, are unrealistic 
operationally.
    Mr. Goldman. So, and I think that is an important point, 
because we had the Remain in Mexico policy when there were more 
than 13,000 migrants who were left on the border in Mexico and 
suffered from some sort of violent crime, which is part of the 
reason why President Biden led a bipartisan group to reach a 
legislative solution to this problem.
    And one of the things that that bill did was dramatically 
changed the asylum process, because I think everyone agrees 
that a 5-to 7-year lag time on an asylum application is 
unacceptable. Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues, at the 
direction of Donald Trump, decided that they would rather have 
this chaos at the border than to actually solve some of the 
problems.
    I want to turn to a couple things in that. I read, and I 
assume you would know this, that ICE may have to cut detention 
beds because it is underfunded. Is that correct?
    Mr. Houser. I read that in the media too, as well, sir. 
That is my only knowledge of that.
    Mr. Goldman. Right. And in this bipartisan bill, it would 
have significantly funded ICE for additional detention beds, 
right?
    Mr. Houser. That--from the proposal, sir, that I have read 
and that bipartisan approach, yes.
    Mr. Goldman. And now, one of the things that my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle, instead of actually 
participating in negotiations on legislation, they spent the 
last couple months trying to impeach the Secretary of Homeland 
Security. And one of their arguments is that he was violating 
the law in failing to detain everyone who came over the border 
and would be subject to detention. In your experience working 
for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is it actually 
feasible to detain everyone who would qualify under that 
statute?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, we are talking about the detention of 
hundreds of thousands of individuals. Just the safety risks 
alone, logistics, staffing, security, et cetera, it would be 
monumental and hundreds of billions of dollars. Just to the 
point I made earlier, of those that--the key question, I think, 
and challenge is the removability of people once they have--
their legal pathways are no longer there to stay in this 
country.
    You are saying in the last--in the last just--for example, 
in the last 3 to 4 years, 1.2 million, 1.3 million Cubans have 
seeked [sic] asylum here in this country and left communist 
Cuba. There is some stats that show at least 20 percent of the 
Cuban population are on the move across the Western Hemisphere. 
There is absolutely no way to sort of upend and pull those 
asylum seekers and refugees in that community up out of their 
communities and sort of detain them until we are--we have the 
foreseeable, reasonable ability to remove them back to 
communist Cuba.
    Mr. Goldman. Right.
    Mr. Houser. That is just for one example, sir.
    Mr. Goldman. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your indulgence, 
and I think the point that you are making is that we need 
additional funding to--in order to comply with the law.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce two documents into 
the record by unanimous consent.
    Mr. Grothman. Sure.
    Mr. Goldman. The first is a press release from the USCIS, 
which documents that it--in Fiscal Year 2023----
    Mr. Biggs. You know, Mr. Chairman, I am going to object to 
that. If I want to read it, I will read it. If he is going to 
put it in, he should read the title and that is it. Yes, and he 
has already----
    Mr. Goldman. This is not on my time, Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, I know that, but I do not know that you 
need to read it to me.
    Mr. Goldman. I am reading the title.
    Mr. Biggs. No, you were not.
    Mr. Goldman. ``Completing an Unprecedented 10 Million 
Immigration Cases in Fiscal Year 2023, USCIS Reduced Its 
Backlog for the First Time in Over a Decade by 15 Percent.''
    And the other article I would like to introduce is by Mr. 
Houser, titled, ``The GOP's Border Proposals Are a Human 
Trafficker's Dream.''
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. Without objection.
    OK. Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Can any of you on that panel tell me the number of 
encounters at the border the last year President Trump was in 
office?
    OK. So, I will just give you one sector. How about the Yuma 
sector. Yuma sector, 8,600 encounters, about 125 linear mile 
border, right? Does that sound familiar to you? So, that was 
the last year President Trump was in office. Do you know what--
do you know what they are hitting about every 10 days there? 
Mr. O'Brien?
    Mr. O'Brien. Every 10 days, I would say it is something in 
the neighborhood of 100,000. There has been, in a number of the 
sectors, 10,000 to 11,000 people coming across a day.
    Mr. Biggs. Right. I am just speaking to the Yuma sector, 
which is now about every 10 days, blowing through 10,000 
people. So that is kind of what you are getting in the Yuma 
sector.
    You know what you are getting in the Tucson sector? Let us 
just talk about the San Miguel gate, Tohono O'odham 
reservation, nearest place south of the border is Caborca, 40 
miles away. Anybody want to tell me what they think that they 
are getting on a daily basis? Ms. Vaughan?
    Ms. Vaughan. I suspect it is similar to Yuma, but they are 
also--that is ground zero for the got-aways.
    Mr. Biggs. That is correct. So, you are getting--they are 
dropping groups of 700 to 1,000 people a day at San Miguel 
gate. There is nothing else there, nothing else there. I have 
been down there so many times, and you go and now what you are 
seeing, where previously you might see five, 10 people, you are 
seeing hundreds at the same time.
    Lukeville, Lukeville, Arizona, what is that number? Anybody 
know? Lukeville is blowing between 700 and 1,500 a day. So, 
what--I am bringing this up is because of this radical left-
wing Democrat, their subservience to Joe Biden's policies 
prevent them from even acknowledging the crisis on the border 
until now. Now it is a grand crisis. General chaos. That is 
right. I could not read my writing there. Now it is general 
chaos, but they could not tell you it was chaos there until 
just a few weeks ago. They refused to even acknowledge it.
    And I am going to suggest to you that the reason is purely 
political, that now they are saying, ``Oh, my gosh, Joe Biden 
is in trouble on this issue, and we are going to do what Joe 
Biden wants us to do.'' That is what my colleagues across the 
aisle are doing, they are doing what Joe Biden wants you to do. 
But you know what needs to happen? You need to close the 
border.
    And, Mr. O'Brien, you told us he has got authority already 
there to close that border. Tell us about that.
    Mr. O'Brien. So, section 1182(f) of the Immigration and 
Nationality Act says that the President, by proclamation, can 
decide to suspend the admission of all or certain classes of 
aliens when he determines that their presence may constitute a 
threat to the United States. And the Supreme Court has held in 
Trump v. Hawaii that the decision of how long, under what 
circumstances, and when to close the border has been entrusted 
to the President by statute.
    Mr. Biggs. You know, let us take a specific example. Under 
Joe Biden, you remember the Haitians coming into Del Rio?
    Mr. O'Brien. Yes.
    Mr. Biggs. And the average--they reported 15,000, but the 
reality is, there were about 22,000 coming in, and they are 
moving about 5,000 or so a day, so that is why it looked like 
15,000. Do you remember when the Mexican Government finally 
intervened, what triggered that? Do you remember? Anybody 
remember that? It is when we closed the port of entry on the 
bridge above where the Haitians were. That was what we call a 
deterrent.
    And Piedras Negras across the border, they said, look, we 
cannot take that for more than 2 or 3 days. Calls went into the 
Mexican Federal Government. They said no more busloads. We are 
not going to facilitate busloads coming to the southern city so 
they could come across. That is the distinction.
    So, I--with all due respect to Mr. Houser there, and I do 
agree with him, the dedication and resilience of our CBP 
forces, ICE forces, they are ready to do their job. They are 
ready to do their job. And he was focused on the Western 
Hemisphere. The last time I was down in Lukeville, which was 
just a few weeks ago, it was not just Western Hemisphere folks.
    I went up and I talked to--I said, where are you from? 
Senegal. How about you? Burkina Faso. How about you? Guinea. 
Where are you going? They take out laminated cards with phone 
numbers and addresses and say, I am going to the Bronx. I said, 
have you ever been to the Bronx? No. Do you know anybody from 
the Bronx? Where did you get the card? Do not know.
    That is the crisis and chaos. And so, when you tell me that 
there is not enough money, you know why there is not enough 
money, because this Administration has incentivized the world 
to come in. And there is virtually never going to be enough 
money to take care of housing these people and providing the 
support we need to remove them, because why? Because this 
Administration that my colleagues across the aisle are obeying 
Biden's wish, that is why, because they have caused this.
    And with that, I have some documents I would like to get 
in, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Grothman. OK.
    Mr. Biggs. Washington Post from today: ``Chance of Mass 
Release by ICE.'' Document called, ``The Executive Office for 
Immigration Review Adjudication Statistics.'' And a document 
from Axios saying, ``Exclusive: How Biden Botched the Border.''
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. So, ordered.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
    Mr. Grothman. Mr. Fallon.
    Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    You know what American people want more than anything else? 
They want authenticity. They want not your truth or my truth; 
they want the truth. They elect us to come here and do--
honestly, they elect us not to do the Democratic thing or the 
Republican thing, but the American thing, which is in this 
country's best interest. So, just a little housekeeping.
    The narrative now with the Democrats is, it is all Donald 
Trump's fault, we are all taking orders from him. I have never 
talked to Donald Trump about the border. Being from Texas, I do 
not need his advice on it. I can see it with my own eyes. Or 
that we need to spend more money on this issue. Do you know how 
much Wait in Mexico would cost? Nothing. And he has that 
authority, and it works. And if you go down and talk to Chief 
Raul Ortiz or anybody that works on the border, you know what 
they are going to say? Wait in Mexico will reduce the 
crossings, the illegal crossings by 70 percent, and it costs 
nothing.
    And then the last one is, and they invariably always--one 
of them will--at least one will throw in this racial element 
that it is somehow that because people--they are people of 
color, there is an element of--on the Republican end, they do 
not want them in the country, which is absolutely patently 
absurd. For instance, in Starr County in Texas, which is 96 
percent Hispanic, Hillary Clinton won that by 60 percent in 
2016. And then Donald Trump was President for 4 years, and he 
damn near won the county. He only lost by 5 percent, 96 percent 
Hispanic population.
    Hidalgo County, much bigger county, 93 percent Hispanic 
population. Donald Trump lost it to Hillary Clinton by 40 
percent in 2016, and he magically won it by 17 percent in 2020. 
Why? Because those fine folks down there are sick of the crime, 
the corruption, the chaos, and the cartels. That is a matter of 
fact.
    So, Mr. Houser, I read your testimony, listened to it. You 
said, and I quote, ``Secretary Mayorkas has consistently 
demonstrated a steadfast commitment to upholding the rule of 
law.'' So, I would assume you think he is doing a good job, 
fair?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, I think that the Secretary, in my personal 
view, has been handed a broken immigration system.
    Mr. Fallon. Do you think he is doing a good job?
    Mr. Houser. I think----
    Mr. Fallon. OK. Thank you. So, here is your definition of a 
good job: In both past administrations, one Democrat, one 
Republican, in this 3-year mark in office had roughly 1.7 
million illegal encounters. Joe Biden has had 8.5 million. The 
last year President Trump was in office there were three people 
caught on the terrorist watch list crossing the border. Last 
year was 169. In Fiscal Year 2017, 300,000 illegal crossings or 
encounters. In December, it was 300,000. So, it is a 500 
percent increase, 56 percent increase, 1,200 percent increase.
    Let us look at Chinese nationals. I think we would all 
agree that Beijing does not have America's best interest at 
heart. Fiscal Year 9, 2,000 Chinese nationals apprehended on 
the southern border. Last year, 53,000--an increase of 2,600, 
and 50 percent. If just one percent of them are sleeper agents, 
because most of them are military age men, I shudder to think 
what will happen in a free and open society if they invade 
Taiwan and those agents are activated. One-hundred-seventy 
countries represented by illegal crossers, costs probably $155 
billion. Opioid deaths have doubled, and our national security 
is at risk because we do not know who these people are.
    And, Mr. Houser, you also said that you believe that 
Secretary Mayorkas was a ``stalwart advocate for the men and 
women of our immigration and enforcement agencies.''
    Mr. Houser. Every day.
    Mr. Fallon. Stalwart advocate.
    Mr. Houser. Every day.
    Mr. Fallon. Does a stalwart advocate lie about----
    Mr. Houser. Can I expand on that, sir?
    Mr. Fallon. Excuse me. Does the stalwart advocate lie about 
what happened? Was--were any Haitian migrants whipped by Border 
Patrol agents? No, they were not. But you know what, it is 
interesting because he got an email saying just that. And you 
know what he said? ``Our Nation saw horrifying images that do 
not reflect who we are. We know those images painfully conjured 
up the worst elements of our Nation's ongoing battle against 
systemic racism.'' I did not know that controlling a horse with 
reins had anything to do with systemic racism.
    And then he said to see people treated like that, they 
did--horses barely running over people, being strapped. It is 
outrageous. Was anybody strapped?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, I would have to direct you----
    Mr. Fallon. No.
    Mr. Houser [continuing]. To the CBP on that.
    Mr. Fallon. No. No one was strapped, Mr. Houser. Chief Raul 
Ortiz, too. Everyone that was there said that did not happen. 
And that lying SOB said it anyway, and he threw his Border 
Patrol agents under the bus. I do not think that fits my 
definition of stalwart advocate. The guy is a bum, and I am 
glad he got impeached, and he got impeached because it was--he 
richly deserved that.
    So, you are a compassionate man. You used the word 
``compassion.'' Do you know, are migrant deaths at an all-time 
high?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, the flow south of the border is driving 
these migrants into areas where, yes, they are----
    Mr. Fallon. It is an all-time high. So, they would be 
better off if they did not come in the first place, because of 
drug cartels, as Ms. Vaughan pointed out, are making record 
profits.
    So, you are a compassionate guy. How many migrants are you 
housing personally in your home?
    Mr. Houser. None, sir.
    Mr. Fallon. None. Exactly. And I bet you, my Democratic 
colleagues also have that same answer. None.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Higgins. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields.
    I recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
    The Ranking Member here introduced a document regarding 
court appearance for illegals.
    Yes, my colleague, Mr. Raskin, had passed on his 
recognition.
    Reclaiming my time and restoring my time, the Ranking 
Member introduced a document earlier regarding illegals showing 
up for court. Let me say the quiet part out loud for America: 
Pay attention. This is how this town works. Democrats will tell 
you one thing; Republicans will tell you another thing, they 
are totally opposite. America says, what the hell is going on? 
What is the truth? Here is the truth: They do show up for 
court. Once.
    So, to take a generalized statement, do illegals that are 
under summons, from the time they have been released on some 
program, do they show up for their court proceedings? Yes, in 
the beginning they do; in the end they do not. That is the 
truth, America. Pay attention. You journalists out there, do 
some work. You have got to peer through the veil of this town 
to seek truth. So, yes, they show up for court in the 
beginning. They do not in the end, when they would be subject 
to removal and final adjudication.
    Mr. Houser, you are former Chief of Staff for ICE, former 
Deputy chief of Staff at DHS, senior adviser at Customs and 
Border Protection. Is that correct?
    Mr. Houser. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Higgins. Is that your background?
    Mr. Houser. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Higgins. Were you ever a cop, sir, or are you an 
administrator?
    Mr. Houser. No, sir. Military officer, but, no, sir.
    Mr. Higgins. You ever held the hand of an American as their 
life left them from violent crime or drug overdose?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, I was combat in Afghanistan in 2015.
    Mr. Higgins. Roger that. But on the streets of America, 
have you held the hand of an American by holding them in your 
arms and prayed with him while his life left his body?
    Mr. Houser. No, sir. But in my career----
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you very much. You see, this is the 
problem, America. You have got senior advisers to this liberal 
Administration that we got in our White House that is giving--
that is giving advice based upon, you know, very respectable 
backgrounds, but it is not from the street. They do not get it. 
We have got 300,000 Americans dead from opioid overdose in the 
last 3 years. It is insane. The wave upon wave of violent crime 
hitting communities in our country has never been touched by 
that kind of crime before.
    We have laws in this land for a reason. Enforcing the law 
at the border is like executive branch 101. That is where the 
executive responsibility really begins. If you cannot secure 
the border, if you are going to wave in millions and millions 
and millions of migrants, quarter upon quarter, month after 
month, year after year, then you have totally failed the 
American people when it comes to the sovereignty of our 
country. There is no escaping that, my brother. That is, like, 
the reality. So----
    Mr. Houser. Sir, could I expand on that, please?
    Mr. Higgins. [continuing] I am going to ask--I appreciate 
you, but I am going to ask Ms. Vaughan. Illegals have been 
released into our country that--you know, millions. Many of 
these immigrants, they have been waved in, they have no 
nefarious intent, but many of them do. They all came in 
illegally, but many of them do indeed have nefarious intent. 
They are connected with gangs, with criminal networks across 
the country, with drug trafficking, sex trafficking, all manner 
of criminal networks that they are plugging themselves into 
across the country. They are having a serious impact upon 
American society.
    Ms. Vaughan, could you speak to that impact in my remaining 
30 seconds, ma'am?
    Ms. Vaughan. Well, the--yes. There are certain kinds of 
crime that are--most definitely have a nexus to failing to 
control our border, whether it is the increase that we have 
seen in transnational gangs who are exploiting our loose 
policies at the border to move their operatives in; whether it 
is the cartels who are sending their operatives in to both 
manage their affairs here and set up new forms of criminal 
enterprises, like retail theft and illegal marijuana groves and 
all sorts of other crimes.
    We have human trafficking because these migrants, many of 
them end up in forced labor situations and having to work, 
essentially, for traffickers in order to avoid harm to their 
family members back home, or to themselves here in this 
country. It--you know, we--because we cannot vet people or we 
have no machine that can read people's minds as to their 
motivations for coming here, we are being taken advantage of. 
They know our border policies better than most Americans do.
    Mr. Higgins. I thank the good lady for her response.
    I thank our panelists for being here.
    And my time has expired. So, I recognize my friend and 
colleague, Mr. Raskin, for 5 minutes for question.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, kindly, Chairman Higgins, and 
wonderful to be here with you. It may just be you and me left 
here on Capitol Hill. Our colleagues seem to have made their 
way to the airport. But I am glad we are going to get a chance 
to discuss this after a very eventful week or two. I believe 
the Speaker sent us into recess. Please correct me if I am 
wrong, Mr. Higgins, but I think that we are going to be away 
for a couple weeks now.
    But here is where I think we are, and, Mr. Houser, I wanted 
to get----
    Mr. Higgins. You could stay.
    Mr. Raskin. Sorry?
    Mr. Higgins. You could stay.
    Mr. Raskin. Oh, good. I appreciate that.
    The democracy and freedoms are under siege all over the 
world right now. We have terrorists in the Middle East. We have 
Vladimir Putin, who has executed a filthy, bloody, imperialist 
invasion of Ukraine to destabilize their democracy and take 
over their country. We have the communist bureaucrats of China 
destabilizing the Indo-Pacific.
    And so, President Biden has said we need to get aid, $60 
billion to our allies in Ukraine who are under the gun with 
Russian military drones and attacks on civilians. The Israeli 
Government is responding to Hamas' brutal terrorist atrocities 
of October 7. We have a besieged suffering population in Gaza, 
which would be the partial recipient of $10 billion going out 
in humanitarian relief, both to Gaza and to people in Ukraine, 
and then money also going to the Indo-Pacific.
    But what we heard from the Republicans is, no way, we are 
not going to help our democratic allies and besieged peoples 
all over the world unless we deal with the border first. And 
so, the Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate got 
together and miraculously, after decades of lethargy and 
indifference and sandbagging and sabotage, arrived at a border 
compromise package with billions of dollars of new investment 
for Border Patrol officers, immigration and asylum judges, 
better surveillance and detection technology for fentanyl and 
other kinds of drugs.
    And then, the fourth branch of government, Donald Trump, 
acting with the fifth branch of government, Vladimir Putin, 
blew up the whole package. Why? Because Donald Trump does not 
want a border solution; he wants a border problem to run on. 
And, of course, Vladimir Putin does not want $60 billion going 
to President Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine trying to 
defend their land and their people and their institutions.
    And so, they just wrecked the whole thing to the shock and 
dismay of Senator McConnell and Senator Lankford, the other--
the ultra-conservative Republican Senators who spent time 
negotiating that deal and getting the vast majority of 
everything they wanted, and you have got the Republican leaders 
in the Senate saying we will never get a better deal than this, 
and they destroyed it because Donald Trump did not want it, and 
so, everybody got in line, like a bunch of lemmings, and walked 
the cliff with Donald Trump.
    And I think what happened in the Third District of New York 
replacing Mr. Santos with our colleague, Tom Suozzi, 
demonstrates to them what America understands. They think 
America does not understand. America does understand who was 
serious about the border and immigration, and who is serious 
about defending democracy and freedom and our allies around the 
world.
    Now, I want to ask you the question, Mr. Houser, am I 
properly characterizing what happened in the Senate and what is 
in that package?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, from what I have read concerning the 
bipartisan bill, it was a great step forward in a lot of 
regards, not only in the way of asylum processing, but it also 
shows the importance of the entire immigration continuum being 
supplied and resourced in the manner in which it needs to be.
    Mr. Raskin. Have there been any other bipartisan 
legislative breakthroughs like that in your time in office? You 
were at ICE. You were the Chief of Staff at ICE, right?
    Mr. Houser. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Raskin. Did you have any bipartisan legislative 
breakthroughs while you were on the job like that?
    Mr. Houser. No, sir. In many parts of the bill--you talk 
about the issues that we care about at ICE and CBP and others--
there is many resources and capabilities within that 
legislation that would provide the ability to go after 
fentanyl, to go after drugs, to go after human smuggling, go 
after trafficking, and give our officers what they need.
    Mr. Raskin. So, the real question is, do we want 
immigration solutions, border solutions, or do we just want 
problems to run against to divide the country and to try to 
polarize the situation, and do we want to do the bidding of 
Vladimir Putin, who obviously does not want us supporting our 
allies in Ukraine? And I noticed that the former President 
Trump basically invited Russia to march into any European 
country he wants at this point.
    So, I think--I admire the audacity and the courage of my 
colleagues for calling this hearing, but I am baffled why they 
think this is to their political advantage or to the benefit of 
the people of America. I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. [Presiding.] Mr. Timmons.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you 
for letting me waive on to the Subcommittee hearing.
    I am really just kind of shocked at what I just heard from 
the Ranking Member. This is one of the most ridiculous 
conversations I have ever had in Congress. For the last 3 
years, President Biden has allowed millions and millions of 
people to cross the southern border illegally. The policies 
under Secretary Mayorkas have destroyed your cities, your 
beautiful Democrat bastions of socialism. These cities are 
destroyed, and all the Democrats now think this is a problem.
    Just a year ago, the Administration was saying, ``there is 
no problem, there is no problem, the southern border is secure, 
the southern border is secure.'' Literally, the Vice President, 
the President repeatedly said this. And finally, finally, we 
agree there is a problem. We agree there is a problem now. 
Shocking. It only took 6 million, 8 million people crossing the 
southern border illegally; hundreds of thousands of people 
dying from fentanyl overdoses; New York, Washington, DC, 
Chicago, San Francisco in ruins, because the amount of 
government benefits that are being absorbed by the millions of 
people that have crossed the southern border illegally are 
destroying your cities.
    Just 2 weeks ago, a Brooklyn school shut down, all the kids 
went remote, because they did not have any place to house 
immigrants. You have mayors screaming from the rooftops. 
Elected officials in Chicago recently said, ``we earned this; 
the progressives, their policies of open border sanctuary 
cities have caused these problems.'' They said that. These are 
Democrats that are saying this.
    So, now you--you say, well, we tried to fix it in the 
Senate, some bizarre deal that involved hundreds--$100 billion-
plus to Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel completely unrelated for a 
little teeny step in the right direction for border security, 
which still allows 5,000 people every day to cross the southern 
border. That is not a solution to this problem. We need to 
secure the southern border.
    And by the way, we do not need legislation to do this. We 
do not. All that Biden has to do, is undo what he did in the 
weeks after he got sworn in. He needs to end catch and release; 
he needs to reinstate Remain in Mexico; he needs to continue 
funding border wall construction. Those are the first three 
things.
    I have been to the border five times in the last few years, 
and the last time I was there, the Customs and Border Patrol 
agent did not say we need more money; he said we need to turn 
the spigot off. We had way, way too many people crossing the 
southern border, and the current policies in place do not allow 
them to process them effectively, we have no way of knowing who 
is coming into this country. It is outrageous.
    So, for you to say that the Senate border deal was the 
solution, and we are not serious about it, your party would not 
even agree there was a problem until a couple months ago. And 
now that there is an election coming up, all of a sudden it is 
a problem, and it is the Republican's fault? President Trump is 
not the person that caused this; it is President Biden. And the 
fact that President Biden said that it is Trump's fault is the 
most ridiculous thing in the world.
    I just want to start out: Mr. O'Brien, is it within 
President Biden's executive authority to reinstate Remain in 
Mexico, to end catch and release, and to continue construction 
of the border wall, all of which he stopped within weeks of 
being sworn in? Can he do that right now?
    Mr. O'Brien. Yes, he can. As a matter of fact, I think 
stopping construction on the border wall might not have even 
been lawful.
    Mr. Timmons. Does Congress need to do anything to address 
90 percent of this problem? We do not need a law. We need a man 
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that does not know where he is or 
what his last name is, to sign it.
    Mr. O'Brien. No, this is a simple matter of applying the 
Immigration and Nationality Act as Congress wrote it and 
following through on other legislation that Congress has passed 
like those relating to building a wall. We have had the Secure 
Fence Act in place in--at least since 2006. There may have been 
an earlier version of that.
    Mr. Timmons. And, again, walking away from the negotiated 
terms that President Trump had with Mexico, saying you have 
to--they created a National Guard. They said you are going to 
have to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers to secure your 
side of the border. And by the way, all these people that are 
coming over, that are trying to come into our country illegally 
to get asylum for some--whatever credible fear means to anybody 
that cares about it--no, you can come and try, but you are 
going to stay in Mexico until you get your hearing, which by 
the way, is 2, 4, 6, 8 years away.
    So, look, I am just so thankful that my colleagues across 
the aisle agree this is a problem now. I am just so thankful. 
But you are not going to blame this on Trump, and you are not 
going to blame this on the Republicans in Congress, because all 
President Biden has to do is sign his damn name. That is all he 
has to do. Problem solved.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    Both Mr. Raskin and myself are going to have an opportunity 
to ask questions for 1 minute.
    Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. I am sorry my colleague just exited the room. 
He offered some provocative suggestions. One was in talking 
about our beautiful democratic bastions of socialism. I am not 
quite sure what he is referring to, but certainly not the ugly 
bastions of communism that Donald Trump celebrates every day, 
like his man crush, the dictator of North Korea or Vladimir 
Putin; the former chief of the KGB, who is his clear puppet 
master; or the Chinese leader Xi, who Donald Trump has praised 
more than 20 times in tweets or Xs or whatever he sends out to 
the world.
    In any event, he says that he--all we need to do was to 
execute the negotiated terms with Mexico. Again, I am not quite 
sure what he is referring to. Donald Trump promised that he 
would build a wall and Mexico would pay for it, and I think on 
his first day in office, Mexico said that it was not going to 
pay for it, and of course there has been no wall, and of course 
that is not an answer to the problems we have.
    But there was an answer that was negotiated in the Senate, 
and in fact, the Republicans understood that we needed 
legislation. They passed legislation, H.R. 2. That is what I 
wanted to ask Mr. Houser about, if I could just give him a 
second. Would H.R. 2 solve the problems of the country?
    Mr. Houser. Sir, operationally, if you look at--from my 
personal belief, if you look at the restrictions on Border 
Patrol agents' ability to utilize technology, to utilize their 
resources, to move migrants for processing, for screening. You 
look at the sort of mandatory detention that it would create 
across the southern border in soft-sided facilities that are 
extremely dangerous. As some of--the Congressman mentioned 
earlier in Arizona, and some of these more desolate areas, you 
are actually creating the environment where Border Patrol, 
along with those agencies that support Border Patrol, to be 
pulled into just manning hundreds of thousands of people within 
soft-sided detention facilities, pulling those Border Patrol 
agents off the line, moving them away from the mission set of 
counterterrorism, counternarcotics, human smuggling, human 
trafficking, and you create literal chaos in the aggregate 
within that bill if you actually put those restrictions on law 
enforcement officers in the manner in which that bill did.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Now I will ask Mr. O'Brien a question 
about people who commit crimes after they get here, not 
overstaying. First of all, there are people who feel that the 
people coming across our border, arguably illegally, are just 
all good, hardworking persons. Could you comment on what you 
believe the crime rate is about people sneaking in here as 
opposed to the native-born population?
    Mr. O'Brien. Well, sure. When I was at FAIRUS, the Director 
of Research, my colleague, Spencer Raley, and I looked at the 
state criminal alien assistance program, which is funding that 
is given to the states by the Federal Government to cover the 
cost of bed nights when illegal aliens are arrested for crimes, 
and we found that people who are here unlawfully, apart from 
beginning their relationship with the United States by 
committing the crime of improper entry by an alien, do commit 
crimes in much larger numbers than both U.S. citizens and 
people who reside here permanently, and in some cases it was as 
many as three to four times higher.
    Mr. Grothman. My goodness. You mean, these people come in 
here, may be committing crimes three or four times the rate of 
people who are already here? That is what you are telling me? 
So, that is interesting.
    OK. Next question for you, is there any specific crimes 
that you think these people are more likely to commit?
    Mr. O'Brien. Generally speaking, from what we saw on the 
data, it was violent crimes and sexual assault was one that was 
of particular concern.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Dramatically more sexual assault? Sexual 
assault of what kind?
    Mr. O'Brien. Generally speaking, sexual assault with--
involving minors, so in some cases, statutory rape, but in 
other cases charged under different sections of the law.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. So, we are letting people across the 
border and disproportionately getting people who assault young 
girls. Is that true?
    Mr. O'Brien. That is correct.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Final question for Ms. Vaughan again, do 
you want to--well, we will wrap it up now. I will let Mr. 
Raskin give his closing statement since Mr. Garcia is not here, 
and then I will do a closing statement.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    So, we are no more than 48 hours away from the fraudulent 
impeachment of the Secretary of Homeland Security who was 
impeached simply for performing his legal duties under severe 
resource constraints, and this took place at the time that the 
Secretary was actually negotiating the successful bipartisan 
package in the Senate, which the Republicans then denounced and 
rejected.
    As we have proven time and again, House Democrats are ready 
to work with anyone to enact commonsense legislation to address 
the decades-long broken immigration system. But the Majority 
has just proven they do not want border solutions; they want 
border problems to run on, because abortion is no longer 
available to them because Donald Trump packed the Supreme Court 
with his Federalist Society hacks. They destroyed Roe v. Wade.
    And when it went out to the public, what did they discover? 
America is a country that believes in freedom--for women, too. 
And from Kansas to Ohio to California to Maine, the people have 
been rejecting all of their anti-abortion tactics and attempts 
to pass a Federal law criminalizing women's healthcare.
    Just yesterday, a 20-year veteran Federal law enforcement 
officer from the U.S. Border Patrol told the Washington 
Examiner he Is demoralized because Republicans in Congress are 
abandoning his agency and forcing it to fend for itself. The 
agent, a registered Republican, told the reporter that 
Republicans are now, quote, ``sheep in wolves' clothing,'' and 
that their inaction and passivity is akin to leaving a soldier 
in the midst of an ambush.
    When Trump was President, his policies put kids in cages, 
and his officials illegally spent appropriated Federal dollars 
meant to provide care for vulnerable detainees on dog food and 
vision night goggles. We should take him at his word when he 
threatens further inhumane action and when he walks away from 
serious bipartisan legislation. To fix immigration, Congress 
needs to address it from the roots.
    As our witness, Mr. Houser, stated, this problem neither 
starts nor ends at the border. People who migrate to the border 
do so at great peril. The question is, why? What are they 
fleeing, and how can we be part of a solution that prevents 
them from having to make that deadly choice in the first place?
    I want to restate that we are ready to craft serious 
bipartisan humane policy solutions, the kind that Democrats and 
Republicans came up with in the Senate. We hope the House 
Republicans will remove themselves from the spell of Donald 
Trump and join us in doing serious legislation instead of just 
blowing everything up, and we hope that they decide to go this 
way fast.
    We have 3 legislative days before the government completely 
runs out of funding. And under our friends in the GOP, we have 
just been lurching from crisis to crisis. ICE is so strapped 
for cash, it is forced to make extremely difficult decisions 
right now. Let us do our jobs, let us get together, and let us 
get serious for the American people. I yield back. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
    First of all, before kind of my wrap up, I would like to 
respond to this idea that Donald Trump is behind the actions of 
the Republican Party. I have never talked to Donald Trump--I 
have not talked to Donald Trump in over 2 years. I think 
anybody who sees the bipartisan solution will realize that 
bipartisan solution will do a fraction of getting us back to 
where we were 2 years ago.
    We have seen an increase in the number of people being 
allowed in this country over the last 2-1/2 years, from 20,000 
to 370,000, which is intolerable. We have heard testimony today 
that we do not even have to negotiate something in Congress to 
end that. President Biden can, whenever he wants, either for 
health reasons or just as his general powers as described under 
the Supreme Court--he has the ability to close the border and 
stop that tomorrow.
    We heard interesting testimony today that as far as the 
people coming here, and we should not be taking unlimited 
people regardless, but the people coming here are committing 
crimes at a much greater rate than the native-born population. 
The Biden Administration is doing very little compared to past 
administrations to remove people after they commit crimes, 
including violent crimes, including sexual assaults to young 
women. But again, the number of people deported for committing 
crimes after they are here, a fraction of what they used to be.
    We heard from Ms. Vaughan that we have people taking 
advantage of public benefits, that is to say welfare-type 
programs, despite the fact that they are not supposed to be 
able. This is not a surprise to anybody who talks to their 
local social services department, talks to people, even people 
who hire illegal immigrants will tell you stories of them 
taking advantage of our welfare benefits, which is a problem.
    As far as minors are concerned, I think under the Biden 
Administration we are having about 9,000 minors a year, 
unaccompanied by either parent. They are escorted into this 
country. I think it is absolutely appalling. If we had an 
American child lost somewhere, the police would, you know, 
track down the parents, deliver them to the parents, make sure 
that child is safe. Here we have 9,000 kids a month come here 
without either parent. We do not make an effort to track down 
the parents after we give them to a sponsor. Who knows what is 
becoming of them.
    The New York Times has reported over 80,000 kids missing. I 
do not believe that number, but I bet 30,000 to 40,000 
unaccompanied minors they cannot keep track of. So, if we do 
not solve this problem, it is a grim problem. I am still hoping 
the Biden Administration will wake up and do some serious 
negotiations as far as holding down this amount.
    I think the press has done a bad job of asking him 
questions. I personally would like to ask President Biden--we 
are right now up to 370,000 a month from 20,000 a month--how 
many people does he exactly feel it is appropriate to let into 
this country un-vetted? I would like to know that. Nobody asks 
him that question. Nobody nails him down on what we should do 
when people who commit serious violent crimes who are not from 
this country, should we deport them or not? And as a result, we 
continue to have this crisis at the border. I personally do not 
think we even allow it to go another 12 months until the next 
President--or 11 months until the next President is sworn in.
    But in any event, I would like to thank all three of you 
for being here. I know----
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Grothman. I was also--I was going to say one other 
thing. With that and without objection, all Members have 5 
legislative days within which to submit materials and 
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses.
    If there is no further business, without objection, I want 
to thank you for coming here all the way from South Carolina.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, I was just going to submit one 
thing for the record----
    Mr. Grothman. Oh, sure.
    Mr. Raskin [continuing]. By unanimous consent, which I 
guess means your consent, but it should be pleasing to you. It 
is from the Cato Institute. It is a recent report called, ``New 
Data Show Migrants Were More Likely to Be Released by Trump 
Than Biden.'' If that could be----
    Mr. Grothman. Sure.
    Mr. Raskin. Great.
    Mr. Grothman. If there is no further--oh, first of all, I 
accept that.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:44 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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