[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
______
THE BIDEN HARRIS BORDER CRISIS:
WISCONSIN PERSPECTIVES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-101
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
57-175 WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
MATT GAETZ, Florida Member
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona ZOE LOFGREN, California
TOM McCLINTOCK, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky Georgia
CHIP ROY, Texas ADAM SCHIFF, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
MICHAEL RULLI, Ohio
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
AARON HILLER, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
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C O N T E N T S
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Thursday, October 24, 2024
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Tom Tiffany, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Wisconsin.......................... 1
WITNESSES
Panel One
The Hon. Ron Johnson, Senator, Ranking Member of the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations, a Member of the Budget and
Finance Committee from the State of Wisconsin
Oral Testimony................................................. 3
Panel Two
Sheriff Dale J. Schmidt, Dodge County, President, Badger State
Sheriffs' Association
Oral Testimony................................................. 18
Prepared Testimony............................................. 22
Jacob J. Curtis, General Counsel, Director, Center for
Investigative Oversight, Institute for Reforming Government
Oral Testimony................................................. 28
Prepared Testimony............................................. 31
Rick Rachwal, Cofounder, Vice President, Board of the Love, Logan
Foundation
Oral Testimony................................................. 36
Prepared Testimony............................................. 39
Henri Kinson, Resident, Whitewater, Wisconsin
Oral Testimony................................................. 44
Prepared Testimony............................................. 46
Eric J. Toney, District Attorney, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin
Oral Testimony................................................. 48
Prepared Testimony............................................. 51
Supplemental Materials......................................... 54
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Committee on the
Judiciary are listed below..................................... 89
THE BIDEN-HARRIS BORDER CRISIS:
WISCONSIN PERSPECTIVES
----------
Thursday, October 24, 2024
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in
the Milwaukee Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, Room 190,
517 E. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, WI, the Hon. Thomas P.
Tiffany [Chair of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Tiffany, Gaetz, McClintock, Fitzgerald, and Bentz.
Also present: Van Orden, Steil, and Grothman.
Mr. Tiffany. The Committee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on
Wisconsin perspectives on the Biden-Harris border crisis.
Without objection, Representatives Steil, Van Orden, and
Grothman will be permitted to participate in today's hearing
for the purpose of questioning the witnesses and will receive
five minutes to do so.
Without objection, I will now recognize myself for an
opening statement.
Well, good morning. I want to thank my colleagues for
making the trip from all parts of the country and my fellow
Wisconsinites for hosting us here today.
The Committee is conducting a series of these hearings to
hear from Americans across the U.S. about how the Biden-Harris
Administration's open border policies, which impede immigration
enforcement and encourage illegal immigration, are affecting
their communities and we have been having these hearings this
entire session of Congress from McAllen, Texas, Yuma, Arizona,
San Diego, and now we are here in Milwaukee as every State is a
border State.
Since taking office on January 20, 2021, the Biden-Harris
Administration has allowed at least 7.6 million illegal aliens
into the United States, more than the entire population of
Wisconsin and 36 other States.
President Biden and borders czar Vice President Kamala
Harris created this crisis by systematically dismantling
effective border measures and their refusal to enforce our
immigration laws in the interior of the United States.
They have released millions of illegal aliens stopped at
the border into our country and abused our laws to fly millions
more directly into American communities, making every State a
border State.
The results have been tragic with foreign migrants flooding
into American communities from coast to coast, straining social
services and leaving a trail of innocent victims in their wake.
The price tag alone is staggering, reaching into the
hundreds of billions. Even worse, most of these costs are borne
by State and local governments, many of which now face
catastrophic strains on their hospitals, schools, and social
safety net programs, which are supposed to take care of
Americans, not a never-ending tidal wave of illegal aliens.
In Arizona, I learned that a border hospital spent $26
million in a single year on uncompensated care for the illegal
aliens pouring in. In New York City, they expect to spend $12
billion over the next three years on housing, food, healthcare,
and other services for illegal aliens.
Wisconsin is not immune as we have seen in Whitewater where
local resources have been strained by an influx of migrants
after the Biden-Harris Administration flooded the town with
nearly a thousand migrants.
It is about more than just dollars and cents. It is also
about the human cost. Over the past three years Americans have
been confronted with countless reports of brutal rapes,
kidnappings, and murders of women and girls by illegal aliens
in States far from the Southern border, Maryland, Missouri, New
York, Georgia, Florida, and Wisconsin. No one is immune.
In Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, a Venezuelan illegal alien
released by Biden and Harris sexually assaulted a woman and
abused a child after sanctuary jurisdictions like Minneapolis
failed to report his crimes to ICE for deportation.
In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, an illegal alien from Nicaragua
who was released by Biden-Harris Administration tried to
sexually assault a 12-year-old girl.
In Abbotsford, Wisconsin, my district, an illegal alien
stabbed three people over 15 times, killing two children.
In Rusk County, Wisconsin--that is near Ladysmith for those
of you who are familiar with Rusk County--an illegal alien
whose license had already been revoked for a previous Operating
While Intoxicated (OWI) conviction, but was not deported
tragically killed a father of three.
Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris fentanyl deaths in
Wisconsin have also reached an all-time high, claiming
thousands of lives. In Green Bay an illegal alien was busted
after selling fentanyl-laced pills near a middle school and at
a Boys and Girls Club--a Boys and Girls Club.
While these are just a few tragic stories resulting from
borders czar Kamala Harris' open border it is clear that these
dangerous individuals should not be here. While the Biden-
Harris Administration misleadingly claims that its policies are
working, the administration has made America less safe and less
secure.
The fact of the matter is the President has the authority
to stop this. Trump did, Biden did not, and Harris will not.
Today, we will hear from officials and residents in
Wisconsin who have had firsthand experience with the chaos
being inflicted on their communities because of President Biden
and borders czar Kamala Harris' open border.
We will take a brief recess. We are having some AV issues.
We will stand in recess for a moment.
[Recess.]
Mr. Tiffany. The Committee will come to order. We are now
going to introduce today's first panel.
The Hon. Ron Johnson, the Senior Senator from Wisconsin,
was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. Prior to that for 30
years he ran a successful manufacturing business in Oshkosh.
He serves on the Senate Budget Committee, Finance
Committee, and formerly on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee, which he chaired from 2015-2021.
Senator, we welcome you to this hearing this morning and
you may begin your testimony.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. RON JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members of
Committee, and Members of Congress.
I really want to thank the Judiciary Committee for agreeing
to hold this field hearing here in Wisconsin where we can
highlight the tragedies that are occurring as a result of the
Biden-Harris open border policy right here in our State of
Wisconsin.
It is often said that every State is a border State and
that is absolutely true, and you are going to be hearing some
powerful testimony from local sheriffs, from Rick and Erin
Rachwal who tragically lost their son to a fentanyl overdose.
So, rather than concentrate on those tragic stories,
because that is going to be well covered in your second panel,
what I thought I would do is, basically, utilize my time as
Chair--the former Chair of Homeland Security.
Over six years we held something like three dozen hearings
on some aspect of our illegal immigration when it was far less
worse than it is today.
So, what I would like to do is use basically three charts
that tell the story of how we ended up in this place right now
and we will start with the first chart I began preparing as
Chair of Homeland Security had to do with the unaccompanied
children.
You can see by this chart 2009, 2010, and 2011, and we had
a kind of a normal number of unaccompanied children coming to
this country, somewhere under 4,000.
Then, what is the spark to all these crises ever since was
the improper misuse of prosecutor discretion, the Deferred
Action on Childhood Arrivals.
The former President Obama issued those memorandums in 2012
and you can see how all of a sudden the number of unaccompanied
children coming to this country spiked--went up to 10,000 and
the following year 20,000. In 2014, it hit a high for that
point in time. Over 51,000 unaccompanied children came to this
country.
What was happening over those couple years is people in
Central America and elsewhere around the world realized that
something had changed in America's immigration policy. I
remember Senator Cornyn coming to Senate lunches talking about
how he is hearing that in Central America they are being told
that you are going to get a white piece of paper called a
permiso to come to this country. It was not a permission; it
was a notice to appear. That is how they basically took this
change because of DACA and sparked a crisis.
The next thing that happened is, in addition to
unaccompanied children, people got wise and they started coming
into the country with their children or somebody else's child.
So, we had a huge spike in family units. In 2014, over
68,000 family units exploited our asylum laws. So, the former
President Obama noticed that, and he took action. He started
detaining families and it worked because the next year in 2015
family units declined almost in half to 39,800.
Then, the immigration groups took the Obama Administration
to court because they did not like anybody being detained. They
are all in for catch and release, and you had a
reinterpretation of the 1997 Flores settlement agreement which
stated that the DHS had to also consider accompanied children
as part of that Flores agreement.
In other words, they had to release into the custody of HHS
children even if they are accompanied by their parents within
20 days. So, the Obama Administration had a decision to make.
Were they going to--and by the way, the court would allow them
to release the child to the custody of HHS and detain the
parents or release the entire family. The Obama Administration
decided to release the family and the result sparked the crisis
that we are still living today.
If we can go on to my next chart. By the way, one of the
things that we were supposed to do in terms of the whole family
unit was we were supposed to do DNA testing to make sure that
those actually were their children.
The DHS has never fully implemented DNA testing. I would
say they are actually violating laws on the books to force them
to do that and we are not doing it. We actually held a hearing
in June 2019.
Vice President Harris was on my Committee at that point in
time. We heard testimony of a child being sold for $84 to
create a fake family unit to exploit our asylum laws. So, the
Biden Administration knows what they are causing.
This is a chart that I have been developing and updating on
a monthly basis, the one I gave to President Trump in April
2024, that he has been using at his rallies. What I have always
liked about this chart is it shows the cause and effect and so
I would like to just walk through it.
Again, you can see 2012 DACA was announced. In 2014, the
height of that crisis, former President Obama declared a
humanitarian crisis when they were dealing with 2,000 illegal
immigrants coming across the border a day being encountered--
2,000.
I remember DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson at that point in time
said, ``a thousand a day was a really bad day.'' He was going
to be in a really bad mood. In 2015, you had the Flores
interpretation, and when Trump took office after campaigning to
close the border people in Central America took that seriously
and so you saw a pretty dramatic dip in people trying to come
to this country illegally.
Unfortunately, the laws did not change and Congress would
do nothing to change the laws. They would not do anything to
strengthen the President's authority to secure the border, and
so President Trump had deal with his own surge.
He dealt with it. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the
President has--it exudes deference. Current law exudes
deference to the President to deal with the border, and he did
so.
So, he initiated the Migrant Protection Program, otherwise
known as Remain in Mexico. Initiated and did agreements in
Central America, the safe third countries. Threatened tariffs
against the president of Mexico to make sure that he got
cooperation in Mexico and you will see the dramatic results.
In 12 months President Trump went from his high of about
4,500 people per day--again, all sparked because of DACA, but
4,500 people a day to less than 600 a day.
In addition to that, and here is the updated chart now--let
us take this one. Yes.
In addition, President Trump, because of COVID, initiated
returns under Title 42, and one of the reasons I modified the
chart here is because I have seen how Democrats have been
claiming that President Biden now has gotten numbers down to
where it was under Trump.
Well, it is true the encounters are down about the same
level. By the way, the reason the encounters went up from a low
point of April 2020, is on the Presidential campaign trail
every Democrat candidate for President said they were going to
end deportations, offer free healthcare, and you saw single
adults starting to creep back into this country because they
thought it was going to be an open border, which they thought
right.
Because President Trump instituted Title 42 you can see the
very small number. It is that little gap there of people being
led to the borders. Matter of fact, it was so low in December
2020, even though it went from 17,000 in the month of April to
74,000 in December, only 580 people were released that month
under parole--0.8 percent, 19 people a day.
So, again, Trump had the border under control and then
President Biden used the exact same Executive authority that
President Trump used to close the border to open it up even
though he denied it for 3\1/2\ years until the media started
reporting on this crisis at the border because Mayor Adams and
Mayor Johnson started saying it was going to destroy the
country--destroy their cities. The media could no longer ignore
it.
All of a sudden now President Biden was forced to
acknowledge this problem. He kept saying, well, Congress has to
do something. Well, obviously Congress has not, because under
political pressure he started using the same Executive
authority and he has brought the numbers down a little bit, but
he is releasing we do not know exactly how many, about 80
percent.
In addition to that, what I have also added to this chart
is he has also legalized pathways under the CBP One App he has
released 800 and--I am trying to find it. Well, I do not know
where it went on my numbers here, but under the CBP One App I
think it is 800,000 some. Under the CHNV, Cuba, Haiti,
Nicaragua, and Venezuela, it is about 500,000-30,000 a month
for 18 months.
So, that is just the new legalized way so they can claim
that oh, this is not illegal immigration. They have just
legalized a separate pathway. That is what Vice President
candidate J.D. Vance was talking about when he was fact checked
by the debate moderators.
Anyway, this is a huge problem. The open border it is
facilitating a multibillion-dollar business model of some of
the most evil people on the planet. Let us face it, the human
trafficking, the sex trafficking, and the drug trafficking--
again, you are going to hear about the rapes, the murders, and
the vehicular homicides but we have also have terrorists
entering this country.
Are they just as sleeper cells? What is it with tens of
thousands of military-aged Chinese men, transnational criminal
organizations, again, the drug traffickers?
If you go to Central America and you talk to law
enforcement there who are under the sway of the drug cartels,
if you are a new police officer there you are going to be
bribed, but you are also going to get a little DVD that shows
your children and your wife going to church or going to school.
So, you can either accept the bribe and do the cartels'
bidding and leave them alone or they are going to threaten your
family. If you are a taxi driver, the extortion, the
kidnappings--if you are a taxi driver you either pay the
extortion or they put a bullet in your head and they put your--
they light your car on fire.
So, the fact that now we are seeing Venezuela gangs taking
over apartment buildings and it is unbelievable that a CBS--I
think a CBS commentator on Sunday morning would talk about only
a few, just a handful of apartment buildings being taken over
by Venezuelan gangs like that is acceptable.
We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of these
gangs, these cartels, infiltrating smaller communities,
intimidating police officers, and probably not many, but
probably bribing some under threat of killing their children or
themselves.
You can see where this is going. The gang activity, by the
way, those unaccompanied children, when I was the Chair, 70
percent were over the age of 15 and male, perfect age for gang
members, right?
So, again, this is an unmitigated disaster. We have only
seen the tip of the iceberg of the mayhem, of the depredations
that we are going to see long term.
We are going to be dealing with this for years and decades.
My suggestion is we do turn the page on this and we actually
elect a President who is serious about using that Executive
authority to secure the border.
We are happy to strengthen that authority. We can somewhat
by the Florida settlement reinterpretation. We are happy to
strengthen that. We just do not have partners on the other side
that are willing to do it.
Again, I truly appreciate you holding this field hearing
and definitely looking forward to hearing from the other
witnesses. I am happy to take any questions you might have.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, thank you very much Senator Johnson. I
suspect there will be a few questions. I want to ask a couple
to kick this off.
So, you go to the very right side of that chart there and
you see some of those numbers that are dropping and you alluded
to that.
Could this be tied at all--we are hearing reporting now
that there are tens of thousands of people staging in Southern
Mexico that are--some beginning their movement to the Northern
border of Mexico as with us getting toward election day we
suspect.
Are you familiar with the reporting that is out there that
there are tens of thousands of people that are staging down in
Southern Mexico?
Senator Johnson. Well, I know you have done good work going
down to the Darien Gap and seeing the camps of Chinese
military-age men. I do not know exactly what is happening, and
that is part of the problem is we do not have a transparent
government.
The DHS--these numbers we are using is as good estimates as
we can have. We have 12 million people coming in this country
illegally, 10 million, 5.7 released. Nobody really knows. Two
million got-aways.
So, exactly what is happening I wish we had an
administration that was transparent and honest with the
American public, but we do not have that and we certainly do
not have a news media that is inquisitive and do investigative
reporting as well.
Mr. Tiffany. The other question I have is we are hearing
from some that--what was referred to as the Lankford bill was
an answer to securing the border.
We passed H.R. 2 through the House of Representatives, came
out of this Committee and would have the Lankford bill would
have been better at securing the border?
Senator Johnson. The House bill by far, and I appreciate
you asking me about that because there have been so many lies
told about what happened there.
That bill tanked itself. For whatever reason, Leader
McConnell decided to seek negotiations utilizing James Lankford
as the negotiator. Would not be forthright in terms of what
they are negotiating with the conference. I finally requested a
conference meeting to finally get the information. What are you
negotiating?
That was a week before they introduced the bill. Our jaws
dropped when we heard about the threshold--the 4,000 a day
threshold--to give the President discretion to stop processing
asylum claims. Then, the 5,000 threshold where it would make it
mandatory for him to start doing that.
That got leaked over that week. When they finally
introduced that bill by Sunday that bill was dead on arrival. I
do not know of any Republican Senator that President Trump
called up to tell him to vote against that bill because on
Monday morning Mitch McConnell came in and said he is going to
advise--even though this is the bill he negotiated, probably
got Border Patrol to sponsor--``because they were looking for
any port in a storm.''
That Monday following the introduction of this thing on
Sunday, McConnell comes into a conference meeting and said,
``well, politics have changed. We got a Presidential candidate.
I am going to recommend voting against--voting no on cloture.''
Again, it kind of surprised all of us because that was his
negotiated bill. He knew it had no chance. It was such an awful
bill and, again, they established those thresholds, basically
codified an awful lot of--half of President Biden's open border
policy.
By the way, during the Biden Administration the average
encounters is over 7,700 a day. You tack on got-aways it is
over 9,000 people a day coming into this country or attempting
to come in. Nine thousand people a day.
The former President Obama called 2,000 a day a
humanitarian crisis. So, that would have codified 4,000-5,000 a
day. Plus, by Congress saying that the President does not have
discretion to stop processing asylum claims until he reaches
4,000, you actually would have weakened what authority the
President already had.
So, on both fronts--codifying what President Biden has done
to this country, this clear and present danger, and weakening
Presidential authority that bill was a disaster. It was dead on
arrival and, quite honestly, President Trump, I know he spoke
out against it but he had nothing to do with tanking that bill,
from my standpoint.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes, that was my question. Senator Johnson,
did President Trump expressing displeasure with the bill make
up your mind as far as whether you were to support or oppose?
Senator Johnson. None whatsoever, and I do not think that
however many of us voted against it--there are only a couple
that did--I do not think that had any influence whatsoever.
President Trump was absolutely right coming out against the
bill, but we were already against it.
Mr. Tiffany. Members who have any other questions?
Representative Gaetz?
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you for that excellent presentation and
for your expertise in this matter, Senator Johnson.
I only take exception with one part, when you described the
law enforcement dilemma in Central America to take the bribe or
endure the threat, and I am grateful that in El Salvador there
has been a third way.
Through strong leadership and the State of exception
President Bukele has actually created security there where now
if you are a Salvadorian killer it is a more permissive
environment in the United States of America than it is in El
Salvador, and we see President Mulino in Panama endeavoring on
an improvement there as well.
I want to get to know what is going on with some of your
constituents. What is happening in Whitewater, Wisconsin?
Senator Johnson. Well, you are going to hear an awful lot
of testimony so I will let them testify. It is a small
community. About a thousand migrants all of a sudden showed up
and law enforcement is being overwhelmed by it. Their schools
are being overwhelmed by it.
Congressman Steil and I went there a number of months ago
to hear the tale of woe and it is but, again, that is just one
little community. This is being replicated across the country
in large cities and small communities where we primarily
recognize the harm of the open border is more in drug
trafficking, though.
We do not have a huge migrant population from what I can
discern traveling around talking to local law enforcement and
Whitewater is somewhat of an outlier from that standpoint. We
used to have meth labs not that many years ago. That was a big
problem for law enforcement.
We do not have meth labs anymore because you can get meth a
lot cheaper and of higher quality coming across the Southwest
border now. We used to have a central drug trafficking hub in
Chicago. Now, we have multiple hubs in Wisconsin.
So, you are going to hear again the tragic story from the
Rachwals in terms of the loss of their son from, again, thought
it was a pain pill and it was fentanyl laced and died by
himself in his room. This is just tragic.
Mr. Gaetz. What I observed was that even in circumstances
where local law enforcement was able to seize substantial
cartel funds they could not interest ICE in cooperation to go
after the cartels that were establishing a presence in your
State.
There has been a lot of question and discussion about how
to
effectuate the largest deportation in American history, which
is
needed.
Would not some of those experiences that you have observed
as a Senator in Wisconsin provide a pathway to do that where
when folks are doing the right thing from an investigative
standpoint?
A community did not choose to be a sanctuary city. There is
this theory that, well, the only places being overrun are the
places that have chosen the sanctuary status. I think in your
State you have observed that it is more broad.
Senator Johnson. Again, I think the Biden Administration
has pretty well dismantled the ability of ICE to really detain
and cooperate effectively with local law enforcement. Again,
that is going to require a new President. That is going to
require new leadership at ICE within DHS that actually want to
enforce laws.
By the way, the law enforcement officers within ICE and
within CBP they will welcome that. They want to enforce the
law. They want to protect U.S. citizens. They are really beside
themselves.
That is part of the problem. We are seeing a high level of
retirements. We cannot hire--we cannot recruit law enforcement,
whether it is local law enforcement after the defund law
enforcement movement, but certainly CBP and ICE. It is just so
dispiriting to sign up to protect the public and then basically
be prevented from doing the job by this administration.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. Members--Representative McClintock?
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Senator Johnson, first, thank you so much for your
leadership on this issue. You have been sounding the alarm on
crisis since the day it began.
You mentioned the Flores settlement and the dangers that
confront these hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors.
The H.R. 2, which passed the House last year, would have fixed
the Flores settlement. It would have required the safe return
of unaccompanied children back to their own homes and their own
families.
Why has the Senate not taken that bill up?
Senator Johnson. Because the Senate is right now under the
majority rule of Democrats and the last thing they want to do
is fix this problem.
People need to understand Democrats, Biden-Harris, they
want an open border. They caused this problem. By the way, I do
appreciate you bringing back up the UACs and trying to be
somewhat succinct.
I completely left out some of the field hearings we have
had with Senator Grassley with the HHS whistleblowers. The New
York Times article--85,000 UACs turned over to HHS completely
unaccounted for, and that is a low number.
We had an HHS whistleblower that said, again, this was a
detailee into HHS. They were trying to handle this and they
were so frustrated in terms of the sponsors that they could not
find or that seemed completely unqualified.
Sponsors with the addresses of storage units or a sponsor
sponsoring thousands of children. She went to her supervisor
and the supervisor said,
I think you need to understand we only get sued if we keep kids
in our care too long. We do not get sued by traffickers. Are
you clear? We do not get sued by traffickers.
The fact of the matter is HHS is taking these kids. They
have to get rid of them within 20 days, and they are turning
them over to sponsors that they know are operated by
transnational criminal organizations that are sex trafficking,
human trafficking, and they know what is going to happen and
they are doing it, and they are turning a blinds eye toward it.
Of course, the media except for The New York Times--I give
them credit--a blind's eye toward it as well.
Mr. McClintock. This is completely incomprehensible to me.
If a little waif showed up on your doorstep the first thing you
are going to do is get that little child back to its family and
its home.
You are not going to take that child three doors down to a
crack house and drop them off there, and yet that is exactly
what our government is doing, is it not?
Senator Johnson. Yes, and it is shameful.
Mr. McClintock. When we abandoned Afghanistan we released
5,000 of the most dangerous terrorists on the planet that were
being held at Parwan Detention Facility. We know where one of
those terrorists went. Ten days later they went to the Abbey
Gate at Kabul airport and detonated a bomb that killed 13 U.S.
service members. We do not know where the other 5,000 are, do
we?
Senator Johnson. Not to my knowledge, and what is even more
egregious about that is they did not have identification and we
just created identities for these people.
Mr. McClintock. Is it conceivable that some of those 5,000
terrorists are among the 1.9 million known got-aways that we
watched cross the border, but could not intercept because the
Border Patrol was completely overwhelmed taking names and
changing diapers at the border?
Senator Johnson. Yes. It is almost certainly that is the
case, and understand we have apprehended--we have encountered
people on the terrorist watch list. Those are the ones we have
apprehended.
The real bad people I am sure take advantage of these
surges of thousands of people at one border crossing so you
have no nobody on the line, and they are going to be part of
that known and unknown got-away population. There is just no
doubt that there are terrorists who we have let into this
country, members of transna-
tional criminal organizations. Again, it is just a ticking time
bomb.
Mr. McClintock. When we were at the Yuma border a year ago
we talked to a group of rank and file Border Patrol agents and
one thing I said is, look, we are the Congress. We cannot
enforce the laws. We write laws so what laws do you need us to
write?
Unanimously, they responded we do not need new laws. We
need to enforce the laws that we have. The Chief of the Border
Patrol told us at Eagle Pass that he says,
I am standing in front of an open fire hydrant with a bucket. I
do not need more buckets. I need somebody to shut off the fire
hydrant.
Is this all--President Trump proved that using the existing
law he could secure the border. The laws did not change on
January 20, 2021. The Presidency changed. So, is that
ultimately in the hands of the American people whether we are
going to secure our border or not?
Senator Johnson. Again, the Supreme Court ruled the
President--the current law exudes deference to the President so
he has got enormous power. Trump used it to secure the border.
President Biden used it to open it up.
I would say that it would be nice to address the Flores
settlement reinterpretation. Secretary Jeh Johnson completely
disagreed with that. It makes no sense. You cannot detain a
child with their family. That makes no sense. That could be
fixed.
We absolutely have to increase the credible fear standard.
The standard ought to be do you have a valid asylum claim or
not.
Mr. McClintock. H.R. 2 has--
Senator Johnson. It ought to be just as--
Mr. McClintock. H.R. 2 does that, too.
Senator Johnson. So, there are things that we could
certainly strengthen and we would be happy to do that. That is
not what Democrats want to do. They basically want to codify
this open border.
Mr. McClintock. As you pointed out, the Lankford bill would
have made it impossible, would have forbidden a president to
take the actions that Trump did until illegal border crossings
reached at least 4,000 a day.
Senator Johnson. Four thousand. Yes. Now, again, that is
incomprehensible.
You mentioned the border in Texas. I remember going down--I
think this is when--before I became Chair in 2014 during the
Obama's humanitarian crisis and we were all singing the praises
of CBP who created this facility in McAllen, Texas.
Because, again, you have all these family units. You are
really not sure. They were not sure. Is this really the father?
So, they separated within that unit in a very humane way. They
had chain link fences and stuff and we were all celebrating
that. We were saying and singing the praise of CBP for going
outside normal government rules and responding to this crisis.
Of course, a year or two later under President Trump that
exact same facility with the exact same chain link fences all
of a sudden was kids in cages. Again, a grotesque double
standard.
Mr. Tiffany. Represent Fitzgerald?
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you.
Mr. Tiffany. Representative Van Orden? OK. Representative
Grothman, you are recognized.
Mr. Grothman. Just a general--I want your opinion. I really
appreciate the graphs you have up here and, obviously, as you
just mentioned the unaccompanied minors coming here is 8,000-
9,000 a month.
Why do you believe you have a situation that these minors
are separated from their parents, probably are never going to
see their parents again, and we had a short period of time in
which kids were separated from their parents under the Trump
Administration.
Now, we have wildly more minors all going up here. Why does
the press not consider this a scandal and why does the average
American not know about it?
Senator Johnson. Because the press, like our Democrat
colleagues, they are supportive of an open border.
Mr. Grothman. So, that is why the American public does not
know all the unaccompanied minors who we have streaming across
our border?
Senator Johnson. Yes, and again, the media--I quit calling
them mainstream media. The legacy of the corporate media they
are cheerleaders for the Democrat Party. They are the comms
department for Democrats. They wanted Biden president, so they
did everything they could to get somebody who campaigned from
his basement elected president. They were certainly
cheerleading when Biden was replaced on the ticket with Kamala
Harris. They put her on a pedestal and declared her the Second
Coming.
They are trying to do everything they can to get her
elected as well. So, again, they are absolutely supportive of
all these radical left policies, and one of those radical left
policies is literally the clear and present danger of a wide-
open border.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Mr. Tiffany. Members, anyone with a question?
Mr. Van Orden. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. Representative Van Orden, you are recognized.
Mr. Van Orden. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would also like to thank Representatives Moore and Pocan
for showing up here at this incredibly important hearing as
immigration goes in between the top one and two issues for all
Wisconsinites and American citizens.
Our folks are literally being kidnapped, raped, and
murdered here in the State of Wisconsin and around the country
and we have two Members of Congress who could not bother
showing up today. I think that that speaks volumes.
The criminal illegal alien that Congressman Tiffany
referred to earlier made his way across the border with
Venezuelan gang tattoos, and those are not a ``Live to ride,
ride to live'' tattoo.
It is either you are a member of that gang and you have
that tattoo or they will cut it off you while you are living.
So, that should have been taken for what it is at the border.
This person ever should have been allowed in the country.
Made his way to Minneapolis, arrested for crimes after the
Dane County sheriff had warrants out for strangulation, some
other violent crimes. Did not bother following up with it
because both of those places are sanctuary cities.
Then, he came to a place a half mile away from where four
of my grandchildren live and brutally raped a mother and
assaulted a daughter over a period of days, and this could have
been stopped at any point during this chain and solely because
the Biden Administration is pushing this incredibly horrible
political agenda is that going to keep happening over and over
and over again.
So, Senator Johnson, I just found this out this last week
and I want to know if you are tracking this.
We went to the Federal prison in Oxford--excuse me, Oxford.
It is in my district, and half of the prisoners in this Federal
prison--half--are illegal aliens. Are you tracking the volume
of what is taking place with it?
This is the second, third order effect of opening up these
borders. When half of an institution is occupied by illegal
aliens that is something that I am hoping we are going to be
looking at here under a Trump Presidency. Are you tracking
this, sir?
Senator Johnson. I am not but it is not surprising. It is
not just going to be Federal prisons, it is going to be local
prisons and they are going to be bearing the brunt of the cost
of this.
I think the House Committee said that the cost of dealing
with this crisis is about $150 billion per year across all
governmental units. That is a massive cost imposed on us by the
Biden-Harris Administration.
You said that gang members never should have been let into
this country. The vast majority of these people, as sympathetic
as I am of people who want to come here for opportunity, they
do not qualify for asylum.
Asylum is a very tough standard. You have to be persecuted
by your government or threatened with persecution under some
very limited--I cannot remember all of them, but race, gender,
part of a club, some kind of social group, or political group.
Again, it is a very tough standard. Most people coming to
this country, other than the criminals, are economic migrants
and, again, we might welcome them in a legal system, which is
one of the travesties, by the way of this open border. It has
set back establishing a functioning legal immigration that is
controlled, that brings people in to improve our economy.
I am for a robust legal immigration system and we need one.
We certainly need one here in Wisconsin, certainly in your
district, with all the farmers. We need workers. We need
laborers.
Immigrant laborers do a great job. They come in here, they
work their tail off. It has to be a legal system and cannot
establish that until you secure the border. So, Biden has set
back establishing that legal system I do not know how many
years. It is a travesty.
Mr. Van Orden. It is, and just for a couple stats out of
the--at one point they had 17,000-20,000 some rotating through
Afghan refugees at Fort McCoy, which I represent.
We went back and looked at every single Afghan that came
here that was eligible for a special immigrant visa. They
worked with the U.S. Government during the war. Guess how many
of those people qualified for SIVs?
Senator Johnson. Probably not many.
Mr. Van Orden. Zero.
Senator Johnson. Not many.
Mr. Van Orden. The answer is zero, Senator.
Senator Johnson. I was right.
Mr. Van Orden. That is less than not many. The last thing
is we are looking at about 250,000 missing children, correct?
The Biden Administration has lost--
Senator Johnson. Yes, that is what the whistleblowers are
talking about in our hearings. Yes, 85,000--as I said, that is
a low number.
Mr. Van Orden. Yes. Let us make sure that is in the record,
that the Biden Administration under the Harris border czardom
is solely responsible for losing almost a quarter of a million
children into the United States that are most likely being
trafficked--
Senator Johnson. Knowing full well that they were releasing
them to the hands of probably members of transnational criminal
organizations, human sex traffickers, knowing full well that--
again, it was not a surprise to them.
Mr. Van Orden. With that, I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you. I now recognize Representative
Steil.
Mr. Steil. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Senator Johnson, thank you for being here with us today.
Thanks for coming to Whitewater as we discuss the issue. We are
going to get into that in the second panel.
I just want to come back to your chart here. Both of us
come--if we can keep the chart up, if you would. Can we keep
that same chart?
That chart has everything except one thing. What would that
chart look like during the Biden-Harris Administration if you
added got-aways?
Senator Johnson. About a couple million more people.
Mr. Steil. I think as we are stage setting here--
Senator Johnson. These are encounters. So, yes--
Mr. Steil. I am supportive of the chart.
Senator Johnson. I would have a different scale.
Mr. Steil. That is what I wanted to do in the stage setting
of this because we are going to get into a great next panel.
This only captures part of the problem. It is a huge problem.
This captures part of the problem.
In addition to that, you have millions of got-aways, and if
we just think intuitively some individuals, as you have noted,
turn themselves in to abuse our parole system, to abuse the
catch and release policies of the Biden-Harris Administration.
Other individuals are not interested in turning themselves
in and allowing the abused system of the Biden-Harris
Administration to give them paperwork to be released into the
United States. If we think intuitively who might those
individuals be that do not want to be caught in the first
place?
Senator Johnson. Those would be the bad hombres, I guess.
You talked about abuse. I mentioned when it came to the UACs
and the DACA that it was an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
What this administration has done with parole, it is a strange
term, and what parole means for immigration is you are allowed
in the country for a special purpose, like to get a medical
treatment, or you have got a family member that died and you
are coming in very short term for that medical treatment or to
attend that funeral.
They have granted that to well over a million people.
Again, it is supposed to be case-by-case basis and they just
expanded it. So, again, it is a lawless, like, the President--
like the Obama Administration these are lawless
administrations. They are afraid for our democracy? They are
the danger to our democracy.
Mr. Steil. I totally agree. I think when we also think
about the got-aways, when we think about those individuals who
are crossing who have a criminal background, who have
previously been deported, who may be trafficking drugs, those
are the individuals likely to try to avoid the encounter, that
are coming into the United States in large numbers.
Then, when we think about the policies of sanctuary cities
and we know Dane County operates as a sanctuary city because
ICE makes it clear that Dane County does not coordinate with
them, we know the danger that poses into our communities as was
pointed out by Congressman Van Orden, the impact that is having
in our State.
There has been State legislation where we could have had an
opportunity to ban sanctuary cities here in the United States
and we have not been successful in doing that under Democratic
leadership in this State.
Senator Johnson. By the way, something you know the border
with Mexico is 100 percent secure on the Mexican side. You do
not cross that until you pay the trafficking fee.
OK. So, the cartels they will funnel hundreds of thousands
of people into one area so they can probably the higher value--
you probably get a higher trafficking fee for trafficking the
bad hombres as known or unknown got-aways.
Mr. Steil. I appreciate your testimony. I look forward to
the second panel.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. I now recognize Represent Bentz for
questioning.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator, thank you so much for being here. When I first saw
your chart I thought it was something showing us inflation.
That is what I thought that was.
Here is the point. The point is the Biden Administration
suggests that now that inflation has eased off a bit all the
consequences somehow evaporated and they did not and that is--
the same is true for your chart on immigration, is it not?
It is way down but what about all those 7-9 million people
that now are here? So, there seems to be--we had the head of
Homeland--former head of Homeland Security in front of us the
other day, and he was talking about how there might be some
means of removing people from the United States but then he
admitted it would be extraordinarily expensive and extremely
difficult.
So, the challenge is it not--and that is why I am looking
forward to the second panel--of how in the world do we now deal
with these folks that are here and probably never going to
leave?
That, to me, is where our discussion is going to go. We can
talk about who caused this--the Biden Administration, your
chart shows. Now what?
So, that is my question to you. Now what?
Senator Johnson. Well, for those of you who have been to
the border you also probably saw what I saw is so many young
pregnant women in their eighth or ninth month. Of course, they
come here and that child is a U.S. citizen which, personally, I
believe we ought to do away with birthright citizenship. We are
in the minority of countries that grant that and that is just
another magnet to come here.
I hope under a serious administration deporting criminals
will be reasonably easy but past that point it is going to be
very difficult. Because of birthright citizenship are you going
to really separate a child from--an infant from their mother
and father?
So, no, this is something we are going to have to grapple
with. I hope as Republicans we do it with a great deal of
humanity. Take a look at how people--again, they were welcomed
in. Yes, they came in illegally but they were welcomed in by
the Biden Administration.
So, I think we have to factor that in and figure out in
some way, shape, or form how do we deal with these people with
humanity, the ones who have behaved, that are working, they are
not a burden on society.
That is something we are going to have to grapple with.
That would be a very serious issue and I hope it does not break
down on party lines. I hope this is something we can work with
on a bipartisan basis. We have got a real problem on our hands.
Mr. Bentz. We do. The $150 billion a year into the
indefinite future of cost and one in 10 being entitled to
asylum, at least, that is what our hearing record shows one in
10.
The other nine they should not have come across even
though, as you say, they indeed were welcomed in by the Biden
Administration. Thank you, Senator, so much for being here
today.
Senator Johnson. Thank you.
Mr. Tiffany. If there are no further questions, Senator
Johnson, thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate
it.
Senator Johnson. Thank you so much.
Mr. Tiffany. We are now going to move on to our--by the
way, thank you for creating that chart and saving a person's
life.
We are now going to move on to our second panel, and as it
is set up I am going to do the introductions of the people that
are going to be on this next panel.
First, we have the Hon. Eric Toney. He is in his 12th year
as District Attorney for Fond du Lac County and is the former
President of the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association,
currently serving as past president. Prior to being elected
district attorney, he was in private practice focused on mental
health, juvenile criminal defense, and bankruptcy law.
District Attorney Toney manages an office that files
thousands of criminal cases each year and has personally
prosecuted hundreds if not thousands of those cases including
cold case homicide, sexual assault, drug conspiracies, gang
crime, domestic violence, drunk driving, violent crime,
racketeering, human trafficking, and election fraud.
Jacob Curtis is a General Counsel and Director of the
Center of the Investigative Oversight at the Institute for
Reforming Government. He was appointed by Governor Walker to
serve as Chief Legal Counsel at the Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources.
He also previously served as Deputy Legal Counsel at the
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. Was a policy advisor
to a State Senator and served as an elected County Supervisor.
Mr. Curtis also serves in the Wisconsin Air National Guard.
Rick Rachwal is the cofounder and Vice President of the
Board of the Love, Logan Foundation. Mr. Rachwal and his wife
Erin founded the organization in August 2022, following the
fentanyl poisoning of their 19-year-old son Logan.
The foundation educates and informs communities around the
country about the impact of fentanyl and how education and
awareness can save lives.
Rick is also a lead engineer for the Eaton Corporation
located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. We want to thank Erin for
having appeared a 1\1/2\ years ago before our Committee to
testify and we appreciate Rick is here today.
Henri Kinson was born and raised in Whitewater, Wisconsin,
grew up attending Whitewater public schools, served on the
Whitewater school board for seven years and has four sons, all
of whom have attended Whitewater public schools.
He holds a bachelor of Business Administration and a master
of Business Administration. He is a certified Public Accountant
and a certified Information Security Auditor.
Sheriff Dale Schmidt has served in the Dodge County
Sheriff's Office since 2004, first as a Patrol Deputy, then a
Sergeant, finally taking over as Sheriff in 2015.
Prior to 2004 he served as a police officer in multiple
Wisconsin jurisdictions including the village of Winneconne and
Horicon. He also currently serves as the President of the
Badger State Sheriff's Association.
Sheriff Schmidt holds an associate's degree in Police
Science from Fox Valley Technical College and is a nationally
certified drug recognition expert and a standardized field
sobriety test master instructor.
We welcome our witnesses and thank them for appearing today
and we are going to begin by swearing all of you in. Would you
please rise and raise your right hand?
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief so help you, God?
[All witnesses answer in the affirmative.]
Mr. Tiffany. I notice that each of the witnesses proclaimed
in the affirmative. You may be seated.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you
summarize your testimony. We are going to have Sheriff Schmidt
go first with his testimony. You have five minutes, sir.
STATEMENT OF SHERIFF DALE J. SCHMIDT
Mr. Schmidt. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and the thank you, the
Members of the Committee, for having me here today.
I really do appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak
not only as the Dodge County Sheriff, but on behalf of many of
the sheriffs. I understand I am the President of the Sheriffs
Association. Some of the things--
Mr. Tiffany. Would you pause for just second? I would ask
the other Members on the panel please silence your mic and you
will see with the light. It might eliminate some feedback. We
will see what happens.
Mr. Schmidt. Certainly.
Mr. Tiffany. Sheriff Schmidt, continue.
Mr. Schmidt. Thank you. I represent many opinions of the
sheriffs of the Sheriffs Association, not all, so I am not
speaking as the president here today, but I do have a number of
incidents that I would like to share with everybody.
As you know, being the sheriff is a very tasking job. There
is a lot of work that I have to do. This morning I was out
looking for a young lady who was missing. Found her,
thankfully.
Right now I am supposed to be back where--I have 17
individuals doing a search warrant on a homicide investigation.
There is a lot of things that we have to do. I thank you for
taking your time to be here in your home State or come from
across the country to be here.
I do note, along with Mr. Van Orden, what he indicated
earlier--I am disappointed that we do not have individuals here
to hear what we have to say here today.
We are your constituents and we have concerns, and I thank
you for hearing them. I hope you can take them back to the
other side and share them, but it is very important stuff for
you to hear, and I really thank Senator Johnson for being here.
Where is Senator Baldwin and the other Members of the other
side?
That is very concerning to me as a constituent. I elect you
to be here just as Congressman Fitzgerald elects me to be his
sheriff. I have a responsibility to him, you have a
responsibility to me, and I appreciate you hearing what we have
to say.
With that being said, some of the sheriffs have shared some
very serious things with me. If Trump does not win this
election we are screwed. That is a quote from one of our
sheriffs.
Another sheriff--people do not understand how bad it is. If
you would have asked me 10 years ago when I became sheriff if I
would be sitting here in front of you talking about a border
crisis I would have said no way. No way. We are not in a
position where it is going to be this bad.
I am here to tell you that is not the case. You, obviously,
know that is not the case. In my 24 years of law enforcement I
have never seen the type of criminal element from outside of
our borders in our home State here of Wisconsin--our border
State of Wisconsin--like we are seeing now.
It did not take me long to reach out to our fellow sheriffs
and say, hey, what have you got around the State, for them to
come back to me with some incidents, and there is crimes of all
kinds from around the country--around the State.
I am going to start with a couple of them in my own county
that happened here recently. The first one--really, the first
arrest took place under President Trump at the very end of his
first term.
The DEA in collaboration with our agency made an arrest of
an individual from the Sinaloa drug cartel in which they seized
81 pounds of methamphetamine--81 pounds. That is a small human.
Five and a half ounces of fentanyl. Five and a half ounces
of fentanyl will kill 156,000 people. From one person, from a
cartel member that lived in the city of Juneau, 3,000 people--
my county seat.
I am here to tell you we have cartel members in every
single one of the counties in Dodge County--I am sorry, in the
State of Wisconsin. It is happening and we thought, OK, the DEA
is here. The Federal Government is here to save us on this one.
No prosecution. He was arrested--no prosecution. They were
going to work him. To this day, I do not know that this
individual has ever been prosecuted for any of those offenses.
In November 2022, our drug task force came to me and said,
``hey, we have got this guy again.'' I said, ``What do you mean
we got this guy again?'' I thought--why is this guy not in
prison?
No, we have got this guy again, and they had some
controlled buys into him, made an additional arrest and ended
up with four pounds of methamphetamine--another four pounds--
2.1 pounds of marijuana and $51,000 in suspected drug money,
which was all seized.
My people did the right thing. I do not know what happened
after that transition to power to the Biden Administration
because under Trump's Administration they were doing a good
thing and then all of a sudden it just fell off the table and
nothing happened.
Two years later into the Biden-Harris Administration we
have to come back and arrest this guy and we have possession
with intent to deliver more than 50 grams of meth, possession
with intent to deliver marijuana, 200-1,000 grams, maintaining
a drug trafficking place, possession of drug paraphernalia,
three counts of manufacturing and delivery of methamphetamine.
Blows me away. We have him in prison now. The State is now
paying for him to be in prison. He should not have been here in
the first place and the State is going to pay for him to be in
prison for 18\1/2\ years and then have him on supervised
release for 10 years when he should not be here in the first
place or should be in Federal prison.
That is a problem. That is a problem that is now on the
Wisconsin taxpayers to take care of him.
Another comment that was made earlier about law enforcement
in other countries, we do not have them taking a hold on our
State here in Wisconsin, yet. It is coming.
We will have more cartel members coming into the State of
Wisconsin. We will have more instances of individuals
threatening our families. It is going to happen just like it
happens in Mexico if this continues and if we do not stop this.
I am fearful for my family. I am fearful for the family of
those that serve with me that when we have cartel members, and
if we are going to arrest individuals that they are going to
turn around and say--they are going to hand us that DVD and
say, what are you going to do, if we do not do something soon.
Other incidents--we had a scammer from India. Tried to scam
somebody out of $81,000 in Dodge County just last month. We
were able to get in, intercept, and take this person into
custody in the midst of a deal.
We do not always get to do that. This was really cool. We
got him in custody. He is now in our court system and we are
hopefully working on some kind of deportation process, but we
got a $100,000 cash bond.
We will take care of it here at the State because the
Federal Government is not doing it, but I sure wish the Federal
Government would.
Fond du Lac County incident. The individual on March 22,
2024--the individual was stabbed. An illegal alien left the
victim for dead. Just left her for dead.
Fond du Lac County, in collaboration with two other
counties, was able to take this individual into custody and on
multiple charges--first degree intentional homicide, mayhem,
first degree reckless injury, and aggravated battery. Those are
all pending.
Another Fond du Lac County. Just over the county border,
12-year-old female had just shown up at somebody's door. She
broke away from somebody who was sexually assaulting her. Had
her bound, had her gagged, and had her blindfolded.
He broke--she broke away. She had enough power to get away
and get to somebody's home and seek help. Here just--and he
paid for her. He paid for her from her mother. Unbelievable
stories that we are hearing right here in Wisconsin.
Oconto County--an individual who was found dead laying in a
park in Green Bay Shore's State wildlife area. The Oconto
County sheriff tells me that his staff worked really hard on
this only to find out that this individual, the victim, was
dealing and this individual owed the suspect money. The suspect
is--it goes fine.
Someone picks him up at his home, takes him out to the
park, couple rounds, puts him down and here we have a homicide
in Oconto--quiet Oconto County in Northeast Wisconsin.
I could go on. Time after time there is all kinds of
incidents. We have illegal driving--people not having licenses.
We cannot identify them--incidents where we are stopping people
on the side of the road and we cannot identify them. One
incident on Highway 41 right in our county four individuals.
None of them would identify themselves to us.
One of them we figured out who it was. Three of them we
took to the jail. One we find out has a U.S. Marshal Service
warrant and you know the U.S. Marshal Service warrants are not
cheap warrants. They are felony warrants. We did not know who
that was. A 40-minute ride to jail before we figured out who it
was.
More and more of these individuals are coming into our
county. Fentanyl is killing people. We have 1,500 people a year
dying in Wisconsin because of fentanyl overdoses, and I would
love to put up a border around Dodge County or around the State
of Wisconsin. We need the Federal Government to do that at our
Southern border.
I appreciate your time. I have got so much more, but I know
I am out of time and welcome any of your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Schmidt follows:]
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Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Sheriff Schmidt.
Mr. Curtis, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF JACOB J. CURTIS
Mr. Curtis. Good morning, Mr. Chair and the Members of the
Committee.
It happened fast and with little explanation or resources.
In 2022, the city of Whitewater began to observe an increase in
migrants from Central America. Whitewater Police Chief Daniel
Meyer saw an increase in various law enforcement activity
relating to issues not normally associated with local
residents.
He noted in an email to a Walworth County official that,
quote,
Within the last month or so our department has had contact
with an increasing number of Nicaraguan migrants who have
recently moved to our area.
I do not have much of an estimate of how many people have
moved into the city at this point, but a number of the adults
have found jobs at larger businesses in our area.
We recently have had a number of criminal investigations
involving some of these individuals and we have also had
children from some of these families within the school district
who have been reported truant.
All told, from 2022-2023, the city estimates at least 1,000
migrants from Central America quietly established themselves in
the sleepy college town of 15,000, a population increase of,
roughly, seven percent.
The city has struggled to deal with the increasing strain on
law enforcement resources, housing over capacity, and the
challenges associated with educating children with no formal
background in schooling and often lacking basic English skills.
These increasing burdens culminated in the police chief
offering a letter to the White House on December 28, 2023,
highlighting the strain that had been placed on existing
resources and describing the challenge as, quote, ``a critical
humanitarian issue.'' A nearly identical letter had been sent
the previous week to DHS Secretary of Homeland Security
Alejandro Mayorkas.
These letters resulted in additional communications from
Wisconsin's congressional Delegation and the Wisconsin
legislature as well as a significant number of State and
national media requests.
While many media outlets moved on to the next story the
city of Whitewater has continued to struggle to meet the
demands from the newcomers. To determine the full extent of the
challenges on March 14, 2024, the IOG Center for Investigative
Oversight submitted a series of public records requests to the
police chief, who fully complied with the request and provided
over 400 responsive records.
The IOG's review of the records provided by the city
uncovered numerous revelations which were detailed in a June
report that is being provided to the Committee.
The eight key takeaways include the following.
(1) While numerous public officials have attempted to
highlight the challenges, the Nation's broken immigration
system and open borders continue to place an unmanageable
burden on local units of government. Nationally touted funding
programs are either unavailable or insufficient.
(2) Unlike sanctuary cities, it does not appear the city of
Whitewater sought the immigrants. Instead, the city's theory
explaining the sudden influx revolves around a complex web of
ample student housing following COVID, a need for farm and
manufacturing labor, and the congregation of sponsor families
in and around the city that were then identified by migrants at
the border.
(3) Despite the presence of notorious MS-13 gang members
from Nicaragua and investigations that have led to the seizure
of significant cartel funds, confusion remains as to the
processing and potential deportation of violent criminals.
Emails reflected uncertainty regarding the process for
contacting ICE as migrants await immigration hearings in
Chicago.
This is particularly troubling considering the
identification of known international crime syndicate members
within the city.
In December 2023, the police chief thanked ICE for, quote,
The recent assistance in our city removing an individual who
had been identified as a wanted MS-13 gang member from
Nicaragua.
A Member of this Committee in a January's letter to the
police chief made reference to the infiltration of Mexico's
gulf cartel in Whitewater, and while unrelated to the situation
in Whitewater and was already mentioned by Congressman Van
Orden it was recently reported that a woman was sexually
assaulted in Prairie du Chien by a suspected member of Tren de
Aragua, the violent criminal organization born a decade ago in
Venezuelan prisons.
Simply put, while the exact scope and extent of these
criminal operations in Wisconsin is not clear their very
existence in the State should motivate every policymaker to
secure the Nation's borders.
(4) At various points city leadership sought assistance
from the State including the Governor's office. While meetings
took place there was an emphasis on the private nature of the
meeting and a request to keep the meeting, quote, ``low profile
to avoid the press.''
(5) city officials were made aware of deplorable living
conditions including children sleeping in sheds during subzero
temperatures, children left at home unattended while parents
worked, a 14-year-old being forced to work 30 hours per week by
her father, and small apartment units where children were
forced to cohabitate with 8-10 adults.
The pairing of nonfamily members has resulted in
allegations of sexual assault involving young females and other
acts against victims including the discovery of a deceased
child discarded in a ditch in a bag.
At the time of the IOG report there were 10 open sexual
offense cases involving migrants in the city.
(6) As a result of increased costs to the city's police
department and school district, both taxing entities are
considering property tax referendums possibly as soon as Spring
2025.
(7) Because of the focus on the unique law enforcement
challenges associated with the migrant population such as
violations for driving without a license, the police department
has identified a significant decrease in proactive policing.
(8) In light of questions related to the legal status of
migrants questions have been raised regarding how individuals
should be identified. In particular, the city appears unsure
how migrants can obtain identification cards. Some members of
the community have suggested paths for migrants to obtain
driver's licenses.
Despite this lack of clarity, at least one record suggests
certain migrants have been able to obtain temporary driver's
licenses from the Wisconsin DMV.
In conclusion, while numerous public officials have
attempted to highlight the challenges, the Nation's broken
immigration system continues to place an unmanageable burden on
local units of government.
Overall, many of the communications, particularly those
from the police chief, make clear the city has attempted to
balance maintaining an objective posture on a highly charged
public policy debate, while recognizing the clear impact the
influx of immigrants is having on the city's ability to protect
its residents, ensure quality public education for the city's
school children, and maintain fiscal solvency.
Unless and until the Federal Government secures the border
and repairs the Nation's utterly broken immigration
infrastructure, local units of government like those in
Whitewater, Wisconsin, will be left to respond to the Federal
Government's continued failures.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Curtis follows:]
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Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Rachwal, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF RICK RACHWAL
Mr. Rachwal. Thank you, Chair, Members of Congress, and the
Members of the House Judiciary Committee.
My name is Rick Rachwal. I am a husband. My wife Erin is
here with me today. Father of two boys, Caden and Logan, and
cofounder of the Love, Logan Foundation.
Today I share the heart wrenching story of my son Logan and
the devastating impact that fentanyl has had on our family.
On Valentine's Day in 2021, my family's life changed
forever. Nothing could have prepared us for the heartbreaking
pain from the loss of a son and a brother.
Logan at just 19 years old died alone in his dorm room at
the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He took what he thought
was a 30 milligram Oxycodone but, tragically, it was a
counterfeit pill containing a lethal dose of fentanyl.
I will never get the image out of my head of our family
walking into his dorm room and seeing his lifeless body on his
bed. There was a stuffed animal next to him. He was just a
child.
If there is anything as painful as the loss of a child I
cannot begin to imagine what that might be. Our hopes and
dreams for Logan and our family were shattered and we now live
with the ``what ifs'' and the ``what could have been.''
We made it a priority to make our boys feel special,
whether it was a birthday party, camping trip, family trip
across the country, or cheering them on when they played their
favorite sport, baseball. We were their biggest fans. Faith was
also important to us and attending church together was a
priority.
Logan was full of life. He had an infectious smile and was
very passionate, passionate about things like our cats, music,
reading, and drawing. Logan was very kind hearted and often
helped others who were struggling.
Logan also had his share of struggles with anxiety, being
bullied at school, and later depression. We sought out help for
Logan at an early age and despite our best efforts Logan fell
victim to fentanyl.
Logan was a bright and wonderful young man who deserved a
future. We will always remember his smile, his spirit, and the
love that he brought into this world.
As mentioned, the pill Logan took was laced with fentanyl,
a substance so potent and addictive that as little as two
milligrams, equivalent to just a few grains of salt, can be
lethal. Fentanyl is the number-one killer in our country for
ages 18-45 and has contributed to approximately 150,000 deaths
between the years 2022-2023. This is over 200 deaths per day.
Where is the urgent response from our elected officials?
In 2022, we lost an average of 22 teenagers per week from
drug overdoses and poisonings primarily driven by fentanyl.
That is like losing one classroom each week for an entire year.
Again, where is the response?
Fentanyl overdoses and poisonings in Wisconsin from 2019-
2021, the year Logan died, increased by almost 100 percent.
Fentanyl does not discriminate by race, gender, or financial
status. Every parent and person in this room or any other room
in America is at risk of being impacted by this epidemic.
You are likely to hear these tragic experiences shared from
a parent's perspective like mine, but let us not forget the
often overlooked impact this is having on those who have lost
siblings. They have an entire lifetime with that brother or
sister taken from them. Families are being torn apart.
There is also a battle against stigma associated with these
deaths which I know hinders efforts to combat this poison.
These are sons, daughters, grandchildren, brothers, and sisters
we are losing.
They deserve a chance to recover or like Logan deserved a
chance to learn from their mistakes. With fentanyl they die
before they even get a chance.
This epidemic deserves more attention and a response as
strong, bold, and determined as other issues have received in
recent years. We secure our homes by locking doors and
regulating who enters. Our government under the current
administration is failing to do the same for our country.
Record numbers of unvetted migrants are entering the United
States, overwhelming resources and allowing fentanyl to pour
in. Mexican cartels are operating just South of our border and
they are the main organizations manufacturing and distributing
illicit fentanyl.
These cartels, driven by greed, have no regard for the
lives lost from the poison they are pawning. These criminal
organizations are in our own backyard, and yet our borders
remain wide open.
Increasing awareness and education about this crisis is
crucial. This responsibility has, largely, fallen on the
families of victims like mine who have taken up the cause
through advocacy and nonprofits.
In 2022, my wife Erin and I founded the Love, Logan
Foundation to raise awareness and support other families
impacted by fentanyl. We want to end these tragedies, tragedies
like the young man who died just nine months after Logan in the
same dorm building from the same type of pill. Again, the same
school, same dorm, nine months later. Where was the awareness?
Our government must also step up to educate and raise
awareness to protect families from fentanyl. As I mentioned
earlier, fentanyl is the number-one cause of death in our
country for ages 18-45 with over 200 lives lost each day.
Given those numbers and the drastic increases in fentanyl-
related deaths at even younger ages there is an urgent need for
comprehensive strategies to combat this crisis.
Our families deserve better and that starts with better
border policies and a commitment from our leaders to prioritize
the fight against fentanyl. We cannot continue to lose our
children to this preventable tragedy.
Erin and I learned the hard way that there is no level of
involvement, number of vacations, Sunday school lessons, amount
of money, or parental love that can eliminate the threat of
fentanyl from our families.
We need our leaders, the guardians of our Nation, to honor
their oath of office by protecting our country and keeping our
families safe. I lost my son Logan, a wonderful human being who
deserved to learn from that tragic mistake that took his life.
Please remember my son and every other American who has
lost their life to fentanyl poisoning. They are more than
numbers and data. Each number represents a life lost, a family
torn apart, and a missed opportunity for the current
administration to uphold their commitment to protect Americans.
Thank you again for this opportunity.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Rachwal follows:]
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Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Rachwal. Your son will not be
forgotten.
Mr. Kinson, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF HENRI KINSON
Mr. Kinson. Good morning. My name is Henri Kinson. I grew
up in Whitewater, went to Whitewater School District, and then
to undergrad at UW Whitewater.
I served on the Whitewater School Board for seven years and
I am also the parent of four boys who have attended Whitewater
public schools with one still a sophomore there.
I was asked to come here to testify as to the educational
situation in my hometown of Whitewater due to the large recent
influx of non-English speakers.
Put simply, educational outcomes by every metric are
falling like a rock in Whitewater. When I attended Whitewater
School years ago as a small university town our outcomes were
great--certainly in the top third of the State, and always the
best in the area.
Over the last four years Whitewater has had the biggest
drop in academic achievement in the State for larger districts.
Today, we rank in the bottom fifth of all districts across the
State and are still falling.
The reasons for our falling test scores are no secret. All
you have to do is go to Wisconsin's Department of Public
Instruction website to see that the three drivers of academic
achievement across the State are special needs kids,
economically disadvantaged kids, and English learners,
otherwise referred to as ESL. That is it.
The more a school district has of any of these kids the
lower the academic results will be and vice versa, and it is
true everywhere. Any district's test scores are basically a
math problem.
So, what inputs have been changing at Whitewater? Our
proportion of special needs kids, while high at about 20
percent--the State average is 14--has not been growing.
Similarly, our proportion of economically disadvantaged kids is
also high, but hovers around 50 percent whereas the State
average is 45.
Which leaves English learners. As recently as 2021, the
district had 236 English learners. Last year it was 352, an
increase of 50 percent in just two years and growing. Migrant
children are almost always both economically disadvantaged and
ESL and sometimes special needs as well.
I just spoke with a friend who is a paraprofessional in the
district whose job it is to care for special needs kids and she
told me of a family that just moved here who has two out of
their three kids being high special needs like having to have
their diapers changed as kindergarteners.
This requires the district to transfer those kids to a
special facility in Elkhorn, which costs the State even more
money.
At Lincoln Elementary more than a quarter of the kids are
ESL. Such a large and growing proportion of kids who are not
native speakers invariably drives academic achievement down for
everyone and we are no exception.
Last year, with 25 percent ESL kids in the school, Lincoln
sent 80 percent of its fifth graders into middle school testing
below grade level in English. This data is public. It is from
Wisconsin's own DPI.
To combat this the Whitewater school district spends
hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get the migrant kids
up to speed, but these expenditures necessarily come at the
expense of other things such as lowering teacher to non-ESL
student ratios so overall test scores drop.
Another dynamic that many people do not think about is open
enrollment. Here in Wisconsin we have public school choice so
if you do not want your kid to go to your home district you can
enroll them in another one.
As Whitewater's academics have declined the number of
parents placing their kids out of the district has increased,
which further depresses test scores and decreases revenue as
the most involved parents are the ones most likely to move
their kids somewhere else.
Hundreds of Whitewater parents do this every day with more
than 200 kids going to schools outside the Whitewater district,
more than 10 percent. This includes our own school board
president who sends her kids to neighboring Elkhorn to attend
school where they have less than five percent English learners
and much higher test scores.
There is a boy who lives in the district who got a perfect
ACT test result this spring but he does not go to Whitewater
schools.
This movement of students outside the Whitewater district
costs us almost $2 million a year in revenue and illustrates
the negative feedback loop that can occur as a district faces a
large influx of English learners like the ones we are
experiencing real time.
To see what we are heading for we do not need to look any
further than our neighboring district of Delavan, which began
facing an influx of English learners about 30 years ago.
It now has the highest proportion of resident kids in the
State enrolling out, almost 40 percent. Forty percent of the
parents in Delavan send their kids outside of Delavan. It has
perennial problems passing referenda and low test scores that
are actually worse than Whitewater's, but Whitewater is not far
behind.
I am often asked what can be done to remedy the situation.
At this point, I will ask anyone who will listen please just
stop the bleeding. This is a problem not of our making and out
of our control.
It is frustrating hearing politicians imply that the
residents who care about their kids' instructional quality are
somehow racist or xenophobes as their own children attend
classes at public and private schools with few to no English
learners. Some of our classrooms are half English learners.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kinson follows:]
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Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Kinson.
Now, finally, District Attorney Toney, you have five
minutes.
STATEMENT OF ERIC J. TONEY
Mr. Toney. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and the Members of the
Committee. I thank you for being here in Wisconsin today.
I want to just begin my comments by, Rick, thanking you for
sharing your story and condolences to you and Erin for the loss
of your son Logan, and the work that you are doing I think is
undoubtedly saving lives.
I want to talk a little bit about Fond du Lac County. We
are a county of about 100,000 people. We have numerous highways
running through the community that makes us a corridor for drug
trafficking.
We have seen the seizure of drugs, the quantities soaring
like we have never seen before. As was previously noted, we are
not seeing methamphetamine labs. We are seeing larger
quantities of meth coming across the border and into our
community with fentanyl being the most destructive of those
deaths, and we heard the Logan story and the impact that is
having.
Sadly, as a district attorney, I have sat across from too
many parents that have buried their child and those
conversations are never easy. When we are actually able to file
a criminal case they have to come back to court day after day,
month after month, sometimes year after year to relive that
trauma, and these are all avoidable deaths if we just had
control of the Southern border to prevent the flow of fentanyl
coming into the United States.
It is not just the drug overdose deaths but I think the
numbers are staggering. In Fond du Lac County in 2019 we had 19
overdose deaths. In 2020 it was 27; in 2021 it was 20; in 2022
it was 23; then last year in 2023 it was 32; and these are all
families that do not get to say I love you to somebody that
they hold dear, whether it be at Thanksgiving, birthdays,
holidays, or family events, and this is all a direct
consequence of the Southern border crisis with drugs pouring
into our country.
The fentanyl crisis cannot be underscored enough. We need
to make sure that we do not have more families that experience
what Rick and Erin experienced and it is something that we can
gain control of.
We have seen the graphs and some of the efforts that have
been done during Senator Johnson's presentation, and it is not
just the drug overdose deaths that we are seeing. It is the
attempted homicide, sexual assaults, and human trafficking.
With the testimony that I submitted, I included the criminal
complaints from the cases that we filed and ethical obligations
have to make sure we know that those individuals are presumed
innocent and lesser until proven guilty.
We have four people charged in one drug overdose death in
the city of Ripon where Vice President Harris recently visited,
and a couple of them are juveniles that were charged in that
homicide in relation to the delivery, and these are
circumstances that a family can do everything right and they
are not able to stop the scourge of fentanyl from taking a
loved one.
We have seen stories from across the country, whether Laken
Riley to Prairie du Chien with these issues, and it is creating
a tremendous stress on our criminal justice system with the
work that law enforcement is doing on the front end of trying
to identify individuals that are in the country illegally
committing crimes.
If they do not have a fingerprint identification system
that can prevent challenges. In talking to Sheriff Schmidt
earlier his agency recently purchased six of those which can
help identify who those individuals are because they may not
have identification and that can make a law enforcement job
much more difficult.
Then when we have some of these very serious crimes that
result in a hospital stay, we know that some of our hospitals
struggle with bed space and that can create various issues as
well.
There are issues that go beyond just the stories that we
see in the news and it is happening day in and day out across
Wisconsin and across the country. They are all avoidable.
One of the things we have had to do in Fond du Lac County
we have had enough cases come in where we need an interpreter
time slot so we can handle those cases and that had to be
expanded to a second time slot because we have so many of those
cases. They can take 20 minutes for one case with the
translation which sucks up the prosecutor time, public
defenders, courts, clerks, and adds to the cost the taxpayers
are having to fund.
When we have more illegal immigrants that are being
prosecuted for crime sometimes our jails operate at thin
margins and counties are having to look at building new jails.
Not solely because of that but that is part of the issue, and
we are looking at that in Fond du Lac County and a county our
size is looking at well over $100 million to consider building
a jail, and those are real costs to taxpayers in our community.
I want to just share a much more minor personal experience
that I had that pale in comparison to the loss that Rick, Erin,
and so many others have suffered from fentanyl.
I was driving in the city of Fond du Lac last April and I
was rear ended while driving, and then pulled over and I was
rear ended again, and the person that hit me fled the scene.
I appreciate that his license plate fell off his truck so
that we were able to identify him, and it was a day where it
was the first warm April day of the year and law enforcement
was slammed. So, I was waiting over 4five minutes as our law
enforcement was responding to more serious calls.
I had to take my passenger to the hospital to be evaluated
for a concussion and, thankfully, she was doing well.
Ultimately, the guy actually came back to the scene as well
because he thought we were gone. During the investigation we
found out that he was in the country illegally and he did not
have insurance and it ended up totaling my vehicle.
As you might recall, trying to buy a vehicle around April
2013, was quite expensive with inflation and limited inventory,
and those are consequences that people suffer day in and day
out across the country, which are much more minor but can have
a significant impact on those that do not have significant
financial means with those type of violations.
So, we have individuals that are suffering from the
consequences of crime committed by illegal immigrants, and I do
want to just close by noting America is a Nation of immigrants
that offers hope for a better life, a safer future, and we are
that shining city on a hill and that is why people seek to come
here.
My family experienced that. My great grandfather came to
America from Lebanon. My grandfather fought in World War II. My
dad was a police officer. I have the honor of being a district
attorney and we know immigrants have built our Nation and we
support it.
It has to be done legally to prevent the consequences and
the crime that we are seeing and the fentanyl that is pouring
across our borders, and we appreciate you taking the time to be
here to listen and hear the concerns that we are experiencing.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Toney follows:]
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Mr. Tiffany. Thank you all for your testimony. We are going
to proceed under the five-minute rule. Sheriff Schmidt, I think
you have a hard stop. Is that correct? At 11:30 a.m.?
Mr. Schmidt. I built in a little bit of extra time.
Mr. Tiffany. So, I would like to pose a question before you
leave here. Some States have made compliance with ICE mandatory
but Wisconsin is not one of them. Is that correct?
Mr. Schmidt. That is correct.
Mr. Tiffany. Would requiring counties to comply with ICE
help prevent these repeat offenders? So you have, perhaps,
heard the story up in Rusk County where you had a repeat
offender drunk driver ran a truck driver off the road.
He is now dead. Three daughters no longer have a father. By
requiring compliance with ICE could some of those situations be
cause to not occur?
Mr. Schmidt. Absolutely. We struggle as sheriffs under the
current law with even maintaining somebody just on an ICE
detainer. Once their crimes have been resolved then we have no
additional reason to hold them.
The detainer as it is written today does not allow sheriffs
to hold somebody for ICE so they can continue that process.
In addition, there are many agencies that have told me they
will not comply with ICE, period, and that tells me that
individuals are breaking the law whether that be Federal or
local law and they are getting away with it.
What does that tell? When you are not holding somebody
accountable for their crimes that enables them to commit
additional crimes, and having that mandate that you must comply
with ICE certainly would help be that carrot, and stick to make
sure that we are holding individuals accountable when they
break the law.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you.
Mr. Rachwal, so in testimony that we received in
Washington, DC, from Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas we
also had Sheriff Mark Dannels from the border Cochise County,
Arizona, there and they gave two diametrically opposed
responses to the question in regard to fentanyl coming into the
United States.
Secretary Mayorkas said it is not tied to the open border.
Sheriff Dannels, who is in Cochise County on the border with
Mexico, said it has had a direct impact since January 20, 2021,
when we have had these open borders with the amount of fentanyl
coming into this country.
Which one do you believe is correct?
Mr. Rachwal. I believe that it has a direct effect. The
fentanyl is flooding in. We talked about it earlier, the got-
aways that is coming through. It is so small, it is so potent,
that it is easy to conceal.
With the resources that it has taken to process all the
immigrants coming into this country I do not know how they
could do their job.
Mr. Tiffany. As you have talked to law enforcement, perhaps
other officials, since the day that you lost Logan have they
alluded at all that the amount of fentanyl has increased
exponentially over the last few years? Do any of them share
that with you?
Mr. Rachwal. We have not had much contact with law
enforcement in regard to that area, but undoubtedly it is
increasing exponentially.
Mr. Tiffany. So, since you started your foundation I am
assuming you have run into--that you have had much more contact
with families that have suffered the same fate as your family.
Is that correct?
Mr. Rachwal. That is correct, yes. We come in contact with
hundreds and then in networks, we have contact with thousands
of people that are in the same situation that we are in.
Mr. Tiffany. Do they have a consistent message of how this
could have been prevented?
Mr. Rachwal. Well, definitely it can be prevented by
stopping the source. That is for sure. It is a multifaceted
approach, but stopping the supply would definitely help.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you for coming here today. I just want
to put a question to Mr. Curtis. So, if we have four more years
of what has happened since January 20, 2021, is this situation
going to get better or worse for the United States of America?
Mr. Curtis. Sir, obviously our focus was on one small
community, but I think that kind of answers the question that
if you extrapolate this across the country, I think there has
just been so much focus on large municipalities, whether it is
Chicago, New York, Dallas, or Phoenix, and those are certainly
concerning situations.
If you just look at proportionally what is happening in
some of these cities, a thousand immigrants may not be much in
a place like Chicago but--and the police chief made clear that
was a very conservative number based on the number of students
in the district.
Obviously, as we have talked about this morning, as Senator
Johnson pointed out, there are a lot of individuals coming
across the border that are single individuals with no children.
So, the point being that estimate by the police chief he
has noted himself is conservative. So, you have a municipality
that has seen their population increase by 10 percent so
extrapolate that across the country.
This has devastating consequences. Certainly, we talked
about the human toll, but one of the things we focused on our
report is just really kind of the meat and potato of running a
local government, right.
This is why the city of Whitewater is looking to a
referendum in the Spring 2025, for not only city operations,
i.e., the police force, but also the school district. So, that
is the taxpayers of Whitewater now facing two separate
referenda in one spring election because they simply cannot
meet the obligations.
Mr. Tiffany. My time is up, but I want to ask one other
really quick question. In your paper it alludes to discussions
where the city of Whitewater wanted to have with the Governor's
office and the Governor's office insisted on this being a
private discussion. Why would that be?
Put it this way. Were you ever told why they insisted that
this be a private discussion and not a public meeting for what
is a very public problem?
Mr. Curtis. So, first, to be clear, we actually interviewed
nobody for this report. We intentionally focused on the 400
records that were provided by the city, because it was an
objective review.
When I say records I am using that in the legal sense where
one record maybe an email with numerous attachments. So, it is
fair to say we reviewed thousands of pages of records in this
situation. So, we just want to see what the situation was in
the words of city officials, private communications that are
obviously ultimately public records. So, obviously, I would be
guessing as to the kind of the motivation behind the Governor's
office.
It is fair to say I think there maybe was concern with
respect to the eligibility that the city had for funding that
was not available and, obviously, I think there was concern
that despite all the issues happening, State funding and
Federal funding, was simply unavailable to the city.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you very much.
For those that may be interested, this is a very well
researched document put out by the Institute for Reforming
Government. It is worth a read.
I now recognize the representative from Florida for his
questioning.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Kinson, did I understand the end of your
testimony to be that in Whitewater there are classes now in the
school district where half the kids do not speak English?
Mr. Kinson. English learners. They are English learners.
Mr. Gaetz. Yes, they are English as a second language.
Mr. Kinson. Correct. Yes.
Mr. Gaetz. So, how do the teachers deal with that?
Mr. Kinson. Well, one of the ways is that we actually have
a second teacher who translates.
Mr. Gaetz. So, who bears the cost of that?
Mr. Kinson. Well, the district.
Mr. Gaetz. Is that one of the reasons why the local
governments are having to pursue referendums, just the cost
structure, or how does that get absorbed by the district if you
are doubling your labor costs in some of those classrooms?
Mr. Kinson. Well, the district's never going to tell you
that, right? Instead, they will--money is fungible. So, they
will say, well, we need it for the roofs, right? Well, they
spent the money for the roofs somewhere else.
Aside from the money it affects the educational outcomes.
Honestly, that is what concerns me more than the money is that
the educational outcomes for the other kids it affects them
all.
There is no cohort in Whitewater of kids--cohort is
educational speak for any subgroup of kids--that is not testing
below average. Boys, girls, native speakers, and ESL, they are
all below average.
Mr. Gaetz. That was not the case before this influx of
migrants, right?
Mr. Kinson. Right. It has been a steady decline.
Mr. Gaetz. So, what do you say to those who say this is
your obligation? We are the richest country in the world. We
have all the benefits of being Americans and really it is the
duty that we have to open our doors and invite migrants to come
here and utilize our services?
Mr. Kinson. Their kids do not go to Whitewater.
Mr. Gaetz. Why do you say that?
Mr. Kinson. Well, the people who are most likely to say
that are sending their kids to a public school or, more likely,
private school where they probably do not have one or two
English learners in their classrooms.
Mr. Gaetz. Really, so it is the public schools with the
working class people that you are testifying bear the brunt of
this, not the people who--
Mr. Kinson. Absolutely.
Mr. Gaetz. --have the money and the--maybe just even the
time to be able to drive your kid outside the district to
another school.
Mr. Kinson. Well, take our representatives, for example.
Tammy Baldwin does not have any kids in the Whitewater schools.
She does not have kids, right?
Governor Evers does not have any kids in the Whitewater
schools, but Governor Evers came by to say Lincoln was a
success story.
Lincoln is not a success story. Eighty percent of the kids
were testing below average--were not at grade level in fifth
grade. That is not a success story.
That is in spite of the efforts--that these teachers are
taking on a Herculean task, right. So, this is no reflection on
the teachers at all. I have a lot of friends who are teachers.
They are fighting an uphill battle.
Mr. Gaetz. Yes, and I wonder to what extent is this just
the front end of the wave. Is every town going to be Whitewater
soon? Here there was a unique circumstance where there was
excess housing available. There was a need for work in
agriculture. So, what substantial percentage, now, of the town
are these migrants who have taken up there, right?
Mr. Kinson. Well, I think what happens is that there is a
critical mass, right. If you have one or two kids in a
classroom that are not English speakers it is not going to set
back the instruction.
You get to a certain critical mass and then all of a sudden
it affects everybody. What is that critical mass? I am sure
there is some person smarter than me who could tell you that
but we are at it.
Mr. Gaetz. Yes, I wonder because I actually know a little
bit about that. When there is a student who is not speaking
with proficiency or learning at proficiency it is very
different than when you got a third, half the class, that cause
the teacher to have to not even teach to the middle of the
class, but to teach to the bottom of the class, really, and
then you do not get that achievement.
I think that the people who want open borders are willing
to accept that as, like, just an acceptable cost of open
borders--that if students do not do as well, if our hospitals,
if our schools are overrun and overburdened, that this OK so
long as we are serving this broader goal that they have of open
borders, and that just strikes me as cruel.
It is cruel that you would subject students to diminished
learning for this social experiment. Do you have any other
reasonable explanation for it?
Mr. Kinson. I do not and, in fact, you see that dynamic at
Whitewater because it is a liberal town so a town that used to
be really focused on education now all of a sudden are totally
disinterested in test results.
You just never see them talked about when I bring them up,
I am the devil there--they totally do not want to talk about it
and it is--well, like I said, our school board president sends
her kids somewhere else.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, I appreciate you being here. My time has
expired, but I would think that rising student achievement
would be something that could unite people even of different
political persuasions, and the things that diminish that
achievement should be dealt with and not just accepted as a
cost of doing business.
Thank you very much for your testimony. I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you. I now recognize the representative
from California for five minutes.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Sheriff Schmidt, a few weeks ago
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux testified before this
Committee that the Sinaloa cartel has already sunk deep roots
into his county in California.
Their activities include the murder of cartel opponents,
rampant extortion of small businesses, and criminal activities
that include drug and human trafficking.
He testified that the cartel was so well organized that
they had actually divided the State into regions with their own
regional units including assassination units. He is fighting
the Sinaloa cartel in California and you are waging the same
battle 1,500 miles away in Wisconsin.
Tell us about the Sinaloa cartel that this administration
has deliberately allowed into our communities.
Mr. Schmidt. Well, I am hopeful that we do not get to the
point of where California is. I think right now we have it to a
point under control here in Wisconsin as far as there is only a
few of them and they have not gotten to the point of what you
are seeing in California.
Obviously, if we do not take action when we make the
initial arrest and we just let them go into the wind and
continue their operations that is going to enable the leaders
of the cartel to say, look, they are not doing anything to us
in Wisconsin--what can we do now because they let us get away?
Mr. McClintock. If we continue down this road another four
years what do you anticipate?
Mr. Schmidt. I anticipate we will have additional, just
like we are seeing across the country with the Tren de Aragua.
We are going to see this happen here as well with this cartel
and--
Mr. McClintock. What kind of crimes are they responsible
for? These are not exactly Rotary Club recruits.
Mr. Schmidt. Right. No, these are individuals--in our areas
we are seeing drug--fentanyl overdose, fentanyl distribution,
methamphetamine distribution, and pushing drugs. That is what
we are seeing right now.
Obviously, that grows as they become more prevalent in our
communities. Right now, we are concerned because we do not want
more families like you heard from here today and that is what
we are going to see if that continues.
Mr. McClintock. We are seeing some 300 a day, I am told, on
average across the country. Sheriff Boudreaux estimated that
fully half of the crime that he is now dealing with is due to
illegal migrants.
A few weeks before that NYPD officials estimated that about
75 percent of the crime that they are now dealing with in
Manhattan is due to illegal migrants.
What percentage of the crimes would you estimate that you
are dealing with are now due to illegal migrants in your
county?
Mr. Schmidt. I believe it is growing. It is a much lower
rate. Yes, we still have hope here. I think we are probably in
the 20 percent range--15-20 percent range--but it is growing.
Mr. McClintock. How rapidly has this condition developed?
Mr. Schmidt. Over the last four years is when it really has
started to rear its ugly head. Before that we had slow,
incremental growth. There has been that growth. Over the last
four years it has really exploded and we are seeing it
especially in the drug area.
Mr. McClintock. Sheriff Boudreaux testified that according
to his discussions with his counterparts across the country the
problems that he was describing in his own county and that you
have described in yours are becoming typical of communities
throughout America.
Have you discussed this with other sheriffs and what are
they saying?
Mr. Schmidt. As I said earlier, yes, we have talked about
it. I asked the other sheriffs for examples and there was no
shortage of supply of examples across our State of these
various types of crimes, and in my neighboring county of
Columbia County he gave me--he could not break it down into
individuals.
He just said there is a bunch of these, various types of
sexual assaults. We are seeing a lot of sexual assault types
crimes, things that you would never accept here. It is almost
like part of their culture.
So, we are seeing the sexual assaults and the drug
offenses, homicides, scams, across the variety of all the
different crimes that we see. They are pushing it here.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Curtis, what we seem to be seeing is
that illegal migrants concentrate in very large numbers in very
short periods of time in small towns and then completely
overwhelm those local communities. So, a lot of communities
have not faced this yet, but for those that do the effects are
devastating.
What would you say to those communities that have not yet
seen this influx into their towns and neighborhoods?
Mr. Curtis. Great question, sir.
Unfortunately, a lot of this does come down to resources.
As we have heard from a school district standpoint, you need to
be prepared if you are going to see this influx of ESL
students.
Frankly, I would argue it even goes, unfortunately, beyond
that, right. A lot of the school resource officers in
Whitewater, according to emails that we reviewed, really spend
a significant amount of their time simply doing home visits to
identify why students are not attending.
The truancy rates have significantly increased in the
district. So, these are really basic issues almost operational
issues that school districts have to be prepared for and,
obviously, the sheriff and the district attorney have noted
some of the law enforcement concerns.
Mr. McClintock. So, if it has not come to your community it
is going to if this continues, and if it is in your community
it is going to grow if this continues. Is that essentially what
the two of you are telling me?
Mr. Curtis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kinson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields.
I will recognize the gentleman from Oregon for his
questioning.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the panel for
being here.
Kamala Harris just a little over a month ago made a
statement regarding violence against women and she was stating
this on the anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, and
at the end of her statement she says,
As we reflect on the life-changing progress we have made over
the past 30 years we recommit to the critical work ahead.
Together, alongside survivors, advocates, allies, President
Biden and I will continue to do everything in our power to
ensure that every woman throughout America has freedom to live
safe from violence and hate.
She said that and, yet, at the same time the Biden
Administration has allowed one-third of the folks that came
across the border are from Central America. Let me read this.
Gender-based violence in Latin America has the highest
rate. Latin America has the highest rate of gender-based
violence in the world, according to the Wilson Center. One-
third of the folks that came in the six million--two million
are from Central America.
So, we hear President Trump State that folks from South of
the border are rapists he was speaking in, obviously,
generalities. The specific point was made the other day in
front of our Judiciary Committee by April Aguirre, who came in
and talked--a crime victim advocate saying how the attitude
toward women in Central America is horrible.
The question to you, Sheriff, is how in the world, when we
have people that come in where women are second class citizens
in many respects, and you can look it up--Google it--in these
countries.
How in the world are we going to do something about it now
that we have all these folks from those areas here, and this is
real and this was brought home to us in graphic detail by Ms.
Aguirre in front of our committee just two months ago, and she
was disdainful of the assertion that somehow we could fix this.
She was pointing at the culture in Central America, and I
hate to be saying that everybody from that country is that way.
I am sure they are not. Definitely, there is that attitude and
you can look it up. Gender inequality is rampant there.
I do not know why the Biden Administration is busy saying
it is doing everything for women when it is allowing this kind
of thing to happen. Well, here we are, and as I asked the
Senator what are we going to do about it?
Sheriff, I do not expect you to have all the answers, and I
went back and forth on whether to ask the school board member
what to do about it, because it seems like a training thing but
in your opinion what do you think?
Mr. Schmidt. I can say I do not have the resources. I do
not have the resources to do what we need to do about it.
You take a look at the issues that we have. How about that
12-year-old girl that was almost sexually assaulted--in the
process of being sexually assaulted just North of our county
line that I talked about earlier?
You talk about the sexual assaults that we hear about all
the time. You hear about the human trafficking. Whether it be
sex trafficking or labor trafficking, these are very real
issues.
I do not have the resources. I have seven detectives for my
county of 900 square miles and I do not have the resources to
do that. It is going to take a lot of money. It is going to
take a lot of resources. It is going to take the community to
come together to be able to do this. I do not have the answer.
Mr. Bentz. You are speaking at how are we going to protect
people now that we are in this situation. In that regard, we
had a situation in Southern Oregon where a cartel member was
raising huge quantities of marijuana.
Southern Oregon is a wonderful place to grow it and many,
many people are there doing it illegally and the water master
went down to try to shut off the water that they were stealing
for their marijuana grow and the head of the cartel running
that particular grow came up to him with an AK-47 and said,
``you cannot do anything to me because I am invisible. I am
invisible.''
So, my question to you is, was he right? Was that cartel
member right? Because when they do a raid people scatter into
the woods. There is no way to find them.
So, my question to you is, are you encountering that same
thing, and is the response you need more help? What is the
response?
Mr. Schmidt. I think you are dead on. They do become
invisible. We do not know who they are. We cannot track them
down. I think you are spot on--I think it is a very--becomes
more and more difficult for us to--even if you have a picture
of somebody I cannot put a name with them because we do not
have a proper identification for them, and I think you are spot
on and we need a lot more resources. We need to know who these
people are and what they represent and what their background
is.
Mr. Bentz. Thank you. I am struck by what, again, the
Senator was pointing out is this huge problem that we now have
and how in the world do we deal with it, and it looks as if one
of the ways is going to be to encourage and support law
enforcement more.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields. I now recognize the
gentleman from--one of the gentlemen from Wisconsin, Mr.
Fitzgerald.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Rachwal--Rick and Erin--thank you for being here today.
Because of the networks you described earlier that you have
been able to develop and the conversations you have had with
other parents that, unfortunately, have suffered what you have
gone through, and you talked about the kind of the elected
officials and maybe getting more involved or doing specific
things. What are some of those things that you could relay to
the Full Committee today that you see would be clearly things
that need to be done and done as quickly as possible?
Mr. Rachwal. Sure. Again, our main focus is the education
awareness so one of the things would be making sure that these
young children in our country are educated at an earlier age,
or educated at all and not leaving it up to the families of the
victims to do that work.
Having some mandated education on--I mean, this--as a
foundation, we are not going to--Erin and I and our members are
not going to stop the flow of fentanyl. We can only do as much
as we can with education awareness. So, that is one of the big
things that would help us.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Have a relationship--I am sure you do--with
law enforcement and are there things that maybe happened on
campus and that were repeated that you think could be avoided?
Maybe more awareness or what are some of the strategies you
think that could work?
Mr. Rachwal. Sure, definitely, and one of the big things
that I mentioned too is the stigma. So we get a lot of
resistance when we talk to schools or talk to the university.
When we first started talking to the university after Logan
passed away we did not start--we did not realize that there was
this big need for this awareness until nine months later when
another young man, Cade, passed away from the same pill and we
asked the university was anything done. They did not even--
there was no awareness made to any of the kids.
So, there needs to be. They get alerts when there is a
storm coming. These kids need to know that these dangers are
out there and you hear about bad batches and stuff, but there
is no bad batches anymore. Fentanyl is just bad altogether.
They just need this awareness and so one of the things that
happened with us talking to the school is they are now more
receptive. They have gotten Narcan installed, which I am not
going to get into that, but through our efforts and other
nonprofits we have gotten Narcan installed in primarily all the
UW campuses in Wisconsin.
That is a great thing, just knowing the signs, getting that
education. Now at UWM, they are having education in their
orientation, so they are actually talking about it when the
kids first come into school.
Those are the things we need. It is just that awareness. I
know it is not going to 100 percent get rid of the issue but
that would help.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Very good. Thank you. Yes.
Mr. Rachwal. I do apologize, too. Congressman Tiffany asked
me the question about talking to law enforcement earlier and
the--my nerves just got to me.
I did want to--we do work with the DEA in Washington, and
the question was brought to me about the flow of fentanyl, and
I did want to bring this up because I felt bad because I kind
of froze up.
If I am correct with my numbers, just in 2023 the DEA
confiscated almost 80 million fentanyl pills and almost 30,000
pounds of fentanyl powder. That is almost 15 tons. If you
equate that back to the two milligrams that is considered a
lethal dose that is 6.5 billion--billion--doses that could
kill. A million lethal doses. So, 6.5 billion doses.
Mr. Fitzgerald. OK. So, I am going to ask the DA kind of
the more technical aspect of this. Right now we have had a bill
the last two Congresses to actually label fentanyl as a
Schedule I narcotic. That bill has not passed, which is just
simply unbelievable to me at this point, and if you talk to
people, the Members of Congress, they are amazed by this too
why we cannot get this done.
From a DA's perspective how do you view crimes or certainly
anything related to a Schedule I narcotic, and do you think it
would make a difference when it comes to prosecuting some of
these crimes related to fentanyl?
Mr. Toney. I think it definitely has the opportunity to
help. We know the danger that fentanyl is and just how potent
it is and it is taken very seriously.
Once you start putting drugs into that Schedule I category
that certainly gives us more tools and we will take any tools
that you are able to give us that can help us prosecute these
cases.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Van Orden for his questioning.
Mr. Van Orden. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Hey, Sheriff, thanks for coming out. Thank you for your
work. I appreciate it greatly. I think across the board we
recognize the fact that this is an abject failure on the
Federal Government's part like no other directly relating to
Vice President Harris' border czardom. I think we can just
agree with that. Again, I want to thank Mr. Pocan and Ms. Moore
for coming to this incredibly vital hearing that has affected
tens of thousands of Wisconsinites on a daily basis.
So, actually I just think that is pathetic that they could
not bother to find time in their day to come here to talk about
this issue that is killing our citizens.
Sheriff, have you been given any guidance from the Evers
State House about how you should be dealing with this illegal
alien issue that we are having here for reporting or money or
anything at all?
Mr. Schmidt. The Evers Administration has not communicated
with me much at all. I have attempted several times both as the
sheriff and as the President of Badger Sheriffs to have open
communications but my attempts have gone to interns and it has
taken weeks and months before I even get a return call from
anybody. There is zero communication between me and the Evers
Administration.
Mr. Van Orden. All right. So, put it into context for folks
that are from Wisconsin. You are the head of the Badger
Sheriffs Association. You are one of 72 sheriffs, the most
senior constitutionally elected law enforcement official in
your county, correct?
Mr. Schmidt. That is correct.
Mr. Van Orden. The Governor of the State of Wisconsin has
not contacted you about an issue that has been killing hundreds
if not thousands of Wisconsinites for years now?
Mr. Schmidt. He has not contacted me and he has been very
scarce to most sheriffs in the State.
Mr. Van Orden. OK.
District Attorney Toney, have you been given any guidance
by the mighty Josh Kaul about how you should be handling this
issue with Wisconsinites being brutally kidnapped, raped,
murdered, and poisoned?
Mr. Toney. We as district attorneys are independent from
the Department of Justice as far as how we prosecute cases.
One of the challenges that we face in cases when we are
trying to get evidence tested is limits on what we can now send
to the crime labs run by the Department of Justice and slower
turnaround times in some of those categories that--there was
recently a study by the Legislative Audit Bureau where of the
judges that responded, I think the number was North of 60 or 70
percent that were having to reschedule cases because they did
not have test results. That was slowing down cases that we are
having in court which bottles things up, delays justice, and
makes it more difficult for prosecutors in the courtrooms.
Mr. Van Orden. So, Mr. District Attorney, could you say
that district attorney Josh Kaul has an understanding that
there is a fentanyl issue in the State of Wisconsin?
Mr. Toney. I would have to believe that he has an
understanding of that. There may be some stark differences in
how some of us would look to combat that compared to his
approach.
Mr. Van Orden. We can reasonably be assumed that the
sitting attorney general for the State of Wisconsin is aware
that there is a fentanyl crisis with the citizens in the State
of Wisconsin.
We can also reasonably assume that he has some contact with
law enforcement and if law enforcement on both sides, wearing
the suit and wearing the badge, are saying exactly the same
thing to you, but Governor Evers and Josh Kaul refuse to do
anything about this fentanyl crisis what does that say about
Governor Evers and Josh Kaul?
Mr. Toney. Well, it is disappointing when we do not see
some of those resources that we need. The types of cases that
are coming through are getting more complicated, that are
taking more and more time just to review it for charging to
make sure that we are getting justice for families, because not
every family is even going to have a case make it to the
courtroom if they lost a loved one to offend all over again.
Mr. Van Orden. Right. So, Sheriff, when someone calls into
911 is the first question that your 911 operator asks someone
what their political party affiliation is?
Mr. Schmidt. It is a question that is never asked.
Mr. Van Orden. It is never asked. So, Mr. District
Attorney, when you are thinking about prosecuting a case do you
ask people what their political party affiliation is?
Mr. Toney. No.
Mr. Van Orden. OK, you do not. If the cops are not asking
what the political party affiliation is and the person that is
going to prosecute somebody is not asking what the political
party affiliation is, do you not think that Governor Evers and
President Biden and Vice President Harris should stop asking
those questions?
There is no way--it is statistically impossible that they
magically removed the 91-plus Executive actions from President
Trump just happenstance, oops, they all had to deal with the
border, now we have this crisis.
We have had 200,000-plus Americans die of fentanyl
poisoning, right? It is actually about 300 a day. Imagine a
jumbo jet crashing every single day--every single day. That
would be dealt with.
The Biden Administration under the Harris czardom and
Governor Evers right down the road here and his buddy Josh Kaul
have politicized this and our American citizens are dying
because of it and it is pathetic.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Representative Steil for five minutes.
Mr. Steil. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The Biden-Harris Administration's policies are having a
real impact here in the State of Wisconsin. I think it is worth
our time to reflect just on the case study of what has happened
in Whitewater, Wisconsin, due to the policies of the Biden-
Harris Administration.
I will start with you. You have done--Mr. Curtis, you have
done great research into this. You have seen a significant
influx of migrants into Whitewater as noted by the chief of
police's letter that says he is estimating, roughly, a thousand
migrants. Do you think the thousand number is accurate?
Mr. Curtis. Well, certainly in the records we reviewed it
is accurate, but I think I noted earlier the sheriff, or excuse
me, the police chief himself has noted that this is likely a
conservative number.
There were some individuals that challenged that estimate
and his response was, I think this is conservative--I am
paraphrasing--because, again, that is based on the district
population.
Mr. Steil. I agree it is, roughly, and it is based on the
school district numbers, right?
Mr. Curtis. Correct.
Mr. Steil. So, what are the school district numbers that
give rise to the thousand estimates?
Mr. Curtis. I think it is 200-300 in that range and, again,
that fluctuates year to year.
Mr. Steil. A rough, 200-300-person increase in a school
district. I will go to you, Mr. Kinson. How many students are
in the school district of Whitewater?
Mr. Kinson. Twelve hundred.
Mr. Steil. So, 1,200 and you have seen an increase in,
roughly, 200 students over the past 2-3 years?
Mr. Kinson. Two years, yes, it increased 50 percent.
Mr. Steil. An increase of 50 percent of English second
language students, but an increase in absolute--
Mr. Kinson. It was 200-300, yes, roughly. Two hundred--
Mr. Steil. Two hundred to three hundred students in a
school district of--
Mr. Kinson. Twelve hundred.
Mr. Steil. Twelve hundred. That is a very significant
percent increase in the school district. Then, in your
testimony you walk us through the real-world impact that this
has had in the school district and on children.
As you correctly noted, you noted that special needs
students has held reasonably steady, about 20 percent State
average of 14. Students who are economically disadvantaged has
held reasonably steady, about 50 percent--State average 45--but
a significant increase in the needs of English as a second
language in the school district and then at the same time you
note the correlation of overall academic achievement. You have
been a long-time resident in the city of Whitewater. You have
students that are there.
Could you walk through how the school achievement has
fallen in the community of Whitewater as a result of this
influx?
Mr. Kinson. Well, the example I gave in my testimony was I
think the perfect illustration of this is Lincoln, one of our--
the elementary school with the highest proportion of ESL kids.
So, fifth grade last year they had--25 percent of that class
was ESL. Eighty percent of that class was not reading at grade
level in English.
Mr. Steil. I think this is really important. Let us just
dive into Lincoln Elementary in the school district of
Whitewater. Twenty-five percent of the students are English as
a second language but 80 percent of the fifth graders are not
reading at a fifth grade level.
Mr. Kinson. That is right.
Mr. Steil. Does that mean that not only is there a
challenge to those students who English is a second language,
but really it is impacting all the students in the classroom.
Is that your understanding?
Mr. Kinson. Yes. There is no mystery to this, right? If you
go to the Wisconsin DPI website there are three drivers, like I
said. It is special needs kids, economically disadvantaged, and
ESL. That is it.
You can determine what a school's outcome is going to be
based on that. As you raise one, right, the test scores are
going to drop. It is invariable, and it is not just Wisconsin
or Whitewater. It is across country.
Mr. Steil. Every mom and dad who has a child in the
Whitewater School District is being negatively impacted by the
Biden-Harris Administration border policies, by the Biden-
Harris Administration catch and release policies.
That is directly impacting every student in the Whitewater
School District, and when we extrapolate that out and we look
statewide and nationwide it is actually impacting almost
everyone and it uniquely impacts hard-working families in
school districts that are not uniquely affluent.
Moms and dads who have unlimited cash-flow find ways to
take care of their children. They drive to another school
district. You noted in your testimony some people drive to
Elkhorn School District. Some people move to school districts
or send their children to private schools with their own
resources.
Mr. Kinson. Or better yet, they do not come to Whitewater,
right. That is the other dynamic I did not talk about. If you
are a parent and you care about your kids you are not moving to
Whitewater.
That is the sorry truth of it. It is a university town.
When I grew up all the professors' kids went to Whitewater.
Now, they do not.
Mr. Steil. I grew up 20 minutes away. I know the city well,
and the impact that the Biden-Harris Administration policies
are having in Whitewater is really just an example of the
horrific policy impact that this is having across our State and
across our country.
This is why securing the U.S.-Mexico border is absolutely
essential not just for all the students in the community of
Whitewater but for students across our State.
Cognizant of my time, I would go on and dive into some of
the drug trafficking issues that we have seen in Whitewater as
well but, Mr. Chair, I will yield back.
Mr. Tiffany. The gentleman yields and I will recognize
Representative Grothman for his questioning.
Mr. Grothman. Thanks.
First, a little comment. I have been down on the border
many times and one of the things you hear if you talk to Border
Patrol or the people who have to analyze or interview the
people coming across is all the sexual assaults going on at the
Southern border.
That is one of the prices that people have to pay for this
open border policy. I again and again hear--and I talked to the
woman last time I was down there who did examine everybody and
she told me, yes, it is something we see all the time. That is
one of the prices that has to be paid by the women of this
current situation.
You hear again and again they are putting even young girls
on the pill because they expect they will be sexually
assaulted, which is just almost beyond belief, there at the
Southern border.
Now, we do not have any Democrats here today, but if they
were here what they say is, well, sure that there have been
crimes committed by some people here illegally, but it is no
large amount or it is no more than the native-born population.
I have talked to many judges, other DAs, from my district
prior to this hearing today and one of the things I hear is
that nobody knows really--I do not know how anybody can make
that statement because nobody knows how many crimes in this
country are being committed by illegals.
If I go to one of the State prisons of my district they
have no idea how many people in that prison are here illegally.
If I talk to somebody, how many people in your jail--county
people--are here illegally they have no idea. If I say last
year in the United States there were 15,000 murders, how many
were committed by illegals, nobody knows.
I would like to ask--I guess both Sheriff Schmidt and
District Attorney Toney, does anybody keep track of how many
crimes in this country are committed by illegals or is that
just a number, despite the blizzard of paperwork that is
required out of Washington, nobody knows?
Mr. Schmidt. I think you are right on par with what you are
saying. We really do not know. Mr. McClintock asked me a
percentage. I had to guess because I do not know how many
people are committing crimes in our areas.
I am unique in my county because I have a holding facility
for immigration so we have the ability to--once they are booked
in we are able to identify if they are supposed to be here or
not.
I am one of the very, very few across the country that have
that ability and most of the time, when they get booked in
until a couple of days later, even I do not know that. There is
no way for us to even know that.
Mr. Grothman. District Attorney Toney, if we talk about the
number of murders, fatality by drunk driving, whatever--does
anybody in Fond du Lac County know? Tell us what percentage of
serious crimes are committed by illegals?
Mr. Toney. Most of the crimes that come in we do not know
the immigration status of somebody. When we look at the border
crisis we see crime that is related to people coming here
illegally and crime related to the drugs that are being done by
American citizens.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Here, in Fond du Lac County, for sure,
nationwide--
Mr. Toney. There is a reason every judge reads an
immigration warning in State court when there is a conviction.
It does not matter if they are a citizen or not. The court is
supposed to read that because we simply do not always know the
immigration status.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Do we have a special problem when it
comes to people here--immigrants coming here--in that they
are--the victims are reluctant to report crimes to law
enforcement in part because there is kind of a solidarity in
ethnic groups? Is that a problem?
Mr. Toney. We see challenges with reporting crime. If
somebody is afraid they could be deported or otherwise removed
from the country where they may be not willing to--
Mr. Grothman. Even if they are here legally there is some
solidarity, right, Sheriff Schmidt?
Mr. Schmidt. Yes.
Mr. Grothman. There is solidarity in saying, no, we are not
going to turn Jimmy in for the sexual assault.
Mr. Schmidt. There are cultural issues as well, that
sometimes they will not cooperate with law enforcement because
of their culture or because of the potential crime that is
being investigated.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Do we have another problem, which people
mentioned, particularly from the Latin American culture in
which people are giving different last names at different times
depending on whether they are arrested? This is a special
problem we maybe do not have with American but people who grew
up in that culture, all of a sudden one day it is Morales
Rodriguez, the next day it is Rodriguez Morales. Is that a
problem?
Mr. Schmidt. Different last names, different first names,
different birth dates, different everything. Yes.
Mr. Toney. We will run criminal histories and we will see a
list of aliases at times where it becomes difficult to track
and match some of those records.
Mr. Grothman. Do we have another problem? District Attorney
Toney, you mentioned this, that people, perhaps victims of
human trafficking, may be threatened with we are going to turn
you in and you might be deported, which is another challenge
for law enforcement that you do not have with the native born.
Is that true?
Mr. Toney. We do have challenges with those that are in the
country illegally. There is a U Visa system to try and help to
make sure we can have those witnesses or victims here, but that
gets slammed with people applying that should not even be
applying, taking spaces away from those victims that we need
here.
Mr. Grothman. Is that true?
Mr. Schmidt. Yes, absolutely. I think it is true.
Mr. Grothman. Do we have another problem? There is a
cultural difference between people coming here and the native
born. Is it accurate to say that maybe in other cultures drunk
driving is not to be taken as seriously as it is in this
country?
Mr. Toney. I do not think I can speak to that.
Mr. Schmidt. I do not know what the particular culture is,
but I am sure there is some aspect of that.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Same thing following up with regard to
sex with a minor. Maybe it is accurate to say that in this
country maybe we would be alarmed if a 14- or 15-year-old-girl
was involved in sexual activity. Perhaps in other countries it
is not considered quite as big a deal?
Mr. Toney. Well, I just had an exchange with a social
worker where we were dealing with underage sex and the social
worker described it as a cultural difference, and one of the
challenges that we see when people are coming here illegally is
they are not looking at what our laws are before coming here.
That is something that we routinely see that happens.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Same thing with regard to perhaps
physical abuse in domestic relationships. Is there another
maybe a little cultural difference there?
Mr. Toney. Well, one of the cases that I referenced is a
domestic violence case, a brutal stabbing that we have set for
trial in November. I do not want to get into much of the
details, but we do see those challenges.
Mr. Grothman. OK.
Mr. Schmidt. As do we.
Mr. Grothman. OK. That was a lot of good questions to get
in there. I guess I will have to give the rest of time back to
you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you very much for those excellent
questions. Appreciate it very much.
If everyone's questions have been asked and answered that
will conclude today's hearing. We thank all our witnesses for
appearing before the Committee.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses
or additional materials for the record.
Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:19 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Committee on the Judiciary can be found at: https://
docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=117709.