[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RESTORING IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
IN AMERICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY,
SECURITY, AND ENFORCEMENT
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-1
__________
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
58-430 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona Member
TOM McCLINTOCK, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
CHIP ROY, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin Georgia
BEN CLINE, Virginia ERIC SWALWELL, California
LANCE GOODEN, Texas TED LIEU, California
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
TROY E. NEHLS, Texas J. LUIS CORREA, California
BARRY MOORE, Alabama MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KEVIN KILEY, California JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming LUCY McBATH, Georgia
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
WESLEY HUNT, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
BRANDON GILL, Texas
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY, SECURITY,
AND ENFORCEMENT
TOM McCLINTOCK, California, Chair
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Ranking Member
CHIP ROY, Texas JERROLD NADLER, New York
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey J. LUIS CORREA, California
TROY NEHLS, Texas MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
WESLEY HUNT, Texas JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
ROBERT F. ONDER, Missouri Vacant
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas Vacant
BRANDON GILL, Texas Vacant
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
JULIE TAGEN, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Tom McClintock, Chair of the Subcommittee on
Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the State
of California.................................................. 1
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Member of the Subcommittee on
Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the State
of California.................................................. 4
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 5
The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of Maryland....................... 5
WITNESSES
John Fabbricatore, Visiting Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Oral Testimony................................................. 8
Prepared Testimony............................................. 11
Grant Newman, Director of Government Relations, Immigration
Accountability Project
Oral Testimony................................................. 15
Prepared Testimony............................................. 17
David J. Bier, Director of Immigration Studies, CATO Institute
Oral Testimony................................................. 25
Prepared Testimony............................................. 27
Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for
Immigration Studies
Oral Testimony................................................. 50
Prepared Testimony............................................. 52
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on
Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement are listed
below.......................................................... 101
Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, a Member of the
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
Enforcement from the State of Arizona, for the record
An article entitled, ``Sanctuary City Dwellers Are Suffering
Sexual Battery, `Stranger Rapes', Murders at the Hands of
Illegal Aliens,'' Nov. 30, 2024, Breitbart
An article entitled, ``What Democrats must learn from Biden's
disastrous immigration record,'' Jan. 17, 2025, Vox
An article entitled, ``Dems finally admit Biden botched
border after 2024 election loss: `We destroyed
ourselves,' '' Nov. 29, 2024, New York Post
An article enitled, ``Hill Democrats say their warnings about
the party's shortfalls on the border were ignored,'' Nov.
8, 2024, CNN
An article entitled, ``Cuellar on Mayorkas Claiming Border Is
Secure: `Definitely, Absolutely, It Is Open,' '' Nov. 15,
2022, Breitbart
An article entitled, ``Quantifying Why Democrats Support Open
Borders,'' Oct. 31, 2024, National Review
An article entitled, ``Saipan: The Island Where Chinese Mothers
Deliver American Babies: Women looking to give birth to U.S.
citizens have found a loophole in the Pacific on the island of
Saipan,'' Dec. 22, 2017, The Wall Street Journal, submitted by
Tom Tiffany, a Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration
Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the State of
Wisconsin, for the record
An article entitled, ``January 6 rioters: Trump plans to issue
pardons for some convicted,'' Jan. 19, 2025, CNN, submitted by
the Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of Maryland, for the record
An arrest warrant from the United States District Court, Middle
District of Florida, United States of America v. Daniel Charles
Ball, Aug. 6, 2024, submitted by the Honorable Mary Gay
Scanlon, a Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity,
Security, and Enforcement from the State of Pennsylvania, for
the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jasmine Crockett, a Member
of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
Enforcement from the State of Texas, for the record
A study entitled, ``Undocumented Immigrant Offending Rate
Lower Than U.S.-Born Citizen Rate,'' Sept. 12, 2024,
National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
An article entitled, ``Study says undocumented immigrants
paid almost $100 billion in taxes,'' Aug. 2, 2024,
Alabama Reflector
An article entitled, ``White supremacists behind over 80% of
extremism-related U.S. murders in 2022,'' Feb. 23, 2023,
Reuters
RESTORING IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
IN AMERICA
----------
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,
and Enforcement
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Tom
McClintock [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives McClintock, Biggs, Tiffany, Roy,
Van Drew, Moore, Hunt, Fry, Grothman, Knott, Onder, Schmidt,
Gill, Jordan, Baumgartner, Nadler, Scanlon, Ross, Garcia,
Crockett, Lofgren, and Cohen.
Mr. McClintock. The Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity,
Security, and Enforcement will come to order.
I want to thank all of you for coming today. This is a new
age for America, a new golden age, we all pray, and it's a
privilege for all of us to have a small role in this crucial
period in our history.
I want to begin by welcoming the new Members of the
Subcommittee. We have Russell Fry, who will be joining us
shortly. He's a Member of the Judiciary Committee, but this
will be his first in on the Subcommittee on Immigration. He's
in his second term, a former Eagle Scout, and has his degree
from the law school of South Carolina.
Glenn Grothman, also a veteran of the Judiciary Committee,
served in the Wisconsin State Senate. His J.D. is from
Wisconsin.
Brad Knott, who is here, is a freshman, worked as a
prosecutor with a J.D. from Wake Forest.
Bob Onder, who is here present, served in the Missouri
State Senate with a J.D. from St. Louis University.
Derek Schmidt, a freshman from Kansas' 2nd District, a
former Attorney General of the State of Kansas, former Majority
Leader of the Kansas Senate, and with a J.D. from Georgetown.
Finally, Brandon Gill, a freshman Member from Texas, an
investment banker.
We welcome all of them to the Subcommittee today.
Our Ranking Member, Ms. Jayapal, is absent today because of
the death of her father, and our hearts go out to her and her
grieving family. She'll be represented today by our former
Chair and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Ms. Lofgren, whom
I'll yield to introduce the new Democratic Members.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair.
We have now on the Subcommittee Mr. Nadler, Ms. Scanlon,
Ms. Crockett, and Mr. Cohen. I think they are new to the
Subcommittee. The other Members have served before. We are
looking forward to a productive year.
With that, I would yield back for our opening statements.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
The Subcommittee meets today to hear testimony to assist us
in restoring integrity, security, and enforcement to our
immigration laws, and we'll begin with opening statements.
Our Nation has just suffered the largest illegal mass
migration in history, deliberately engineered, abetted, and
encouraged by President Joe Biden and his allies in Congress.
For four years, the American people have endured the effect
of this calculated lawlessness. Schools flooded with non-
English-speaking students, hospitals packed with illegals
demanding free healthcare, Americans pushed out of homeless
shelters to make room for illegals, an estimated $150 billion a
year taken from struggling American families to pay for free
food, free legal services, free transportation, free housing,
free clothing, and free cell phones for all of those who have
broken into our country.
Millions of American workers have been displaced, driving
down wages, and drying up opportunities for our own young
people. Deadly fentanyl trade coming across our open border now
claims the lives of tens of thousands of Americans every year.
Worst of all, among these illegal migrants have come the most
violent, dangerous, and malevolent criminals and criminal gangs
in the world while sanctuary laws and Democratic jurisdictions
protect them as they prey on innocent Americans.
Every immigration-related agency in Biden's Executive
Branch had a part in destroying the integrity of our
immigration system. I'll read you just a few examples. The U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services did nothing to stop
extensive fraud and mass parole programs that it implemented
and delayed adjudication of legal immigration applications in
favor of those for illegal aliens.
The State Department gave U.S. taxpayer money to
nongovernmental organizations to hire foreign nationals to tell
other foreign nationals how to circumvent U.S. immigration
laws.
The Department of Homeland Security refused to prevent
fraud and visa programs and brought interior immigration
enforcement to a standstill. The Customs and Border Protection
abused its authority by paroling over 531,000 foreign nationals
in just one categorical parole program.
The Department of Health and Human Services ignored its
duty to determine whether unaccompanied alien children who
arrived at the border had criminal backgrounds and were a
danger to themselves or others before releasing them into our
country.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement used taxpayer dollars to
fund housing for illegal aliens. The Department of Justice told
its immigration judges to stop adjudicating cases, and it
reversed common sense Trump era opinions that prevented asylum
fraud.
Time and again we were told by the Biden Administration and
Congressional Democrats that our border was secure. We were
told there was no national security or public safety risk. We
were told the administration could do nothing more to prevent
illegal immigration.
Americans knew better, and they finally got tired of
feeling unsafe in their own towns, tired of seeing illegal
aliens sleeping in their community schools, recreation centers,
airports, police stations, and tired of footing the bills for
foreign nationals who showed nothing but contempt for U.S. law.
On November 5th, last year, they delivered a resounding
victory to President Donald Trump with a clear and unambiguous
mandate to stop this insanity.
Yesterday, President Trump, within hours of returning to
the presidency, issued 11 Executive Orders to, once again,
secure our borders, recover our sovereignty, protect our
people, and restore the rule of law.
The wreckage of the Biden years will take many years to
repair. Between the six million illegals deliberately
trafficked into our country and another two million known
gotaways who evaded an utterly overwhelmed border patrol, an
illegal and unvetted population the size of the State of
Washington has been ushered into our country. That population
includes at least 99 terrorists that we know of; more than 1.4
million aliens who are right now defying court orders of
removal, 7.6 million aliens on the ICE nondetained docket.
President Trump's Executive Orders reinstate the successful
Remain in Mexico program that it brought phony asylum claims to
a trickle until Joe Biden abolished it on his first day in
office. They revoked Biden's anti-enforcement Executive Orders
and policies and made clear to the world that the only pathway
into the United States is to obey our laws.
After the largest illegal mass migration in history, this
administration must now undertake the largest repatriation
operation in history. I speak for every Republican on this
Committee, and I believe every Republican in this Congress when
I say we will stand behind him in this necessary work.
This Congress must not only give President Trump the tools
to restore our national sovereignty, but we must also enact
laws so that a future Democratic President cannot, once again,
throw our borders wide open.
We need to reform our asylum laws to ensure that only
legitimate claims will be honored. We must close the loopholes
that allowed Biden to abuse the limited parole authority that
Congress gave him. We must revamp our unaccompanied minor laws
to prevent human trafficking that ran rampant under Biden, and
we must rescue the hundreds of thousands of children that Biden
and his administration simply lost track of.
We must restore integrity to our temporary and permanent
visa programs so that only those who are an asset to America
can take advantage of them. Much of that work will fall to the
Subcommittee, and all of that work begins today.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses to help us
chart that path.
With that, I yield to the Ranking Member for her opening
statement.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Immigration to the United States has played an important
role over the centuries in making America a vibrant,
prosperous, and successful country, but it is broadly agreed
that our current immigration system is broken.
We need to make necessary reforms and then vigorously
enforce the law. We need to provide the resources necessary to
secure the border and provide that only those who are permitted
entry into the United States are, in fact, so admitted. The
resources should include adequate personnel, technology, and
other tools to allow for the orderly entry of only those who
secure the proper permission for entry.
We also need to change the law, to reform the law. When we
look to the administration, I think sometimes we should look in
the mirror because the necessary reform of immigration law is a
failure of Congress. We have tried over the years to improve
the law and in every case have failed. With our immigration
system broken and no longer functioning as it was once
intended, change is necessary.
Now, I would include that from family separated due to
overly punitive laws to a dysfunctional employment-based system
mired in unworkable backlogs to a lengthy and overly complex
asylum process that has been exploited by transnational
criminal organizations preying on the desperate. The
Immigration and Nationality Act screams for reform.
The failure to do that I believe, as the Chair has
indicated, did lead to an election of someone who promised to
engage in mass deportations, which I don't believe is
necessarily the answer to the challenge that we face.
Without reform of the law, the Executive is now trying to
use a section of the law, 212(f), in a way that it was probably
never intended and in the past the courts have disallowed.
The frustration with our immigration border problem has
also lent the President to engage in a direct attack on the
Constitution. The 14th Amendment says all persons born or
naturalized in the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and
State where they reside.
It's pretty clear. Going back to the adoption of this
amendment, there's never been a question about if you're born
here, you're an American, but there's a direct assault on that.
The idea that this is being done in the effort to preserve
public safety I think is belied by the other Executive action
taken by the President just yesterday where President Trump
pardoned hundreds of felons who violently attacked police
officers on January 6th. The decision to release violent
criminals into our community makes America less safe.
More than 1,500 criminals were pardoned, including, and
I'll just mention three, Steve Cappuccio who ripped off Officer
Daniel Hodges' gas mask and beat him in the face while he was
stuck in a door. The attacks was so violent that Cappuccio held
his phone in his mouth so he could beat Officer Hodges with
both hands.
D.J. Rodriguez who joined a mob attacking Officer Michael
Fanone and repeatedly shocked him in the neck with a taser
causing him to lose consciousness and suffer a heart attack.
David Dempsey who climbed over other rioters to get
officers where he stomped on at least one officer's head, beat
officers with a flag pole, a crutch, a broken piece of
furniture, and sprayed officers' faces with pepper spray.
Don't tell me that the motivation for immigration crackdown
is public safety when we release these violent criminals back
into our communities.
Mr. Chair, as you know, I used to teach immigration law. I
well understand the need for reform, but I do hope that we will
require Executive actions to comply with existing law and turn
our attention to the necessary reforms that is really our
province here in the U.S. Congress.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. The Chair is now pleased to recognize the
Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jim Jordan
of Ohio.
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chair is exactly right in his opening statement. On day
one of the Biden Administration, they made a decision, made
three decisions. They said we're no longer going to build the
wall. We're no longer going to have Remain in Mexico. When you
get to our border, you will not be detained. You will be
released. Guess what? Everybody came.
It was deliberate. It was intentional. It was premed--they
did it to the country, and now it's time to fix that, as the
Chair pointed out. Think about it. What they said was no wait,
no wall, and no detention. Everybody came. We shouldn't be
surprised. Who wouldn't want to come to the greatest country
ever? You've got to do it legally. That's the problem.
So, yesterday, the President started what the American
people said to do on November 5th. He started with those 11
Executive Orders that the Chair talked about.
This hearing is to highlight what took place over the last
four years and what we have to do to fix the problem the
American people elected us to fix.
So, I appreciate the good work our Chair has done over
these last several years, the good work he did on H.R. 2, the
work he's doing with this key Subcommittee on this key issue.
This is critically important.
Our job, one of our jobs--this is reconciliation. The
public has to understand this is to make sure we have the funds
available to execute and get accomplished the Executive Orders
the administration, the President put in place over the last 24
hours.
So, that's our task, and I appreciate, again, the work of
this Committee, our staff, and our great Chair of this key
Subcom-mittee.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member
of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Jamie Raskin of Maryland,
for an opening statement.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chair began by saying the point here is to restore the
rule of law. Restore the rule of law. Can you even pretend to
do that if you stand by and support Donald Trump who on day
one, as the Chair of the Committee just said, day one of his
presidency pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists, including hundreds
of people who violently assaulted and attacked American police
officers?
Let's just take one person who is free today. Julian
Khater, who had been convicted after having every due process
protection, the right to counsel, the right to cross-examine
witnesses, and the right to introduce evidence. They had him
completely. They knew exactly what happened. Most of this was
videotaped so the whole world could see it.
Well, Julian Khater repeatedly, violently, assaulted our
officer protecting us in Congress, Officer Brian Sicknick, who
then proceeded to have several strokes and died on January 7,
2021, the next day. The family of Officer Sicknick is
absolutely devastated and demolished by what just happened.
I invite any of my colleagues, including the Members new to
this Committee who maybe weren't here on January 6th and didn't
experience the trauma of that violent insurrection when we saw
a mob marauding through here yelling, ``Hang Mike Pence. Hang
Mike Pence.'' Looking to assassinate Nancy Pelosi.
Now you have the temerity to come forward and say this is
about public safety? How much safer are we now with these 1,500
criminals at-large in Washington, DC, and going out into the
country? Are you vouching that these people are not going to be
attacking any other police officers? Are you vouching that they
are no longer a threat to public safety? What an outrage. What
a scandal.
Well, the hearing has been called not on trying to deal
with the public safety crisis created by the President on day
one of his presidency but on immigration.
Now, time and again Democrats have reached across the aisle
to fix our immigration system by finding common ground through
compromise. We did it in 1986, with a Democratic-led House and
a Republican-led Senate when we passed the immigration reform
signed into law by President Reagan four decades ago.
In 2013, under President Obama, Democrats worked with
Senate Republicans on a sweeping immigration reform bill only
to have House Republicans kill it because it threatened Speaker
Boehner's grip on power.
Last year, under President Biden, Democrats worked with
Republican Senator Lankford to produce a tough border security
deal with increased border patrol, with increased border
technology and with increased asylum judges to the border.
President Trump and House Republicans openly and aggressively
tanked the deal. They sank the ship, openly rejecting a
bipartisan border agreement held by the most conservative
Republicans in the Senate because they preferred to have a
security crisis to run on than an actual border solution.
Yet, as Democrats, we stand ready again to work with our
colleagues to fix the broken immigration system. Today unlawful
crossings at the border are much lower than they were when
President Trump left office. We made progress.
Now is the time for us to tackle the daunting task of
finding compromise and pragmatic solutions to fix the system
that has not been updated in decades, a system that relegates
millions of people to the shadows and leaves other people in
limbo.
Let's secure the border. Let's make it a lot harder to get
into America illegally and a lot easier to get into America
lawfully. That's what America wants to see. Let's not use
immigration to destroy our Constitution.
Unbelievable that a lot of my friends on the other side of
the aisle are sitting by idly while Donald Trump proposes by
Executive Order to destroy Section 1 of the 14th Amendment,
which establishes that everybody born in the United States is a
citizen of the United States. Yet, they just let that go.
All these originalists and textualists claim to care about
what the Constitution stands for, that was the whole purpose
and meaning of the 14th Amendment. Now, they want to destroy
birth right citizenship in America, moving to a citizenship
based on race instead of a citizenship based on place, which
was the whole purpose of the 14th Amendment, to overturn the
Dred Scott decision.
Well, we're, obviously, going to have some differences
moving forward because they don't want real solutions. They
just want to demagogue the immigration issue. That doesn't move
America forward.
It's just like they demagogued the issue of inflation. They
said they were going to bring down prices in rent, utilities,
and energy cost. They said they were going to bring down the
price of groceries. Not a single peep from them about that on
day one. No, it's just about releasing all the violent
insurrectionists, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers who are
out there today saying that they want revenge. Well, that's the
real program for America.
Let's hear what their specific proposals are about
immigration. If they make sense, then we will get behind them.
If it's just more demagoguery, Mr. Chair, I'm afraid we're
going to have to let it pass.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. I thank the gentleman for reminding all of
us why the people voted as they did on November 5th.
The Chair would now ask for unanimous consent that the
gentleman from Washington, Mr. Baumgartner, be permitted to sit
on the dais for this hearing.
Without objection, so ordered. Without objection, all other
opening statements will be included in the record.
We'll now introduce today's witnesses. We have with us
today, no stranger to this Subcommittee, Mr. John Fabbricatore.
Mr. Fabbricatore is a visiting fellow at The Heritage
Foundation.
For what purpose does the gentlewoman--
Ms. Lofgren. I just wanted to confirm that the Member
sitting in can only ask questions if he's yielded time. Isn't
that our rule?
Mr. McClintock. That's the rule.
Ms. Lofgren. OK. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to
interrupt.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. John Fabbricatore is a visiting fellow
at The Heritage Foundation and an advisory board member with
the National Immigration Center for Enforcement. Mr.
Fabbricatore started with the Immigration and Naturalization
Service in 1998. He retired from the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement in 2022. He served in many different
positions, including Deputy Field Office Director for U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Denver, Colorado,
area of responsibility before being promoted to Field Office
Director in 2020.
Mr. Grant Newman is the Director of Government Relations
for the Immigration Accountability Project, a nonpartisan
organization that analyzes current and proposed Federal
immigration policies to educate the public and hold elected
officials accountable to their oath and to defend the United
States and its citizens. Mr. Newman has worked in immigration
policy since 2012, most recently at NumbersUSA Education and
Research Foundation. He received a Bachelor of Arts in
political science from Christopher Newport University and his
Juris Doctorate from Regent University School of Law.
Mr. David Bier is the Director of Immigration Studies at
the Cato Institute. He has a B.A. in political science from
Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
Finally, we have Ms. Jessica Vaughn. She is the Director of
Policy Studies for the Center on Immigration Studies. Her area
of expertise is immigration policy and operations, covering
topics such as unaccompanied alien children, visa programs,
immigration benefits, and immigration enforcement. Ms. Vaughn
has a Master's Degree from Georgetown University and a
Bachelor's Degree from Washington College in Maryland.
I want to welcome our witnesses, thank them for appearing
today.
We'll begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise and
raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief so help you God?
Let the record reflect the witnesses have answered in the
affirmative.
You may be seated.
Please know your written testimony will be entered into the
record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize
your testimony in five minutes.
We will begin with Mr. Fabbricatore.
STATEMENT OF JOHN FABBRICATORE
Mr. Fabbricatore. Thank you, sir.
Mr. McClintock. Turn on your microphone.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Good morning, Chair McClintock and
Congresswoman Lofgren and distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee.
Thank you for the privilege of appearing before you today
to discuss the urgent need to address dangerous sanctuary
jurisdictions, improve interior immigration enforcement, and
recommit to policies that protect American citizens.
Over the past four years, the erosion of immigration
enforcement has had devastating consequences for our
communities. Sanctuary policies, the abuse of prosecutorial
discretion, and overwhelmed court dockets have created a system
that shields criminal aliens and jeopardizes public safety.
I want to emphasize one key point today. Weak border and
immigration enforcement policies have allowed unvetted and
dangerous criminal illegal aliens to enter and thrive within
our borders, leaving Americans at risk.
Such is the case involving a Venezuelan criminal alien who
crossed illegally in El Paso, Texas, and was released into the
U.S. in 2023. He was charged with raping a 14-year-old girl
while he was living in his employer's basement in Colorado. He
had been arrested previously for possessing tools for forgery,
counterfeiting, and larceny but was released without notifying
ICE.
Sanctuary jurisdictions claim to protect immigrant
communities, but they do the opposite. They shelter criminal
aliens, accommodating and increasing crimes like drug
trafficking, violent assaults, and human trafficking.
One stark example is the Tren de Aragua gang. This violent
group infiltrated Colorado where their crimes ranged from
jewelry store robberies to deadly shootings.
I witnessed the aftermath firsthand in Aurora, Colorado,
where gang members terrorized an apartment complex. Residents
lived in fear as armed criminals roamed freely, culminating in
horrific violence and murder.
Despite law enforcement efforts, these issues persist
because sanctuary policies actively hinder the sharing of
information and cooperation with ICE. Sanctuary officials
ignore ICE detainers, release violent offenders back into
communities, and undermine the public trust in the justice
system.
A mother and her teenage son were killed by an illegal
alien and repeat DUI offender in Colorado last December. They
are just one of the many tragic consequences of this leniency.
The ICE data underscores the crisis. Nearly 7.8 million
illegal aliens are on the nondetained docket freely roaming
American communities, including 1.4 million with final orders
of removal and even 13,000 individuals convicted of murder. Not
only that, the dismissal of 700,000 immigration cases and
administrative failures and another 200,000 cases are examples
of the prior administration's opposition to enforcing
immigration laws.
The spread of criminal networks is also alarming. Cartels
like Sinaloa and Jalisco exploit sanctuary policies that flood
our communities with fentanyl and other lethal illegal drugs.
Last year alone law enforcement seized more than 115 million
fentanyl pills. Yet, availability remains unchanged, showing
that these cartels continue to operate with impunity.
We must return to enforcing immigration laws passed by
Congress. This includes:
(1) LHolding criminals accountable by reinstating ICE
detainers and ensuring dangerous individuals are detained and
deported.
(2) LSafeguard American families by dismantling the gangs
and cartels that threaten our neighbors.
(3) LStrengthen the rule of law by fostering cooperation
between ICE and local law enforcement.
Unfortunately, the Biden Administration's policies eroded
the effectiveness of interior enforcement. This leniency sent a
dangerous message encouraging illegal crossings while
undermining the tools ICE needs to apprehend and remove
criminal aliens.
The results are evident in the tragic rise of fentanyl
deaths, human trafficking, and violent crime linked to foreign
borne cartels and gangs. Reversing these policies is not just
an option. It's a necessity. We must empower ICE, restore
cooperation with State and local enforcement, and invest in the
resources that prioritize U.S. citizen's safety and well-being.
Members of Congress, our communities' safety and our
Nation's stability depend on decisive action. Your top priority
right now should be delivering the resources needed to assist
the Trump Administration in arresting, detaining, and removing
illegal aliens. I urge you to preempt sanctuary policies and
reinstate effective interior enforcement tools so that we can
turn this vision into reality.
Thank you for your time, and I welcome any questions you
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fabbricatore follows:]
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Mr. McClintock. Thank you for your testimony.
The Chair is now pleased to recognize Mr. Grant Newman for
five minutes.
STATEMENT OF GRANT NEWMAN
Mr. Newman. Chair McClintock, Ranking Member Jayapal, and
the Members of the Subcommittee--I'm sorry--Congresswoman
Lofgren, thank you for holding this important hearing at a
pivotal moment for immigration enforcement.
Through action and inaction, the Biden Administration
invited the border crisis of the past four years, and the world
was listening.
During the first four years of the Trump Administration,
the CBP encountered just over three million inadmissible aliens
nationwide. By comparison of the Biden Administration, CBP
encountered nearly 11 million inadmissible aliens.
In addition to implementing mass catch and release of
illegal aliens with notices to appear and report, the Biden
Administration illegally initiated the systematic processing of
inadmissible aliens into the United States under the guise of
humanitarian parole and issued them all open market employment
authorization.
Under the CHNV program, more than 531,000 otherwise
inadmissible aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela
received permission to fly over the border to American airports
and disappear into the country's interior and from border
enforcement statistics. It ended on Monday.
Under the CBP One app, the administration encouraged
illegal aliens to schedule their illegal entry at ports. Over
two years, more than 936,000 aliens did just that. It also
ended Monday.
Despite the law only allowing parole on a case-by-case
basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public
benefit, the Biden Administration granted categorical parole
and work authorization to more than 1.46 million inadmissible
aliens in those two parole programs alone.
Restoring integrity to our immigration system needs to
begin with ending the rampant abuse of immigration law.
Clearly, parole abuse is one of the most egregious.
Humanitarian parole cannot continue to be used by
administrations to get around statutory limits all the while
they claim to have made illegal immigration safe and lawful.
Similarly, endless renewals and redesignations of temporary
protected status have resulted in an eligible population that
could exceed 1.2 million with the Biden Administration making
more than 338,000 eligible in the last nine months alone. Not
only can illegal aliens receive TPS and work authorization, but
we also have countries that have been continuously designated
since the 1990s because of a hurricane.
Despite our government claiming it's not safe to return
nationals to TPS countries, we continue to grant nonimmigrant
visas with an obligation to return to nationals from every
single one of them. That defies logic. TPS abuse must end.
On the border, the Remain in Mexico program significantly
reduced illegal entries even though less than 68,000 aliens
were sent back to Mexico over the two years it was fully
implemented. President Trump has rightfully ordered its
reinstatement.
The truth is that vast majority of illegal aliens are
coming here for economic opportunities. If people understand
they won't get in, they won't come. If their friends, family
members, NGO's, and cartels can credibly promise an easy path
to be released into the United States, they will come and they
have. Perception of the enforcement of immigration law matters
enormously and the statistics show that.
For those on the interior, the credible threat of removal
has the same effect. If they believe the United States will no
longer turn a blind eye to illegal immigration, illegal aliens
will decide to return home.
In addition to the reinstatement of Remain in Mexico, the
end of parole, and TPS abuse and mass deportations, expanding
expedited removal, regulations to address asylum fraud, visa
sanctions for countries that won't take back their nationals,
worksite enforcement, safe third country agreements, and the
broad restrictions found in the INA can all be combined to
restore integrity to the immigration system.
However, the American people can't continue to endure the
whiplash every four years from administrations dramatically
changing immigration enforcement and endless lawsuits. Congress
has plenary power over immigration and an obligation to fix it.
The Laken Riley Act is a helpful step to give State Attorneys
General better tools to respond to lawless administration.
Reforming and restricting parole, asylum, and the handling
of unaccompanied children is essential. When someone arrives at
the border illegally, the Executive Branch should be limited to
three options: Detain, return, or remove.
Mandatory E-Verify for all employers can eliminate the job
magnet for illegal immigrants. These solutions were passed by
Congress last year in H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act.
Congress needs to finish the job.
Additionally, TPS should be reformed statutorily to prevent
further abuse and endless extensions. Finally, Congress needs
to provide sufficient resources, including ICE ERO officers and
detention beds to carry out interior enforcement.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Newman follows:]
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Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
We'll next hear from Mr. David Bier.
STATEMENT OF DAVID J. BIER
Mr. Bier. Chair McClintock, Ranking Member Lofgren, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify.
For nearly half a century, the Cato Institute has produced
original research showing that a freer, more orderly, and more
lawfully immigration system benefits Americans. Unfortunately,
from January 2017-January 2021, the U.S. immigration system
underwent an assault unlike any in modern history.
President Trump abused his authority to cut legal
immigration from abroad by nearly 80 percent, refugees by 92
percent. He shut down asylum even for legal crossers. He
stopped enforcing the law. He removed requirements to target
public safety threats in the interior. As a result, he released
twice as many convicted criminals as President Biden. He forced
U.S. Attorneys to prioritize misdemeanor family separation
prosecutions of parents over sex offenders.
By the time President Biden took office, the U.S.
immigration system was in shambles: Immigration courts,
consulates, and ports of entry all shuttered. Even detention
centers were at half capacity. Many border patrol agents were
assigned away from the border. Human trafficking investigators
were working on low-level visa overstay cases.
In December 2020, border patrol arrests were at the highest
level for any December back to 1999. Evasions of border patrol
were 75 percent higher than when President Trump entered
office. Border patrol was told not to impose consequences on
crossers beyond expelling them to Mexico under Title 42 of the
health code.
A decade of progress deterring criminals from crossing
reversed. Encounters with convicted criminals tripped under the
Trump Administration. President Trump cut legal immigration. He
increased illegal immigration especially by criminals.
After this four-year sabotage, President Biden had to
rebuild the immigration system from scratch. I criticized
Biden's effort, but the fact is that it was always going to
take time to undo this absolute disaster with no help from
Congress and active obstruction by the States.
He reprioritized public safety threats in the interior and
cut releases of convicted criminals from detention in half. He
refocused on border security, doubling detention, removing
three times as many border crossers as President Trump.
It was fixing legal immigration that contributed to ending
the crisis. Biden restored visa and refugee processing to above
2016 levels. Biden also deregulated the parole process to open
this lawful pathway to allow asylum seekers to enter in a
lawful and orderly way. Biden's approach was working.
Yes, overall crossings increased during the economic
recovery, but border patrol encounters were down 33 percent in
Biden's final months compared to Trump's final months. Criminal
crossings had fallen 57 percent. Evasions of border patrol were
down 42 percent, falling immediately after President Biden
reversed Trump's expulsion to Mexico policy.
For the first time ever, most immigrants coming to the U.S.
border were applying to enter legally through a regulated and
screened lawful pathway.
The new administration is already undoing all the progress.
The slough of new Executive Orders mandate violations of the
U.S. Constitution, target peaceful people over violent felons,
and, by limiting legal immigration, encouraged illegal
immigration.
The President has ordered violations of the Constitution's
14th Amendment, denying the legitimacy of millions of Americans
their citizenship and threatening to deport babies born in
America. He's threatening to use the military to arrest,
detain, and remove people without proving to courts they are
removable.
His orders explicitly declare that he is above U.S. law,
and he asserts he can ignore any immigration law that you,
Members of Congress, write.
The President may have joked he wanted to be a dictator for
a day, but he is not one. You, Congress, should defend your
powers and the U.S. Constitution and our rights before they are
gone. America's immigrants are with you. They come because
America is the land of the free. Let's keep it that way.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bier follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
We'll finally hear from Ms. Jessica Vaughn.
STATEMENT OF JESSICA M. VAUGHN
Ms. Vaughn. Thank you. I appreciate the chance to focus
today on the most important things that Congress should do to
restore immigration enforcement and integrity in our
immigration law, the areas of the law that need to be updated.
The Border Security Act of 2023 or H.R. 2 was a great
start, but more is needed to close loopholes and abuses and to
fix the things in the law that just do not work and to address
new challenges.
I particularly want to focus on problems with certain visa
and benefit programs. One problem is fraud. Fraud is often
overlooked in discussions of immigration enforcement, but it
really is another form of illegal immigration. Past reports
have identified double digit fraud in certain benefit programs,
but most have never been studied or assessed for the prevalence
of fraud. Congress needs to demand some investigation into
these programs, audits and benefit fraud assessments to find
out just how prevalent it is.
An even bigger problem is that over time, our immigration
law has become a massive, disorganized menu of entry and work
permit programs, some created by Congress, some not, that
operate almost on autopilot. In the hands of an administration
like the previous one that wanted no limits on immigration, any
integrity guardrails were dismantled, and these programs have
now ballooned in size.
In some cases, the rules themselves do not allow for
meaningful controls. Some of these programs simply need to be
shut down.
Before I talk about that, I just want to endorse the
comments made by my fellow panelist on the need to address
sanctuaries, which are a major public safety threat and
undermine the integrity of immigration laws.
I also want to mention that it's important to allow for a
role for State and local officials in restoring integrity of
our immigration programs and in enforcement. In some of the
programs that I'm going to talk about, the States are really a
gatekeeper to some of these programs, and so they have a stake
in how they are run.
Enforcement is not just a matter of imposing consequences
on those who break the law. We need to be more prudent in
administering visa and green card programs to reduce
opportunities for abuse either by unqualified applicants or by
an administration that imposes limits on immigration.
Visa overstaying is a chronic problem. More than 565,000
people overstayed their visa or visa waiver in 2023, and the
State Department has done nothing but let this problem get
worse in the last few years.
Besides lenient entry programs, our immigration system
offers too many opportunities for people to prolong their stay
and obtain work permits whether through long-term pretend
temporary status or in programs that are abridged to green
cards and citizenship. I'm referring to programs like TPS, OPT,
the Special Immigrant Juvenile program, and the U and T visa
programs for crime victims.
All these are loosely regulated and attract large numbers
of fraudulent and frivolous applications. All of them have
ballooned in size to historic numbers of applicants in the last
four years. Collectively, these number at least a million and a
half and maybe as many as two million people, and that exceeds
the size of all the other guest worker programs combined.
For example, the OPT programs were never authorized by
Congress but allow hundreds of thousands of foreign students
and foreign grads of U.S. schools or fake schools to get a work
permit. The U and T visas for crime victims have proven to be
mostly ineffective in helping prosecute crimes and need to be
replaced with a more tightly managed deferred action program
that suits the needs of law enforcement agencies.
Similarly, the Special Immigrant Juvenile program, which
was sold as a humanitarian benefit for trafficked kids in need
of protection has become amnesty program for young adults whose
claims of abandonment or abuse are often not subject to
thorough examination. The availability of this benefit, which
has few controls or standards, creates demand that gets larger
and larger every year.
These are just a few examples of things that can be fixed
by Congress and that I hope you will take up in this next
session.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Vaughn follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. McClintock. I want to thank you all for your
testimoneys.
We'll now proceed to the questions under the five-minute
rule, and we'll begin with Mr. Biggs of Arizona.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is ludicrous for the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee
to make the argument that millions of illegal aliens who
crossed into the country during the Biden Administration
invaded the country because the immigration system is, quote,
``broken.''
The fact is these individuals came because of Biden's open
border policy. No fence, no detention, no removal, and,
frankly, no enforcement. That's what happened.
It is rich to decry the pardons of President Trump yet fail
to even insult, discuss, address places like San Diego, which
have just become a super sanctuary city, or the California
State itself with its sanctuary policies.
I submit for the record a story about a sanctuary city
dweller suffering sexual battery, stranger rapes, and murders
at the hands of illegal aliens in California.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Mr. Biggs. It is almost silly to say that the Senate plan,
which would have allowed 7,500 people a day into the country
before the President had to take any Executive action at all
would have been a panacea Biden's failed policies.
It is unique and, perhaps, we're fortunate that an
individual, as the Ranking Member of the entire Committee, is
able to condemn pardons, Presidential Pardons as the only
person that I know of on this dais who has actually received a
Presidential Pardon for his actions.
The Wong Kim Ark case, which basically addressed birth
right citizenship, was given because somebody was a permanent
legal resident, not illegal aliens who have a child in this
country. When this gets to the Supreme Court, they are going to
rule that way, and I'll be right, unlike Mr. Bier who made his
prediction on President Trump's policies when the Supreme Court
upheld his policies.
To say that the country's border was in shambles when
President Trump was there is ludicrous. Apparently, not looking
at any of the numbers, such as in Yuma, in Yuma the entire last
year the numbers were about 8,600 I believe it was. That was
the total encounters when it was not unusual under the Biden
Administration to have 8,600 encounters in a weekend. Ludicrous
argument, specious.
The numbers came down. Why did they come down? Because you
didn't count people who were applying under CBP One app. You
didn't count people who were getting the CHNV program. So, if
you're not counting everybody, well, of course, the numbers
come down. That's where we sat here today.
The law is this, Mr. Fabbricatore. An asylum requestor is
required to remain in custody until that asylum request is
adjudicated. Is that not true?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Absolutely, sir. That's the way it should
be.
Mr. Biggs. Well, not just what it should be. That's the
law.
Mr. Fabbricatore. The way the law is written. Yes, sir.
Mr. Biggs. No administration has been successful in doing
that because there is a massive number of asylum requests.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Correct.
Mr. Biggs. Under this administration, how many asylum
requestors have been released into the country?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Too many, sir. They're just released into
the country and not put into detention as they should be.
Mr. Biggs. If they were actually detained by the way the
law requires and which President Trump says he wants to do, he
wants to enforce the law, what does that do to incentives to
come into this country illegally?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It magnetizes it. It just forces people
to come in because they know they're not going to go into
detention. They know they're going to get released into the
interior of the U.S.
Mr. Biggs. If you're not detaining them, that's the magnet.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. If you do detain them, it becomes a deterrent.
Mr. Fabbricatore. It becomes a deterrent. If we put
detention back into action and we say we're going to detain you
when you are asking, that's going to be a deterrent.
Mr. Biggs. If you remove people, like you have 1.4 million
who are actively in the country with removal orders, that
doesn't count all the 500,000 plus criminal individuals. That
is just the 1.4 who have had due process.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. If you begin removing people, what does that do
as a deterrent or a magnet?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Again, it deters people from coming.
Look, the biggest problem with this is they broke into the
country. They entered illegally. They had an opportunity to see
an immigration judge. That immigration judge ordered them
deported, and they still did not leave the United States. So,
compounding just breaking our laws even doubly so by not even
listening to what the immigration judge had to say.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, my time has expired, but may I put some articles
in for--
Mr. McClintock. Under unanimous consent request?
Mr. Biggs. Yes. Thank you.
An article: ``What Democrats Must Learn from Biden's
Disastrous Immigration Record,'' ``Dems Finally Admit Biden
Botched the Border after 2024 Election Loss. We Destroyed
Ourselves.'' This one without a title by CNN Politics. Then
this one. Sorry. I marked all over the back of it. I apologize
for that, ``Quantifying Why Democrats Support Open Borders.''
I will submit additional UCs without reading them regarding
sanctuary cities and the release of violent criminals into the
community. I have probably 50 or more articles I will submit
for the record, sir.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair recognizes Ms.
Lofgren for five minutes.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
All of us acknowledge that the asylum system broke down.
The system was overwhelmed, and I think it's worth noting that
a majority of those who sought asylum in immigration court lost
their asylum case. So, clearly, people who are not eligible for
asylum were admitted to the United States.
Now, why is that a problem in the law? Well, Section 208(a)
says this. This is a law that Congress wrote:
Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who
arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated
port of arrival, and including an alien who is brought to the
United States after having been interdicted in international or
U.S. waters) irrespective of such alien status may apply for
asylum.
That's what the law that we wrote, and people responded to it
and in such numbers that the system broke down.
We have never provided enough money to detain everybody who
is seeking asylum. Not during the first Trump Administration,
not during Biden, and not now. I think we need to address this
issue in addition to other elements of immigration law that are
not functioning properly.
Mr. Bier, 208(a)(1) provides this really expansive
opportunity for people to come and apply. It broke down. Now
Trump has tried to use 212(f) of the Act, basically, to
override the law. My recollection is that when he tried that
before, he lost in court.
Can you enlighten us on that?
Mr. Bier. Yes, that's right. The 212(f) is about limiting
the entry of people. The 208(a) is about asylum. It's about
applying for a benefit in the United States for people who are
already present in the country. So, 212(f) does not override
the asylum law that you all wrote, explicitly allowing people
to enter regardless of how they entered the country.
Ms. Lofgren. So, the law is such that if you come in
between the ports of entry saying, surreptitiously, you're
President of the U.S., 208(a) allows you to apply, correct?
Mr. Bier. That's right. It doesn't matter about the manner
of the status that you have. You can apply for asylum.
Ms. Lofgren. For one, I think Congress ought to revisit
that, and I think it's very clear the system has not worked and
that we ought to have a different--asylum is important. There
are some people who are seeking refuge.
Asylum was adopted by all civilized countries after World
War II, and there is an infamous case of Jews escaping Germany
who were refused entry into the United States, and by Canada.
They were sent back to Germany, and most of them were killed in
concentration camps. Most civilized countries adopted asylum
rules subsequent to that war.
That's important, but it's important also that it's for
asylees, not people who are seeking economic opportunity. I
don't dislike or hate someone seeking economic opportunities,
but they are not asylees.
So, we need Congress itself needs to address this issue,
put some order so that we can have order at the border. Then,
if we have a need for people who are meeting economic needs in
this country, there needs to be a more orderly way to deal with
that as well.
Let me just quickly ask you, if you can, it was an
assertion that the 14th Amendment doesn't mean what it says.
Can you address the 14th Amendment question for us, Mr. Bier?
Mr. Bier. Yes. So, the 14th Amendment says anyone born and
subject to the--born in the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States is a U.S. citizen. The
subject to--what the Executive Order says is that all these
people who are children of guest workers or children of people
without legal permanent resident status or citizenship are not
subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, which is
flatly absurd. That would mean they weren't here illegally.
That would mean they're not subject to U.S. law like a diplomat
who has diplomatic immunity.
Obviously, they didn't think through the implications of
making that kind of declaration. It's totally out of line with
everything, all other Constitutional interpretation.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Bier.
My time has just about expired. So, I'll yield back, Mr.
Chair.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Tiffany.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bier, what year was the 14th Amendment ratified?
Mr. Bier. In the 1860s.
Mr. Tiffany. In 1868, Doesn't that sound correct? That was
after which war?
Mr. Bier. The civil war.
Mr. Tiffany. Which was done to end slavery, preserve the
union and end slavery, right?
Mr. Bier. Correct.
Mr. Tiffany. Yes. Did the American immigration system
become better under the Biden Administration?
Mr. Bier. It improved, yes.
Mr. Tiffany. The immigration system in America became
better during the Biden years?
Mr. Bier. Correct.
Mr. Tiffany. Ms. Vaughn, is the Secretary of the State
required to halt visas for recalcitrant countries?
Ms. Vaughn. They are not required to. They have the
authority to do that if they get a request from the Department
of Homeland Security to do so because a country will not take
their citizens back or doesn't cooperate in getting travel
documents to return them after deportation.
Mr. Tiffany. Are there countries like that that are
recalcitrant?
Ms. Vaughn. Yes, there are quite a few.
Mr. Tiffany. Name a couple of the worst offenders.
Ms. Vaughn. Cuba, Venezuela, China, India and Bangladesh
don't always concentrate. Iran.
Mr. Tiffany. Has the State Department over the last few
years done its job to stop those recalcitrant countries from
dumping criminals into our country and then not taking them
back?
Ms. Vaughn. No. The State Department historically has been
very reluctant to use visa sanctions to impose consequences on
countries that are not fulfilling their international
obligation to take their citizens back.
Mr. Tiffany. So, should we be going to the administration
and Secretary Rubio and insisting that they do that, or should
we make a law change?
Ms. Vaughn. Well, I think it would help to make a law
change to say that the Secretary must act in certain situations
as defined by Congress to address recalcitrant countries and
give even more tools besides visa sanctions, like potentially
withholding foreign assistance or other diplomatic tools to
require the Secretary to do so.
It may be that Secretary Rubio would want to do that, but
there are not always going to be administrations that want to
push this issue. So, if Congress changes the law, then they
will have that obligation.
Mr. Tiffany. So, you would suggest we should make it a
requirement?
Ms. Vaughn. Yes.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Newman, in regard to categorical parole,
the Mariana Island, the CNMI, they have a program like that
where there is no visa needed for people to be able to come in.
Isn't that a version of birth right citizenship?
Mr. Newman. Yes. As I understand, it's become a major
issue, birth tourism in CNMI. People just basically coming in
to get U.S. citizenship.
Mr. Tiffany. So, you have Chinese nationals coming into
this territory, and they're able to have a child there, and the
child becomes a citizen.
Mr. Newman. Yes, it's absurd. It shouldn't exist in a
modern civilization.
Mr. Tiffany. Doesn't that seem like that could be a
national security threat with all we know about Communist
China?
Mr. Newman. Absolutely.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter
into the record an article from The Wall Street Journal on
December 22, 2017, in regard to this issue.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Fabbricatore--I hope I got your name right
there. Can I just--some people just call you Fab, don't they?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. So, we know all about the NGO's, including
like the international organization for migration, IOM, which I
saw when I was down in Panama four years ago and saw them
processing people in. Don't they significant amounts of money
from the taxpayers of the United States?
Mr. Fabbricatore. They absolutely do, sir. They get a huge
amount of money.
Mr. Tiffany. Do you have any ideas? Is it tens of millions?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It's in the tens of millions. Yes, higher
than tens of millions.
Mr. Tiffany. They've been a vital link, haven't they, in
this whole process of illegal immigration into America. We talk
about the cartels and the horrible things that they do, but
don't those NGO's also serve as a--haven't they served as a
vital link over the last four years of being able to bring
people illegally into America?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes, sir. They have aided in helping
illegal immigration enter into the United States.
Mr. Tiffany. Should we pull the money back from those
organizations that have assisted in illegal immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes, we should pull it back and use that
money to help us with our deportation process.
Mr. Tiffany. If we're not able to pull that money back,
should we reverse--have them help us reverse the flow and,
perhaps, turn them into repatriation centers?
Mr. Fabbricatore. That sounds like it would be the right
thing to do, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Chair, the era of America last is over, as
you said in your opening remarks, and it's time to enforce the
laws here in the United States of America.
I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. You'll get no argument from me on that
point, Mr. Tiffany.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin for five minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Congress--Chair.
Mr. Bier, to be clear, you're with the Cato Institute,
which my Republican colleagues generally love and are always
quoting you and talking about you whenever we're talking about
budget or fiscal affairs, or so on. They don't like what you're
saying about immigration today, and they certainly don't like
your message, although I think they were completely stymied and
flabbergasted when you said that things had improved marginally
under President Biden but had gone way South under Donald
Trump. Explain why immigration policy was such a nightmare in
the first Trump Administration.
Mr. Bier. We basically didn't have an immigration system by
the end of the Trump Administration. He basically banned all
immigration--legal immigration from abroad. Refugees down 92
percent. Immigrant visas down 78 percent. Nonimmigrant visas
down 80 percent. We basically didn't have an immigration system
available to people at the end of the Trump Administration. If
you look at what happened with convicted criminals crossing the
border, the lack of focus on prioritization of convicted
criminals in the interior, yes, the immigration system under
the Trump Administration led to a disaster, and ultimately it
took four years, but the Biden Administration improved things
significantly from the end of the Trump Administration.
Mr. Raskin. So, the new Trump Administration inherits a
situation that's better in terms of unlawful crossings. What is
going to be the effect of all these Executive Orders at this
point? It seems almost like they're calculated to produce more
chaos.
Mr. Bier. Absolutely. He's trying to get rid of the legal
channels by which people come into the country. He got rid of
the refugee programs day one. He got rid of the parole
processes that allow people to enter legally on day one. He
said we're not going to do any kind of asylum even for people
who are entering the country legally. If you do that, what's
the alternative? It's illegal immigration. Really, as long as
we have illegal immigration, it's going to be a major touch
point politically.
Mr. Raskin. All right. So, let's say that he actually turns
the whole country into chaos by trying to deport 12 million
people, as he's promised; what would the economic effect of
that be? I ask because I get businesspeople coming to my office
all the time from the hotel sector, the construction sector,
seafood, and from agriculture saying there aren't enough people
to do the work now. What would happen if we deported 12 million
people?
Mr. Bier. Right. It would be a blow to the economy similar
to the great recession in size, $2 trillion blow to the GDP on
an annual basis. You're talking about a massive blow to the
budget. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that deficits
will be lower by a trillion dollars as a result of the
immigrant workers that are working in the United States in
these industries.
Many American workers depend on the workers that we're
talking about. In construction, you have two million Americans
who are working in specialized positions and as managers and
supervisors of illegal immigrant workers who are doing the
tough manual labor jobs at the low end, so there's a
complementarity between the U.S. workforce and the immigrant
workforce.
Mr. Raskin. Most violent criminals are not undocumented
immigrants. Most undocumented immigrants are not violent
criminals. What would it do to our efforts to actually fight
real violent crime and gun-based crime in America, the AR-15s,
the illegal traffic in guns, if we diverted Federal, State, and
local law enforcement just to deporting people who have not
committed any crimes at all?
Mr. Bier. Look, we already don't solve 50 percent of
murders in the United States; 75 percent of sexual assaults go
unsolved. If you look at property crime, it's almost like we're
not trying. We need to focus on serious crimes in this country.
We have a crime problem. I completely agree with that.
Diverting State and local police in particular away from
getting justice for victims is a terrible idea for the country.
It will not produce safety.
Mr. Raskin. Yes. Do you think it's a step on behalf of law
and order to release en masse violent criminals who attacked
the U.S. Government to interrupt the joint session of Congress
and the peaceful transfer of power in America?
Mr. Bier. I think people who commit violent crime should
have to serve their sentences and be punished accordingly.
Mr. Raskin. That was actually the position I think taken by
our distinguished colleague Mr. Jordan from Ohio who repeatedly
distinguished been violent and nonviolent offenders. I'd like
to ask unanimous consent to enter in the record a CNN article
in which Chair Jordan was quoted as, ``being hesitant about the
sweeping pardons and saying that they basically should be
focused on people who had committed nonviolent rather than
violent offenses.''
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Mr. Raskin. Finally, what should we be doing now to fix the
immigration system?
Mr. Bier. Anyone could design a better legal immigration
system than the one that we actually have. We need Congress to
sit down and do their job and say, look, if we want people who
come, who can support themselves, who can contribute to this
country, there's a way to do it. It's not rocket science. You
can write a law that says you have to come and be able to
support yourself and contribute to the economy. We have bills
that have done this in the past. We just need to pick them up
and start that work again.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired. Chair
Jordan.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Newman, did the Biden Administration
improve the immigration system and border security?
Mr. Newman. I think the stats show no. We've got--
Chair Jordan. That whole conversation that just took place
sounded like a bunch of nonsense to me.
Mr. Newman. Same.
Chair Jordan. Certainly, 77 million Americans don't believe
what they just heard from Mr. Raskin and the Democrat witness.
Ms. Vaughn, did the Biden Administration improve the
immigration system and border security?
Ms. Vaughan. No. The Biden Administration dismantled the
controls, guardrails, limits, and turned programs into purposes
for which they were never--
Chair Jordan. Every community on the border knows they did
it, yet we just had a five-minute conversation, ``Oh well,
things are just wonderful. Joe Biden was the greatest''--Mr.
Fabbricatore, you've been out on the front lines. You've dealt
with this. Did the Biden Administration improve the immigration
system and border security?
Mr. Fabbricatore. No. We have more illegal alien criminals
on the street today because of the Biden Administration.
Chair Jordan. Yes. They're trying to say, ``Don't believe
your lying eyes.'' Of course we know it's gotten worse.
Earlier, Mr. Newman, you said--I think you said the Biden
Administration invited the crisis. I think you're being nice
when you use the word ``invited.'' I think they intentionally,
deliberately--that's in my opening statement--willfully created
the crisis. I want to know why would they do that? Why would an
administration deliberately create the chaos we have seen
upward of 10 million people coming into the country?
These border--it's interesting, these border communities,
that's been the biggest change in voting Democrat to voting
Republican has taken place in those communities because they
felt it firsthand. We were in Yuma--Mr. Biggs brought up this.
We were in Yuma, Arizona. The cost of the education system, the
healthcare system, the public services in those communities,
unbelievable. So, why would they intentionally--why would they
do this? That's what I've been trying to figure out. Why would
an administration say we're going to deliberately create the
chaos that 77 million Americans--I think all Americans know has
taken place over the last four years?
Mr. Newman. I can't pretend to know the motive of the
administration, but what I--
Chair Jordan. I'm asking you to hazard a guess, as an
expert in this area.
Mr. Newman. Looking at what they've done and looking at the
policies, what's very clear is that there has been an
intentional desire to get as many people into the country as
possible and keep them here.
Chair Jordan. Ms. Vaughn, can you take a run at that
question? Why would they do it? I think all kinds of Americans
asked that question. Why would our government do this to our
Nation?
Ms. Vaughan. Because they don't want any limits on
immigration and because no one could stop them.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Fabbricatore.
Mr. Fabbricatore. There was a definite open border agenda
for the last four years, and that is exactly the way that I see
it.
Chair Jordan. You think there's--again, hazard a guess at
the motivation. What do you think the motivation is?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It's hard to guess at allowing so many
illegal aliens to enter into the United States. It's something
that, when you actually look at it and you look at the numbers,
it's unfathomable to even think that this many people were
allowed--the gotaways, the two million gotaways that were
allowed in this country that we have no idea who they are. To
me, I have no idea why they would allow that to happen.
Chair Jordan. I don't get it either, particularly when you
think about what happens to kids on this journey when they come
to--kind of what happens to women, the terrible things. I don't
get it. For them to try to say it was wonderful and it was an
improvement, I don't get that either, because nobody, nobody
believes that. I think earlier the Ranking Member said the
asylum system was overwhelmed during the Biden Administration.
Why was it overwhelmed? Because they just opened everything up.
No wall. No Remain in Mexico, and, ``When you get here,'' as
you pointed out in your testimony, Mr. Fabbricatore, ``you
won't be detained; you'll be released.'' What do we have to do
to fix it? Mr. Fabbricatore, a guy who is on the front lines.
What do we have to do to fix it?
Mr. Fabbricatore. First, we need to make sure that we're
giving the money to--especially enforcement removal operations
to go out and detain, arrest, detain, and remove illegal
aliens. That's the bottom line of what we have to do. We have
to say this is a situation that we have; we need to put money
toward this so that we can be effective.
Chair Jordan. Once you start repatriating, once you start
removing individuals who came here illegally, that's going to
send a message. That's going to create an incentive in the
right way, because right now all the incentives are the wrong
way.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes.
Chair Jordan. No wall, no wait, and you won't be detained.
Everyone comes. You've got to change those incentives. That
will start to do that.
Mr. Fabbricatore. It absolutely will. Letting the men and
women know of ICE, of ERO, that they have your backing, and
they can go out on the street and actually enforce the
immigration law. That's all that they're asking you to do.
That's what President Trump wants to do.
Chair Jordan. Yep.
Mr. Fabbricatore. He wants to make sure that we go out, and
the immigration law is actually enforced.
Chair Jordan. Fifteen seconds. Mr. Newman, I'll give you
the last 15.
Mr. Newman. It's that. It's you have to fund--you have to
fund the resources for ICE to get the job done. You have to
show to people in this country illegally that you could be
caught, and you could be sent home.
Chair Jordan. This Committee is committed to helping the
administration have the resources to enforce the law and fix
the problem.
I yield back to the Chair.
Mr. McClintock. Ms. Scanlon.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just because someone repeats fiction over and over and over
again doesn't make it true. We all want an immigration system
that works, a border that is secure, and a country that's safe.
Our immigration laws are broken and vastly outdated and
underfunded for the world that we live in today, and that's an
issue that Congress needs to solve comprehensively and
responsibly. After taking the oath of office this week, the new
President signed more than 200 divisive and politically
motivated Executive actions that don't further that process of
reforming and fixing our border or our immigration system.
Included among those orders were several that seemed destined
to create more chaos in our immigration system and at our
Southern border--not less. Because these orders aren't
solutions but political posturing.
What do they do? They eliminate pathways that have been
successfully lowering border crossings. They reinstate failed
programs of the past. They make it harder to prioritize serious
national security threats for enforcement. They have blocked
the resettlement of Afghan allies who have been thoroughly
vetted and have been waiting years for entry into this country.
There's an attempt to overturn the Constitutional right to
birthright citizenship, which everyone from the ACLU to the
Catholic Church has condemned as being both unconstitutional
and inhumane for making those children stateless. These actions
do not make our country safer, but the new President and his
allies are so deep in the fiction that they have created with
their own cynical narrative, one that's designed to sow chaos
and anger, that they can't acknowledge reality, much less solve
problems. So, it's not surprising, because these are the same
people who blocked the bipartisan border security bill that was
negotiated last year.
So, these orders, this is not new behavior. We saw it all
before during the first Trump Administration when failed and
inhumane immigration policies weakened our economy, undermined
our moral standing in the world, and inflicted cruelty on
children and families. We can never forget that the Trump
Administration's practice of family separation led by his
current border czar was condemned as purposeful government
torture under the Geneva Convention and other international
human rights standards by organizations, including the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians,
Amnesty International, and faith-based leaders across the
country and across the political spectrum, and of course none
of these fix the issues at our border or made us more secure.
Now, Mr. Bier, in your statement, you point out that, in
his first administration, the policies imposed by President
Trump and his allies actually obliterated--that's your term,
the immigration system and shredded enforcement. Will the
Executive Orders that we're seeing now or the proposed policies
have a different impact just because it's a few years later?
Mr. Bier. No. It's going to make the problem worse, because
right now we have the majority--as I said, a majority of the
people who are coming to the border right now are applying to
enter legally through a regulated screened lawful pathway. So,
getting rid of that is actually going to make the problem
significantly worse. We didn't have these lawful pathways when
he entered the last time, so getting rid of all these legal
channels, getting rid of the refugee program, all these is
designed to increase illegal immigration. It's sending a
message around the world that the way to come to the United
States is to come illegally if you shut down the legal
channels.
Ms. Scanlon. Then, of course, that creates chaos and scenes
at the border that allow someone to run again and again and
again on the idea that they alone can fix it.
Mr. Bier. Right. If you look at what happened, you see the
Haitians and the Cubans are a perfect example of this. They for
decades have entered legally, almost 100 percent across the
Southwestern border legally to apply for asylum. The Trump
Administration came along. They shut down the process to people
at ports of entry, and then they crossed illegally, and we
created a problem where there was no problem.
The Biden Administration came in. They corrected that
mistake. Now, almost 100 percent of those groups are entering
legally, or at least they were until the Trump Administration
took over on January 20th.
Ms. Scanlon. I just wanted to turn to one of the current
paths, and we're hearing a lot about, ``Oh, you have to follow
the rules, you have to follow the legal path.'' One of the
Executive Orders or actions that occurred this week was to
eliminate the app that was allowing immigrants to make an
appointment to file a legal claim. So, now we have people who
have been waiting in Mexico for months to get their
appointment, and suddenly that was wiped out.
Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady's time has expired. We'll
take that as a statement.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for holding this
hearing. Thanks to the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Bier, a quick question. Have you visited with or met
Alexis Nungaray?
Mr. Bier. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Roy. You haven't sat down and talked with Alexis
Nungaray? Alexis Nungaray was my guest at the inauguration
festivities. She was my guest to one of the balls since she
wasn't able to attend the inauguration since it was inside.
Alexis' daughter Jocelyn was murdered last July. Her 13-year-
old beautiful little girl was murdered by individuals
associated with TDA, a dangerous gang in Venezuela, who were
released by this administration. This administration--I should
say the previous administration, the Biden Administration, the
one we're referring to.
The Biden Administration released these individuals on to
the streets of Texas, and now Alexis' daughter is no longer
with us. Alexis chose life when she was a 14-year-old little
girl. Alexis is only 28 herself now. I was proud to have her
with me this weekend. She is a testament to the greatness of
this country. Her parents, her family, migrants themselves,
they followed the law. They did it the right way because it has
been possible for years to do it the right way.
Ms. Vaughn, is it not correct that we have upwards of three
million people that are put into the United States every year
through visas and other programs, student visas, access to
becoming an LPR, et cetera?
Ms. Vaughn. Well, the more than 10 million people who come
in on nonimmigrant visas and even more than that come in under
the visa waiver program, and yes, it's a huge entry--
Mr. Roy. There is an enormous opportunity to come here
legally right now, correct?
Ms. Vaughan. Yes.
Mr. Roy. For student visas and our normal programs in
immigration.
Ms. Vaughan. More than a million immigrant visas, probably
close to a million people who get temporary visas for various
purposes as well. We have one of the most generous immigration
systems in the country.
Mr. Roy. One million green cards, a million guest worker
visas, and a million student visas. Does that sound correct to
you?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, I account the student visas under the
million--
Mr. Roy. Right. My point being, we are the most generous
country in the world by an order of magnitude, and yet this
administration has been violently disregarding our laws to dump
people in the United States through the abuse of the parole
system and putting people on our streets that have led directly
to the murder of American citizens. My colleagues on the other
side of the dais here wonder why what happened in November
happened.
The H.R. 2, Mr. Newman, do you agree that H.R. 2 has
significant reforms in it that we should adopt this Congress,
the H.R. 2 that was passed in the previous Congress in the
Spring 2023?
Mr. Newman. Absolutely.
Mr. Roy. That bill set out to reform asylum laws, set out
to reform parole laws, set out to end the abuse of catch and
release through the Flores Settlement and then TBPR,
unaccompanied alien children. Did we fix a lot of those broken
problems in H.R. 2?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Roy. Would that bill have demonstrably changed the
ability for a Biden Administration to abuse our laws, to allow
them to be open and endanger the American people?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Roy. Do you believe that this Congress should take up
H.R. 2 in its current form, in the form that was passed the
last Congress close, give or take, take that bill up and pass
it in this Congress?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Roy. Do you believe that the so-called bipartisan
legislation that was tried to move in the last Congress in the
Senate but never passed the Senate, never passed out and moved
in any serious fashion, do you believe that bill should be
brought up in this Congress?
Mr. Newman. No, not at all.
Mr. Roy. Do you agree with me that that bill had enormous
flaws in it?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Roy. That it would have codified a lot of the releases
in the broken system under the Biden Administration?
Mr. Newman. Uh-huh.
Mr. Roy. It would have failed to reform asylum?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Roy. It would have failed to reform parole?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Roy. That would have given more money to NGO's to
violate our laws and ignore our borders?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Roy. In other words, that bill is a joke, a laughing
stock. You agree?
Mr. Newman. Absolutely.
Mr. Roy. With respect to TDA, Mr. Fabbricatore, a
Congressman from the jurisdiction that I believe you ran in in
Aurora, Colorado, tried to dismiss what was happening in
apartment complexes. True or false? I went out and visited with
you. True or false, TDA is active in the apartment complexes in
Aurora, Colorado, and other places around the country?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It is absolutely true, sir, absolutely
100 percent true.
Mr. Roy. You witnessed the danger with your own eyes.
Mr. Fabbricatore. I witnessed that danger. I've been to
those apartment complexes, and recently more people were
arrested in those apartment complexes for kidnapping and
extorting other people in those apartment complexes.
Mr. Roy. You would agree with me that it is a scourge
across our country, including in Texas, in my own district in
San Antonio?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Absolutely, sir. It is happening.
Mr. Roy. Well, we don't have any legal scholars. I'll come
back to birthright citizenship in the future, but just suffice
it to say there is significant and ample evidence with what we
understand about birthright citizenship that subject to the
jurisdiction thereof does not mean that you have a right to
citizenship simply for being on our soil and being born on our
soil. We'll talk about that at another hearing.
I yield back.
Ms. Scanlon. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request.
Speaking of felons who have been released, I seek unanimous
consent to introduce the arrest warrant for Daniel Charles
Bell, a man who was convicted of throwing explosive devices at
law enforcement during the January 6th riots. He's just been
arrested on Federal gun charges by the Trump-led--
Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady is recognized for a
unanimous consent request. The request has been made without
objection. Granted.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Ms. Ross.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the
witnesses for being here. The fact is that enforcement alone
will not fix our immigration system. We need a comprehensive
approach that balances effective enforcement with the needs of
our country. We must strengthen and expand lawful immigration
pathways. This is a commonsense solution that will ease
pressure on our border and ensure that individuals seeking a
better life and to improve the United States and our economy
have a clear and orderly path to enter our country legally.
Creating and enhancing a legal pathway is critical toward
enhancing national security and protecting our economy. The
reality is that cutting lawful pathways only exacerbates the
crisis at the border. For instance, the decision to end the CBP
One app, which was essential to make sure that people could
come when they knew they had an appointment, and we actually
saw people at the border using that app when we did our codel
to the Southern border. Getting rid of it threatens to upend
progress, threatens chaos, and it is not a solution for
unlawful migration.
Additionally, we must consider the humanitarian and
economic consequences of mass deportations. Deporting every
undocumented immigrant in the country would destroy families,
devastate industries, and make our economy less secure.
I represent North Carolina. Without immigrant labor, we
would have no agriculture industry. We would not have a food
service industry. Many of our tech industry executives beg for
more lawful pathways to immigration. Our hospitality industry,
our construction industry, I hear from them every single day.
Furthermore, the President's efforts to eliminate
birthright citizenship are deeply disturbing. Not only does it
fly in the face of the Constitution, but it creates legal
uncertainty for millions of children born in the United States.
That chaos will overwhelm our legal system, sow confusion, and
create an underclass of stateless individuals--all in violation
of the Constitution.
As we discuss the future of immigration enforcement, I urge
my colleagues to consider the broader implications of these
policies and work together to enact solutions that reflect our
values and our needs as a Nation. We can secure our border and
have enough people in this country to perform essential
services.
Dr. Bier--or, Mr. Bier, I'm sorry, I was elevating you,
since Congress created the Department of Homeland Security in
2003, we've spent approximately $409 billion on immigration
enforcement and tens of billions more on border barriers and
other immigration-enforcement-related infrastructure projects.
Despite this massive infusion of money, the system is still
broken. Can you explain why focusing on enforcement alone will
not fix our broken immigration system?
Mr. Bier. As long as there's demand for labor in the United
States, people are going to try to come to fill that demand. We
saw it under the Trump Administration, the Bush Administration,
the Obama Administration, and the Clinton Administration. You
can go all the way back. As long as there's no legal way for
them to fill jobs, they're going to come illegally. Whether you
could say greater or lesser extent, they're going to come, and
we're going to continue to deal with this problem.
The most critical area is that right now for lesser skilled
jobs there is no visa, no work visa at all for year-round jobs
not requiring a college degree. So, where are all the people
who are crossing the border going? They're going into those
jobs. So, we absolutely need to reform our legal immigration
system.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Van Drew.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Chair. First, I want to take this
opportunity to thank you, Chair. Thank you for the work that
you've done on this issue. Thank you for your constant
persistence in bringing it up over and over again. You have
made a difference on the issue, a significant one, and a
difference in the United States of America, and I mean it. I'm
proud of the work you've done.
Mr. Bier, I can't say the same for you. I don't even have
the words, and I would need an hour and a half with you one-on-
one alone to go through it and please--
Mr. Bier. I'd be happy to, anytime.
Mr. Van Drew. We'll take you up on that. Let me tell you
the things that you said to me--and I'm not being disrespectful
because I always try to be respectful to everybody--are
bizarre. I believe I'm in bizarro world. I don't even know
where these statements come from.
Mr. Bier. I've got all the statistics in my statement.
Mr. Van Drew. I didn't ask you a question, sir. Mr. Bier, I
want to associate some of the words that he said. I wish you
could sit in front of the families, and it isn't just Laken
Riley. I can give you name after name after name of men and
women and children who were beaten, who were raped, who were
abused, who were disfigured, who were harmed, and we keep
overlooking that because we say, ``There wasn't that many of
them. We don't care about the 400 people that got into this
country, the best that we can tell, that are on the terror
watch list. Well, it's just not that many of them.'' Let me
tell you, to the mother or the father or the son or the
daughter that loses somebody, one is enough.
To have this intellectual argument as we sit here in our
comfortable Chairs and our warm room where Laken Riley, for
example, fought for 20 minutes not to be raped and then finally
was beaten so badly and her skull crushed in that she lost her
life while her mother was calling her wondering where she was;
that's what matters to me.
So, today's heed is a simple one: Actions have
consequences. President Biden's dozens of Executive Orders,
they crippled our border security and opened up the floodgates
of the Southern border. That is a fact. Mr. Bier, I don't care
what you say. It's a fact. We see it and we feel it. That's why
Americans know it. That's why the election that occurred had
occurred. Congressional Democrats refused to pass H.R. 2, which
was a good piece of legislation, and the floodgates opened
more. The State and local Democratic leaders opened their
cities and spent billions on billions of dollars to care for
illegal immigrants. Legal immigration is good. When my
colleagues on the other side speak about immigration, let's
make sure we all understand there is a big difference between
legal and illegal immigration. Under President Biden, U.S.
Customs and Border Protection encountered--and the number of
changes, it fluctuates, but it's about 10 million inadmissible
aliens from January 2021-December 2024. That's three times the
number encountered during the Trump Aadministration.
Let's talk about the real numbers and the real facts. The
Biden Administration deliberately dismantled the effective
protocols and tools that we had and instituted catch and
release. That had an effect. It ended the construction of the
wall. That had an enormous effect. They ended Title 42. That
had another bad effect. They had ended the Remain in Mexico
policy, which hurt us as well. Over and over and over again,
everything to open up the borders. No Nation prevails with open
borders.
The negligence has introduced us to serious international
and national danger. Nearly 400 individuals, as I said, are on
the terror watch list. They're not hypotheticals. They're real
people. They're real men and women that have been hurt.
The gentleman, good man on the other side, the Ranking
Member Mr. Raskin, said ``most illegals are not violent.'' Most
illegals are not violent. I agree with that. Most are not
violent. They're still breaking the law. Damn it, enough of
them are that it's scary. Tell all those families that most of
them are not violent. They don't care about most of them. Come
on. Let's get into the real world.
It's not compassionated what my friends on the other side
of the aisle are doing. It hurts us and it hurts illegals. It
hurts children. It hurts American families. It hurts legal
immigrants as well.
I have a question for Mr. Fabbricatore. I hope I pronounced
your name--
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes, sir.
Mr. Van Drew. As the first non-Italian to marry into my
wife's family, and they'll probably listen to this, and I'll
get in trouble if I screw it up.
I think we shouldn't fund sanctuary cities and sanctuary
States. We're sending Federal money over there. They're
purposely breaking the law. What do you think, and what's the
specific impact of cutting off this Federal funding would have?
Mr. Fabbricatore. We should not fund them. Sanctuary cities
do not protect American citizens. They only protect criminal
illegal aliens.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time expired.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Garcia.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to all the witnesses
today.
To no one's surprise, President Trump continues again using
nativist rhetoric to demonize all immigrants to scare the
public. Now, the House and the Senate have passed a bill to
turn those words into devastating action.
My first question for Mr. Bier is this. Mr. Bier, on
January 17th, you tweeted that ``the Laken Riley Act pretends
to be about stopping illegal immigration who commit crimes. In
fact, it's a trojan horse designed to destroy legal
migration.'' As you know, the Laken Riley Act permits the
attorneys general to sue DHS for perceived failures in
immigration enforcement, so I'd appreciate you spelling it out
here. What are the dangers of that section in the Laken Riley
Act? Specifically, how can it be weaponized by State officials
to dismantle legal immigration?
Mr. Bier. Look, people who commit crimes are already
priorities for removal. They were priorities for removal under
the Biden Administration. They're priorities for removal right
now. So, there's no difference there. What's different about
this act is the empowerment of States' Attorney Generals to go
to courts and force the Secretary of State to stop issuing
visas to countries that delay deportations to their countries.
So, India, China, the largest origin countries, Cuba,
Venezuela, these are all countries that are on the list. We
would have to stop admitting Afghan allies from Afghanistan, of
course.
So, it basically takes the authority away from the
Secretary of State. Secretary of State future Rubio in this
case would not have the ability to make that determination. It
would be turned over to the courts and result in a huge slash
in legal immigration and really no change in interior
enforcement.
Mr. Garcia. So, it really provides unprecedented powers to
Attorneys General in the States over a Federal matter.
Let's switch gears to the Alien Enemies Act. This is an
Executive Order recently invoked by the President. It was
enacted in 1789. It was designed to address threats during
times of declared war, but it's been criticized since it was
implemented in the 18th century, and it continues to be invoked
to strip the rights from entire groups based on their national
origin, for example, to justify the detainment of Japanese
Americans, Italian, German Americans during World War II or,
more recently, Trump's Muslim ban.
President Trump signed an Executive Order to use the Alien
Enemies Act to do mass deportations without due process,
raising significant Constitutional questions. How does this
align with the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees due process to
all individuals within the United States, Mr. Bier?
Mr. Bier. Yes. So, if he invokes the Alien Enemies Act, it
will give him power to use the military to detain, arrest, and
remove people without proving that they're in the country
illegally or are removable from the United States. That's an
incredibly dangerous power that threatens the rights of all
Americans. It also could apply even to legal permanent
residents and other noncitizens who could be removed. Again,
we're not subject to an invasion by a foreign government as
required by the act. So, I don't know where he's going to be
able to justify the use of this authority that was designed for
cases of war.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you. In one minute, I want you to comment
on another debate going on regarding the 14th Amendment. Some
argue that the Framers did not consider illegal immigrants when
drafting the citizenship clause. Could you elaborate on your
perspective regarding the 14th Amendment?
Mr. Bier. Well, if they didn't think about illegal
immigrants, then they couldn't possibly have written an
exception to them, to the general rule that anyone born in the
United States is a U.S. citizen. Obviously, if they weren't
thinking about illegal immigrants, they couldn't have written
that exception into the law. Obviously, it doesn't apply in
this case because, if illegal immigrants are not subject to the
laws of the United States, then they're not illegal immigrants.
So, it's a circular argument that makes no sense and I assume
will be laughed out of the courts.
Mr. Garcia. Thus, the absurdity of attempting to deny
birthright to those born in this country.
Mr. Bier. It's completely absurd, and it's not even just
illegal immigrants we're talking about and their children.
Also, the children of legal residents who have been invited
here by our government under visa categories, guest workers,
international students, even the former Vice President Kamala
Harris would be potentially affected by this illegal and
unconstitutional order.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Moore.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think we'll talk more about the 14th Amendment.
Obviously, it passed right after slavery was eradicated in the
United States, so all those children born to the slaves were
allowed to be citizens. If you look at the Congressional Record
when they debated that, it's pretty clear, but we won't talk
about that today.
President Trump said yesterday in his inaugural speech to
restore common sense to America. Just common sense. So, I'm
reminded of lies, and I'm going to give you the Southern
Baptist version: Lies, dang lies, and statistics.
Mr. Bier has given us a lot of statistics today, but the
reality is that 76 million people elected Donald Trump to fix
the chaos that is the U.S. Southern border right now. What I've
seen in my communities, and you've heard testimony in here, I
had a 14-year-old girl in one of my districts, dragged into a
bathroom and raped by a Nicaraguan who had a prior criminal
record, Mr. Fabbricatore. He came here 31 years old and claimed
to be a minor, and we did no background checks. We turned that
man loose into the community, and he raped a girl in the
bathroom in a restaurant in Wetumpka, Alabama. That's the kind
of chaos that we've seen on the border.
Sheriff Daniels testified, he came here and testified under
oath that, in 40 years of working a border town, he had never
seen the border any better than it was in 2018 and never any
worse than it was when he was here just a few months ago. Mr.
Fabbricatore, what do you think changed? What changed? Was it
anything we did here in Congress?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Well, what changed was the Biden
Administration letting in millions of people unvetted. The
vetting at the border was abysmal at best. It was only checking
for histories within the United States. So, if you had someone
that had committed crimes in another country--
Mr. Moore. You don't have a history in this country.
Mr. Fabbricatore. We did not know many people who came in.
We did not know what their criminal histories were.
Mr. Moore. Is that how a 31-year-old man claims to be a
minor and comes in as an unaccompanied minor to this country?
Because we weren't vetting anybody.
Mr. Fabbricatore. The vetting was horrible and that
instance happens a lot where we have them claiming to be
juveniles, criminal illegal aliens claiming to be juveniles,
because they know it would be easier to enter the United
States, and they probably won't get put into detention, and the
Biden Administration allowed that to happen.
Mr. Moore. Ms. Vaughn, certainly we've seen this across the
country, the fentanyl deaths and the sort of things that are
happening in our communities. Over 100,000 kids we lost to
fentanyl deaths pouring across the U.S. Southern border. In
Yuma, Arizona, when we had the hearing there, folks, we
literally had people coming across in labor that were taking
them to a hospital, and those ladies were delivering children
in the ER to the point that even the U.S. citizens could not
get a bed when they were in labor and delivery.
The crazy--one of the most astonishing things that I saw
was that the hospital by Federal law was required to provide
them car seats, and so they were running out of car seats for
ladies who were having children in our hospitals while the
American citizens could not get a labor and delivery bed. That
was going on under the prior administration.
Now, so I led out with President Trump said something about
common sense. I'm going to give you an opportunity, each of you
guys, to tell me the one thing that you think Congress needs to
do that makes common sense. How do we fix this crisis that we
have? How do we fulfill the promise of securing the U.S.
Southern border and making America safe again?
Mr. Fabbricatore, Fab, I'll let you go first.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Thank you, sir. Make sure ICE is funded.
Make sure enforcement removal operations have the officers
necessary. Increase detention beds. We need a massive increase
in detention beds from what we have now, which is around 40,000
to probably in excess of 70,000. We need to make sure that we
can fund this so that we can take care of this problem today.
Mr. Moore. The Chair mentioned that. We're going to--as
this Committee and as Congress, we are going to make sure that
we fund the President's priorities to round people up and get
them out of here.
Ms. Vaughn.
Ms. Vaughan. Another thing that would help a lot would be
to eliminate all the programs that allow people who have
managed to get into the country to have their status laundered
essentially into a program, a visa program or a benefit that
gives them a work permit.
Mr. Moore. Ms. Vaughn, how do you launder a status? That's
interesting.
Ms. Vaughan. Well, you apply for a program like a U visa
program, special immigrant juvenile, or a TPS sometimes can be
granted. Even though you entered illegally, you're allowed to
stay, and you get a work permit, and the systems are so bogged
down, you get this benefit even before your application has
been evaluated or you've had a background check, and many of
these have a path to citizenship.
Mr. Moore. Talking about bogging a system down, folks. In
Yuma, Arizona, in the testimony, they were getting a cell
phone, $800 a month, and we were turning them loose, and then
the phones were so we could call them to come to the court
case, but they would take our phones and not our calls. It's
quite astonishing.
Mr. Newman, one quick comment--
Mr. Newman. Pass H.R. 2. Stop the loophole.
Mr. Moore. Very good. Very good. We passed that in the
House, but the Democratic-controlled Senate would not pass it.
Do you know that? Are you aware of that? We'll bring it back.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Time has expired. Ms. Crockett.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I am going to try to get through a lot quickly. As one of
the few people sitting on the dais who actually practiced
criminal law in the State of Texas as well as licensed in
Arkansas and practiced there as well as Federal courts, one of
the things that you said earlier, Mr. Bier, really stuck with
me is that there are already laws on the books as it relates to
those violent criminals, and I know this, because even though I
hail from the great city of Dallas, I can tell you that when
someone would come in and they were being held in custody for,
say, a crime, they also had an ICE hold. OK? That was for those
that had maybe been deported before and had re-entered
illegally, and things like that.
So, no matter what type of city you're in, I do want to be
clear: Federal law already, no matter if it's under the Biden
Administration or if it's under a Republican Administration, we
all agree that we want to be safe. That's the first premise
that we're losing, because there isn't something that is tatted
on my head that says that ``I'm a Democrat, and, therefore, you
illegal bad person, don't come for me, go for the ones that
have the Rs on their forehead.''
Now, let me be clear about this as well, because we've
talked about crime, and we've talked about fentanyl
specifically, and this is also something that I have dealt
with, unlike some of my other colleagues. Listen, I'm going to
be honest because I actually want to fix problems. I actually
have a really good Senator in Texas, and I'm sure you can guess
which one is the good one, but let me tell you, if we care
about fentanyl, I have multiple bills for that. I started on
the State level before everybody started talking about it, and
I have Federal bills, bills that my Senior Senator has signed
on to.
So, I welcome my colleagues, because I actually want to
make sure that my communities are safe, but as we start to talk
about crime and statistics, Mr. Bier, I want to play a little
game with you. It's called rhetoric versus reality. So, I want
to ask you my first question, is this rhetoric or reality?
Immigrants commit more crimes than U.S. citizens?
Mr. Bier. On a per capita basis--
Ms. Crockett. Rhetoric or reality?
Mr. Bier. Oh, it is rhetoric.
Ms. Crockett. OK. Thank you so much. Mr. Chair, I'd like to
ask for a unanimous consent to enter into the record this
article, which states that undocumented immigrant offending
rate lower than U.S.-born citizen rate, and this is from
nij.ojp.gov.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. The next one, immigrants
are just living off the Federal Government and contribute
nothing.
Mr. Bier. That would be rhetoric.
Ms. Crockett. OK. Thank you so much.
Mr. Chair, I would ask unanimous consent to enter a study
that says undocumented immigrants pay almost $100 billion in
taxes. This is from the Alabama Reflector.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much.
My final rhetoric-or-reality question is immigrants only
enter at the Southern border.
Mr. Bier. Rhetoric.
Ms. Crockett. OK. Right. Because they enter all kinds of
ways. I wanted to make sure that I put that out there. In fact,
I have a few more questions, because I still have a little bit
of time, which I usually run out of time. We have talked,
again, about crime, and there's been this overemphasis on it.
Honestly, I can tell you that I don't want anyone to be
killed, whether it's here or anywhere else. There is nothing
about me as the child of a preacher that makes me say that I
want people to die. OK? So, I feel as if my colleagues from
across the aisle have decided that they are going to make
immigrants the boogie man. It's insanity to me, but they also
show compassion for victims, which they should, but they have
no compassion for people that are contributing to making us
great in this country.
So, interestingly enough, I'm curious to know, Mr. Bier, if
you know if immigrants contributed to these particular crimes?
There was a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, that killed a
number of African Americans as they were trying to shop for
groceries. Was the defendant an immigrant in that case? Do you
know?
Mr. Bier. No. He was a U.S.-born citizen.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. In Charleston, South
Carolina, there were Black church goers trying to praise the
Lord. They were killed. Was that an immigrant that perpetrated
that or not?
Mr. Bier. That was a U.S.-born citizen.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. Now, coming home to Texas,
there was an El Paso shooting. Do you know if that was an
immigrant or not?
Mr. Bier. No. They were targeting immigrants in that case.
Ms. Crockett. In fact, each of these cases it was White
supremacists, and so the last unanimous consent that I'd ask
for is this article that states that, ``White supremacists
behind over 80 percent of extremism related U.S. murders in
2022.''
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much.
Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Eventually, some sort of
immigration bill is going to be passed this Congress. We're
trying to look for some common ground.
Mr. Bier, we've talked about this before in the past. I've
introduced something called a Safeguarding Benefits for
Americans Act, which prevents noncitizens from receiving what
we would normally refer to as welfare benefits. I just want to
confirm that you think it would be a good idea, probably
improving the quality of immigrants we have coming here.
Mr. Bier. Absolutely. Immigrants should be self-sufficient
when they come to the United States.
Mr. Grothman. Very good. Well, there's maybe something we
can receive bipartisan support for when we move an immigration
bill. Next thing I'd like to point out, and Mr. Moore has
always handled this to a degree, I want to point out that in
the 14th Amendment it does not say all persons born in the
United States become citizens of the United States. It's all
persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof. That amendment was passed coming out
of the Civil War. There's a reason it passed coming out of the
Civil War. Congress was afraid the Democrats would try to
undermine the results of that war by forbidding former slaves
from voting. Clearly, that's what the amendment was supposed to
deal with. It did not include anybody who just happened to show
up here and have a baby and moved on.
Any Congressman at that time is going to be seen from the
debate on the floor at that time. No Congressman felt that
resulted in what we are now referring to as birthright
citizenship. It was supposed to be limited to slaves. You did
not have--you were not subject to the jurisdiction--you were
only subject to the jurisdiction thereof if you were a former
slave. A person who came here from France and was just passing
through, their child would not become a citizen. That should be
obvious.
Now, I want to get on to a few more questions. I'm going to
ask these of Ms. Vaughn. When a child arrives at the border--
OK. One of the heartbreaking stories you sometimes hear in this
country is parents get divorced. One parent grabs the child and
flees to somewhere like Pakistan or somewhere. The other parent
is here in the United States, and they can't get that child
back. In other words, it results in a broken family, which is
just horrible. I do think we have to do all we can to keep
families together.
In this country, under the Biden Administration, before
that, if a child shows up with one parent and they come in this
country, is any effort made to see whether the local courts say
the child comes here from Guatemala, Cuba, wherever, that the
local court has said that they want the parents separate, or do
we just assume that the other parent would be OK with this in
not seeing this child again?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, if you're referring to cases in which
the child is seeking an order of protection from say a State
family court, is that the scenario?
Mr. Grothman. Well, let's say there's a divorce.
Ms. Vaughan. Or at the border itself? At the border,
families who arrive--or a person--an adult who arrives with a
child is not detained.
Mr. Grothman. Right. Do you think they should be--we should
do something to make sure that we don't have a situation like I
described where one parent takes the child to Pakistan, and
they're gone? Again, if a parent shows up at the Southern--one
parent with a child, we don't know where the other parent is.
We don't know whether that parent who shows up is fleeing the
other parent, trying to raise that child without a parent. Is
that of concern to you?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, it is because our State family courts
are not in a position to evaluate those claims made if the
alien child, for example, is seeking a special immigrant
juvenile visa, seeking to stay here permanently. There's just
no way they're not held to the same standards of evidence that
say an American kid would have to receive an order of
protection.
Mr. Grothman. Right.
Ms. Vaughan. So, this leads to abuse.
Mr. Grothman. You think it would be a good idea when we
pass our immigration law if we said that, if a child is here
with one parent, we have to make sure legally somehow that the
other parent is OK with that where it's in accordance with the
local courts, and as I said, Guatemala, Cuba, wherever. The
local courts have said it's OK that we're permanently breaking
up the family, which I think should happen very rarely.
Ms. Vaughan. Yes, that's a tough thing for the American
legal system to deal with something that happened, a separation
that occurred in the home country.
Mr. Grothman. We wouldn't have to deal with the system if
we--
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bier, let me ask you a question about the Laken Riley
case. You said people who are criminals and felons were already
prioritized. Isn't that if they're convicted?
Mr. Bier. That's right. You need a criminal conviction to
be subject to mandatory detention. You don't need a criminal
conviction if you are in the country illegally already, and the
administration can go out and arrest that person even without a
criminal conviction.
Mr. Cohen. Laken Riley, I believe, was the bill we had that
expanded that to people who were charged with--charged with,
not convicted.
Mr. Cohen. You didn't even need an arrest to be subject to
mandatory detention. So, there's a difference--there is
discretion for ICE to go get someone who is fleeing or evading
charges, but if someone has just been arrested and then they're
never charged because they didn't commit the crime, it would be
wrong to subject someone to mandatory imprisonment in a case
where they were cleared.
Mr. Cohen. So, you think there should be some priorities in
whom we try to deport.
Mr. Bier. Absolutely. We need to focus on people who have
violated the rights of Americans, who have committed crimes
with victims. Those are the people that we need to seek justice
for--not just if they're immigrants, but, in general, that's
what law enforcement should be focusing on.
Mr. Cohen. Even on pardons. If you had people that tried to
overthrow the government on January 6th, if you should go after
people that were--maybe beat cops up and lead the operation to
distinguish from people that were--just showed up and kind of
hung out.
Mr. Bier. I absolutely believe that we should focus on
violent offenders and prosecute them to the fullest extent of
the law.
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Fabbricatore?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Fabbricatore, yes, thank you.
Mr. Cohen. Do you agree with what Mr. Bier said, that we
should have priorities on who we go after?
Mr. Fabbricatore. No, sir, I do not. I believe we should
focus--
Mr. Cohen. Do you think the DACA kids who have been in this
country for maybe 20 or 25 years and have been good citizens
and might be in the military or National Guard or something,
that they should be rounded up and deported as well?
Mr. Fabbricatore. The focus should be on criminals
initially, but if you're violating the immigration law, you
violate the immigration law. You violated laws of the United
States, and, at some point in time, that needs to come to a
reckoning.
Mr. Cohen. We don't have enough money to put into this to
deport everybody that's in your category, right?
Mr. Fabbricatore. I would ask if you would fund that, sir,
as Congress.
Mr. Cohen. Well, if we fund it, we'd probably have to cut
out lots of basic programs we've got now. It's a tremendous
amount of money, billions and billions of dollars.
Mr. Fabbricatore. I don't put a cost on United States
citizens lives, sir.
Mr. Cohen. OK. Maybe we'll get Elon to pay for it. The
election is over, and we need to find common ground. The bill
that the Senate is proposing, how many Republicans were for
that bill or voted for it?
Mr. Bier. I don't remember. Could be a couple.
Mr. Cohen. Could be 15 or 16, couldn't it?
Mr. Bier. I don't have the answer to that.
Mr. Cohen. I think it was closer to 15 or 16. I don't
recall exactly, but there were quite a few. What did that bill
do that was good and we should take up now; and what was in the
bill, if anything, that you think was bad?
Mr. Bier. Well, I certainly think that one of the most
important reforms in that legislation was that, if someone is
released from U.S. custody, they're able to seek a work
authorization and support themselves. What we saw in New York,
and it's pointed to repeatedly about these people who are
living in hotel rooms and a burden on the community; it's
because they are unable to work to support themselves because
they're told, ``You're not supposed to work; you have to wait
six months to get your work permit through the asylum
process.'' So, if the government is not going to remove
someone, they're going to release them unless they've committed
some serious crime, or there's some other aggravating
circumstance. They should be supporting themselves and
contributing to the community. So, that's one important thing
that it did.
It made some important reforms to the legal immigration
process as well, increasing green card caps for the first time
since 1990. That's how old our legal immigration system is. The
overall framework of the legal immigration system needs to be
reformed. This was a modest step in the right direction.
Mr. Cohen. What we need is legislation that is thought out,
not just common sense, but logical, thought out, and planned--
not where somebody might just say, ``What are we going to do
with all these January 6th people? It's going to take some
time. We have to take some processes. So, just eff it; just do
them all.'' That's a man child. We don't need a man child in
charge of our government or making policy, because that makes
for mistakes. That makes for the guy who came up with the Silk
Road and is the biggest drug dealer in the world to get a
pardon. Needs to stop. Our immigration laws ought to be done in
a logical manner and with priorities.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. McClintock. Gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Fry.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having us here. I think
it's really appropriate, as we begin this Congress, that we
start with the issue that was settled in November and why the
American people chose overwhelmingly Donald Trump to be our
47th President.
I'm a little perplexed, though, Mr. Bier about a statement
that you made that Joe Biden made the border and the
immigration system better. Nobody believes that. People in
their communities, and I'm not going to ask you a question
about this, but nobody believes that.
In fact, behind me, the numbers don't lie, sir. Look at the
hike under the Biden Administration of illegal migrants coming
into this country. He fixed the problem or made it better? I
don't think so.
I'd also remind you, and for people watching back home,
that it didn't get better. In fact, in September of last year,
Chair Green of the Homeland Security Committee released a press
release talking about a letter that they received from ICE that
nearly 650,000 criminal illegal aliens were currently in ICE's
nondetained docket roaming free in the community. That means
that they were picked up, processed, had their criminal
backgrounds obtained by the U.S. Government, and released into
the interior of this country: 15,000 homicides; 20,000 sexual
assaults; assaults over 100,000; burglary, larceny, and
robbery, 60,000; traffic offenses, 126,000; and kidnapping is
3,500. The list goes on. So, nobody actually believes, sir,
that the immigration system got better under Joe Biden.
Really quick, Mr. Fabbricatore, Mr. Newman, and Ms. Vaughn,
I'm going to go down the line here and ask a couple questions.
When Joe Biden terminated the Remain in Mexico policy, did that
lead to a decrease in illegal immigration, sir?
Mr. Fabbricatore. No, it did not, sir.
Mr. Fry. Ms. Vaughn?
Ms. Vaughn. No.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Newman?
Mr. Newman. No.
Mr. Fry. When Joe Biden halted construction of the border
wall on day one of his administration, did that lead to a
decrease in illegal immigration to this country, Mr.
Fabbricatore?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It did not decrease illegal immigration.
Mr. Fry. Ms. Vaughn?
Ms. Vaughn. No, sir.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Newman?
Mr. Newman. No.
Mr. Fry. When he terminated the asylum cooperative
agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, did that
lead to a decrease in illegal immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. No.
Ms. Vaughn. No.
Mr. Newman. No.
Mr. Fry. When he bastardized parole authority and changed
the law himself, did that lead to a decrease in illegal
immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. No, sir.
Ms. Vaughn. No. It got worse.
Mr. Fry. I think the answers are pretty clear. In fact,
when we went to Yuma, Arizona, and met with the community and
saw firsthand--of course, the Democrats didn't even show up to
work. They wouldn't go down there with us. It was an actual
Judiciary Committee hearing, a field hearing in Yuma, and they
didn't come.
We would hear from the people there the stress on the
health-care system, the stress at the border, and the stress on
the families. You couldn't even get a hospital room if you
needed to have a child or if you broke your leg. Those are the
people who were impacted and, of course, we see this in our
community.
So, let's fast-forward to today. President Trump with his
Executive Orders reinstated the Remain in Mexico policy. Will
that lead to a decrease in illegal immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes, sir.
Mr. Fry. Ms. Vaughn?
Ms. Vaughn. I believe so, yes.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Newman?
Mr. Newman. Absolutely.
Mr. Fry. Will completing construction of the border wall
and funding our immigration services down there, will that lead
to a decrease in illegal immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It will help decrease illegal
immigration.
Mr. Fry. Ms. Vaughn?
Ms. Vaughn. As long as there are no policies to undermine
the deterrence.
Mr. Fry. That's a key point. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Newman. That's a key tool to help.
Mr. Fry. Will designating cartels and gangs as foreign
terrorist organizations lead to a decrease in illegal
immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes.
Ms. Vaughn. I hope so.
Mr. Newman. Yes, I hope so.
Mr. Fry. Will terminating categorical parole programs lead
to a decrease in illegal immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It absolutely will.
Ms. Vaughn. Definitely.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Newman?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Fry. Will terminating the use of the CBP One app, which
I think was described by somebody on this Committee as the
Disney fast pass for illegal immigration, will that lead to a
decrease in illegal immigration?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It will. It was full of fraud.
Ms. Vaughn. Yes.
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Fry. So, I think that's pretty clear. The next step,
obviously, they are part one of the Executive Orders. Part two,
what Congress can do.
So, Mr. Fabbricatore, just for perspective, you served at
ICE during the Trump Administration and part of the Biden-
Harris Administration. How would you describe the differences
between the two administrations, very briefly, and enforcement
under both administrations?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It was night and day. President Trump
wanted to enforce what was exactly in the INA while President
Biden, the minute that he came into office, it was a change
into we are not enforcing these laws. We're opening this
border. He wanted a 100-day moratorium on deportations the
first day when he was in office.
Mr. Fry. Ms. Vaughn, final question for you. What steps can
we take to make sure that future administrations, like the
Biden Administration, don't undermine the actual law or twist
policies that we can have a permanent fix to this problem?
Ms. Vaughn. In addition to funding immigration enforcement,
to rewrite the rules on some of these programs and
discretionary authorities to give out work permits and
categorical parole or attempt categorical parole. Also, I think
to get better control and restore integrity to our legal
immigration system because when people know that there are
loopholes that exist, they come to try to take advantage of
that.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Fry. Close the loopholes. Well said.
I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chair, the flurry of Executive Orders
signed by President Trump on Monday promised little more than
the cast and cruelty we became accustomed to in his first term.
His radical anti-immigration agenda will separate families,
decimate our economy, and strike fear in our communities.
With the stroke of a pen, he has revived the harsh and
inhumane policies of his previous administration, such as the
Remain in Mexico program, eliminated enforcement priorities,
sharply reduced the availability of humanitarian parole, begun
dismantling the refugee program, and launched a breathtaking
assault on the Constitution by attempting to end birth right
citizenship.
The Trump Administration's policy of mass deportation and
destroying legal pathways wrapped as always in a blanket of
hateful rhetoric will not fix our broken immigration system. It
will only make it harder to reach the bipartisan comprehensive
solutions that are so desperately needed.
Mr. Bier, thank you for being here today. Republicans are
using this hearing to lay the foundation for their own anti-
immigration agenda. So, I want to start with some important
facts about the State of the border today.
One, when President Biden left office earlier this week,
were unauthorized crossings higher or lower than they were when
President Trump left office?
Mr. Bier. They were much lower, significantly lower, about
33 percent lower than when President Trump left office.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
What about evasions of border patrol officers? Were they
higher at the end of President Trump's first term or President
Biden's?
Mr. Bier. They were 42 percent lower at the end of Biden's
term than at the end of Trump's, and Trump's increased evasions
over the course of his four years.
Mr. Nadler. Isn't it true that unlawful encounters at the
border were trending upwards long before President Biden took
office?
Mr. Bier. Every month after April 2020, it increased. He
keeps pointing to April 2020, when the pandemic started, and
unemployment spiked. Every month after that we saw increases in
illegal immigration and border crossings and evasions of border
patrol.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
I want to turn now to the Executive Order that purports to
end birth right citizenship. This Executive Order prevents the
children of immigrants, both those whose parents have a lawful
immigration status, like a work visa, and those whose parents
are undocumented, who are born in the United States from being
able to obtain documents to demonstrate that they are citizens
of the United States.
Can you please talk about how this would work in practice
and the sort of chaos that will ensue if this order is actually
allowed to go forward?
Mr. Bier. Absolutely. This is going to apply to every
single American child born in the United States. You will have
to prove the status and citizenship.
Mr. Nadler. Every child. Not just those of undocumented
immigrants.
Mr. Bier. Exactly. My family is going to go through this in
a few months. We're going to have to prove the citizenship of
the parents of the child. Of course, we can do that. If you
don't have a passport, according to this order, you don't have
proof of citizenship. Your birth certificate isn't enough. So,
you will have to go through the rabbit hole. I'll have to prove
my parents' citizenship and paperwork.
This is the insanity of this order from an administrative
perspective. It's going to burden every single American. It's
going to call into question all our citizenship. Looking
forward, it's going to create a lot of people who are in
Stateless situations where they don't have citizenship of any
country and can be subject to removal even though they were
born here. They grew up here.
They are Americans. This is an attack on Americans and our
rights.
Mr. Nadler. Let's give a specific example the impact this
Executive Order can have. Extensive green card backlogs for
high skilled workers mean that H-1B visa holders must wait
decades and even centuries before a green card is available to
them.
Right now, if both parents have H-1B status, a child who
was born abroad but who has lived in the United States nearly
their entire lives must leave the country when they turn 21
unless they have their own immigration status. That's bad
enough. Under this Executive Order, even children born in the
U.S. to such parents might have to self deport because they
would be denied citizenship at birth.
Mr. Bier, does it make sense to send children who were born
in the United States to countries that they don't know, they
never have been to, and where they have no support network?
Mr. Bier. No, it absolutely does not. It makes the country
weaker. It discourages legal immigration. It discourages high-
skilled immigration.
Look, when I talk to a lot of high skilled immigrants in
this country, they talk about their family. They talk about the
hope they have for their children to be Americans, to grow up
in this country and to contribute to this country. We should
want them here. We should want to encourage them to stay.
One of the greatest things the United States has ever done
is had birth-right citizenship because it encourages
assimilation. Everyone who is born here knows I'm an American.
I can participate in our democracy and contribute to this
country.
Mr. Nadler. Contrary to the President's assertion that only
one country has birth-right citizenship--33 do.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Nadler. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Hunt.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Biden attempted to reimagine immigration in America. Biden
wanted you to think that it was normal to live in an America
with open borders, to live in an America with sanctuary cities,
to fly 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and
Venezuela into America on commercial flights, to turn temporary
protected status into permanent protected status. That is not
normal. It is not constitutional. Now, thank God, it's over.
Do you want to know what is normal? President Trump's
policies are normal, and he's back and he is here to help.
Within hours of Trump taking office, President Trump deleted
the CBP One app, reformed the parole program, and placed a real
border czar, Tom Holman, in charge, and he is a serious man.
Trump also signed a flurry of Executive Orders restoring
normal border security and immigration standards to this great
Nation. Again, thank God, he's back.
When Trump got elected, we knew that the liberal media
would--we knew exactly what they would do because they did the
same thing during a previous Trump Administration. We knew that
they would attempt to pull our heartstrings to shame us into
changing our standard immigration laws. In fact, on the day
that President Trump got inaugurated, the liberal media posted
a story of a woman crying when her CBP One app appointment was
canceled.
That tactic is not going to work this time because we have
seen firsthand for the last four years the devastating effects
that Biden's border policies have had on all Americans. While I
empathize with everyone who wants to come to America because,
again, we know this is the greatest place in the world, this
compassion is misplaced as it usually is with the left.
The woman's tears that I care the most about are the
mothers of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Rachel Morin.
Laken Riley was killed by an illegal alien while out on a jog.
It should be known that her killer committed a crime in another
American city, but he was released because that city, you
guessed it, was a sanctuary city.
Jocelyn, while on her way to a convenient store, was killed
by two illegal aliens who entered through the Southern border
just a few months earlier. By the time these illegal aliens--at
the time, these illegal aliens were still wearing their U.S.-
issued ankle tracking monitors when they killed her.
Ms. Morin, a young mother of five children was hiking on a
Maryland trail when an illegal alien attacked and killed her.
I could sadly name many more circumstances just like this.
I don't know about other countries, but in America, our
daughters, and I have two of them, should be able to go for a
jog and a run or to a convenient store without the fear of an
illegal alien killing them. That goes for all our children in
this Nation. I serve this country to protect my children and
our sons and daughters.
Mr. Fabbricatore, thank you so much for being here, as
always. You're one of my favorites.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Thank you.
Mr. Hunt. One of the Executive Orders that President Trump
has enacted so far, of them which one do you think is going to
be the most helpful and why?
Mr. Fabbricatore. All the Executive Orders that he's
putting through are going to be--they are needed. There is a
reason why he did it.
(1) Securing our border. Making sure that CBP app is no
longer being used so that there's fraud coming into this
country. Overall everything that President Trump is trying to
do for the border is for the right reason.
(2) The priority should be protecting American citizens,
and that was the goal of President Trump.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you.
Ms. Vaughn, given these last few Executive Orders, as well,
I'd like your take on it. Do you think it is going to improve
our border and our immigration status, or is it going to hurt
our immigration status, just out of curiosity?
Ms. Vaughn. The set of Executive Orders are definitely
going to improve our immigration status, especially the one
that rescinded the Biden Orders. I especially look forward to
the one that is going to increase State and local partnerships
with Federal authorities to work on this common mission.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you, ma'am.
I'll leave you with this. Do not allow the left to gaslight
you. Secure borders are normal. I am someone who was deployed
all over the world. Every other country would never behave and
allow 20 million people to enter their country illegally.
That's not normal. So, thank God we're going to get back to
normalcy.
Thank you all for leading our charge.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Knott.
Mr. Knott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Witnesses, thank you for
being here.
Before I ask any questions, let me State from a first-
person perspective that I had the privilege of serving under
both the Biden and the Trump Administrations. I was a Federal
prosecutor who focused exclusively on organized crime. The idea
that both administrations were committed to applying the law as
it relates to both organized crime and specifically how illegal
immigration infested organized crime is laughable. It's
demonstrably not true.
On day one of the Biden's Department of Justice in 2021,
prosecutors that I worked with had been exclusively assigned to
prosecuting illegal reentries and immigration offenses, those
individuals were either reassigned or let go. Many of them are
no longer with the Department of Justice.
This tracks when you look at the number of illegal
reentries. These are people who were removed after having been
convicted of a crime and then come back a second time. The
number of those prosecutions, the number of those sentences and
convictions decreased precipitously under the Biden
Administration despite millions and millions of more illegal
crossers.
Second, this bureaucratic and administrative effect that I
saw from the prosecutor side, it applied equally to the law
enforcement side. I'm sure you know, sir, from your contact
with the border patrol, with DEA, with ATF and other Federal
law enforcement that these bureaucratic hurdles made it very
difficult to investigate, to prosecute, to even submit cases
that dealt with illegal immigration.
For whatever reason, it was flatly deprioritized in terms
of a law enforcement mechanism that the Department of Justice
was unable to bring these cases to the grand jury to charge
them and to work them over the last four years.
Now, I want to go and ask a few questions. Ms. Vaughn, you
specifically mentioned just now that there were very little
disin-centivizing illegal immigration. Can you expand on that
just broadly speaking? Were there any disincentives to any
person who wanted to cross illegally into the United States
over the last four years?
Ms. Vaughn. No. People understood that if they could make
it to the U.S. border, that they almost certainly were going to
be released into the country, possibly issued a work permit,
and would not expect any threat of removal or consequences for
their illegal entry for the foreseeable future.
Mr. Knott. Mr. Newman, were there any disincentives that
you saw over the last four years implemented by the Biden
Administration specifically to disincentivize illegal
immigration?
Mr. Newman. No, not many at all. As Jessica just mentioned,
Mrs. Vaughn just mentioned, getting paroled, those are obvious
incentives to coming in. Also, as was mentioned before,
deprioritizing illegal immigration crimes meant people knew
they could just come in and basically vanish into the country,
and they did. That's why we have more illegal aliens in the
country now than we did four years ago.
Mr. Knott. Isn't it true, sir, that the border does have
vast swaths of the mileage that were unsupervised by order by
the border patrol? That emanated from Washington, obviously,
but it was implemented with huge holes in the border?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Knott. So, therefore, it's entirely foreseeable that
tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions,
potentially, could have come across the border without contact?
Mr. Newman. Yes.
Mr. Knott. Ms. Vaughn, I want to talk to you about how the
cartels exploited these loopholes. Over the last four years,
the price of drugs in many respects have gone down
precipitously. That's an increase of supply. I saw this in my
job.
How have cartels exploited the open border in the last four
years?
Ms. Vaughn. Well, they've reaped enormous revenue from it.
Something like $13 billion a year.
Mr. Knott. That's just known, by the way.
Ms. Vaughn. Right.
They have enticed migrants because they could confidently
assure their customers that they would succeed in getting into
the U.S., and then often they hooked them up with jobs and told
them that they would have to pay off the remainder of their
smuggling fee by giving back some of the wages that they were
earning. All determined by the cartel. Pay for housing,
transportation, food, all kinds of other expenses they have in
what was a debt bondage or labor trafficking situation. That's
how they took advantage of these people.
Mr. Knott. That's still going on right now?
Ms. Vaughn. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Knott. That infrastructure is in place?
Ms. Vaughn. Yes.
Mr. Knott. Correct. That leads to more or less dangerous
crime?
Ms. Vaughn. Oh, more.
Mr. Knott. More or less gang violence?
Ms. Vaughn. One of the ways that they can get people to pay
off their debt is to participate in drug trafficking.
Mr. Knott. More or less overdose deaths?
Ms. Vaughn. More.
Mr. Knott. Sir, briefly, can you describe the impact on
local, non-Federal law enforcement that these open border
policies have had?
Mr. Fabbricatore. It's made it so it's very hard for local
law enforcement to respond to anything. They're focused on many
more additional crimes. When the Cato Institute says that
illegal immigrants commit half less than U.S. citizens, it
doesn't matter how much they're committing. It's adding to what
local law enforcement has to respond to.
Mr. Knott. Right.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Knott. Yes, sir.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Onder.
Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Today I do have some questions, but first I wanted to
address some absurdities to which this Committee was treated
today.
First, we have the absurdity from Ranking Member Raskin
that somehow the 2024 Senate immigration bill was the solution
to our border crisis. No one believes that. It failed because
it was a lousy bill. It was an amnesty bill. In fact, it was
such a bad bill that it failed to--somehow the idea that House
Republicans are responsible for its demise is absurd because it
failed in the Senate 43 to 50, including six Democrats voting
no.
Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats refused to take up a real
border security bill, H.R. 2.
Second, the absurdity that somehow, somehow anchor babies
should have birth right citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
Yes, I said it, anchor babies, because that is the appropriate
term. These babies serve as anchors to prevent deportation of
illegal aliens.
As it was said earlier, the 14th Amendment involved slaves
after the civil war to prevent Democrat Southerners from
depriving those freed slaves of their civil rights.
This idea of birth right citizenship for anchor babies was
invented out of whole cloth in a footnote, dicta, not even the
actual decision by Justice Brennan in 1982. So, I applaud
President Trump for that Executive Order.
Then, finally, the absurdity that somehow things were
better under President Biden than under President Trump. It's
nice that our libertarian friends at Cato remind us that
illegal aliens pay some taxes. That's nice. I would also remind
you that the great libertarian and economist Milton Friedman
once famously said, ``you cannot have a welfare State and open
borders.''
Those illegal aliens cost us in healthcare expenses and
education expenses and, of course, in social welfare expenses
and devastate those programs.
Mr. Fabbricatore, I'm a medical doctor. I practiced
medicine for 30 years. In the early years of my practice, we
worried a lot about drugs in terms of overprescription of
narcotics by physicians, and we worried about meth dealers
making methamphetamine out of Sudafed often in rural areas.
Today, though, we have 100,000 deaths from fentanyl. The
great majority of it crosses our Southern border. Then, and a
lot of people forget this, 50,000 deaths from methamphetamine.
It's not made in a trailer in rural Missouri anymore. It's made
in Mexico and comes across our Southern border.
Could you--this is kind of a followup question to the
question Representative Knott asked Ms. Vaughn. How has our
porous border contributed to the drug problem in the United
States?
Mr. Fabbricatore. The cartel is all about profit. So, if
they can make a profit in the United States, they're going to
make sure that they do so.
With the fentanyl that we've had coming in, it's been a
boom to the cartels. It's been a boom. They don't care that
100,000 United States citizens are dying. That's the cost of
business to them.
We should be going after the cartels for poisoning our
United States citizens. We're losing 100,000 people a year just
off this one drug, and we've done nothing about it this in last
four years. Well, I think that's going to stop now, and we're
going to go directly after the cartels for killing our United
States citizens.
Mr. Onder. The cartel leaders are terrorists. I think
Trump's Executive Order makes them eligible for the Suamani
treatment.
Ms. Vaughn, you touched most on the idea of visa abuse. In
my district in Missouri, an illegal alien once while driving an
Uber and once while driving a Lift sexually assaulted two young
women in my district. Now, he was a tourist visa overstayer.
Is there anything we can do to crack down on this very
common source of illegal immigration, which is coming legally
but then overstaying a visa?
Ms. Vaughn. Yes, there are a number of things, not one
silver bullet, but if we take away the ability of people to
work here, that's a disincentive to overstay. We can also lean
on the State Department and enact requirements for them to
adjust their visa issuance protocols to address high overstay
rates.
ICE needs to do more enforcement on overstays, frankly. I
would, also, like to see a way to hold the sponsors of some of
these visa holders responsible for too much overstaying.
Mr. Onder. Very good. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Schmidt.
Mr. Schmidt. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for conducting
this hearing to kick off this Congress. There is no more
important subject than the security of our Nation and of moving
away from these horrific policies that have abandoned that
security in the name of political correctness or in the name of
some sort of social engineering or in the name of political
expediency.
I've been listening to this discussion today, and it
strikes me that, perhaps, Washington does what so many
Americans thinks Washington can do, which is talk ceaselessly
about things that have little connection to their actual lives.
Over the past 12 years, I led a State law enforcement
agency in my home State of Kansas. I've been thinking on this
dais about cases we actually worked. Thinking about a case in
which a young man, I think he was 26, was running drugs for the
cartels. He was driving North on a U.S. highway. He was stopped
by an Oklahoma law enforcement officer. He panicked. He shot
the officer in the head. By the grace of God, the officer is
still alive to this day.
He then came across the border where our officers stopped
his vehicle with stop sticks. He fled on foot. He carjacked the
vehicle of an old man in the middle of the night. He fled a
high-speed pursuit up a highway in Kansas. He realized he was
going to be caught. He pulled over to the side of the highway.
He invaded a home. By the grace of God, nobody was home. He
then shot at our officers.
I had a lengthy discussion with my counterpart in Oklahoma
over who got to prosecute him first. We both sent him to prison
for the rest of his life under our respective State laws.
I'm thinking about a case in Johnson County, Kansas, where
an illegal alien in this country was drunk one night, and he
struck and killed a sheriff's deputy who had done nothing but
his job. He pulled over a citizen who was driving erratically
on the side of the highway, and the drunken driver, who never
should have been in this country, killed that young man. I
attended his funeral.
I'm thinking about a case in a very small county in North
central Kansas where an illegal alien came to this country,
raped a child, and we sent him to prison for the rest of his
life under the laws of the State of Kansas not because he was
an illegal alien but because he raped a child in our State.
I'm thinking about a case in Northwest Kansas where an
illegal alien came in, in a very small county, and murdered his
domestic partner. We sent him to prison for the rest of his
life.
I'm thinking about a case in Southwest Kansas where the
same thing happened, an illegal alien joined up with some
lawfully present citizens, stole a car, and then decided to
kill the witness. We wound up sending that individual to prison
for the rest of his life.
That's just the cases I can think of sitting here that we
handled at a State level in a State where the vast majority of
criminal activity is handled by local authorities, not by the
State of Kansas. Think of the volume that we're talking about
here and how offensive it is to those victims and their
families to say statistically illegal aliens don't kill people
at a higher rate than anybody who actually lives here. Give me
a break.
I have a couple of questions for you. I'd like to know--
obviously, we've talked a great deal about how enforcement
priority and policy priorities in this town affect cooperation
and interactive out in the real world where Federal law
enforcement actually work with State law enforcement. They're
not getting orders out of this town.
They do their jobs to keep our communities safe and don't
worry so much about who is doing what. They just want to get
the job done. It certainly works that way in my State of
Kansas.
Yet, we fight with folks in this town all the way from the
operational level. I'm thinking of a briefing that was canceled
where I was supposed to go get a briefing from ICE, and folks
in this town ordered the local agents not to talk to us because
I was a Republican, and we weren't supposed to get access to
that information from line enforcement officers.
All the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. I'm thinking of a
case we argued and actually won back in 2020 that allowed
States to prosecute illegal aliens who commit crimes under the
jurisdiction of our State and were not preempt.
So, here is my question for you, and I'll go to Mr.
Fabbricatore because he has operational law enforcement
experience.
As we figure out what we can actually agree on here that
can make a difference, should we or should we not explore the
idea of expanding cooperation between local and State law
enforcement on the one hand and Federal law enforcement on the
other.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Congressman Schmidt, absolutely. Look,
working with Federal law enforcement, local law enforcement,
county level, all levels of law enforcement make the United
States safe. When we're able to join together and cooperate, we
only make the community safer.
Mr. Schmidt. What about State and local prosecutors on the
one hand or Federal prosecutors on the other hand? There are
thousands of State and local prosecutors who encounter the vast
majority of criminal aliens. Very few Federal authority. Should
we work on expanding cooperation between Federal and State
prosecuting authorities?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes, absolutely. Any work that we can do
together is going to make sure that we can make sure that we're
going after criminals.
Mr. Schmidt. So, too, with respect to State courts where
the vast majority of these crimes are prosecuted. Should we
work on expanding the ability of State courts to assist us in
enforcing our immigration laws?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes.
Mr. Schmidt. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Gill.
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Nothing excites me more than the thought of President Trump
initiating the largest deportation operation in American
history.
I'd like to remind the Committee that the purpose of our
immigration system is for the benefit of American citizens, not
foreigners or anybody else.
For the past four years, Democrats have facilitated the
invasion of over 10 million illegal aliens into our country.
Open borders grow the welfare State. They depress American
wages, strain our education and healthcare system, price our
working class out of owning a home, and flood our communities
with violence and drugs.
Mr. Bier, as well as my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle, you're intellectualizing about illegal alien crime
notwithstanding, I'd like to remind you that the correct number
of American citizens murdered or raped by illegal aliens is
zero. Americans have learned firsthand that importing the Third
World will turn America into the Third World.
In light of the chaos of the past four years, the question
that has come up earlier is why are our Democrat colleagues so
determined to flood our country with millions of illegal
aliens? I'd like to suggest that perhaps it's because they
benefit from it politically.
Remember that every State is apportioned Congressional
seats based on population, not based on citizenship. Counting
noncitizens in Congressional apportionment has resulted in more
seats for Blue States and fewer Congressional seats for Red
States.
For instance, excluding noncitizens, an estimated--
California, excuse me, would have an estimated three fewer
Congressional seats. In Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia,
traditionally Red States, would each have an estimated one
additional seat.
Right now, in a political environment where Republicans
have a two-seat majority in the House of Representatives, the
presence of millions of illegal aliens in America could quite
literally change the balance of power in our country.
The problem doesn't stop at Congressional apportionment.
The ultimate goal of mass illegal immigration is mass amnesty
and citizenship for illegal aliens, which, of course, means
ultimately allowing them to vote. That's not a conspiracy
theory either.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer himself said it just
two years ago, and I'm quoting him,
Our ultimate goal is to help the dreamers, but get a path to
citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented
there are here.
That is their words, not mine.
It appears that for the past four years, providing a path
to citizenship for illegal aliens is precisely what the Biden
Administration has been doing.
Ms. Vaughn, thanks for being here. Can you explain how
through various programs the Biden Administration, either via
lax enforcement or through facilitating abuses, provided a path
to citizenship for illegal aliens?
Ms. Vaughn. Well, the main way that that has occurred, at
least the most significant, are these programs that allow
people who have made it into the country to obtain a status and
a work permit, some of which do put them on the path to getting
a green card.
For example, there is the OPT program, which allows either
foreign nationals who have attended U.S. schools or who
enrolled in one of these bogus strip small schools that enables
them to get a work permit through the OPT program, that is
meant to be for many of them a bridge to another more permanent
guest worker program, such as H-1B. Because once they get the
H-1B, then they can continue to extend that.
There are also programs like the U and the T visas, which
start with a work permit and eventually, once they're
adjudicated, without much review, allow them to receive a green
card, which is a path to citizenship.
There are others, including temporary protected status,
which are like a de facto permanent status at this point
because they're never rescinded.
These are not small. We're talking about probably about two
million people who are in these kind of quasi legal programs
that get to stay here and be considered constituents.
Mr. Gill. So, two million people who have a path to
citizenship right now. This isn't a theoretical or a
hypothetical problem. This is happening right now. The
political party that has nothing to offer voters, but
inflation, censorship, and transgenderism is weaponizing mass
illegal immigration to their own political benefit.
With that, I yield. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
I'll yield myself five minutes for questions. I think we've
come to an agreement on at least one point and that is that our
immigration laws are broken. The Democrats think they're broken
because they don't stop Presidents like Trump from securing our
borders. The Republicans think they're broken because they
don't stop Presidents like Biden from opening our borders.
I think the most illuminating testimony that we've had
today came from the Democrat's witness who opined that the
enforcement of our immigration laws was vastly better under
Biden than it is under Trump. That is a difference of opinion
that we periodically resolve through our elections. From the
last election, it is very clear that the American people agree
with us, and they have given us the responsibility and the
authority to change these laws so that they can never again be
evaded and mocked by a future Democratic administration.
Ms. Vaughn, I want to begin with the abuse of our asylum
process, which I think is one of the biggest problems that we
face. We all know the vast majority of asylum claims turn out
to be bogus. Under the Biden Administration, just making that
claim got you immediate admittance into our country, a lot of
free stuff. You were assured that your claim wouldn't be heard
for many years, and once it was rejected and you were ordered
by a court deported, that order wouldn't be enforced.
Obviously, Remain in Mexico took a lot of the incentive out
of making these false claims, and, of course, one of President
Trump's first orders reinstates that policy.
It seems to me we need to assure permanence of that policy,
and we also need to be clear that asylum is reserved for those
who have been singled out by their own government for
persecution because of their religion, race, or political
views. Under international law, once you have crossed that
first international border, you have now separated yourself
from that government.
You have the right to apply for asylum in that country that
you first crossed into. You do not have the right to pass
through five other countries because you want free stuff from
Americans.
It also seems to me that if you break our laws to enter our
country, you should forfeit any claim to asylum because you've
already expressed your intention to disobey our laws.
What do we need to do to reinstate these principles and
assure that future Presidents can't circumvent them?
Ms. Vaughn. Well, the asylum system is one of the biggest
loopholes in our immigration law right now that's routinely
exploited, and that's why we need legislation to actually
codify provisions to address the problems that you've
mentioned. For example, to make it clear that you must enter
through a legal port of entry, that you're not going to qualify
for asylum if you've passed through a safe third country, or if
you could have relocated within your own country.
We're getting a lot of people at our border now who have
been firmly resettled in other countries before coming here to
take advantage of the open border and the parole policies.
Mr. McClintock. So, are those principles missing from our
current asylum law, and we need to place them in it, or are
they simply being ignored?
Ms. Vaughn. The clarification is missing. I think that
there are different ways you could interpret our law, but
they're not going to be effective. H.R. 2 closed a lot of those
loopholes.
Mr. McClintock. Your guidance on what else needs to be done
to ensure that this doesn't happen again would be much
appreciated.
Mr. Fabbricatore, the sanctuary policies, what do those
laws do exactly?
Mr. Fabbricatore. They don't protect American citizens.
They protect criminal aliens, and we've seen that happen in the
U.S. with the rise of Tren de Aragua in these sanctuary cities.
Mr. McClintock. In fact, it's the immigrant community from
which they arise that is the most victimized by them, isn't it?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Yes, sir.
Mr. McClintock. I would think that a family at the
Roosevelt Hotel in New York is far more likely to be preyed on
by these cartels and criminal gangs than somebody living in
Scarsdale, for example.
Mr. Fabbricatore. Initially, they prey on their own, sir,
yes.
Mr. McClintock. So, what can we do about these sanctuary
jurisdictions?
Mr. Fabbricatore. Well, we need to look at any kind of
defund-
ing that we can do. We need to make sure that ICE is going into
these communities and they can work with local law enforcement.
If we're really serious about keeping American citizens safe,
we have to be serious about letting law enforcement work
together to keep American citizens safe. That's not going to
happen as long as we have these sanctuary jurisdictions that
don't allow local law enforcement to give information to ICE.
Sanctuary jurisdiction in Colorado, probation cannot even
let ICE know when somebody gets taken out of jail and put on
probation. That's someone who is convicted of a crime that's
going out onto the street and that probation officer cannot let
ICE know when they're going on probation.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Newman, my time is about to expire, but
I would like to ask you to put in a response regarding the TPS
and parole abuses of the past administration and what we can do
to assure that's never done again. I'm now out of time, so if
you could give that to us in writing, we will pay very close
attention to it.
Mr. Newman. Absolutely.
Mr. McClintock. With that, I believe we are ready to
conclude today's hearing.
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing. I think this
was a very illuminating hearing on both sides.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses
or additional material for the record.
With that, and without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:46 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by the Members of
the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
Enforce-
ment can be found at the following links: https://
docs.house.gov/
Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=117827.
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