[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE COST OF THE BORDER CRISIS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
----------
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 8, 2024
----------
Serial No. 118-13
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
THE COST OF THE BORDER CRISIS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 8, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-13
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on the Internet:
www.govinfo.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-834 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
JODEY C. ARRINGTON, Texas, Chairman
RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania,
TOM McCLINTOCK, California Ranking Member
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia SCOTT H. PETERS, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia BARBARA LEE, California
BOB GOOD, Virginia LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan JIMMY PANETTA, California
A. DREW FERGUSON IV, Georgia JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
CHIP ROY, Texas SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota,
DAVID G. VALADAO, California Vice Ranking Member
RON ESTES, Kansas DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan BECCA BALINT, Vermont
MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
RUDY YAKYM III, Indiana Virginia
JOSH BRECHEEN, Oklahoma ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina
Professional Staff
Gary Andres, Staff Director
Greg Waring, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held in Washington, D.C., May 8, 2024.................... 1
Hon. Jodey C. Arrington, Chairman, Committee on the Budget... 1
Prepared Statement of.................................... 4
Hon. Brendan F. Boyle, Ranking Member, Committee on the
Budget..................................................... 6
Prepared Statement of.................................... 8
Ms. Julie Kirchner, Executive Director, Federation for
American Immigration Reform................................ 11
Prepared Statement of.................................... 13
Mr. Ammon Blair, Senior Fellow, Texas Public Policy
Foundation's ``Secure and Sovereign Texas'' Initiative..... 107
Prepared Statement of.................................... 109
Mr. Ammon Blair, Senior Fellow, Texas Public Policy
Foundation's ``Secure and Sovereign Texas'' Initiative,
submissions for the record................................. 130
Mr. Brent Smith, Kinney County Attorney, Texas............... 460
Prepared Statement of.................................... 462
Mr. Brent Smith, Kinney County Attorney, Texas, submission
for the record............................................. 464
Mr. David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies, Cato
Institute.................................................. 465
Prepared Statement of.................................... 467
Hon. Glenn Grothman, Member, Committee on the Budget,
submission for the record.................................. 485
Hon. Glenn Grothman, Member, Committee on the Budget,
submission for the record.................................. 533
Hon. Bob Good, Member, Committee on the Budget, submission
for the record............................................. 541
Hon. Jack Bergman, Member, Committee on the Budget,
submission for the record.................................. 548
Hon. Rudy Yakym III, Member, Committee on the Budget,
submission for the record.................................. 565
Hon. Ilhan Omar, Vice Ranking Member, Committee on the
Budget, submission for the record.......................... 570
Hon. Chip Roy, Member, Committee on the Budget, submission
for the record............................................. 579
Hon. Jodey C. Arrington, Chairman, Committee on the Budget,
submissions for the record................................. 645
Questions submitted for the record........................... 743
Answers submitted for the record............................. 745
THE COST OF THE BORDER CRISIS
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2024
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Budget,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room
210, Cannon Building, Hon. Jodey Arrington [Chairman of the
Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Arrington, McClintock, Grothman,
Smucker, Carter, Cline, Good, Bergman, Roy, Moore, Valadao,
Estes, McClain, Fischbach, Yakym, Brecheen, Edwards, Boyle,
Schakowsky, Kildee, Peters, Doggett, Panetta, Omar, Balint, and
Espaillat.
Chairman Arrington. This hearing will come to order.
Welcome to the Committee on the Budget's hearing on the cost of
the current border crisis. I would like to welcome our panel of
expert witnesses, Ms. Julie Kirchner, the Executive Director of
the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Mr. Ammon
Blair, Senior Fellow for the Texas Public Policy Foundation's
``Secure and Sovereign Texas'' Initiative. Mr. Brent Smith from
Kinney County. He's the Kinney County Attorney there in West
Texas. It shares 17 miles of border with Mexico located between
Del Rio and Eagle Pass for those of you who are familiar with
the great State of Texas, and then of course, we have Mr. David
Bier, the Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato
Institute. Lady, gentlemen, welcome to the hearing.
I am going to make an opening statement. I yield as much
time as I may need. I will try to just talk through this a
little bit. The American people, I think, at this point are as
familiar on this issue as any with respect to the wide-open
borders in the United States and the epic humanitarian disaster
that has ensued as a result, and the greatest national security
threat to the American people is posed by these open borders.
So, the social cost, I think, has been well in front of the
American people consistently, but I don't think we have talked
enough about the financial burden to taxpayers and the fiscal
impact. FAIR has done a great job. I have seen studies that
suggest this cost is upward of $400 billion. Their cost
estimate is at $150 billion. The lion's share of that cost is
borne by state and local governments, and friends, state and
local governments cannot borrow or print money like the Federal
Government, and so, they are having to balance their budgets by
either absorbing this cost through raising taxes or they are
having to cut services to their citizens. The $150 billion,
when you look at the 22 million people that are estimated to be
in this country illegally comes out to about $9,000, tax
dollars per illegal immigrant.
So, I want you to listen. I want everybody to listen to
this stat, $9,000 roughly per illegal immigrant that taxpayers
are fronting. That is more than we spend per Medicaid
beneficiary. That is more than we spend on the most vulnerable
American citizen for their health care. That is more than we
spend for our heroes, our veterans in the way of military
retirement benefits. So, I think for everyone, this should be
unacceptable. I believe it is quite avoidable, but this is the
real and significant, and at the state and local levels,
especially, unsustainable cost of the current border crisis.
Texas, in my home state alone, we have spent over $13
billion which is about $4,500 per illegal immigrant in Texas.
Just to give you an example or a sample list of services we are
providing for people who are here illegally, it is about $3
billion extra dollars for Head Start. At the state level, it is
$70 billion across the United States for public education, and
states have a very difficult time prioritizing and investing in
public education because of the cost of health care, and now
the cost of illegal immigration. You look at criminal justice,
it is about $12 billion extra in criminal justice costs across
the United States, tens of billions of dollars in uncompensated
care at hospitals.
We talk all the time as a Committee about how health care
costs are driving our deficits and national debt. Medicare
alone is a trillion dollars, and that will double over the next
ten years, and we have got tremendous cost, and that is not to
even consider the crowding out of our citizens who are in need
for these spaces and hospitals, seats for our students in their
schools. So, it is real and we have quantified it, and I am
grateful for the work of FAIR.
I think I would say at a time when we have record deficits,
the highest level of indebtedness in our Nation's history,
surpassing a time of war when we are in relative peace and
prosperity, at a time when our fellow Americans are spending
now about $1,300 more a month because of the inflation tax,
where we are looking at an economy teetering on recession, we
have seen inflation uptick the last month. We saw the first
quarter GDP not even get half of its expectation. I am
concerned about it, but then you are going to add $150 billion
in unnecessary cost because of illegal immigration.
Now, let me say something, and I am done about CBO. CBO
talks about the benefits of immigration, and let me be clear.
We need legal immigration. Legal immigration is a hallmark of
the American experiment, the new blood, hungry for opportunity
and freedom and the American dream. There is nothing more
American than that. There is nothing more un-American than
lawlessness and chaos and the lack of respect for rule of law.
That is all I am trying to contrast here, but here's what CBO
does, and it ticks me off, actually. They take into
consideration some of the benefits of illegal immigration in
terms of jobs filled and revenue as a result, and some taxes
paid, by the way. That $150 billion is the net after we back
out about $30 billion in taxes. What I would like to submit to
my colleagues is that CBO, in order to do their job, to provide
the full picture and accurate information for us as lawmakers,
to make the decisions and value judgments, is to have the full
net cost, and that is, that $150 billion is in no CBO analysis
whatsoever, but the benefits are. Seems a little odd to me,
seems biased to me, and I am going to make sure as long as I am
Chairman, that that full picture is represented so my Democrat
colleagues and my Republican colleagues and us as a Committee
can just deal with the facts and make decisions, and act
accordingly.
With that, I appreciate you, again, witnesses, taking time
to provide your counsel and insight at this very important
hearing, and I am going to turn it over to my friend and
Ranking Member, Mr. Boyle.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Arrington follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Boyle. Well, thank you Mr. Chairman, and like you, I
thank the witnesses for taking time to be here today out of
your busy schedules. I want to do a few things in my opening
remarks. First is to make clear how proud I am that we are, as
President Kennedy once wrote in his book, a nation of
immigrants. More than 90 percent of the American people, myself
included, are descendants of immigrants. In my case, it is my
father who came here from Ireland when he was 19 years old,
looking for economic opportunity, as well as my mother's
parents who sailed here on the SS George Washington right after
the second World War. Their story is like millions and millions
of American families who worked hard, played by the rules, and
in doing so were able to provide more opportunities for their
children than they had themselves. My family has been able to
live the American dream.
And you know, if you go back to the very beginning of the
nation, almost 250 years ago in my district at Independence
Hall in Philadelphia, if at that time you had said, you know,
we are going to build a new country, but we are not going to
build it of the elite or the affluent of Europe or any great
power, no, this new country on this continent is going to be
comprised by those who are on the bottom rungs of the ladder in
societies where they come from, and we are also going to add on
to that slavery and build the nation with slaves and then
descendants of slaves, and oh, by the way, that nation is going
to go on to become the wealthiest, most powerful and greatest
nation in the history of the planet. Would you really have
believed if one of our founders said that to you in the late
18th century? But that is who we are as Americans.
And I know there is a lot of rhetoric going around right
now about immigrants and I am not accusing the Chair of
participating in this, but there are some who irresponsibly
delve into the bashing of immigrants. Unfortunately, that has
also been around as long as the American Republic. Well, it was
wrong then and it is wrong now.
So, to be clear, I am proud that we are a nation of
immigrants. As the Congressional Budget Office has verified,
immigration will add $7 trillion to our economy and lead to an
additional $1 trillion in tax revenue over the next decade.
Those countries and economies that are shrinking, particularly
in Western Europe, wish they had the benefit of America's
immigrants. It is sometimes said that America has an
immigration problem. The countries that have an immigration
problem are those countries to which no one wants to go.
America does not have an immigration problem.
We do, however, let me be clear, currently have a real
challenge on our southern border. No, this did not begin in
this administration or the last several years. It actually
began about 20 years ago during the George W. Bush
Administration. 2004/2005 is when we first began to see a real
surge at the southern border. Our peak year before COVID was
2019, a fact that some like to forget. Of course, once we hit
March 2020, we had a dramatic drop of crossings at our southern
border. Once the pandemic ended and America's economic, robust
economy returned we have seen that surge reoccur.
So, we admit, there is bipartisan agreement, I think
widespread agreement across America, we have a particular
problem at our southern border of illegal crossings. Now, some
months ago, actually last September, President Biden and Senate
Democrats worked with Senate Republicans, and over months and
months of negotiations that were very difficult, in good faith,
a bipartisan agreement was reached. It would have been the
toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in two
generations. It would have provided $20 billion for border
security, hired 1500 new CBP officers, and funded more than 100
additional immigration judges. That way, those claiming asylum
could have had their cases heard right there, and the
overwhelming majority of asylum cases tend to be rejected, and
in those cases, those folks would have been returned to their
country of origin.
It also would have provided the machinery that we need for
better detection of fentanyl at ports of entry, a specific
concern of mine. It would have given the President new
authority to go after fentanyl traffickers, some of the worst
of the worst, and it would have expanded legal pathways for
migrants to work and support their families, those who are
following the rules.
But what happened? Unfortunately, more than a few
Republicans were more concerned with doing Donald Trump's
bidding than they were concerned about fixing the problem.
Donald Trump didn't want the border fixed because he wanted the
issue. Now, don't take my word for it. Let us see what the
leader of the Senate Republicans said, and I will quote him.
That is Mitch McConnell. He said, ``Trump didn't seem to want
us to do anything at all.'' Another Republican Senator said
Trump, ``Doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he
wants to blame Biden for it.''
So, to quickly recap, step one, Republicans demanded a
border deal. Step two, they negotiated a border deal. Step
three, when Trump ordered them to, they killed that border
deal, and finally, step four, here we are holding a hearing
about how bad the border is. It is time to stop playing
politics with this very important issue. Let us actually,
finally get back to a bipartisan solution to fix this American
challenge, and with that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ranking Member Boyle follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, and in the interest of time, if any other Member
has an opening statement, I ask you to submit it for the
record. We will hold the record open to the end of the day to
accommodate those Members who may not yet have prepared written
statements.
Once again, I would like to thank the witnesses for their
time. The Committee has received your written statements. They
will be made part of the formal record. You will each have five
minutes to deliver your oral remarks. Ms. Kirchner, I yield
five minutes to you.
STATEMENT OF JULIE KIRCHNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FEDERATION FOR
AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM
Ms. Kirchner. Thank you. Chairman Arrington, Members of the
Committee, thank you for inviting me to speak today on the
impact the border crisis is having on our nation. My name is
Julie Kirschner, and I am the Executive Director of FAIR, the
Federation for American Immigration Reform. With 45 years of
experience and expertise, FAIR is a national nonprofit that
seeks to educate Americans on the impact of mass immigration
and to advocate for policies that serve our national interests.
For over three years now, Americans have been watching an
unprecedented crisis unfold at our borders. So many illegal
aliens are arriving that our immigration system is beginning to
collapse under its own weight. The chaos is imposing record
costs on Americans. Last year, FAIR published a report entitled
the Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States
Taxpayers. The study strives to illustrate the myriad of ways
Americans pay for illegal immigration.
Our estimate, which we believe is a conservative one, is
that Americans now pay $150.7 billion annually due to illegal
immigration. This figure represents a net cost. In terms of
gross expenditures, we estimate that Americans pay $182
billion. Then, approximately $31 billion is received in taxes
from illegal aliens, only 17 percent of the costs they create.
The high cost of illegal immigration is due to several
factors. First, because illegal aliens usually have low
incomes, those who do pay taxes pay little, if anything.
Second, illegal aliens incur significant costs to the taxpayer
on a daily basis because public services such as policing, K-12
education, and emergency services are provided universally.
Further, due to loose eligibility criteria, intentional and
otherwise, many illegal aliens receive benefits from Federal
and state programs despite the fact that they have no legal
status.
The majority of costs are incurred at the state and local
level. The predominant cost for states is K-12 education. We
estimate it costs Americans roughly $70 billion each year to
educate children who either have no legal status or who are the
U.S. born children of illegal aliens. The second highest cost
to states is medical expenditures, which we estimate to be
approximately $22 billion annually.
The impact of the border crisis is being felt acutely in
both border states and destination states. We can look to New
York City as a good example where over 180,000 migrants have
settled and 30,000 migrant children have enrolled in New York
City public schools. Mayor Eric Adams now anticipates the
border crisis will cost $10.6 billion through the summer of
2025. The situation is being replicated in cities across the
country, and these local costs for food and shelter and other
costs that are not well documented are not incorporated into
our report. This means that taxpayers are paying much more than
we estimate.
But Americans need not be paying billions of dollars as a
result of illegal immigration. This is a manmade crisis. From
the moment the Biden Administration took office, it tore down
all programs and policies designed to deter illegal immigration
and began to release illegal aliens en masse. The Biden
Administration has also proactively taken steps to help illegal
aliens obtain benefits. This has been accomplished through a
variety of means, but in particular, through illegal parole
programs and the retroactive granting of temporary protected
status.
Let us examine the administration's parole program for
Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Many people
don't realize that this program has an immediate and
significant cost to taxpayers. Upon being paroled into the
United States, these aliens, who have no legal status,
immediately become eligible for work permits, Social Security
numbers, Obamacare, and will be able to attain valuable tax
credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the additional
Child Tax Credit.
On top of that, parolees are eligible for Federal benefits
on the same terms as legal permanent residents. That means
after a five-year waiting period, they may receive benefits
under all the major Federal benefits programs: Medicaid, Social
Security, Supplemental Security Income, Food Stamps, Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families, and Federal Student Aid, and
that is assuming they otherwise qualify. For Cubans and
Haitians, however, the five-year waiting period is waived,
waived by statute. So, that means that Cubans and Haitian
nationals brought to the U.S. through the President's parole
program are immediately eligible to receive all Federal
benefits. This happens before they even file a tax return and
despite the fact that they have no legal status.
Members of the Committee, over the past three years,
between nine to ten million illegal aliens have been
encountered at our borders. On top of that, approximately 1.8
million illegal aliens are counted as gotaways, and there is no
end in sight.
If we do not reverse course now, if we do not change our
current policies, the numbers will only grow and the costs will
only increase.
Thank you, sir.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Ms. Kirchner. Now, we will
yield five minutes to Mr. Blair for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF AMMON BLAIR, SENIOR FELLOW, TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY
FOUNDATION'S ``SECURE AND SOVEREIGN TEXAS'' INITIATIVE
Mr. Blair. All right. Dear Chairman Arrington, Ranking
Member Boyle, and distinguished Members of the Committee, good
morning and thank you for inviting me to testify before you.
As a Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, I
bring 22 years of military experience and a deep understanding
of border security, for my time in the Army and U.S. Border
Patrol. My roles have ranged from Infantry Officer in Operation
Lone Star, to Collateral Intelligence Agent, and also Marine
Border Patrol agent.
Today, we stand at a pivotal moment in the history of
Texas, facing unprecedented challenges that threaten the very
fabric of our state and nation. Texas shares 1,254 miles of
border with a failing state, besieged by an authoritarian
regime that not only sponsors terrorism, but also allows
cartels to wield a spectrum of warfare, undermining the rule of
law and jeopardizing the safety of our communities.
The Mexican cartels are foreign terrorist organizations and
have extended their nefarious operations beyond the border,
infiltrating every major city and many towns across Texas. The
threats we face are not isolated. They are intricately linked
to global adversaries, including state actors like China,
Russia, and Iran, and non-state entities such as Hezbollah,
Hamas, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua. For example, the Chinese
Communist Party has weaponized the Mexican cartels and used
them as proxies in their drug warfare on American society. The
CCP is supplying the cartels with precursor chemicals and
synthetic drugs such as fentanyl. The Mexican cartels have
built a silk road from Mexico across the border and into every
state, county, and community in the United States, enabling the
CCP's insidious strategy of drug warfare.
The Federal Government's deliberate inaction to counter the
national security threats has not only exacerbated the border
crisis, but the Federal Government is actively weaponizing mass
migration and disinformation to erode the very foundations of
our sovereignty and stability. This manufactured humanitarian
catastrophe has overwhelmed the Federal agencies, leaving them
unable to fulfill their primary mandate of protecting the
American people.
As a result, Texas has been left to fend for itself against
an unrelenting invasion of complex and evolving threats that
threaten the fabric of our society. The Federal Government has
broken the compact between the United States and the states.
The Executive Branch has a constitutional duty to enforce
Federal laws protecting states, but it has failed to do so. The
Preamble of the Constitution outlines the chief responsibility
of the Federal Government to ensure domestic tranquility and
provide for the common defense. Article IV, Section 4 provides
``the United States shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a Republican Form of Government and shall protect each of
them against an Invasion.''
Despite these clear mandates, the Biden Administration has
not only failed to secure our borders, but has actively
undermined the efforts of states, like Texas, to protect their
citizens. The administration's unlawful and unconstitutional
commitment to the U.N.'s global compact for safe, orderly, and
regular migration prioritizes humane migration over the rule of
law.
Recently, a total of more than $7.4 billion in U.S. tax
dollars has been allocated to the State Department for
Migration and Refugee Assistance in Fiscal Year 2024. This
staggering sum highlights the administration's misplaced
priorities, focusing on facilitating mass migration rather than
securing our borders and protecting our citizens, all funded by
Congress.
The Department of Homeland Security has neglected its
primary mission, as outlined in the Homeland Security Act of
2002. By prioritizing the facilitation of weaponized migration
and importation of millions of foreign nationals into the U.S.,
DHS has failed to secure the border. DHS's own definition of
security is as follows. The collective use of programs, plans,
procedures designed to protect the nation's citizenry and
infrastructures from malevolent attack and ensuring the
continuation of normal operations.
For these reasons, Governor Abbott has declared an invasion
under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3, to invoke Texas
constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. The
consequences of DHS's failure are evident in the staggering
data on opioid and drug epidemics impact on Texas.
Just this week, Austin Travis County Emergency Medical
Services responded to a total of 75 overdose cases from Monday
to Wednesday evening this week, resulting in nine overdose
deaths. Typically, the county only sees two to three overdose
deaths a day.
Our economic impact, $50.1 billion each year towards the
opioid crisis. Hospitals are facing $202-per-capita of costs
associated with this and those with the loss of life, $706-per-
capita of cost. The fact that this same Federal Government acts
more forcefully now against Texas than it ever has against the
Mexican cartels and the border security crisis tells you that
everything you need to know about what we face today, we don't
just have a crisis at the border, we also have a crisis of
constitutional governance.
In closing, I implore this body to commit to the utmost
priority of protecting our citizens. The future of our great
nation depends on our focus against this common enemy. May
history remember this day as the essential moment when our
nation united to end the Mexican cartels, all national security
threats emanating from the border, protecting American
citizens, and secure a brighter future for generations to come.
Thank you, and I look forward to addressing your questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Mr. Blair. Now we will yield
five minutes to the pride of Kinney County, Texas, my friend,
Mr. Brent Smith.
STATEMENT OF BRENT SMITH, KINNEY COUNTY ATTORNEY, TEXAS
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Members, for holding this hearing.
President Reagan once said, ``A nation that cannot control its
borders is not a nation.'' As I sit before you today, I can
attest to the fact that we no longer have control of our
borders. We have surrendered it to criminal cartels, and in
doing so, have jeopardized our own national security. To give
this topic the importance it deserves, one might argue that
this hearing should take place in the banks of the Rio Grande.
While doing so would jeopardize the personal safety of each one
here, it would at least provide this Committee with a firsthand
experience of what Texans are living like every day.
Kinney County shares 17 miles of border with Mexico and is
located between Del Rio and Eagle Pass. While the jurisdiction
of my office may be limited geographically to Kinney County,
you can be certain that the facts of my testimony expand well
beyond its borders and apply to every county along our southern
border with Mexico.
For Texas, living on the border, words cannot adequately
describe the conditions on the ground. Our homes are being
broken into in the middle of the night. The main street of our
small towns are now places of high-speed car chases with cartel
smugglers. Walking outside on your own property after dark is
no longer safe. To put it plainly, Texans no longer enjoy the
safety and security of a sovereign border.
Kinney County has a population of only 3,200 residents,
most of whom are farmers and ranchers.
In the year 2020, the county reported 134 criminal charges
for prosecution. This drastically changed in 2021 after
President Biden issued multiple executive orders revoking
numerous border security policies that DHS was operating under
to successfully secure our border. Shortly thereafter, criminal
cartels seized control of our border and imposed their own
policies that would allow their criminal enterprises to thrive.
In 2021, the number of criminal charges increased from 134
during the previous year to 2,708 in one year. In 2022, this
number exploded once again to 6,800 criminal charges in the
county. In 2023, there was 5,826 criminal charges, all
beginning at 134.
Kinney County normally operates within a $6 million annual
budget. However, the open border policies enacted by the Biden
Administration has required the county to significantly expand
the capacities of our local criminal justice system, costing
Texas taxpayers an additional $10.5 million. Perhaps, however,
the most significant cost that we have sustained during this
border crisis is the loss of the safety and security we once
enjoyed as Americans. In order to protect the safety of
students attending the public school from the threat posed by
high-speed car chases with cartel smugglers, the school
administration was forced to erect military-style vehicle
barricades around its own campus. On at least one occasion, the
smuggled occupants of a vehicle breached these barriers on foot
and attempted to enter the school while the campus was on
lockdown. In another incident, a county resident was forced off
the highway during her commute to work when a human smuggler
shot her vehicle multiple times in an effort to avoid capture
by law enforcement. This resident was forced to quit her job
due to the danger she subjected herself to by simply commuting
to work.
The unmistakable sound of a helicopter in flight in Kinney
County now causes families to bring their children inside the
home and shelter in place until law enforcement gives an all
clear. What dollar amount do you assign to the loss of safety
and security? I am not certain, but I do know the cost is very
high.
In an effort to provide adequate warning to residents of an
ongoing law enforcement pursuit, a county wide text alert
system has been in place, which undoubtedly has saved many
lives. Even with such proactive measures in place, two tax-
paying residents have died because emergency medical services
were not available when they were needed the most. On both
occasions, all available paramedics were deployed to human
smuggling events miles away and were unable to respond to the
county resident. This is a clear example of how an open border
policy has deadly consequences for Americans across this
nation.
The violence and lawlessness occurring on our border is not
sustainable for any sovereign nation, let alone a Texas county
comprised of 3,200 citizens. Make no mistake, the willful
neglect of this administration's refusal to enforce the laws of
our nation have compromised the safety and security of not only
Texans, but every American. Texans should not have to bear the
financial burden of securing the border while this
administration actively undermines our efforts to protect our
own citizens. However, we have a sacred duty to preserve those
liberties we inherited from others who paid the ultimate price.
Texans have never backed down from a fight, and we will not
begin to do so now.
Thank you.
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Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and
now yield five minutes to Mr. Bier. I am sorry I mispronounced
your name earlier. Bier flows, rolls off the tongue, as a
Texan, a lot easier than Bier. So, it is Bier, right?
Mr. Bier. That is right. Thank you.
Chairman Arrington. Okay, Mr. Bier, you have five minutes.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DAVID BIER, DIRECTOR OF IMMIGRATION STUDIES, CATO
INSTITUTE
Mr. Bier. Chairman Arrington, Ranking Member Boyle, and
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify.
For nearly half a century, the Cato Institute has produced
original research showing that free markets and individual
liberty make the United States a wealthier, safer, and freer
country. In a free society, markets incentivize people to
contribute to the welfare of others. Thanks to freedom, America
isn't a fixed pie. It is a growing one. It is exactly for these
reasons that so many people from around the world come here,
and for these same reasons, we should let them come legally.
America has never needed immigrant workers like it needs
them now. Population growth is down 90 percent from its
historic highs. America's nine million open jobs are costing
the U.S. economy more than a half a trillion dollars in
economic output per year, and we need immigrants to fill them.
The U.S. prime age employment rate is already at near record
highs, and more Americans are retiring than entering the job
market. As a result, 100 percent of labor force growth is now
coming from immigrants.
The Congressional Budget Office just found that the recent
increase in immigration, almost entirely, unfortunately, from
illegal immigration, will increase the size of the economy by
$7 trillion, increase tax revenues by $1 trillion, and cut
deficits by about a trillion over a decade. The National
Academy of Sciences seminal 2017 report on the fiscal effects
of immigration on Federal, State, and local finances found that
immigrants reduce deficits both in the short and long term.
Last year, Cato published a 250-page update of that report
and found that immigrants pay $1 trillion in taxes, $300
billion more than they receive in benefits. Even low-skilled
immigrants who arrive early enough in their careers are
fiscally positive in the long term. Studies that claim to find
otherwise simply ignore most of the direct and indirect
revenues that immigrants create.
Of course, every immigrant is not always and everywhere
fiscally positive, but the big picture is clear. Immigrants are
makers, not takers.
Congress should be exploring how to permit immigration in a
lawful and orderly way to maximize these potential benefits.
Unfortunately, America is benefiting from immigration in spite
of Congress's dysfunctional legal immigration system, which was
last updated in 1990. Backlogs and delays are now so extreme
that literally in any other area of law, there would be daily
hearings and investigations about them.
Just three percent of the applicants for legal permanent
residence this year will be approved. Most of the people who
are currently applying for legal permanent residence will die
before they or their family members have the opportunity to
immigrate legally.
Our legal immigration system is mostly ignored here, but
its message that the way to come is to come illegally, is heard
around the world. As long as we continue to proclaim this
message, we will continue to incur some costs related to
illegal entries. The only way to change the message is to
change the law. That may be hard, but if we start with the
accurate premise that these immigrants can be contributors, we
can skip the contentious arguments over how to keep out
everyone who is trying to come here and focus on the solvable
issue of how they can come legally and contribute.
Free Border Patrol to keep out real threats. Let people not
be forced to hand over their life savings to cartels. Let them
line up transportation, housing, and jobs in advance of their
arrival. Let them come legally, and if you don't want them to
have any welfare benefits, I am fine with that.
Fixing immigration only requires faith in America, in our
markets, in our constitution, in our freedom, and if you ever
lack that faith, talk to those who are Americans by choice.
Immigrants will tell you that they believe in America. We
should listen.
Thank you.
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Chairman Arrington. Mr. Bier, thank you for your comments.
We are going to move to the Q and A portion and I am going to
yield five minutes to start us off, and I just want to respond
to some of your comments because I believe in free people, free
markets, and free and sovereign states.
Freedom without security is complete anarchy. Freedom
without rule of law is chaos, and so, there are things we can
do, and I agree with you, there are places that are broken that
should be fixed within the immigration framework in our laws,
and there is no doubt there are ways to do that, even on a
bipartisan basis.
But when the President of the United States on his first
day repeals and rescinds remain in Mexico and interior
enforcement and holding sanctuary cities accountable for
enabling illegal immigration, when that happens on day one, and
then 93 other executive actions within the first hundred days
to unravel the programs that were effective in reducing illegal
immigration and effectively securing our border, that looks
like a willful and intentional act to create chaos.
So, yes, there are ways to fix the current system, but I
can't accept the fact that the President of the United States,
through this Section 212(f), which is the broadest of
authorities I know of, it says, if you, Mr. President, think
this is in the interest of the United States to turn anyone
around for any reason, you can do that.
Mr. Bier. Can I ask, where do we go from here?
Chairman Arrington. Well, where we go----
Mr. Bier. If not reform the system, where do we go from
here?
Chairman Arrington. Where we start is to do that which we
can with the authority and tools we have, and we saw very
clearly, very clearly in the last administration, where there
is a will, there is a way. Doesn't mean it is perfect, doesn't
mean there aren't things to fix, but you can't have, in the
last month of the Trump Administration, 1,000 a day, and then
this last December, 10,000 a day of people coming across
illegally.
To your point, if people think they can come illegally,
they will come. Just this week, President Biden and the
administration rolled out a rule to give $9 billion worth of
health care to people here illegally.
You get what you reward. You are an expert on free markets.
Incentives drive behavior. We are putting incentives out there
intentionally that are creating this, and there is a cost to
society, especially--and more so than the financial cost,--all
of the folks on the terrorist watch list, all of the drugs, all
of the crime and criminals, we are not vetting this, it is
pouring into our communities, and it is devastating. We need
freedom, but we need rule of law alongside of it, or we lose
the peace and tranquility we promise in the Constitution.
Mr. Bier. Well, we can have both, right? We can have both.
We don't have to choose between security and a legal
immigration system that works.
Chairman Arrington. This----
Mr. Bier. We don't have to choose.
Chairman Arrington. You are right.
Mr. Bier. They are compatible. In fact, they complement
each other.
Chairman Arrington. They do.
Mr. Bier. We have a legal immigration system that works and
there is going to be fewer people crossing. So, Border Patrol
is freed up----
Chairman Arrington. Do you think the President----
Mr. Bier [continuing]. To interdict the people.
Chairman Arrington. Do you think the President is doing
everything he can to create order and law at the border? And do
you think he is doing everything within his power to make sure
we have seamlessness at the border with respect to immigration?
Do you think----
Mr. Bier. I----
Chairman Arrington [continuing]. He is doing everything he
can?
Mr. Bier. I mean, all I can say is he has deported a lot of
people, far more people, even as a percentage of the people who
arrived, he deported more----
Chairman Arrington. That is absurd.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. In his first two years than the
other administration did in its last two years.
Chairman Arrington. Let me move on. Let me move on.
Mr. Bier. So, it has deported a lot of people.
Chairman Arrington. Yeah.
Mr. Bier. I don't think that is the answer. We got to get
back to----
Chairman Arrington. I think it is----
Mr. Bier [continuing]. The legal immigration system----
Chairman Arrington. For me, it is----
Mr. Bier [continuing]. Is the problem.
Chairman Arrington [continuing]. Intellectually dishonest,
to me, to sidestep a very simple question. Is this President
doing everything he can with the tools that he has, recognizing
there are things that we need to do?
Mr. Bier. There are other values at stake.
Chairman Arrington. I think the answer----
Mr. Bier. There are other values at stake. He could
separate----
Chairman Arrington. I think the answer is no.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. Children like the last
administration did.
Chairman Arrington. No.
Mr. Bier. Yes, he could do that. He shouldn't do that.
Chairman Arrington. Mr. Smith----
Mr. Bier. There are lines that you should respect.
Chairman Arrington. Mr. Smith, a deluge of crime coming
across the border--well, you know what, Mr. Blair, you were a
Border Patrol officer. Is this just a natural ebb and flow like
my Ranking Member suggested? Just a surge? A seasonal surge? Or
is it--let me----
Mr. Boyle. Just to clarify, this point I made.
Chairman Arrington. Okay.
Mr. Boyle. I didn't say seasonal surge. I mean, this is
obviously beyond a season. I mean, we have a unique problem of
three countries that have tremendous problems, the triangle
countries in Central America that are causing a large part of
this, but what I did say is this started a couple decades ago.
This has not just started the last couple of years.
Chairman Arrington. Okay, let me take off then on that, and
I don't want to mischaracterize you. Is this something that has
been going on for--when I say this, and this is my last
question, what we are experiencing now with the record flow of
migrants, the record flow of drugs, record migrant deaths,
record people on terrorist watchlists, is that something that
has been going on, as the Ranking Member suggests, for a decade
or so? Or is this a recent phenomenon as a result of this
administration's either policies, lack of leadership, et
cetera, willful or not? Where is the--is this a longer tale? Or
is this something as a consequence of the current
administration's policy?
Mr. Blair. Sure. To give you an example, let's look at the
Venezuelan issue. So, Venezuelans, in 2017, we had roughly
2,600 encounters, and then fast forward to 2023, we had 334,000
encounters. Now, you look at that. About eight million people
have fled Venezuela because of Hugo Chavez before, and then
also Maduro. Right? And so, at first, they were starting to go
to South American countries, but it wasn't until the current
administration's policies and procedures that allowed this to
actually happen, and that invited all the foreign nationals
from South America, regardless of what country of origin, to
our southern border.
So, you can see the numbers or the data right there to show
that this is not a natural occurrence. This is all by design,
and it has all been done through policies, through this
administration.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman, and now yield
five minutes to my Ranking Member, Mr. Boyle.
Mr. Boyle. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
turn to the witness from the Cato Institute. I would point out
Mr. Bier, now FAIR, F-A-I-R, the acronym, published a report on
the alleged burden of migration to the U.S. Mr. Bier, you have
over a decade of impressive experience in immigration studies.
Your work has been cited widely, including by the U.S. Supreme
Court. You have displayed your knowledge already here this
morning. So, with your background and knowledge and experience,
I would like you to take this opportunity to comment on the
FAIR report, their use of data in the report, and how the
methodology of the report may fail to capture the broader
context of immigration's economic benefit to the country.
Mr. Bier. Yeah. So, the FAIR report significantly
understates the tax benefits, expenditures, contributions of
immigrants. I mean, you look at the state tax revenues that
they calculate, it is 37 percent below what is in the census.
Current population survey data understates their federal income
tax by about 88 percent; understates their Medicare and Social
Security taxes by 62 percent. The discrepancies are so
enormous, you are left with the impression that they are just
inventing them, just like they invent the number of illegal
immigrants in their study. They say they are 15.5 million. They
just invented that number and then, so they can't use any of
the available census data.
FAIR counts the expenditures on education for U.S. born
children, for example, minor children, excludes all of the tax
payments from the adult children of immigrants in the United
States. Doing that alone cuts the total number of tax payments
in half, which they have already reduced by about two thirds.
And they, FAIR, they completely ignore tax incidents or
taxes that are indirectly the result of immigrants. So, they
have zero tax incidents for corporate taxes that are paid by
corporations who hire these workers. They have zero capital
income taxes that they attribute to immigrants working in the
United States. Research has shown that those changes just by
themselves can turn a low-skilled immigrant from dramatically
negative to fiscally positive if they arrive early enough in
their career.
Mr. Boyle. Well, thank you, and building off of that, I
would point out something directly relevant to this Committee,
the Budget Committee. We had an important set of economic data
or report released on Monday from the Trustees of Social
Security and Medicare trust funds, and we got tremendously good
news. Because of this economy performing much better than was
projected a year ago or a couple of years ago, the lifetime of
the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare have been
pushed out. That is good news that we all should cheer.
I was wondering, given this is a hearing on immigration,
what impact does immigration and immigrants have on Social
Security and Medicare Trust Funds?
Mr. Bier. Well, the Social Security Trust Fund report
directly says it. It is a result of increased labor force, and
the increased labor force results in more tax revenue to Social
Security. The report says that basically increasing from
829,000 to 1.7 million immigrants per year reduces the annual
burden of Social Security by 1.5 percent of taxable payroll,
over, by 2097, which is about $137 billion in today's term. So,
very significant impact on Social Security revenues in the long
term.
Mr. Boyle. Then finally, I wasn't planning on asking this,
but since we had a good back and forth and you had a good back
and forth with the Chairman, and I am going off memory here, so
please correct me if I am wrong, but my memory of this becoming
a really, I mean, of course, immigration has always been a hot-
button issue at different peaks in American history. The race
riots, the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing riots of the 1840s
happened in my district. They were so deadly, they actually,
that is what led to the creation of the Philadelphia Police
Department because of just how widespread and deadly they were.
So, this has been an ongoing story throughout American history.
But I really remember in my lifetime the question on the
southern border rising to a certain prominence right around
2005. That was when George W. Bush----
Mr. Bier. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Boyle [continuing]. Was working with John McCain and
Senator Kennedy. You had a surge in crossings then. You have
had different drops, but increases, and then obviously, we have
an enormous challenge now. So, if you could just walk me
through----
Mr. Bier. Sure.
Mr. Boyle [continuing]. Kind of the last 20 years.
Mr. Bier. Yeah.
Mr. Boyle. Is my recollection of this correct?
Mr. Bier. Yeah.
Mr. Boyle. I mean, this has been a multi-decade issue----
Mr. Bier. Yeah.
Mr. Boyle [continuing]. That unfortunately does continue to
get worse.
Mr. Bier. Look, the big difference between then and now is
who is arriving. So, Mexicans----
Mr. Boyle. Yeah.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. Were arriving. You had about two
million crossings in the border in the year 2000, but half of
the people made it through. They made it across the border.
This is according to estimates by the Department of Homeland
Security. So, the big difference now is more people turn
themselves in. They are from countries that are very difficult
to deport to, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, et cetera. Even the
Northern Triangle countries are far more difficult to deport to
than Mexico. So, you had far more evasions----
Mr. Boyle. Yeah.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. In the early 2000s. Now you have
more people seeking asylum, but the magnitude is nothing new to
Border Patrol. We actually had more overwhelmed Border Patrol
agents in the 2000s when you had the number of arrests
exceeding three per day per Border Patrol agent, which is, I
mean----
Mr. Boyle. Right.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. Totally unheard of today with 20,000
agents.
Mr. Boyle. Thank you.
Chairman Arrington. Thank you----
Mr. Boyle. I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the Ranking Member. I now yield
to Mr. McClintock from California for five minutes.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you, and Mr. Chairman, I need to
begin by noting the Democrats habit of discussing legal and
illegal immigrants as if they were the same. That is a supreme
insult to the millions of legal immigrants who enter our
country every year by obeying our laws. Legal immigrants come
here pledged to pull their weight, not to be a burden on
others, to obey our laws, and to love and defend our country.
Illegal immigrants come here under very different
circumstances. Their first act is to commit a Federal crime by
illegally entering our country. Their second act is to demand
free food, shelter, medical care, clothing, education,
transportation, and legal services. I have watched them at the
border taunting our Border Patrol as they illegally cross into
our country. To equate their lawless behavior with law abiding,
hardworking, and patriotic legal immigrants is outrageous, and
my colleagues who do so should be ashamed of themselves.
The Senate bill we heard the Ranking Member tout would make
it impossible for a future President to use his existing
authority to secure the border, as Trump did, until illegal
crossings exceed 4,000 a day, and as Border Patrol agents tell
us, the problem is not lack of laws. It is a deliberate
decision by the Democrats not to enforce those laws. Now, the
Democrats tell us, well, this is great for the economy, since
the more people in the economy, the larger it is. Well, duh,
but as the CBO Director testified to this Committee earlier
this year, the economic impact on working Americans is
catastrophic because it suppresses wages for unskilled and low-
skilled American workers, and it breeds an underground economy
that further suppresses the competitiveness of American
workers. So, working Americans see their wages stagnate as a
result, and many are forced out of the labor market entirely.
Ms. Kirchner, how do we help working Americans by flooding
the labor market with cheap, illegal labor?
Ms. Kirchner. We don't help them at all, and actually, if
we wanted to be kind to the previous generations of immigrants,
we would not flood the market with cheap labor. There is ample
evidence that it depresses wages.
Mr. McClintock. And the CBO Director actually confirmed
that right here before this Committee. You estimated the net
cost to U.S. taxpayers to be $150 billion to support these
illegals after deducting what little tax they pay. That
includes $70 billion in costs to our schools, does it not?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. McClintock. And $22 billion for medical care?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. McClintock. What do you think the Democrats would say
if Republicans proposed cutting $70 billion out of our schools
and $22 billion out of our hospitals? And yet, isn't that
exactly what they are doing?
Ms. Kirchner. Well, I wouldn't propose to put words in
anyone's mouth, but I do think that illegal immigration has
consequences, and we need to accept that as a nation, and we
need to make good policy decisions, and that means
understanding the real impact of what is going on and the costs
that are associated, not just the economic benefits, as you
said, of growing the greater economic pie, GDP, measuring
alone.
Mr. McClintock. By the way----
Ms. Kirchner. And everything is made up of choices. And if
you look----
Mr. McClintock. And your estimate of cost is just direct
cost to the government. It is not the cost of crimes committed
by illegals.
Ms. Kirchner. Exactly.
Mr. McClintock. It is not the cost of wage reductions for
working Americans.
Ms. Kirchner. Exactly.
Mr. McClintock. It is strictly direct cost.
Ms. Kirchner. It is a snapshot of payments----
Mr. McClintock. Well----
Ms. Kirchner [continuing]. And revenues.
Mr. McClintock [continuing]. The Democrats tell us that
illegal immigrants are more law abiding than Americans. Mr.
Smith, are the illegals entering your county more law abiding
than your legal residents?
Mr. Smith. Well, I can tell you from the numbers that I
quoted earlier, of those thousands of cases, we have about 50
county residents being prosecuted. The remaining is the result
of an open border, and I would just add that, you know, there
is a difference----
Mr. McClintock. I have got to go on. Ms. Kirchner, did you
not look at the scape request made by states for the cost of
incarcerating illegals and conclude that illegals are 231
percent more likely to be jailed for crimes in California, 440
percent more likely in New Jersey, and 60 percent more likely
in Texas?
Ms. Kirchner. I have not looked at the recent data, but I
know, and certainly in California, it is very high.
Mr. McClintock. In fact, in some cases, in some states like
California, they make it illegal to report immigration status
of suspects. So, using Cato's methodology, illegal aliens never
commit a crime in California?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, that is a problem, sir, and we do know
the truth. We know, and even, you know, what is interesting is
even the Biden Administration recently has been coming out and
saying, please, sanctuary cities, please honor our detainers.
We don't want to deport many people, but the people we want to
deport are very bad.
Mr. McClintock. I'm just going to finish by saying that
opposition to illegal immigration is not opposition to legal
immigration. In fact, the people I find who are the angriest
about illegal immigration are the legal immigrants who have
played by the rules, waited patiently in line, and are now
watching millions of illegal migrants cut in line in front of
them.
Ms. Kirchner. Absolutely.
Mr. McClintock. If we are going to encourage and reward
illegal immigration, which is the clear and consistent policy
of the Democrats today, then there is no point in legal
immigration. I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. The gentleman's time has expired, and
we now yield five minutes to the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms.
Schakowsky.
Mr. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate in
this Committee that there is actually some back and forth, even
at the start, and I want to say as a first generation American
myself, that I am very anxious to see and to talk most directly
about the positive aspect of immigration to this country. We
have heard about all the projections of the, was it $7 trillion
to our economy from immigrants and another trillion, you know,
that we are going to benefit or billions that we are going to--
oh, $1 trillion over a decade in money going into our own
budget.
But here is the thing that I am really struggling with. In
Chicago, we had a roundtable from employers and then immigrants
who want to work. Employers are desperate for workers right
now. We want to increase those numbers, and yet when you talk
to the immigrants and the migrants, and I have to many, I say,
what is it that you want from the United States? The number one
answer is a job, I want to work. The fact that we could boost
our economy if we had a better immigration process, a system,
we could do this as a Congress of the United States to make a
much more sensible one.
And I have to say to you, Mr. Blair, you are talking about
what goes on in Texas. I have to tell you, there are busloads
of people being put into cars and into trucks to come to my
city. These are people who are desperate. They have come across
this border and made it because they want a better life, and
you know what happens to them? They don't even know where they
are being sent to, and they are dropped off in places they have
never heard of. We lost a child on one of those trips. Often no
water given to them on the way from Texas to Chicago.
Who are we as a country right now, when these are people
who are coming here with every intention to do, to make this
country better, to have a safer place. These are human beings
and are not really treated that way by the governor that you
are touting right now for all the great work and the trauma.
And, you know, when we talk about the chaos, I think there
are people, including Donald Trump, who want the chaos to
continue, and what he has said, and I quote, that what
immigrants do is ``poison the blood of our country.'' How
awful. I am sorry.
I do want to talk to you, Mr. Bier, and if whatever time is
remaining, and we seem to be flexible in time around here, to
respond to the positive of what immigrants can do, and if we
don't have them, and I want to ask you, what if we had a mass
deportation, or if we were to stop immigration in the United
States, which some recommend, especially so called illegal
undocumented people, what would happen to our economy?
Mr. Bier. Well, it would be a massive contraction in our
economy. We would lose, over the next decade, about one percent
of our GDP would go away from just mass deportation of the
longtime illegal immigrant residents. Not even talking about
the ones who have come recently who are applying for asylum.
So, massive contraction in the economy, huge blow to employers,
a huge exodus of foreign direct investment into our economy,
because people aren't going to invest in an economy that has a
shrinking workforce. If you don't have workers here, you are
not going to be able to build factories here. You are not going
to be able to have farms here, and so, you are going to see
investment go offshore. You are going to see jobs go offshore.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me just ask, did employment help
prevent the economy going down in the United States?
Mr. Bier. Yes, absolutely. Without the immigrants that we
have had, we would have had a decline in our labor force since
December of 2020 or, sorry, December of 2019. So, yeah,
immigrants are the reason why gross domestic product and the
number of jobs has been increasing so significantly, and the
CBO report goes into great detail on that.
Chairman Arrington. The gentlelady's time has expired, and
we will now give five minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin,
Mr. Glenn Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you much. First of all, I would like to
make a unanimous consent request to submit the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services' final rule for CMS released
today that will lead to 100,000 new enrollees under the
Affordable Care Act at a cost of $7 billion.
Chairman Arrington. Without objection, so ordered.
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Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much. Now, Mr. Bier, at the
end there, you heard the testimony earlier today, the number of
freebies that are being given away, particularly in the parole
program from Haiti and Mexico, people immediately eligible, I
take it, for low-income housing, food stamps, medical care.
Does this concern you when we are giving away these amounts of
Earned Income Tax Credit, which I consider a horrible program
with all sorts of reverse incentives?
Mr. Bier. It is totally unnecessary. We could not spend
that money, rebate it to taxpayers. There is no reason why we
need to do this. If we don't want to spend the money, don't
spend the money, and I know you have a bill that would do just
that, but it is a choice. It is a choice and so far, all of the
immigration bills that have come out of the House of
Representatives, none of them have dealt with this issue. So,
it is an issue, but it is not one that changes the immigration
from----
Mr. Grothman. You are right. This is----
Mr. Bier. Good to bad.
Mr. Grothman. This is the best bill. You should talk to
Speaker Johnson on it when you go out the building. In a
hearing I was at a little while ago, someone testified that the
number of people in prisons in Venezuela has dropped 20 percent
over, I don't know, the last year or so, and apparently the
President of Venezuela himself has kind of bragged a little bit
that he is sending the criminal element here. Is that a
possible concern when you have anybody who wants coming across
the border instead of picking your immigrants?
Mr. Bier. Well, it is certainly a concern. That is why we
have Border Patrol to interdict those people and, of course,
screen them, and, you know, if they are a criminal threat, they
should be removed. I don't trust anything the Maduro government
says. So, whatever information you are getting from them, I
would question that.
Mr. Grothman. Well----
Mr. Bier. But you should, you should really take
information from a credible source, not from----
Mr. Grothman. Yeah.
Mr. Bier. A socialist government.
Mr. Grothman. I will point out, you understand that when
these people come across the southern border, we can try to
check and see if they have a criminal record in the U.S. and
Canada. There is no way to find out whether they have a
criminal record even from Mexico, much less from Venezuela or--
--
Mr. Bier. Well, almost none of the people come directly
from Venezuela. They spend time in these other countries where
we do have information sharing agreements. They are----
Mr. Grothman. Right.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. Getting their fingerprints checked
in Panama and all along the way. So, it is a concern. We should
obviously have strict security and make sure that we are
vetting people, but the idea that this turns it from, oh, we
have to keep out every Venezuelan from the United States is not
true.
Mr. Grothman. No, no, I----
Mr. Bier. Venezuelans have a much lower incarceration rate
in the United States than U.S. born persons do, according to
the American Community Survey. So, the idea that we need to
just ban an entire nationality because there are some
uncertainties here is just not a reasonable conclusion.
Mr. Grothman. I am going to ask Ms. Kirchner to give us
some information on stuff that people who come here, either
parole or we will refer to as illegally, are immediately
eligible for and what you think that does to the cross-section
of people who are currently coming here?
Ms. Kirchner. Well, sir, those who come here illegally, it
depends how they are released, and this is one of the ways the
Biden Administration has significantly exacerbated the problem.
So, if you are released through parole, parole is given a
status under our benefits programs much like that of a legal
permanent resident, and we know that there are millions of
parolees. We don't know the exact amount. I am waiting for the
latest report to come out, but we know that there are millions
of parolees, and because they are considered lawfully present,
even though they have no legal status, they are immediately
eligible for work permits, they are eligible for Social
Security numbers, they are eligible for Obamacare, and that
also, the Social Security number opens up the box to tax
benefits, Earned Income Tax Credit, and the additional Child
Tax Credit, but where we are really going to see the cost,
these parolees, because they are treated like legal permanent
residents, some of them immediately get benefits. The Cubans
and Haitians, as I said, are immediately eligible for
everything, but the chickens will come home to roost in about
five years when all of these other parolees who are not Cubans
and Haitians are going to be eligible for everything, and so,
we need to be aware that without adding one illegal alien
crossing the border, the costs are going to go up.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Thank you. I just want to get in a last
word on something. I have been down to the border several
times, and whenever I am down there, the Border Patrol points
out that unless you have a criminal record from the U.S. or
Canada, there is no way for them to determine whether or not
you have a record. That is what they are telling me. And----
Mr. Bier. I mean, you should look at some of the CBP press
releases that they put out when they catch people from Columbia
or other countries, so.
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Chairman Arrington. The gentleman's time has expired. I
don't need help, but I know there is a lot of folks that like
to give me help. Jimmy, why don't you help me out?
Mr. Panetta. I will.
Chairman Arrington. Take five minutes.
Mr. Panetta. I will try, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Arrington. Take five minutes, and I may give you a
little extra, too, if it is an interesting and intellectually
honest conversation.
Mr. Panetta. I can't promise you that, but thank you, Mr.
Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity, and Ranking Member,
and gentlemen, and ma'am, thank you very much for being here.
Look, I think we can all agree upon a couple of things that
obviously, when it comes to immigration, it is a very emotional
issue. I think it is emotional because we are all connected to
it in one way or the other, especially in this country. Yes, as
I agree with the Ranking Member, we are a nation of immigrants,
but I will go one step further. We are a nation of risk takers,
people who are willing to take the risk to come here to provide
a better life, either for themselves or for their children, and
ultimately, I firmly believe, as the grandson of immigrants,
that is the American dream. That is why people still want to
come here. Not to rape, not to pillage, but they want to
provide a better life for them and their families, and I think
we are so damn lucky to have that, to have, to be a country
like that where people still want to come here, and I think
that is part of the emotions behind this.
But look, I think we can all agree in this room and outside
of this room, there is a crisis at the border. We get it. Got
it. Check. We understand that. From a humanitarian, a familial,
a criminal, and a financial crisis that we are facing at this
point.
But rather than just continue to talk about the issues, we
want to make sure we talk about solutions. Unfortunately,
especially here in the United States Congress, especially in
this political world, when we talk about solutions, it is
difficult. It is difficult because what I have seen in my
limited time that I have been here in Congress, immigration
reform, border security, is the most politically toxic, policy
complicated issue I have worked on. Unfortunately.
Unfortunately.
In the seven and a half years that I have been here, we
have tried, though. We have tried and we have actually had some
successes.
I think we have agreed, Jodey. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. In the
time that we have been here, I think we have voted on $120
million in border security that went to infrastructure,
technology, and personnel. We also got some places when it came
to immigration reform, not necessarily comprehensive
immigration reform, we realized that was difficult, but we kind
of backed off and we looked at it piecemeal.
We did the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. One of my
proudest things that I personally worked on, yet just as
fulfilling it was frustrating, because it was the most
bipartisan immigration bill passed out of the House of
Representatives in the last two decades. Unfortunately, it got
stalled in the Senate. I am going to get back to you, Mr. Bier,
on that in a second.
We had the Dream and the Promise Act as well, and then, of
course, we had potentially what happened in the last few
months, that Senate deal, that, and I got to give a lot of
credit to one of my conservative colleagues in the Senate,
James Lankford, and one of my most liberal colleagues in the
Senate, Murphy from Connecticut, a very conservative deal that
would have provided funding, would have provided
infrastructure, would have provided personnel, would have
raised the standards of asylum, an issue that we are dealing
with at the border that is causing the most consternation there
and difficulties there, but unfortunately, it was rejected by
the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, and therefore
no other Republican would go with it.
So, it is obviously difficult, but I think when you have
people who have the political will to come up with solutions,
we can actually do this, not just rag on each other when it
comes to the issues. We got it, we get it, but we got to make
sure that we talk about solutions.
I believe one of the solutions with the Farm Workforce
Modernization Act, I say that because of the district that I
represent on the Central Coast of California, I have seen, not
just familially, I have seen in my neighborhood, in my
community, immigrants who have come here who want to
contribute, and we know what it is like out there picking
strawberries. We know what it is like in slaughterhouses. We
know what it is like now in construction yards. You do not see
too many native-born Americans doing that type of work.
And so, Mr. Bier, I want to address my question to you as
to what type of effect, when you look at our agriculture, who
is doing those jobs these days?
Mr. Bier. Look, it is, right now, most of the increase in
our agricultural workforce is coming through the H-2A
guestworker visa program. So, these are temporary seasonal
workers. Unfortunately, those jobs, that visa category is not
available for any job that is year-round. So, if you have a
farm and you are planning year-round and that job, that worker
that you need is year-round, that visa is unavailable. That is
one of the things the Farm Workforce Modernization Act would
have relaxed that rule and allowed people to work in year-round
agriculture. So, that is where a lot of the illegal immigration
and illegal employment ultimately is going because there is no
legal way for people to hire through that program.
So, if you get rid of the workers, I mean, you are talking
about half of the agricultural labor force is just immigrants--
--
Mr. Panetta. That----
Mr. Bier [continuing]. Forgetting about their children----
Mr. Panetta. You know as well as I do, that is a generous
number.
Mr. Bier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, all these estimates are
ballparks.
Mr. Panetta. Exactly, exactly.
Mr. Bier. So.
Mr. Panetta. And I would go so far as say is that you have
a number of people working in agriculture and I think the
estimates that I have seen 70 percent working in ag on those
farms, unfortunately, do not have proper status. Yet they are
continuing to contribute to our agricultural economy, correct?
Mr. Bier. Yeah, absolutely. If you don't have the manpower
to do specialty crops in this country, you are going to import
all those high-profit crops from abroad, and that is the nature
of a free market economy. That is the nature of global
competition. Our farmers want to compete internationally and be
exporting food around the world and compete in those high-
margin crops.
Mr. Panetta. I want to thank you. I want to thank the
witnesses. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to working
on not just highlighting the issues. Let's make sure we have
the political will to come up with solutions.
Chairman Arrington. Well, I appreciate----
Mr. Panetta. Thank you.
Chairman Arrington [continuing]. The gentleman from
California's sincere efforts and his leadership to fix some of
the broken parts of the illegal, of the immigration rather,
system in our country around agriculture. He is in fact a
leader on that and I appreciate it. Now I yield five minutes or
so to my friend from the Keystone State, Mr. Lloyd Smucker.
Mr. Smucker. Mr. Bier, do you think we should get
operational control of the border? We should have operational
control?
Mr. Bier. Absolutely.
Mr. Smucker. Do you think we should stop the flow of
illegal immigration?
Mr. Bier. Yes.
Mr. Smucker. Do you think we should welcome productive
individuals who want to be productive members of our society to
come here?
Mr. Bier. Yes.
Mr. Smucker. And they should be properly vetted.
Mr. Bier. Yes.
Mr. Smucker. So you think we should increase our legal
immigration?
Mr. Bier. Yes.
Mr. Smucker. Ms. Kirchner, do you think we should get
operational control of the border?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smucker. We should stop the flow of illegal immigrants?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes.
Mr. Smucker. Do you think that we should properly vet legal
immigrants and we should continue to do so?
Ms. Kirchner. Absolutely.
Mr. Smucker. Do you think that we need individuals who want
to come here, who want to be productive members of society?
Ms. Kirchner. Absolutely. We should have skilled
immigration. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smucker. So, we really aren't far apart, and I don't
think Democrats and Republicans are all that far apart here
either.
I do think, Ms. Kirchner, one of the pieces that you
missed, and not to argue with you, but that you missed
slightly, is we do need workers, and workers who come here and
perform jobs that are needed, contribute to our economy. They
will buy food, they will buy clothing. They will, in general,
benefit the United States by growing our economy, a stronger
growth in the economy that benefits by those workers paying
into the Social Security system, paying into Medicare,
generating additional revenue and additional taxes.
It is unfortunate today that that is happening with illegal
immigrants. It should not be happening because at the same
time, we then are allowing the flow of drugs, we are allowing
the flow of criminals into the country, and that is, you know,
I am from Lancaster County, 2,000 miles from the border. We
have hundreds of fentanyl deaths in our region. It is a real
problem that we have. Every single city, every single area of
the country really has been affected by the Biden
Administration's policy on the border.
So, I agree with almost everything that you are saying.
Ms. Kirchner. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Smucker. Mr. Bier, I agree with almost everything that
you are saying as well. We have got to fix it, and the Biden
Administration has absolutely failed the American people with
what they are allowing to happen on the border, but I think it
is really, really important that we not continue to conflate
the two issues.
We need legal immigrants, we need individuals to take jobs,
and I think it is actually the opposite of what you said, Ms.
Kirchner. I don't think they are taking American jobs. I think
what happens if we don't have an adequate workforce, companies
that can choose to do so will go to other countries, will go to
other areas to build their new factory. So, I think immigrant
workers are actually a net gain for American workers as well,
and I just, one small thing where you and I disagree.
Mr. Bier, I think you are passionate in what you are
saying. I think you could be more convincing if you are more
open to an understanding of other viewpoints and not as
confrontational. You know, I think it is really important that
we have these real conversations. We address the real concerns
that the American people have about the border and recognizing
that, recognizing the absolute abject failure of the Biden
Administration's border policy is absolutely important,
particularly for those of us, the witnesses here from Texas.
You are seeing it probably more than other communities, but we
are seeing it in my community as well.
And so, I agree completely with Representative Panetta. We
have to fix this. We can do it. This panel isn't far apart.
Members of Congress aren't far apart on this issue.
I have a bill that would actually create an entirely new
visa program for those year-round workers, for farm workers,
but then also construction, health care. There are a lot of
people, there are a lot of places where we need millions of
workers.
This also then gets muddied. We also need to increase the
workforce participation rate of Americans. That is another way
we resolve our worker issue, but we can't do it without
immigrants, and in fact, I don't think we can solve our debt
problem unless we are really growing this economy, and I think
immigration, legal immigration, where we are properly vetting
immigrants as we always have done, is a really important part
of that.
So, sorry I didn't get to any more questions, but thank
you, Mr. Chair, and I will yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I appreciate your line of thinking and
comments and associate myself with them, and now we are going
to continue on the Republican side with Mr. Bob Good from
Virginia for five minutes.
Mr. Good. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate all of
our witnesses who are here today. I have a question. I would
like to try to get four succinct answers as I go down the row,
starting with Ms. Kirchner. What percentage, in your opinion,
estimation, your research, what percentage or what number of
the world's non-U.S. population would come to America if they
could? In other words, we got roughly 350 million Americans,
some seven billion-plus people who don't live in the United
States. So, if they could, what percentage of the world's
population or what number, would you just kind of a guesstimate
based on, that would come here if they could?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir. Fortunately, I didn't know it would
be a pop quiz. But I know Gallup has done----
Mr. Good. You didn't know there was going to be math in
this.
Ms. Kirchner. No, no, no. I do know Gallup has done some
surveys and I know it is, I think it is probably a third.
Mr. Good. So, you are saying somewhere in the two billion
range. I am just assigning a number to a third, maybe two to
three billion, something like that.
Ms. Kirchner. That would be my guess. You couldn't hold me
to it.
Mr. Good. Okay. Mr. Blair, if you had to guesstimate a
number, if they could, the world's population that would come
to the United States if they could?
Mr. Blair. Well, the U.S. is the greatest country in the
world, so I would probably put it maybe 50 percent or more.
Mr. Good. Okay, you are saying three, four billion. Mr.
Smith?
Mr. Smith. I make it a close 70 percent.
Mr. Good. Close to 70 percent. So you are saying in the
five billion type range, and then down at the end, Mr. Bier?
Mr. Bier. Oh, it would certainly be over 100 billion, but
we can focus on the people who have already----
Mr. Good. Over 100 billion?
Mr. Bier [continuing]. Gotten the process.
Mr. Good. We don't have 100--you meant----
Mr. Bier. Sorry, sorry, 100 million. Wow.
Mr. Good. You are saying only 100 million?
Mr. Bier. We could--yeah.
Mr. Good. You are saying only 100 million.
Mr. Bier. Well, that is about what Gallup estimates.
Mr. Good. Only 100 million.
Mr. Bier. Yeah.
Mr. Good. What is the population of Africa? What is the
population of South America? What is the population of Asia?
And you are thinking only 100 million of them. There is, what,
five billion between those just roughly making it up. So you
are saying in the range of two percent would come here? Two
percent would come here if they could?
Mr. Bier. I mean, wages equalize over time, so look at
what--we have open borders with Puerto Rico----
Mr. Good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I think you know----
Mr. Bier. We have----
Mr. Good [continuing]. Where I am going. Thank you. I
reclaim my time. Thank you.
Mr. Bier. Okay.
Mr. Good. All right. So, how many should we let come to
America? I think that is a fundamental question. How many
should we let come to America? Meaning legal, illegal, someone
to mix the two together, which is offensive. I wish Mr.
McClintock was still here. How many should we let come?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir, we----
Mr. Good. What would be a good number?
Ms. Kirchner. We believe that current immigration rates are
about as much as we can sustain as a nation. We would, however,
advocate that those immigrants be skilled. We think, for the
national interest, it would benefit both our economy----
Mr. Good. Respectfully, I am going to pause you, because I
have only got two minutes.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Good. And I am going somewhere. I apologize, Ms.
Kirchner, for that.
Ms. Kirchner. No, that's fine.
Mr. Good. I think the--okay. What percentage would come if
they could? How many should we let come? And what number would
make us no longer America? And is it worth preserving what
makes us distinctly, uniquely America? Is that worth
preserving?
The fundamental question relative to the illegal alien
invasion, or for those who support the illegal alien invasion,
first of all, as others have said, there is no such thing as
illegal immigration. Immigration is a legal, lawful process.
For that matter, legal immigrants are Americans, aren't they?
Legal immigrants are Americans, of course. They wanted to be
Americans. They earned their citizenship. They pledged their
allegiance. They learned our language. At least everyone that I
have interacted with at the naturalization ceremonies they have
the privilege of going to has learned our language. They have
had the means and the ability to contribute to our economy and
our society and make us stronger, make us better.
In fact, this Friday, two days from now, I look forward to
welcoming another group among the million or so that we legally
allow into this country every year, legally. I am going to
welcome them at Patrick Henry's Red Hill home in my district. I
have the most historic district in the country, I would submit.
So the fundamental question for those who support the
illegal alien invasion is, does everyone around the world have
the right to come to America? Or does America have the right to
decide who gets to come to America? How about those two
questions? Does everyone around the world have the right to
come to America? Or does America get to decide who has the
right to be in America? Ms. Kirchner.
Ms. Kirchner. Americans should be able to decide the future
of their country. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Good. Mr. Blair?
Mr. Blair. Americans should decide.
Mr. Good. Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith. Same.
Mr. Good. Mr. Bier?
Mr. Bier. America should decide, but there should be a
presumption in favor of liberty.
Mr. Good. And that is the question that does indeed make us
very far apart from what Lloyd said. Because what many on the
other side believe, and I would submit Mr. Bier believes this
if he was being honest with us, that they believe that--because
of the statements that he said in his opening remarks, they
believe they have the right to be here, and then the Ranking
Member talked about the triangle countries coming here. You
know, we cannot--and he said, the problem is we got to go fix
those triangle countries so they don't want to come here
anymore from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The only way
we can do that is to let lawlessness reign, destroy our
economy, defund and undermine our police, you know, destroy our
institutions, so that we become as bad as some of these
countries around the world, and then the journey and the cost
of the journey, the difficulty is no longer worth it. I submit
that is Democrat policies carried through.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I submit--I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman for----
Mr. Good. I am sorry. For the record, sir, if I may----
Chairman Arrington. Yes, sir.
Mr. Good. I ask unanimous consent to submit an article of
support from the Center Square regarding the 60 counties in
Texas that have declared an emergency and the 50 counties that
have declared an invasion in light of the crisis at our
southwest border.
Chairman Arrington. Without objection, so ordered.
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Mr. Good. Thank you, sir. I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I now yield five minutes to General
Jack Bergman from Michigan.
Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I ask unanimous
consent to enter into the record an April 2024 article from
Gallup titled, ``Immigration named top U.S. problem for third
straight month.''
Chairman Arrington. Without objection, so ordered.
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Mr. Bergman. As Gallup findings confirm, Americans continue
to be deeply troubled by President Biden's refusal to secure
the southern border or enforce immigration law. This should not
come as a surprise to anyone in this room. We got issues,
especially you, Mr. Blair. You got a lot of years in an Army
uniform. I got a few years in a Marine uniform. So I am going
to kind of talk to you, especially with your last, you know,
10-plus years here with the Border Patrol. We can talk soldier
to Marine, but I also serve on Armed Services, so I am a little
bit familiar and in a former life wearing the hat of Commander
of Marine Forces North, which we dealt with the border, if you
will. Some of my information may be a little dated, but not
much. Okay.
Mr. Blair, in your written testimony submitted to the
Committee, you note that the level of illegal mass immigration,
U.S., is currently--the level is currently seen as a
deliberate--this is a quote, ``a deliberate and calculated
strategy of weaponizing migration to undermine the sovereignty
and security of the United States and its states.'' Could you
elaborate just a little bit? Don't take a whole lot, but just
give me a couple of--you know, elaborate on that a little bit.
Mr. Blair. Yes, sir. If you look at the great work done by
Kelly Greenhill and also Joseph Humire from The Heritage
Foundation, they have done a lot of case studies in regards to
this. Weaponized mass migration has happened over 80 times
since the 1951 Refugee Convention. It is when a state or
nonstate actor uses human beings as a weapon to eradicate
someone's sovereignty.
So in my report, I stated Lukashenko was doing that against
the countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, where he forced
foreign nationals to other people's borders in order to
decrease the security of the environment so that they could
decrease the sovereignty of that nation. By following that same
playbook, the current administration is inviting massive
amounts of foreign nationals to our southern border in order to
decrease or eradicate our sovereignty, force Border Patrol
agents, like what I was doing, and other law enforcement
agencies and also local law enforcement to address that fact
that mass migration, which decreases the security of the
environment and allows the Mexican cartels to completely
operationally control both sides, and so that is really what
weaponized mass migration is. It is a tool to completely
eradicate sovereignty.
Mr. Bergman. So I am going to put my words on this. They
are organized on many different levels. So having said that,
since we know we have, as the United States of America, we have
foreign adversaries, Russia, China, Iran. Do you think they are
looking at the cost of illegal immigration that it imposes on
our taxpayers and that this is part of the calculations of the
Iranians, the Chinese, the Russians? I mean, again, if it is
organized, somebody is doing the math on how much money we are
pouring into this. Do you think that is a calculation that they
use?
Mr. Blair. Yes, sir, 100 percent. The Chinese use the
unrestricted warfare, so it is every asymmetric means to
eradicate our sovereignty and security and financial warfare is
one of those means.
Mr. Bergman. Okay, and kind of how plausible is it that
foreign nationals are illegally coming to the U.S. at the
direction of adversarial governments to engage in espionage or
to potentially be in sleeper cells?
Mr. Blair. Oh, it happens every single day. Look what has
happened the first few days in May. We had more Chinese illegal
aliens coming through southern California than we did all of
Fiscal Year 2021, and so when you look at that issue and you
see that our vetting process--as Border Patrol agents, we
typically don't vet, and you look at these single military age
males and you look at the difference between those that are
actually running from, whether that is communism or running
from situations where their life is in danger compared to the
ones that we are actually apprehending, you can see in direct
confidence that they are here for nefarious means.
Mr. Bergman. Okay, and I see my time is about to run out,
but would you think that potentially the cartels are operating
as brokers and playing all sides against the middle to create
the environment that because of their use of drones, because of
their use of different submersibles, because of all the things
they use, that there are probably things that we don't see that
are tied together for the benefit of those against us?
Mr. Blair. Yes, sir. The Mexican cartels have completely
controlled the operational border--I mean, sorry, the southern
border, and have created a Silk Road for the CCP to enter every
single one of our communities.
Mr. Bergman. Well, in Marine terms, I am guessing probably
the Army says the same thing, we got snipers in the wire.
Mr. Blair. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bergman. On the inside and the weapons are pointed at
us, and we need to not continue to turn a blind eye to that
fact.
And I will just say I will yield back. I guess I am a
little bit over, but I would suggest that as a personal trait
for anyone, arrogance creates a blind spot in all of us. So we,
in our dealings with ourselves and others, should look to
eliminate those blind spots.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Michigan,
and yield now five minutes to the gentlelady from Michigan,
Lisa McClain.
Ms. McClain. I see a trend going here, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you. I think it is interesting that you have all the
Republicans asking questions right now. So I appreciate this
hearing, Mr. Chairman. Clearly, we care, and I know you do.
I know we have talked about the numbers, but I think it
bears repeating. The Federal Government spent over $66 billion
on illegal immigrants in 2023, according to the Federation for
American Immigration. Does anyone here want to guess how much
we have spent on homeless veterans in 2023? Guess? Well, let's
just start higher, lower, the same? Anybody want to guess?
Mr. Smith. Fractional.
Ms. McClain. Fractional. Thank you. $3 billion. $66 billion
on illegals, $3 billion on people who have laid down their
lives for this country. Can anyone explain up there why that
makes sense?
Mr. Bier. Well, one is including all sorts of benefits and
one is just looking at a very, very narrow slice.
Ms. McClain. No, no, I am using the same numbers.
Mr. Bier. So if you look at----
Ms. McClain. Sir, you are----
Mr. Bier. If you did a direct comparison----
Ms. McClain. I am using apples to apples.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. It would be a very different
calculation.
Ms. McClain. I am using applies to apples. So since you
know, why don't you share with me?
Mr. Bier. We don't track U.S. vet----
Ms. McClain. You don't know. You don't know.
Mr. Bier. We don't track U.S. veterans in the Census, so
that would be very helpful if we did, then I would be able to
give you a very good----
Ms. McClain. But do you know the answer? Because I do. I
do. So I appreciate your opinion of which you have no facts on,
but let me continue and let me educate you some more.
The Federal Government, breaking that $66 billion down,
let's look at what we fund. So you might want to get a pencil
and paper and take some notes because I will help you do your
job: $5.8 billion in SNAP, $10 billion in Medicare, $8.2
billion in uncompensated hospital expenditures, $3 billion for
primary and secondary education for illegal immigrants, and how
many illegal immigrants are given taxpayer-funded housing
compared to the number of homeless veterans that are sleeping
on the street?
You don't know because you don't want to know. You don't
want to see the numbers. Well, I do, and I can share with you
the American people do because I will share with you, the
people in my district, in Michigan of the 9th District, we care
about our homeless veterans. We care about our veterans, and
yes, we care about them a little bit more than we care about
people who have broken the law to get here illegally.
So, I actually have some suggestions and maybe some answers
on how to fix it. Instead of $66 billion, here are a couple
things we could spend. The White House has requested $13
million for the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans. I
am going to say it again, $13 million with an ``M.'' Right?
Maybe we could find that out of that $66 billion, right,
different between million and billion, big difference, we could
funnel some more of that $66 billion to our homeless veterans.
Anyone opposed to that? Why aren't we doing it? Why aren't we
doing it? Anybody got an idea? Anybody got an idea why we are
not, God bless you, why we are not doing it? I will tell you
why we are not doing it. Because the Biden Administration does
not want to do it. Am I correct? Am I incorrect on that? I
didn't think so.
This year's budget request from the White House asks for
$17.2 billion in mental health spending for veterans. That $10
billion we lose to Medicare spending would surely benefit the
struggle with the mental health issues. So why don't we do
this? America is a very charitable country. Why don't we take
care of our own first? Anyone see a problem with that? Why
don't we? I will tell you why we don't. Because the Biden
Administration doesn't want to do that.
It is maddening to me. The White House budget requested for
caregiver support programs, not $2.9 billion. Maybe instead of
$3 billion for educating illegal immigrants, we can give more
funding to caregiver support programs. Right? We are all
talking about--both sides of the aisle, which ironically
doesn't even want to participate in this hearing, sadly, but
not unexpected, we all talk about caregiving as a problem.
Right? I hear that on both sides of the aisle. What would
happen if we took that $3 billion and gave it to caregivers
that live in the United States? Anyone have a problem with
that? Why don't we do it? Anybody? The Biden Administration
doesn't want to do it.
And you play games with your facts and you play this shell
game. Well, I am going to share with you the American people
are not fooled and they are frustrated and fed up with it.
Let's just be honest about where this money is going so we
possibly can redirect it to the correct place. Let's start with
our veterans. Thank you, and with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentlelady from Michigan,
and now yield five minutes to my friend from Utah, Mr. Blake
Moore.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman. This is--I have had the
last two and a half, three years, numerous town halls. This is
the topic that has been in every single one. I am from Utah. I
don't--you know, we are not on the southern border. We are
recognized recently again as the top state in the nation from
U.S. News. We have all the right economic indicators, all this
great stuff going on, and the massive concern of what is going
on at the border and what could potentially be the problem with
what has happened over the last three years in ten years from
now. Well, what implications that this has on the next decade.
So immediate, acute issues and what ultimately plays out is
terrifying to my constituents.
To me, as I see some of the simple things that you saw from
the previous administration, I heard Mike Pence, Vice President
Pence, talk about the negotiations with Mexico to come up with
the Remain in Mexico plan. I wish we could create a legislative
fix to it. I would be all for it. Make it permanent, make it
into law, figure out the catch and release issues, parole
authority all across the board.
President Biden came to office and he just said, you know
what? I don't like President Trump. What Mike Pence--what
President Trump and Mike Pence did, I am going to just take it
away. There were positive things happening and we are just
going to--we are going to reverse it all. That is what he did.
Everybody knows it. Every single constituent of mine
understands that there was frustration there, and I wish we
could fix it legislatively, too. I think there is a solid group
of Republicans and Democrats that recognize we have to have
strong border security and we have to fix our immigration
antiquated process. We get it, but for 30 years, we haven't
been able to fix it. President Biden can at least do something
right now, and he has been unwilling to do it.
Mr. Blair, Ammon, a couple questions. So, I have got
numbers here. Cartels have seen, according to Homeland Security
Investigations, cartels have seen their human trafficking and
smuggling profits soar from $500 million in 2019 to well over
$13 billion in 2022. Now, it is going to be hard for us to
accurately track the amount of money that the cartels are
making. I don't think they properly report on their W-2s what
they are profiting from this, but would you say that is
directionally correct from your understanding?
Mr. Blair. That is directionally correct.
Mr. Moore. We are not talking a small difference from
just--that is one factor that is different from 2019. I will
give it two. There are two factors that are different from 2019
to 2022. One of them was there was a pandemic that caused some
disruption and the other one was that President Biden came in
and his administration reversed every single border provision
that was going on, and he has allowed for three and a half
years of this to continue on. This is enabling cartels, enemies
of our country, bringing in fentanyl and creating--running the
show down on the southern border.
There is an intersection here with the Department of
Homeland Security and the intelligence community. Do you think
there are effective ways for DHS agents to work with the
intelligence community on tracking cartel whereabouts in border
towns, intercepting plans and disrupting operations? Can you
just speak to that and maybe the current state between DHS and
the intelligence community and what we need to be doing better?
Mr. Blair. Yeah. First and foremost, they need to be
designated as foreign terrorist organizations in order to get
the intelligence apparatus to completely understand what
Mexican cartels are actually doing. Also, you also need to
change the Uniform Crime Report or the National Incident-Based
Reporting System. As it stands right now, a lot of cartel-
related activity is actually not put into that system, so we
are actually running blind right now.
So, whether that is going to be Border Patrol on the
ground, HSI, Department of--anyone in the Department of
Justice, all of us are operating in silos. There is not a lot
of shared information. There is some, and I do give credit to
those that are sharing, whether that is at the individual
tactical level and maybe sometimes at the operational level,
but in terms of trying to understand the entire threat as it
stands now with our current system, that is almost impossible.
Mr. Moore. I shudder whenever I hear the concept of not
sharing intelligence and properly communicating with each
other. We saw from the 9-11 Commission that we can do better in
the IC. So I encourage you, and I want to be a voice back here
to make sure I can do whatever we can to get out ahead of that
issue and realize that we are on the same team and working
together.
Existing funding, let's talk at least existing funding and
where we need to put most of that in order to divert migrants
to only the ports of entry, help end the reign of the cartels,
and secure the sovereignty. Anything on the additional existing
funding that we can be doing a better job of that right now?
Mr. Blair. Yes, sir. Critical infrastructure between the
ports of entry. So adhering to the Secure Fence Act of 2006,
that would deny almost all illegal entries, which would stop
one of the commodities, and I hate to reference foreign
nationals or human beings as commodities, but to the Mexican
cartels, that is what they are.
Mr. Moore. That is what they are to them.
Mr. Blair. And so in order to deny that, we would need some
sort of apparatus between the ports of entry in order to
actually understand the domain awareness of it and also be able
to stop it, because as it stands now, as a Border Patrol agent,
you are going down there, a lot of times it is like it is back
in 1924. I am having to cut sign on roads to understand what is
actually who, where, when, why, or how is actually coming
across because we don't even have the technology to understand
that.
Mr. Moore. I was only able to ask questions to you, Mr.
Blair, but thank you to all of our witnesses for their tireless
work on this. We have got to come up with solutions and fix
this issue. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Utah. I now
yield five minutes to the gentlelady from Vermont, Ms. Balint.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all the
witnesses for being here today. When we have people come and
share their time with us, it helps us to do our jobs better. So
I appreciate it.
Mr. Bier, I said to you earlier, I was very pleased to meet
you this morning because I have been following your writing for
some time and there are so many things that you have written
that absolutely resonate and make sense for me given our
situation in Vermont with our workforce crisis, and so you said
America has never needed immigration like it does now. I would
agree based on what I see across industries in Vermont. You
have also said that without immigration, the U.S. population
will decline by the 2030s. We have labor force decline. The
jobs that are going unfilled are not going to be filled without
immigrants. The numbers don't work out. It doesn't pencil out.
Right? So as the U.S. prime age employment rate is at near
record high and we still have thousands and thousands of jobs
that are going left unfilled, even in my small state of
Vermont.
And the other piece that we talk about a lot in here is
Social Security and making sure we shore up Social Security.
So, immigrants we know will work and they will pay into the
system and that can boost Social Security revenues, which we
desperately need, and so thank you so much for being here
today.
The data seems to indicate that the nation's public debt is
set to increase to $54 trillion by 2034, and I am wondering,
how can immigration help to offset this debt that we see
coming?
Mr. Bier. Well, look, we need obviously reform to our
spending program. So, you know, I don't want to say that
immigration is going to somehow solve all of our problems.
Ms. Balint. Absolutely, multi-problems.
Mr. Bier. At the margin, immigration helps, and, you know,
we have the Congressional Budget Office saying that we are
going to reduce spending or reduce the deficit by a trillion
dollars over the next decade just from that, and if you look at
long term, the Social Security trustees report finds massive
gains from immigration. When you talk about Social Security,
you can measure that in workers. They tell us how many workers
we need in order to fund retirees.
Ms. Balint. Right.
Mr. Bier. And by the mid-2030s, they are going to be about
35 million workers short of what they need to keep Social
Security revenues equal to expenses. There is a huge need in
the United States, and it is measured in tens of millions, not
thousands.
Ms. Balint. Thank you. You know, in my home state, as I
mentioned, we have a terrible workforce crisis right now, and
it is particularly hard on one of our core industries, the
dairy industry. You know, two-thirds of New England's milk
production is supported by migrant workers, immigrants who come
to work, and it is not just the ag industry in Vermont,
specifically the milk industry. It is ag industry across the
country, right, we know this. Can you tell us what affects
strict immigration policies? I am talking about legal
immigration, like the number of people coming in, the number of
people able to work. How does that impact all of us, not just
in terms of workforce, but in our pocketbooks, in terms of the
prices that we are paying? Like, how does it fit into the
general contours of the economy?
Mr. Bier. Right. So we are in a global economy. We can
import milk from abroad. We have to compete with farmers around
the world who can manufacture this stuff cheaper because they
have lower costs of labor in those countries. Of course, we are
more productive in this country, and our farms are more
efficient in that respect, but they still need the workers,
they still need the labor, and if you look at what we are doing
with the H-2A visa program, we exclude all year-round
agriculture from that program. So there is zero visas under
that program for year-round dairies, where you have a need. The
cows have to be milked----
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Bier [continuing]. All year round.
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Bier. And there is no recognition of that need in
Federal law right now.
Ms. Balint. And I believe we get so caught up in divisive
rhetoric that we just don't look at things, the commonsense
initiatives that we could take around immigration and allowing
also migrant workers to work legally. There are things that--
there are levers available to us that we are not using.
The other thing I am very concerned about in my home state,
and I know it is not just Vermont, it is most of New England,
we have an aging population. We literally do not have the
workers to fill the current jobs, let alone growth that
industry wants to have in Vermont, and I just don't see how we
are going to get there without----
Mr. Bier. Yeah, without immigration, we are going to have a
prime age workforce decline of six million over the next
decade. That is enormous. So, you know, you are talking about,
essentially, that is two percent of the population. So that is
a significant decline in a very short period and at a point
where we desperately need more people to counteract the effects
of aging. You mentioned about a quarter of our population is
going to be over the age of 65 by 2050. We have to have
immigration to deal with that problem, that issue.
Ms. Balint. I really appreciate it, and, you know, just to
acknowledge you have worked for a more conservative think tank.
I am a progressive from Vermont, but on these issues there is a
commonsense coming together that we have to focus on that and
not the divisive rhetoric. Thank you so much.
Mr. Bier. Of course. Thank you.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentlelady from Vermont,
and now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Indiana, Mr.
Yakym.
Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing, as well as to our witnesses for being here today.
This chart behind me paints a picture of the Biden
Administration's failure to secure the southern border, which
by far outpaces any of his predecessors. This is a chart that
shows every single President, first term, the first 38 months
of the last six presidential terms and cumulative illegal
border crossings.
President Biden created this crisis on day one when he
signed his first 64 executive actions that have undermined
border security and encouraged illegal immigration. Despite the
unprecedented surge in illegal immigration, the Biden
Administration chose to deny that there was any problem at all.
As a matter of fact, just 11 months in, they called it,
``cyclical or seasonal.'' They continued to insist that the
border is secure, about the 28-month mark. Even at the end of
last year, President Biden and his administration officials
continued to downplay the border crisis in month 37 as just
``ebbs and flows,'' but two weeks after calling it ebbs and
flows, and nearly three years into this crisis of his own
doing, President Biden finally admitted in month 37 that the
border is ``not secure.''
We have known for years what President Biden and his
administration refused to acknowledge until recently, that our
southern border isn't secured. No laws have changed, just the
will to enforce them.
And while they have been in denial, we have seen fentanyl
decimate our communities. We have seen people on the terrorist
watch list stream across the southern border. We have seen
state and local government budgets strain under the weight of
providing food and shelter. We have seen crime with illegal
immigrants assaulting police and even committing rape or
murder. Last month, 50 men and women from Indiana's National
Guard deployed to Texas to support its efforts to do what the
Federal Government refuses to do and enforce our border laws,
because the sad fact is that every state and every community
has become a border state and a border community under
President Biden's failed border policies.
My question first to you, Mr. Blair. You spoke about your
experiences trying to secure our border through the variety of
roles that you have served in. Can you share how the Biden
Administration's policies worsened under this border crisis?
Mr. Blair. Sure. As a Border Patrol agent and an officer on
the Operation Lone Star, by inviting so many people to the
southern border that he has, it forces or coerces every single
agency along the border to deal with that, to deal with that
mass migration, and so because of that, the rest of the border
is left wide open for other nefarious activities, such as
Mexican cartels, such as Tren de Aragua coming up from
Venezuela. All the other criminal activities are now happening
between the ports of entry. Because of that, the record amount
of fentanyl coming through, you name it.
Mr. Yakym. Great, and as a follow-up, what national
security threats are posed by the current situation at the
southern border?
Mr. Blair. Yes, sir. So every single adversary that the
United States has, has a nexus to our southern border. That is
China, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, to include also nonstate
actors, Hezbollah, Hamas. You also have ISIS, MS-13, Tren de
Aragua. Every single one now sees that the Mexican cartels now
are in control, and now they have the ability to now move into
every single community in the United States.
Mr. Yakym. Thank you, and Mr. Smith, you have led the
charge at the local level to protect your community and
prosecute illegal immigrants. What hurdles have you faced in
those efforts?
Mr. Smith. The logistics of prosecuting this many people
are just overwhelming for a county my size. You know, Operation
Lone Star really is the only thing standing in between the
citizens of Kinney County and the open border policies of
Biden.
Listening to some of the questions here today, though, it
seems like a lot of the emphasis is put on the immigrant
welfare, but being a Budget Committee, y'all deal with taxpayer
dollars. To me, there is a huge message being missed here. Just
I am astounded at what I am hearing today.
Mr. Yakym. How has your community changed as a result of
President Biden's open border policies?
Mr. Smith. We no longer have a sovereign border. Our
residents have to live in fear of hearing helicopters during
the day, getting their kids in at night. You know, a lot of
outside activities are very limited now. We have transformed
our entire lives to live with a security threat.
Mr. Yakym. Great. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would submit
to you that the numbers don't lie. The numbers on this chart do
not lie. President Biden created this crisis with the stroke of
a pen. He can fix it with a stroke of a pen, and I call on him
to do just that.
Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back.
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Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Indiana. I
now yield five minutes to my friend from Oklahoma, Mr. Josh
Brecheen.
Mr. Brecheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding
the hearing regarding the cost of illegal immigration.
Alexander Hamilton once said, writing under the pen name of
Lucius Crassus, he said, ``To admit foreigners indiscriminately
to the rights of citizens, the moment they put foot in our
country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian
horse,'' think Trojan horse, ``into the citadel of our liberty
and sovereignty.'' He later said something similar, talking
about these entities, ``Foreigners will generally be apt to
bring with them attachments,'' dot, dot, dot, and goes on to
say, ``It is unlikely they will bring with them that temperate
love of liberty.''
Ms. Kirchner, you have talked about we are granting the
right of citizenship right now through the Administration, the
benefit of citizenship from those coming from Haiti and from
Cuba. The moment they are paroled by this administration, I
will submit as a member of the Homeland Security Committee as
we have prosecuted this case out of that Committee, illegally
in defiance of what Federal statute--the moment they come in
under what Secretary Mayorkas and what this administration has
brought forth, they come in illegally. We are granting them
citizenship-like status. Hamilton--I just read how Hamilton
warned us about that.
Can you speak to, again, what we are giving them in terms
of Social Security numbers and the benefits? If you can speak
to that.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir. The parolees that are let in, they
are----
Mr. Brecheen. 30,000 a month.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes.
Mr. Brecheen. That is what our average is, 360,000 a year.
Ms. Kirchner. And there are more at the border. Those are
the ones flown in and there are more that are being----
Mr. Brecheen. Those are the flown in.
Ms. Kirchner [continuing]. Filled in at the border. They
are treated, for the purpose of Federal benefits programs, they
are treated like legal permanent residents. So for most people,
that is green card holders, and that means that on day one they
get work permits. Well, they have to apply, but they get work
permits. They are eligible for Social Security numbers, they
are eligible for Obamacare, and with the Social----
Mr. Brecheen. I filed a bill on that, by the way.
Ms. Kirchner. I am sorry?
Mr. Brecheen. I joined a colleague in the Senate to file a
bill to stop that madness on----
Ms. Kirchner. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Brecheen. Them being eligible for Obamacare. Keep
going.
Ms. Kirchner. And they are eligible for tax credits. I
mean, we will give them back money when they file a tax----
Mr. Brecheen. Refundable tax credit.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, exactly.
Mr. Brecheen. With no tax liability.
Ms. Kirchner. Exactly. So when they do pay taxes, they will
get--it will be a net gain for the migrant. So in five years--
although in five years, all of those parolees will be eligible
for everything under the sun: Medicare, Medicaid, Social
Security, TANF, food stamps, Social Security income, Federal
student aid. You know, if your kid is going to college, they
will be eligible for Federal Government money to go to college.
Mr. Brecheen. And that is just the parolees.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes.
Mr. Brecheen. For time's sake, I want to kind of reclaim my
time here and say that is just for the parolees of 30,000 a
month, this administration is granting that type of status to,
but then you also have ones that these children, these
individuals, these illegal immigrants have children, then that
child then, absent the parole release into the country, that
also grants that family access that may not be paroled into
these other benefits of food stamps and Medicaid. So I want to
continue. Let me ask you something.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Brecheen. You were put in contrast with Cato a minute
ago in terms of your numbers.
Ms. Kirchner. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Brecheen. Cato claims that the revenue brought in by
illegal immigration is a trillion dollars. You all are stating
that the revenue brought in on an annual basis is $31 billion.
That is quite the contrast. One trillion, Cato says, is the
total to all benefits, the state, local, Federal, a trillion
dollars in revenue. Yet you all contend it is $31 billion. Cato
says the benefits from illegal immigrants is $700 billion. You
all say it is $180 billion. It is quite the--also, if you
listen to Cato, they are to be pro liberty.
And one of the comments--I am not recognizing you yet,
okay, one of the--you keep interrupting Members of Congress and
it has been quite said to you, I have seen you in Homeland
Security and you have been asked to be a guest, and so I would
ask that you honor that. $31 billion compared to $1 trillion
benefits, $700 billion versus $180 billion. I mean that is
unbelievable.
So, I am going to break it down because I got 45 seconds.
For anyone who would doubt your numbers or your grant deference
to Cato, break it down to the smallest sample size that we can
look and we see numbers and the impact. Look at what is
happening in New York. They are suggesting a ten--Eric Adams,
the Mayor of New York, said brace yourself. This is all wide,
all government services. He told them brace yourself, from ten
to 15 percent cuts. It is a Democrat mayor. So, if there is
such a positive benefit, then why isn't New York seeing that?
Why are they having to tell all government service, brace
yourself for ten to 20 percent cuts?
Ms. Kirchner, I want to give you the last word on that.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir. I think the difference is whether
you are looking at a broader economic impact, GDP, or whether
you are looking at the cost to the Federal Government, the cost
to American taxpayers, which is what we are looking at. We are
looking at the cost to American taxpayers, and this is being
felt most acutely at the state and local level, and the
National Academy of Sciences agreed on that as well, that this
is something that the Federal Government, we are spending
billions of dollars on it, and it is only going to increase as
the numbers come in.
Mr. Brecheen. I yield, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma. I
now yield to the gentlelady from Minnesota, Ms. Omar, for five
minutes.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Bier, I want to give you
a minute to respond.
Mr. Bier. I was just going to say that our numbers were not
all illegal immigration, it was just total immigration, so all
immigrants. So that is why it is not directly comparable. That
is all I was going to say.
Ms. Omar. Thank you so much. Let's keep clarifying some
points to better understand the true impacts of our immigration
policies. Mr. Bier, how has the restriction of legal pathways
significantly increased reliance on asylum?
Mr. Bier. Well, look, I mentioned three percent of the
people who are going through the green card process get a green
card each year. So that right there tells you we are about 97
percent closed. People don't look at this as an option. People
are going to die in these backlogs before they get green cards,
and so, yeah, they look at it and they say, there is no way.
This is not an option for me, and so they come to the border
and they tell us that that is why they are coming. There is no
visa category available to the people who are showing up at our
southwest border.
Ms. Omar. Thank you for that clarity. Can you confirm that
immigration policies that facilitate legal entry have reduced
illegal entries? Yes or no?
Mr. Bier. Absolutely. The parole sponsorship programs that
the Administration rolled out have dramatically reduced the
number of encounters of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, even
Venezuelans are down compared to what they were before these
programs were announced.
Ms. Omar. And our Republican friends always say people can
come here legally. Could you walk us through this Cato chart--
--
Mr. Bier. Yeah.
Ms. Omar. Outlining the mess that our legal immigration
system is?
Mr. Bier. Yeah. This is why 97 percent of the people who go
through the process get excluded because there are all these
different restrictions in place, and you go through each one.
There are multiple different categories here, obviously.
Refugee program, you know, you got one out of 100 million
displaced people worldwide getting in. You have the diversity
lottery. Again, it is a 0.2 percent chance of getting in
through that. Family sponsorship, nine million person backlog
there. Again, you are going to die before you see a green card
through that process. So you go through each one of these
things and you can see how restrictive it is. Ultimately, you
end up in the employer-sponsored categories, and even those,
the ones that are supposed to be for skilled and all about our
economy and everything, even those are incredibly backlogged,
over two million people waiting for the opportunity to
immigrate legally through those.
Ms. Omar. And finally, in terms of real costs that we
should be talking about, isn't it true that immigrants
generally contribute more in taxes than they consume in public
benefits?
Mr. Bier. That is right. Our report looks at all taxes and
all benefits of all categories. We look at the entire budget
for state, Federal, and local governments, and we find $1
trillion in tax payments versus just $700 billion in benefits;
$300 billion net gain from immigration.
Ms. Omar. And Mr. Bier, is it fair to say that our debate
around immigration often overlooks the actual facts and data
needed to craft sensible policies?
Mr. Bier. Yeah, I think if we started with the premise that
these people could be contributors, then we would ultimately
craft a much more rational immigration policy than we have
right now.
Ms. Omar. Yeah, maybe it is about something else entirely.
I won't speculate on what that something else could be, but I
hope that some of my colleagues will reflect on why the idea of
immigration or the changing face of our country seems to
unsettle them.
We know that there are undeniable benefits to immigration.
The real costs are rooted in poor policy decisions. Our
restrictive and failed immigration policies are costing us not
just economically and fiscally, but also harming global
standing and dividing our communities. With something as
complex as immigration, this discussion merits thoughtful
consideration and not whatever this hearing is about.
And I will just say as an immigrant, on a personal note,
you know, when we arrived in the U.S. in 1995, it took my dad
about two weeks to find employment. He worked at the airport
and then became a cab driver. We moved to Minnesota. He worked
for the Post Office until he retired in 2010. I was expected to
find a job to help support the family, so were all of my six
siblings. All of us have been gainfully employed since we were
16 in this country. The idea that immigrants do not come to
this country desperately searching to reach that American dream
is ridiculous, and it is something that I find abhorrent that
is constantly discussed as we come to this country to just be
on public benefits when we desperately want to be as equal as
every other person and be gainfully employed and live the
American dream.
Thank you, and I yield back.
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Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentlelady, and now yield
five minutes to the gentleman from California, Mr. Valadao.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for
testifying today to discuss the devastating cost the situation
at our southern border is having on communities across the
country. The issue at our southern border is complex, but one
aspect that demands urgent attention is the influx of illicit
drugs, particularly fentanyl. I have heard countless times from
communities and law enforcement in my district about the
devastating rise of this drug and the cost it has on individual
safety, law enforcement, and public health.
I want to start by going over a few statistics. In 2020,
more than 5,000 Californians lost their lives due to opioid
overdose, and 80 percent of those deaths were directly
attributed to fentanyl. In 2021, fentanyl-related overdose
deaths surged by 54 percent. Last year, California seized a
record amount of fentanyl, 62,000 pounds, enough to kill the
global population twice over. These alarming increases in
seizures and over 1,000 percent increase since 2021 underscores
the severity of the crisis.
As we discussed, the cost that the open southern border has
had on our local law enforcement, who are on the front lines of
this crisis, we need to remember that these statistics
represent lives lost, families shattered, and communities in
distress. Our nation's officers deserve our unwavering support
as they grapple with this crisis, allocating precious time and
resources to combat fentanyl while striving to keep our
neighborhoods safe. Responding to overdose calls, investigating
drug trafficking, ensuring the public is safe from drug-related
crimes and violence demand significant resources and stretch
our local agencies very thin. These are resources that could
otherwise be allocated to community policing, crime prevention,
enhancing emergency services. It is our duty to combat this
crisis with every tool at our disposal.
So, I want to thank you all again for taking the time to
discuss this significant issue, but I want to direct my
question directly to Mr. Smith and Mr. Blair. Can both of you
touch on the cost that illegal drug flow from the southern
border continues to place on our local law enforcement and
communities?
Mr. Blair. Unfortunately, because we are dealing with mass
amounts of illegal immigration at the southern border, most of
our assets, to include resources, are now geared towards that.
So a lot of the apprehensions, unfortunately, when it comes to
narcotics and everything else is happening with the Texas DPS
or local law enforcement, maybe that is on Operation Stone
Garden or whatnot. So, unfortunately, the local law enforcement
is now having to deal with Mexican cartels or foreign terrorist
organizations while the Federal Government is facilitating the
invasion.
Mr. Smith. You know, the resources in Kinney County and
other counties along the border are beyond stretched thin. They
have been broken. Our EMS is broken. We have a volunteer fire
department. It is broken. Counties are broken, communities are
broken, people's lives are being devastated. We all deal with
taxpayer funding dollars which are trying--some people here
want to legislate not for their benefit. The taxpayers are the
ones that fund this building, that pay for these tax dollars.
Legislation should be implemented toward them.
I think this border crisis really simplifies down to a
simple issue: when you don't enforce the law, people don't tend
to follow it, and if we enforced our laws, our border would be
secure, Americans would be safer, and many of the deaths that
we have seen wouldn't have occurred. That is all I have to say
on the subject.
Mr. Valadao. No, I appreciate that. That is--and the
mention of the cartels, that is something I think a lot of
people forget to mention. I have got a community that was in my
district before redistricting, and Mendota, California, it was
an issue with this little tiny community, could barely afford
to even have an entire police department and they were dealing
with MS-13 and having to bring in state, local, and Federal
resources to try to combat some of these issues they were
dealing with, and it is all related to what is going on the
border and it continues to add pressure on a lot of folks, but
the fentanyl side of it is just one that really needs to be
addressed obviously, and I know there is a lot of concern
there.
But then, also, I think some comments were made earlier by
Mr. Bier that on the process of immigration, I mean, I come
from a family of immigrants. My mom and dad immigrated here and
so obviously immigration is something that is very close to
heart for me, but we have to have a process that works and we
have to have a process that allows those who want to come here
legally go through that process and play, I think, for the most
part, a really good role in what our country is and has become
is because people from all over the world see what we are and
they want to be a part of that, but we have to have a process
that works and I think that would help relieve some of the
pressure on the border, but the drug situation is just one that
you can't overlook anymore, and the cost it is having in our
local communities is just something that has to be addressed as
quickly as possible.
So thank you, Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentlemen and now yield to
my friend from California, Mr. Scott Peters, for five minutes.
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Back home in San Diego
generally we know that the border is an opportunity, not a
threat. In our region, San Diego-Tijuana binational region
alone, more than 150,000 people cross the border every day to
shop, to go to school, to work, or visit the doctor. It is the
busiest port of entry in the Western hemisphere, but we also
acknowledge that we can't enjoy the benefits of cross-border
commerce unless we manage our border responsibly and we need to
make improvements, and right now, we have community-based
organizations that are trying to pick up the slack so that we
can deal with the newcomers that are coming to the U.S. to do
all the terrific things that Mr. Bier has pointed out. These
organizations, along with the County of San Diego, are doing
their best to provide basic services to some of the most
vulnerable people, but they are dipping into their own pockets
to fill the gaps, and Democrats know that we need more
resources at the southern border.
But the problem is that there are folks in this building
who'd rather campaign on the chaos than do anything to stop it.
Recall that Speaker Johnson said there would be no foreign aid
unless there was border security and there was a deal. It took
four months to come up with it in the Senate. A very
conservative senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford, a very
liberal senator from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, and the deal
maker in the Senate, Senator Sinema, worked for four months to
come up with a deal, and they reached a deal that would have
included more than $20 billion for border security.
What was in there? Fifteen hundred more Border Patrol and
Customs officers, 1,200 more ICE personnel, 16,000 more
detention beds, 100 new immigration judges, 4,300 more asylum
officers and a change in the asylum definition that would have
made asylum tougher to achieve, and 100 fentanyl-specific
inspection machines for the southern border that are otherwise
sitting in the warehouse waiting for us to authorize them.
People complain about fentanyl, we are ready to deal with that,
and an automatic border shut off if there is over 8,000
immigrants in a day, or 5,000 average over seven days, no
discretion, the border would be shut. Right? That was all part
of the deal.
According to Senator Murphy, he had about 20--he thought he
could get 25 Republican votes in the Senate. There was some
nervousness about supporting Ukraine among some of the
Republican Senators, but that bill would have passed
overwhelmingly and would have ensured the availability of
additional immigrant visas to help the kind of legal
immigration that we all acknowledge we need.
What happened was Mr. Trump decided he'd rather, literally,
he'd rather campaign on the issue than solve the issue. He told
those Republican Senators, don't vote for this, on a Sunday
night and on the morning--the next morning, on the Monday, the
number of Republicans supporting it went from 20 to 25 down to
three. There was no vote in the Senate.
President Biden would have signed that bill, the toughest
border bill in history. A lot of Democrats would have had a
hard time voting for that, frankly, but, because there was
nothing about Dreamers, nothing about all the things that
Democrats have been trying to deal with, path to citizenship,
didn't deal with immigration, just with border security. Just
with border security.
And that bill, by the way, is still available for Mr.
Johnson to bring to the House floor and force a vote on it if
he is serious about doing something about it, but instead we
have these academic hearings, not just in this Committee,
about, you know, complaining about what is happening as though
we don't have the agency as Members of Congress to fix it.
So let's pull that bill off the shelf. Let's all force a
vote on it. Let's see if Republicans will support it, because,
you know, President Biden can't be responsible--this is not on
President Biden if it is President Trump who killed it. This is
Trump who did this. Okay? And we have every ability in this
building to solve this problem.
We were elected to office. President Trump isn't even in
office now, but he appears to be able to push around the
Republicans, at least in the Senate. If my Republican
colleagues want to do something about border security, fine,
let's do it. Let's put that bill on the House floor. Speaker
Johnson owns the House floor. He owns the time for it. He could
do it next week, and if you are serious about it, let's vote on
it, but if you are not serious about it and just want to
campaign on it, let's fess up to that. You want to just have
this chaos, not you, some people want to have this chaos to
campaign on. They'd rather campaign on the issue than solve the
issue. That is not why I came to Congress. That is not why
people sent us. Let's vote on it.
I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from California,
and yield five minutes now to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Ben Cline.
Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses for being here. It is important that we take
opportunities like today to zero in on the cost of the Biden
border crisis because without the leadership of the Chairman,
if we weren't in the majority, if House Republicans weren't in
the majority, hearings like this would never happen. We know
that the other side would not be focused on securing our border
and for all the talk about some Senate bill that didn't pass
the Senate. So I don't know what shelf the Speaker is going to
pull the bill off of because it is not a shelf that is in the
House of Representatives. It is a bill that can't pass the
Senate.
So, meanwhile, our Senate counterparts, as they talk, they
have held at least 16 hearings related to climate change, but
only one hearing on immigration to try and gloss over the
disastrous effects of the policies pushed by the White House,
this White House that refuses to follow current law. So we can
talk a lot about changing policies, but until we have a
President that actually follows the law with regard to parole,
with regard to detention, we have laws that are currently in
effect, but this President refuses to follow them. This
Homeland Security Secretary was impeached because he ignored
the law.
The American people are seeing straight through the
obfuscation and the blustering on the other side. They know
who's responsible for this crisis, and they are the--and they
are frustrated because they are the ones left having to pay for
the consequences, and the consequences are real.
The last time I was in Yuma, Arizona, and, as we know,
about 85 percent of the fresh wintertime produce is grown in
Yuma, we met with farmers, farmers who were testifying about
illegal immigrants who come across the border, who tromp across
their crops, who camp in their fields, and they are not
allowed, because of U.S. food safety laws, thankfully, that
they are not allowed to harvest or sell that, they have to
destroy it at the cost to the farmer.
So then we went to visit with a hospital in Yuma. We
visited a NICU. The neonatal facility was talking about how
they have a certain number of beds, but that those beds are
often full of illegals, forcing residents of Yuma to have to go
to Phoenix to get care hours away, and that is because,
tragically, the incentives for people to make this journey are
so strong because they can cross the border unimpeded, that
these women are sexually assaulted, raped on the way up here.
They get pregnant. They don't receive any kind of prenatal
care, and so inevitably, they are giving birth early. They are
premature, they go into labor prematurely. They have to have a
NICU available in Yuma when they get here, and so they take up
the space.
So then we talk about the schools, the cost to the school
divisions for, not just because you have an additional student
in the classroom, but because that student is ESL. So you have
those added costs.
Then you have the transportation system, the bus system.
Then you have the housing impact, the rental impact. What is
the impact on rents when you have a limited number of housing
units available? Low-cost housing, but that impact.
So just when you are talking about Yuma, and it is right on
the border, so we looked at the fencing, the holes in the
fencing. When we went actually on our bus ride to the border,
all of a sudden, cars started weaving in and out of our convoy
because we had capital police in front and behind us. They were
slowing us down to a crawl, to a five mile an hour crawl on a
highway. We said, what is going on? It was the cartels
operating freely on our side of the border, trying to determine
what this was, and is it something that should be allowed,
should stop? By the time we got to the fence, no more than ten
minutes later, 15 minutes later, that part of the border was
clear, but we could see across the river the school buses
idling. They were waiting with migrants waiting to cross, and
the cartels are in complete control.
So I can't even begin to talk about the cascading impact on
costs to this country, but every country is becoming--I mean,
every state is becoming a border state. Every community is
becoming a border community. Mine has an interstate running
through it, and if you talk to the state police about what they
pull over every day on that interstate, operating illegally:
human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug trafficking. It is an
epidemic, and until we get a handle on it, these crises are
going to continue.
So I appreciate you holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate our witnesses being here today, and I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Virginia,
and with our final witness from the great state of Texas, Mr.
Chip Roy.
Mr. Roy. I thank my friend, the Chairman. I thank you for
holding this hearing and I appreciate the witnesses being here
and giving your time here.
Mr. Blair, you served in the United States military. You
served in the Border Patrol. You spent over 20 years of your
life doing that. Now you are at the Texas Public Policy
Foundation. Can you explain for the record whether or not you
believe H.R. 2 would effectively secure the border versus the
Senate bill, which in my opinion, to see if you agree with it,
would actually codify catch and release and codify alternatives
to detention such that it would codify the current broken
system? Can you quickly answer that?
Mr. Blair. Yes, sir. H.R. 2, along with your other bill
designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,
both those bills would secure the border. The other would not.
It would actually allow the Mexican cartels to continue to
smuggle and continue to have a slave trade in the United
States.
Mr. Roy. I appreciate that. Mr. Smith from Kinney County,
could you explain--I know you already went through your
testimony. I just want to make sure the record is very clear.
Kinney County, you have gone from, prior to the Biden
Administration, I have heard all of this testimony here today
saying--or questions from my colleagues saying, oh, nothing is
different. There is--you know, everything is all just perfectly
fine under Biden. We have heard testimony that says, oh, they
are doing more, you know, removals. Just speak to the actual on
the ground. Kinney County, Texas, not some ivory tower sitting
in Washington, D.C., where you put out papers and sit in think
tanks and talk about how, you know, wonderful things would be
in theory, in Kinney County, Texas, did you go from 140 crimes,
roughly, prior to the Biden Administration to now something
like 6,700 crimes last year?
Mr. Smith. Absolutely. That is going to be criminal
trespass, evading arrests on foot, human trafficking, human
smuggling, criminal mischief.
And to speak on the Senate bill, I have talked to--I deal
with Republicans and Democrats on the border. The only
Democrats I have spoke--heard from that support that are here
in Washington, D.C. The Democrats on the border don't support
the Senate bill, but the ones here do.
Mr. Roy. I am just wondering, I mean, you probably no doubt
have either met with the family or know the family, the people
who died because the emergency services were not available to
them because they were being used to go deal with people who
are here illegally because of our broken system that the
Democrats refuse to actually deal with at our border, is that
family interested in reading, you know, studies from think
tanks in D.C. about, you know, what we need to do with our
immigration system and free markets?
Mr. Smith. No. They want their relative back that has died.
That is what they want.
Mr. Roy. Ms. Kirchner, are you familiar with the quote from
Milton Friedman that you cannot simultaneously have free
immigration and a welfare state?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Right. Do you believe we have a welfare state?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Do you believe that that welfare state attracts
people from all over the world?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Do you believe that that welfare state is
expensive?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Do you believe that under our current law in the
United States Supreme Court, under Plyler v. Doe, that the
people of Texas have to pay through their taxes to fund people
getting an education whether they are here illegally or not?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Question: Do you believe that, and can you testify
on the record here that I am correct, that there are roughly 51
and a half million people here in the United States who are
foreign born?
Ms. Kirchner. That is about right. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Is that about 15 percent to 16 percent of the
American population?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Is that the highest percentage that we have ever
had as a percentage of our population since we have been
counting it going back well into the, you know, early part of
the 19th century?
Ms. Kirchner. I think we have just hit historic highs.
Mr. Roy. Correct. We have now surpassed current highs and
that is not really accounting for the most recent numbers
piling in over the last year?
Ms. Kirchner. Exactly.
Mr. Roy. That 51 and a half million, has that been
bolstered by roughly about a million people, a little less than
a million? I want to be factually accurate, 900-and-something-
thousand on average per year legally coming into the United
States, legal permanent residents over the last roughly 25
years.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. Right. In other words, do we, as some of my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to say, have a
closed door or an impossible way for people to come to the
United States? Do we not, in fact--have we not allowed almost
20-something, 25 million people legally to come into the United
States over the last two and a half decades?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir. We have a legal system. We have a
legal way to come to the United States. It is called a green
card.
Mr. Roy. And right now, under our current system, are the
laws being ignored by the current administration?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Roy. And this notion that people flowing across the
border, I heard one of my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle talk about the benefits of parole, that somehow that was
fixing the system. Is that not, in fact, a backdoor way to dump
more people into the United States rather than having them
visibly come across the border, enraging the American people
rightfully, and rather fly them into the United States to the
tune of 400,000 people last year, including the State of Texas
and the State of Florida, and fly them into the country under
parole when the law requires a case-by-case analysis? Is that
correct?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, sir. Parole has become a shadow
immigration system. It is essentially supplanting the family
and employment-based systems. They have created a completely
separate system for hundreds of thousands of people who have no
legal basis to enter this country.
Mr. Roy. Well, I appreciate you all testifying here, and I
would just say that if people want to submit reports, maybe
they should send those reports to the families and the victims,
the people who have been dying, like the six families who died
from fentanyl poisoning in my school district or Laken Riley's
family in Georgia, who I am sure would be delighted to read
about all of the studies about what we could do with our
immigration system when we have, in fact, been putting forward
legislation to fix that immigration system, but our colleagues
on the other side of the aisle are not interested in that while
numbers continue to flood across the border.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit 34
affidavits from Kinney County landowners regarding the impact
of the border crisis on their properties, safety, and
livelihood.
Chairman Arrington. Without objection, so ordered.
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Mr. Roy. I thank the Chairman.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and
now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Buddy
Carter.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you
for being here, and thank you for your expertise and your
interest in what I consider to be one of the most pressing
problems that we have in our country today and that is the
border situation at the southwest border and the porous border.
Look, I have been in Congress for ten years. I have been to
the border eight times in that ten years that I have been a
Member of Congress. The last time was about two months ago. It
is in as bad of shape now as I have ever seen it in the eight
times that I have been there.
I am a pharmacist by profession, so I am obviously
concerned about the number of immigrants who are coming across
that border, but I am also concerned, and even probably more
concerned, about the illegal drugs coming across that border,
particularly fentanyl, fentanyl that is poisoning our
communities.
You know, every day we lose over 200 people as a result of
fentanyl poisoning. I want to share a story with you real
quick. As I said, I am a pharmacist, a health care
professional, and I embarrassed myself at a town hall meeting
one day, and I was embarrassed to have made the mistake I made.
I referred to it as fentanyl addiction, and a mother stood up
and she said, no, sir, you are wrong. It is not addiction. She
said, my son took one pill and he is dead. It is fentanyl
poisoning, and that is exactly what it is.
We have made some progress in some of the tools in our tool
chest. I led a letter to the FDA asking them to reclassify
naloxone to where you could get it without a prescription. Now,
I am often critical of the FDA, for good reason I think, but I
have to applaud them in this case, because they did just that.
I keep naloxone with me. I keep it in my backpack everywhere I
go. Thank God I have never had to use it, but I know that it is
there if I ever have to use it.
We all know the statistics. Since President Biden took
office, over 60,000 pounds of fentanyl have been intercepted at
our borders. That is what has been intercepted. We have no idea
what has gone through those borders without us knowing it. In
fact, I will tell you, I mentioned the last time I was at the
border, the Border Patrol agents told me two things that I
didn't know before. First of all, the number of non-Mexicans
crossing that border now exceeds the number of Mexicans
crossing that border. Secondly, and this is what disturbed me
the most, the street price of fentanyl has plummeted. It has
gone from $10 a tablet down to 25 and 35 cents a tablet, which
is simple economics. That is supply and demand. The demand is
still there, but the supply of fentanyl on the streets right
now is so high that the price has plummeted.
This is a national emergency. This is something we have got
to address and save Americans, 200 every day, and everyone
here, everyone in this room knows someone who's been impacted
by this. Either you have a family member or you know of someone
who's been impacted by this. That is what has really got me
concerned.
Ms. Kirchner, I want to ask you, given your experience with
DHS and with the Border Patrol, how has current border policies
contributed to the rise in fentanyl trafficking and drug
trafficking as a whole?
Ms. Kirchner. Well, sir, the Biden Administration has
focused very heavily on releasing illegal migrants and that has
driven this mass wave of immigration through Central America,
through Mexico, but what is coming with it? I mean, all of
these people are paying cartels and they are all paying cartels
and their cartels are becoming richer and richer, and we know
that the cartels use human beings to divert resources so that
they can bring in their shipments in other areas of the border.
So, it is interesting you asked that question because when I
first started working on immigration over 20 years ago, I had
border agents tell me, no, the two are separate. Smuggling
aliens is different than drug trafficking and they were very
different, and now it is all combined. It is one big,
lucrative, illegal, toxic operation and we are paying the price
as Americans.
Mr. Carter. Thank you for that. Let me move on. Mr. Blair,
I want to ask you, we know that on the Federal side we spend
roughly a billion dollars a year incarcerating illegal
immigrants. Do you know how much money the State of Texas and
its localities spend on the same issue? Any idea?
Mr. Blair. Sir, I do not. I can find out for you, but I do
not know that number.
Mr. Carter. I appreciate that. Let me ask you, Mr. Smith,
has the increase in drug smuggling impacted the public safety
of your community?
Mr. Smith. It has. You know, the amount of law enforcement
it takes to respond to incidents.
Mr. Carter. And I suspect emergency personnel carry
naloxone with them and they have to use it quite often. It is
not inexpensive.
Mr. Smith. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Chairman, I can't thank all of you enough
for being here, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing because this is a national emergency. You know, if we
had a plane crash today and it killed 200 people, we'd stop
every airplane that was flying in this country until we figured
out what went wrong. Yet we lose 200 people every day to
fentanyl poisoning and what happens? Nothing whatsoever.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. I
thank the patience and contributions of our witnesses. In
conclusion, I would like to make a couple of brief comments and
I will try not to give another speech.
When I think about this administration and what is
emblematic of this administration with respect to immigration
enforcement and border security, I think about Ms. Kamala
Harris, our Vice President. She was designated as the border's
czar. She was in charge for the Administration, and I remember
her as a presidential candidate along with the other Democrat
presidential candidates, when asked the question about the
current border situation, she, along with every Democrat
candidate raised their hand when asked should we decriminalize
border crossings? She also raised her hand along with the
others when asked if we should provide, ``free services.'' They
are not free, but should we provide health care? And she raised
her hand. It is like the maxim your granddad taught you growing
up: when people tell you who they are, believe them, and I
believe they are, for whatever reason and rationale, for an
open border. I think the greatest cost of that is much deeper
and more profound than just the financial cost, the dollars and
cents, no question about it, and I won't go through the litany
of things associated with those costs because I am trying my
best to stay focused on the Budget Committee's jurisdiction
with respect to the financial impact.
I put a premium on freedom. I know Cato puts a premium on
freedom. I think the fact that the United States has put a
premium on freedom is the reason that you see unlocked and
unleashed human potential like no other country in the history
of humanity, but what I would say to my guests, Mr. Bier
especially, if you are not enforcing the laws, and this
President has not done that willfully, intentionally,
systematically, if he has not done all that he can do, and, in
fact, I think he has undone things with respect to it, but if
he is not doing everything he can do to provide for a common
defense and secure our sovereign border, there is no freedom.
Rule of law is essential and security is essential to the
freedom and quality of lives of the American people, and yes,
there were problems with our border and with immigration
enforcement before this President, and yes, both sides of the
aisle will have to come together to fix some of these
deficiencies in our current immigration system, but the crisis
today, the lawlessness and chaos at our border is different
than anything we have experienced and it could have been
avoided. It is self-inflicted, and it is actually one of the
reasons why it is very difficult to have a bipartisan,
productive conversation to reach some good outcomes that would,
in fact, make the system work better. So I think that that is a
big observation of mine because I, too, am a champion for
freedom.
But what is happening in Kinney County? If you asked how
freedom is working out for the citizens of--my fellow Texans in
Kinney County and 253 of the other counties in Texas, they
would say there is no American freedom the way we knew it
before. They don't go to their ranches anymore, and they don't
leave their kids and their wives at the ranch anymore. They are
fearful of their lives. That isn't the American way. That isn't
liberty as we have held it out to the rest of the world.
But yes, legal immigration, good. Labor shortage,
hardworking, God-fearing, freedom-loving people from all over
the world coming for a slice of the American dream, you better
believe it. That is the American story. It really is. All I
would say is I welcome those folks and I would be in their
shoes, fighting tooth and nail to get to this country, this
experiment in liberty and democracy, but I only welcome them if
they respect our laws, the safety of our citizens, and the
sovereignty of our country, and that is our constitutional,
sacred duty.
And in this hearing, we are just trying to identify the
financial cost, and it is real, and for a Federal Government
that prints money and borrows money without any thought, it is
hard to suggest that there is a consequence to anything we do.
Funding foreign countries' security, funding expansions of
health care. I mean, as long as there is no immediate
consequence or you are not taking tax dollars out of their
pocket or cutting someone's favorite program, it is just such
an irrational system up here.
The best way, I think, to look at a rational system and
observe what it is doing is to look at those places around the
country, which is every place but the Federal Government, where
they have to actually balance their books. They have to make
the ledger balance. So they either raise taxes or cut
expenditures to absorb the cost. Man, that is why people are
yelling from the rooftops, help us, we are overwhelmed and we
are overrun, because they don't say that in this town as long
as China and other bondholders will say, here is some more
money for this insatiable appetite to spend.
I appreciate you, Mr. Bier, and I appreciate your testimony
and I appreciate your back and forth, and I always appreciate
my colleagues on both sides having a good, robust, productive
conversation.
Mr. Smith, thanks for making the trip up here from Kinney
County. Tell my friends out there hello.
Mr. Blair, thanks for your service to our country.
Ms. Kirchner, thank you for all the work that you all did
as the basis for our discussion in terms of the financial cost
of our open border and this border crisis.
With that, God bless you all and God bless our great
country. We are adjourned.
Oh, let me just say this. Sorry. I am going to also submit,
if I can, since I have adjourned, but I want to submit a letter
of support from Sheena Rodriguez, president of Alliance for a
Safe Texas, and then another study from the Federation for
American Immigration Reform that has formed the basis again of
today's hearing, and I obviously don't object and I so order.
[The information follows:]
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Chairman Arrington. And now we are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:39 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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