[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ENHANCING FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL
COORDINATION IN THE FIGHT AGAINST
CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S.HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 11, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-13
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
59-605 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia,
Mike Turner, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
Alan Brubaker, Senior Advisor
Jon Collins, Senior Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee On Federal Law Enforcement
Clay Higgins, Louisiana, Chairman
Paul Gosar, Arizona Summer Lee, Pennsylvania Ranking
Andy Biggs, Arizona Minority Member
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Wesley Bell, Missouri
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Lateefah Simon, California
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Vacancy
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on March 11, 2025................................... 1
Witnesses
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Mr. Bob Gualtieri, Sheriff, Pinellas County, Florida
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Mr. Joseph Humire, Executive Director, The Center for a Secure
Free Society
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Ms. Kerry E. Doyle (Minority Witness), Former Principal Legal
Advisor, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Oral Statement................................................... 9
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* 8 U.S. Code Sec. 1324; submitted by Rep. Gosar.
* Article, NPR, ``Immigrants less likely to commit crimes than
U.S.-born''; submitted by Rep. Lee.
* Report, CAP, ``The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and
the Economy''; submitted by Rep. Lee.
The documents listed above are available at: docs.house.gov.
ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS
----------
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Gualtieri; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Humire; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Doyle; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
These documents were submitted after the hearing, and may be
available upon request.
ENHANCING FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL
COORDINATION IN THE FIGHT AGAINST
CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS
----------
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:18 p.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Clay Higgins
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Higgins, Gosar, Biggs, Mace,
Perry, Boebert, Lee, Bell, and Simon.
Mr. Higgins. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first
meeting of the Subcommittee on Federal law Enforcement under
the Oversight Committee.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
As a military and civilian law enforcement officer since
1989, it is my great pleasure to chair this new Subcommittee
that will examine the issues related to homeland security,
criminal justice, Federal law, regulatory enforcement, border
security, and immigration enforcement.
Before I continue, I would like to recognize my colleague
from across the aisle, Ranking Member Summer Lee from the great
state of Pennsylvania. I very much appreciate her willingness
to participate in this new Committee, and I look forward to
working with her for the betterment of all America.
I would also like to welcome our Subcommittee Members. I
look forward to working with each and every one of you.
The work of this Subcommittee is essential. In recent
years, we have seen the weaponization of our justice system,
lawlessness in our cities, and an open border that has allowed
illegal drugs and dangerous gangs into our country with deadly
results.
Throughout this Congress, we will tackle these issues and
ensure that President Trump has all the tools and resources he
needs to address rampant crime.
This Subcommittee will also work to ensure our men and
women in law enforcement are properly supported and the
American people have a justice system that works for them, not
against them.
Today, we will examine the dangers posed by criminal
illegal aliens, especially those who belong to cartels, and how
coordination between Federal immigration authorities and local
law enforcement can bring criminal illegal aliens to justice
and make our communities safer.
During the last 4 years, members of transnational criminal
organizations were able to illegally enter and remain in our
country and terrorize our cities and towns, largely without
consequences. These gangs and cartels are responsible for
bringing a significant amount of illegal fentanyl into our
country, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of
Americans. These criminal organizations plagued our communities
with crime, violence, and fear.
Our state and local law enforcement officers were often
left to deal with the previous Administration's failed border
policies without much assistance from Federal counterparts. As
we heard last week, some of those border policies are still
being supported by sanctuary-city mayors.
The previous Administration effectively dismantled the
287(g) program, leaving state and local law enforcement
agencies, who were once active participants, without any
training or support from ICE.
But President Trump will not stand for that. President
Trump is using the 287(g) program effectively, which Sheriff
Gualtieri and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office participate
in, to increase coordination between local law enforcement and
ICE.
President Trump has actually expanded the 287(g) program,
and, since then, all 67 sheriff-run jails and 10 county-run
jails in the state of Florida have entered into an agreement
with ICE to participate in the program.
This is just one example of the swift action President
Trump has taken since returning to office to secure our
borders, to go after the cartels and gangs, and, most
importantly, to protect Americans by ensuring our Nation's law
enforcement agencies can work together to apprehend and remove
criminal illegal aliens.
For the last 4 years, frontline law enforcement
professionals at the local, state, and Federal level, who have
sworn to protect our communities and maintain our sovereignty
at the southern border, have been forced to endure
unprecedented weakness from their own executive branch--
policies so misguided that law enforcement witnessed with
horror as longstanding traditions of constant battle against
cartel trafficking of human beings and deadly drugs was
replaced by complicit allowance of trafficking, even
corroborated trafficking, of human beings.
Thanks be to God and the American people, those policies
ended abruptly on January 20.
Today, we are going to continue to call out the foreign
gangs and violent offenders operating in our country and
discover ways to enable law enforcement to bring transnational
criminal organizations, the gangs, the cartels, and all
criminal illegal aliens to justice and remove them from the
United States.
I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today
and learning what more can be done to ensure our borders are
secure, criminal illegal aliens are apprehended and removed,
and transnational criminal organizations are stopped in their
tracks.
I am honored to yield to Ranking Member Lee for her opening
statement.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you so much for
welcoming me and our side onto this Subcommittee.
Of course, I would like to first say ``welcome'' to our
colleagues for our first hearing of this brand-new Subcommittee
on Federal Law Enforcement. This is my first time as a Ranking
Member, and I am proud to be joined by a group of bold
Democrats: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Congresswoman
Lateefah Simon, and Congressman Wesley Bell. We are ready to
stand up against Trump and his Administration and hold our
Federal law enforcement accountable.
I think since we are talking about immigration enforcement
at this hearing today, we need to start with the illegal
detention of Mahmoud Khalil.
ICE kidnapped this university graduate with a permanent
resident green card and jailed him in the middle of the night.
They shipped him off to Louisiana without informing his
pregnant wife or his attorney where they were taking him.
They intentionally isolated him from his community and his
family, all because he dared to speak out against his
university and against the actions of the United States, which
is not a crime.
Punishing dissent by revoking legal status is a dangerous
and illegal precedent to set. It is the first sign of a
government moving toward authoritarianism.
Freedom of speech, expression, assembly, and religion are
guaranteed by the First Amendment for a reason. The Founding
Fathers put it first in the Bill of Rights because of how
important those rights are. It is at the core of the formation
of this country, it is at the core of what it is to be an
American, and it is at the core of any democratic society.
Isn't disagreeing with your government the foundation on which
this country was founded?
Trump is attacking all of these basic rights as his primary
agenda. He is doing everything he can to take away the ability
to talk about his actions, the ability to form groups to
counter his goals, and the ability of the press to report
honestly.
Every single Member of Congress should be up in arms over
this blatant erosion of our fundamental rights. Republicans and
some of my colleagues are simply rolling over and giving up
their status under the Constitution as a co-equal branch of
government.
This is a basic tenet that we took an oath to defend. Have
we forgotten that oath we take at the start of each Congress,
literally 2 months ago? ``I do solemnly swear or affirm that I
will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic.''
They are eroding our democratic principles to justify
literally erasing Palestinians to appease a war criminal.
Trump revoked Mahmoud Khalil's legal status over his choice
to speak out. It is not a crime to disagree with your school or
your government. A judge quickly blocked his removal, because
there was no legal basis.
It cannot be overstated how dangerous this action is. If
they can disappear someone with legal status, what is going to
stop them from disappearing an American citizen who openly
disagrees with Donald Trump or our government?
If this happened under a Democratic President, Republicans
would be screaming about it.
And given the topic of today's hearing, is Donald Trump
expecting local law enforcement to police the speech of
immigrants?
If Republicans want local law enforcement to act as Federal
immigration agents, will they, too, be tasked with suspending
the First Amendment for those who disagree, monitoring their
social media posts, cataloging which protests they attend?
We are beyond just a slippery slope. President Trump
himself said that this unconstitutional arrest is only the
start.
This callous enforcement and chaotic approach to
immigration enforcement is not making us any safer. It is only
eroding our democratic principles.
I look forward to getting into what can make us safer, the
policies that we can and should promote in this body and in
this Committee. And I look forward to our work not just today
but throughout the rest of this Congress to get to the root
causes of crime, of just and humane immigration reform, and
true accountability for our Federal law enforcement.
So, I would like to thank our panel of witnesses for coming
in today, and I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
I am pleased to welcome our expert panel of witnesses for
today.
I would first like to welcome Pinellas County Sheriff Bob
Gualtieri of Florida. Sheriff Gualtieri was first elected in
2012, and his agency has partnered with U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement as part of the 287(g) program since 2019.
Earlier this year, he was appointed to Florida's new State
Immigration Enforcement Council.
I would next like to welcome Joseph Humire, the Executive
Director for the Center for a Secure Free Society. Mr. Humire
is a national-security expert who has studied transregional
threats in the Western Hemisphere and very effectively has
communicated his knowledge of that space. That theater of
understanding is very complex. We appreciate him being here.
Additionally, he speaks frequently about the emerging
threats of China, Russia, and Iran as an authoritarian
influence in Latin America--a very important topic. We
appreciate his knowledge on that subject.
Our final witness today is Kerry Doyle. Ms. Doyle is a
former Principal Legal Advisor for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. Ms. Doyle has served in several immigration-
related legal roles during her career.
Thank you for being here, ma'am.
I thank each of the witnesses for being here today, and we
all look forward to your testimony.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please
stand and raise their right hand.
Thank you.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
Sheriff Gualtieri. I do.
Mr. Humire. I do.
Ms. Doyle. I do.
Mr. Higgins. Let the record show that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
We appreciate you being here today, all of you, and we look
forward to your testimony.
Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written
statement and it will appear in full in the hearing record.
Please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes, as close as
possible.
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in
front of you when you speak so that it is on and Members can
hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you
will turn green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow.
When the red light comes on, your 5 minutes has expired and we
ask you try and wrap up.
I now recognize Sheriff Gualtieri of Florida for his
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF BOB GUALTIERI
SHERIFF
PINELLAS COUNTY, FL
Sheriff Gualtieri. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Lee, and Committee Members. Thank you for the
opportunity to be here today to discuss how our Nation's
illegal-immigration problem impacts local law enforcement and
how local law enforcement has to maximize coordination with our
Federal partners to address this national-security issue.
We all know immigration enforcement is primarily a Federal
responsibility, but the problem of illegal immigration impacts
everyone. It is a problem for every village, every town, every
city, every county, and every state in America.
It is a problem for a number of reasons, but at the
forefront is the problem of criminal illegals--those in our
country illegally who wreak havoc in our communities, those who
victimize our citizens by peddling their dope, stealing,
molesting kids, and killing people.
Another big issue is the people who come here illegally. A
judge orders them deported, they are deported, and then they
come back, again illegally, like the criminal illegal from
Honduras who killed one of our deputies in September 2022. That
guy was twice previously deported back to Honduras, and he came
back a third time, illegally, through Eagle Pass, Texas, and
killed Pinellas County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Hartwick.
None of that is OK.
Now, ICE's stated priorities are criminal illegals, public-
safety threats, national-security threats, and those who have
been previously deported and come back again, like Deputy
Hartwick's killer.
We all have heard some local officials who say it is a
Federal responsibility and that they are not helping ICE
apprehend these criminal illegals. This is shortsighted because
local law enforcement has to help ICE if we are going to be
successful in combating this national issue. ICE is strapped
and does not have the resources to do it alone.
It is our constituents, the people who elected us to keep
them safe, who are being victimized by these criminal illegals.
Most jails in America, they are run by sheriffs. Sheriffs
work, hopefully, with ICE now to deliver to them people who are
booked into our jails who are clearly illegals and who have
clearly committed crimes so that these people are deported and
not released back into the community to yet commit more crime.
We do that through ICE's immigration detainer requests,
which are accompanied by an arrest warrant or a removal
warrant. During the first Trump Administration, we received
about 400 detainers a year in the Pinellas County Jail alone,
and in the first year of the Biden Administration, we got 14.
We currently have about 150 people in the Pinellas County
Jail who are charged with crimes, who are in the country
illegally, and for whom we have received ICE detainers.
To give you an example of the type of people we are holding
in the Pinellas County Jail today on these ICE detainers so
they are not released back in the community, one criminal
illegal in our jail is from Mexico, and he is charged with
possessing 20 different counts of child pornography.
Another person is one we arrested for lewd and lascivious
battery of a child under 12 years old, and he is here illegally
from El Salvador.
Another illegal is from Mexico, who we arrested for sexual
battery or raping a child under 12 years old.
Yet another illegal is from Cuba, and he is charged with
DUI manslaughter for killing someone while drunk-driving and
then resisting arrest.
Another person is from Honduras, who raped a physically
helpless person and committed numerous acts of lewd and
lascivious molestation on a child.
And some say illegal immigration is only for the Feds to
address? It is definitely a problem for local law enforcement
to help address.
For 4 years under the previous Administration, no county-
jail personnel in Florida or elsewhere were trained by ICE
under the detainer immigration program, and huge numbers of
criminal illegals, like these killers and child rapists, were
released back into our communities.
When President Trump took office in January, ICE ramped up
the detainer process, but 26 of Florida's 67 jails were unable
to honor the immigration detainers because there were no ICE-
trained and--designated correctional officers in our jails who
could make these immigration arrests. We have been working hard
on this, and we are close to having personnel in all 67 county
jails who can honor the detainers.
One of the problems across the country is that ICE
detainers, in and of themselves, do not have any force of law
and they have to be accompanied by a warrant, and local law
enforcement officers are not authorized to serve these types of
warrants.
A solution is Federal legislation authorizing jails to hold
criminal illegals for ICE solely on the immigration detainers--
in other words, give the detainers force of law as opposed to
simply making them an ask with no teeth.
This is a big deal to fix, and it should be done as soon as
possible, because it would mean criminal illegals, like the
ones I mentioned, will be deported directly from jail and not
released back into the community to commit more crime.
Another important role for state and local law enforcement
is a designated immigration officer program under section
287(g) of the INA. This is also known as the 287(g) task force
program.
The ICE-aided task forces have not existed since the Obama
Administration ended them in 2012. Thirteen years of local law
enforcement not being able to help ICE arrest these criminal
illegals on the street has had a negative impact.
People ask why so many Americans have died over that time
from fentanyl overdoses. In Florida, during 2022, we had 6,230
fentanyl overdose deaths. It is because--that is what happens
when there is a porous border, illegal-alien drug traffickers
run amok, and a strapped immigration agency cannot get help
from local law enforcement to deport people peddling this
poison.
Law enforcement conducting drug-trafficking investigations
with our Federal partners is vital to combating illegal drug
trafficking. And this is where the High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area, or HIDTA, initiatives are crucial to reducing
fentanyl and other drug overdose deaths. HIDTA provides much-
needed funding for personal expenses, equipment, and undercover
operations. Moreover, the HIDTA concept fosters powerful
collaborative relationships that lead to better successes and
ultimately saves lives.
Bed space is another major issue. In Florida, there are
about 2,000 ICE detention beds, and they are full. As more
local law enforcement officers come on line with the 287(g)
task force, bed capacity will get worse because more arrests
will be made.
The sheriffs look forward to working with our Federal
partners to do what citizens elected us to do, and that is keep
them safe. And we will do that.
I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you.
I am going to recognize Mr. Humire for his opening
statement.
Ms. Doyle, I am going to be generous with your time when we
get to you out of respect for my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle, because, like most police officers, the sheriff
takes 6 minutes to give a 5-minute speech. That is OK; I am
with him.
Mr. Humire, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your
statement, sir.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH HUMIRE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
THE CENTER FOR A SECURE FREE SOCIETY
Mr. Humire. Thank you, Chairman.
Good afternoon, Chairman Higgins, Ranking Member Lee,
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for your
leadership on this issue, for holding this hearing, and for
inviting me to testify before you today.
My name is Joseph Humire, and I am a national-security
scholar who has spent the past 7 years studying a phenomenon
known as ``weaponized migration.''
For some, this may be considered a conspiracy theory or
perhaps a bit too alarmist. But after the past 4 years and
seeing an unprecedented number of illegal aliens entering the
United States, then seeing the skyrocketing rates of fentanyl-
related deaths--more than 100,000 Americans poisoned each
year--and then you had the emergence of new and hyper-powered
gangs, like Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, taking over entire
apartment complexes and tragically carrying out the rape and
murder of innocent Americans like Laken Riley and Jocelyn
Nungaray, we all realize that something more nefarious is
happening inside our Nation.
The United States is facing the worst border and
immigration crisis in its history. Since 2021, our border
authorities have encountered 11 million illegal aliens and an
additional 2.2 million got-aways. Add another 1.5 million
migrants who arrived in America through flawed immigration and
humanitarian parole programs and you have 14 million illegal
aliens in America in just 4 years.
That is larger than the population of 45 U.S. states or the
equivalent of adding another state the size of Pennsylvania to
the Union or, Chairman, three Louisianas.
Now, Mr. Chairman, as much as we would all love to have
more constituents like those from the great Bayou State in this
country, unfortunately the sad reality is most of these illegal
aliens are not assimilating to America, and, in some cases,
even worse, some of them are tied to the most notorious gangs,
cartels, criminal organizations, and terrorist groups in the
world.
If only half a percent, 0.5 percent, of this emerging
illegal-alien population in America is tied to or affiliated
with criminal and terrorist organizations, then we are facing a
crime/terror contingent inside the United States that is the
size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps combined. If that is not
a national-security, I do not know what is.
Now, let me get back to weaponized migration. I began this
research in October 2018, when thousands of mostly Central
Americans crashed the U.S. southwest border in the span of a
few weeks.
I was actually in Guatemala at the time for a different
reason. I was there training some of our partner militaries on
counterterrorism and counter-transnational-organized-crime when
I got a call from a friend who is a senior Guatemalan national-
security official, who asked for my help.
So, to give you the bottom line up front, what I discovered
back then in Guatemala is that the Central American caravans
were planned, financed, organized, and steered by state and
non-state actors to cause chaos in Guatemala, Mexico, and
eventually the United States.
How do I know this? I know this because I embedded with the
Central American caravans and interviewed hundreds of migrants,
but, more importantly, saw firsthand who was behind this. It
was a series of politicized NGOs from Honduras who were
receiving money from U.S. and European charities but, more
importantly, were getting guidance and direction from an anti-
American adversarial nation-state. That state is the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, who worked with the Honduran NGO known
as Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which is Spanish for ``People Without
Borders,'' who then worked with a series of NGOs and charities
inside America, notably in California and Chicago, to create
the Central American caravans.
Now, this begs the question, why would the Venezuelan
Government care about illegal immigration? The answer is,
because Venezuela is a proxy of China, Russia, and Iran, they
all understand that mass migration can be employed as a weapon
of asymmetric warfare to erode national borders, steal
sovereignty, and eventually have the United States collapse
from within. Remember, China's whole warfare strategy is based
on submission, to have America give up without fighting.
Far from a problem of root causes derived from
socioeconomic hardship, natural disasters, or high levels of
insecurity, which is abundant in all parts of the world, the
center of gravity of the U.S. border and immigration crisis
that enabled no fewer than 14 million illegal aliens to enter
the United States in just 4 years is weaponized migration, an
academic concept that has empirical evidence and an abundance
of political-science literature behind it.
Weaponized migration is when state and non-state actors
catalyze, manipulate, and/or induce mass migration to achieve
political and geopolitical objectives. Weaponized migration
suggests that criminal illegal aliens inside the United States
do not merely arrive here by accident; they were sent here by
America's enemies and adversaries.
In my written testimony, I include this map of our country.
It is what I call a ``migrant invasion map,'' because it shows
the major hubs of where criminal organizations are spreading
throughout America, moving toward sanctuary cities, and,
combined with land purchases by the Chinese Communist Party,
are all here to steal the sovereignty of our country. This is a
national-security crisis, perhaps the greatest in our lifetime.
So, again, I thank you for your leadership, I thank you for
holding this important hearing, and I look forward to your
questions.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, sir.
Ms. Doyle, you are recognized for your opening statement
for 5 generous minutes, ma'am.
STATEMENT OF KERRY E. DOYLE
FORMER PRINCIPAL LEGAL ADVISOR
U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
Ms. Doyle. Thank you, Chairman Higgins, Ranking Member Lee,
and Members of the Subcommittee. I am grateful for this
opportunity to share with you my knowledge and experience
regarding immigration law and to discuss the work that cities
like Boston, where I live, have done and continue to do to make
their cities welcoming, safe, and thriving.
I bring a unique perspective today, having worked for ICE
and DHS and as an immigration attorney and an immigration
judge. I have seen immigration enforcement and advocacy through
multiple administrations and angles since I became an
immigration attorney in 1993.
I am here to tell you today that welcoming city policies
work. They work to keep residents safe and communities
thriving.
I also know that if Congress was truly focused on improving
the safety of our communities, it would address our broken
immigration system through immigration reform.
I graduated from law school in 1993 and went to work as an
immigration lawyer in the nonprofit and private sector. I have
taught immigration law at Suffolk Law School and at University
of Miami Law School.
I served, as the Chairman mentioned, as the Principal Legal
Advisor for ICE from 2021 to 2024, and in this role I oversaw
the 1,500-plus attorneys and staff of OPLA. OPLA is the largest
legal department in DHS, and its attorneys represent DHS,
prosecuting cases in the Nation's immigration courts every day.
As PLA, I also worked closely with ICE leadership, providing
advice and counsel to both Homeland Security Investigations,
Enforcement and Removal Operations, and ICE leadership.
The opinions expressed herein are my own and are not
intended to reflect the views or positions of DHS, OPLA, ICE,
or the Department of Justice.
To understand why the Boston Trust Act works, you must
first understand Boston. As Mayor Wu aptly explained, more than
700,000 people currently call Boston home. It is a city of
immigrants. Approximately 28 percent of Boston's residents were
born in a country other than the United States, and Boston
public-school students hail from 139 different countries and
speak 88 languages.
As the full Oversight Committee heard last week, Boston is
the safest large city in the country due to its welcoming city
policies and dedication to community policing, which those of
you who come from a law enforcement background know works.
For many years, Boston has focused on community policing.
It is inclusive and effective policing built on trust between
city residents and the police. It allows women who are afraid
for their safety due to domestic violence to dial 911 without
fear of being arrested due to their own status. It allows
witnesses in murder cases to report what they saw, appear in
court to testify against the assailant, and promote justice
regardless of their immigration status.
Simply put, it means the justice system works for everyone,
and the community knows and understands that.
Welcoming ordinances and Trust Act laws do not mean that
cities violate Federal or state law. It also does not mean that
cities refuse to cooperate with ICE in all circumstances.
Rather, cities regularly engage in joint task forces and
cooperate in detaining immigrants with the most serious
criminal charges.
Nor do they encourage violation of the law. A review of
Denver, Chicago, and Boston's policies all say unequivocally
the cities will follow Federal law or educate city employees
about Federal law. Philadelphia and California's policies have
been upheld by the Federal courts as consistent with both
Federal law and the 10th Amendment.
The courts understand that the 10th Amendment means
unequivocally that the Federal Government cannot force states
and cities to act in their stead. State and local governments
set their own policies, their own priorities, regarding what
crimes cause the most damage to their communities and what
resources should be deployed where. The 10th Amendment makes
clear that these are states' rights and these are priorities
the states are able to set.
The current Administration's immigration policies directly
conflict with the successful approach taken by cities like
Boston to make their communities as safe as they can be. To
quote my mayor again, ``A scared city is not a safe city. A
land ruled by fear is not the land of the free.'' Yet this
Administration's policies have promoted unbridled and
debilitating fear.
This Administration continues to lack law enforcement
priorities, resulting in indiscriminate arrests and detention.
Despite the Administration's promise to focus on criminal
non-citizens, current ICE published statistics show an almost
double-digit increase, doubling the number of immigrants
without criminal convictions or criminal records arrested by
ICE. The number of individuals in ICE custody without a
criminal conviction is 49 percent, virtually half of those
detained.
The current pattern of ICE arrests mirror the detention
numbers. Recently, the Administration boasted of arresting
almost 1,200 people in 1 day in Chicago. Analysis of the
records of this operation were consistent in showing that only
half of those arrested were immigrants with criminal records.
ICE has been directed to deport 75 people a day per field
office, amounting to 21 total arrests a day. In attempting to
meet this quota, they have arrested United States citizens,
veterans, and, most recently, a 23-year resident of the United
States with an extremely ill, wheelchair-bound daughter
undergoing cancer treatment.
In the harrowing video, the mother is seen crying, sobbing,
and stating, ``They are going to take me,'' while the young
daughter, who is undergoing chemotherapy, wonders what will
happen to her without her primary caretaker.
Apparently, knowing it cannot fulfill these unreasonable
numbers solely by pursuing criminal non-citizens, the
Administration recently announced that they would start a new
operation to target adults and minor children who enter the
country together and have orders of deportation. After the
families are arrested, agents will place them into detention
before they are removed.
The separation of families appears to be driving up fear in
immigrant communities for documented, undocumented, and United
States citizens alike. Millions of families will be impacted
and communities will be impacted by continued indiscriminate,
quota-driven enforcement, including separating mixed-status
families.
We can be smarter about our policies. As a Nation, we
should be emulating Boston and not indiscriminately targeting
immigration communities and sweeping up citizens, documented
immigrants, and non-criminal citizens as well.
Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, ma'am.
Members will be recognized by seniority and appearance in
the Subcommittee.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
Sheriff, can you clarify for the Committee Members and the
Americans that are observing this hearing regarding detainers?
That can be confusing to Americans that do not know how it
works, so would you just lay it out?
You have local, state, and Federal law enforcement
operating across the country. And when you have someone
incarcerated in your jail, in your county jail, if there is a
local jurisdictional authority--say, the county over has a
warrant for an arrest on an inmate in your jail, what happens
when that inmate is finished with his time, it is time to be
released from your jail, if that county next to you has
contacted your jail and said, ``Hey, we have a warrant, let us
know when you are ready to let this guy go''? That is called a
detainer.
What happens when a local law enforcement contacts you
about that?
Sheriff Gualtieri. We turn him over to them.
Mr. Higgins. At what point? In the parking lot an hour
after you released him, or in the jail?
Sheriff Gualtieri. No, in the jail.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you.
So that is a detainer, America. This is the way it works.
What about your state police in Florida? If the state
police have a detainer, a warrant on an inmate, do they come
and pick them up from in the jail?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Well, no, because the state police do
not operate jails. So, the detainers would only be generally--
--
Mr. Higgins. Would be a detective's hold?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Sure.
Mr. Higgins. But state police, if they want that inmate,
before he is released to the parking lot, they would come to
the jail. Is that correct?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Yes.
Mr. Higgins. OK.
So, Federal law enforcement works the same way. If the FBI
has a detainer on someone, do you hold them in your jail, turn
them over directly to the FBI, not to the parking lot?
Sheriff Gualtieri. All the time.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you.
And if ICE does that now in Florida, if ICE has a detainer,
what happens to that inmate?
Sheriff Gualtieri. We are turning them over to ICE.
Mr. Higgins. Directly to ICE.
In the jail, America, not after they have been released to
the parking lot, good lady, which was happening in sanctuary
cities.
So, the sanctuary city mayors will say, ``Yes, we are
turning them--we are releasing them to ICE. We are following
the law.'' But listen to what they are saying, America. They
are releasing these guys into the parking lot, and when ICE
contacts them, they say, ``Yes, we let him go 2 hours ago. He
was last seen wearing this, walking in that direction.''
That is not the way detainers have worked historically
across the country.
So, that ties in, Mr. Humire, to what you brought up
regarding weaponized migration. It occurs to me--I would like
you to address this.
We have millions of illegals coming into our country that
came into our country over the last 4 years in wave after wave.
Policy--it was always known amongst law enforcement that policy
caused that and policy could quickly fix it. We have proven
that that is true since January the 20.
But these guys are already here. What have they done to
plug into the criminal networks and the cartel networks across
the country that our sovereign states and our communities
across the country are now having to deal with? Please go into
that.
Mr. Humire. Yes. So, Mr. Chairman, there is a concept that
was used in the executive order that President Trump signed
designating cartels as terrorist organizations. It as a concept
called ``convergence.'' And what convergence is, is when you
get terrorist organizations, criminal organizations, an array
of illicit actors converging together under logistics.
And what we are seeing today is logistical networks be
erected all throughout the United States as service providers.
I will give you an example. If you are an accountant for a
major Mexican cartel, you are a good candidate to be an
accountant for ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah that is also operating
United States the United States. What this does is it empowers
illicit economies and allows those illicit economies to grow
and overtake counties, overtake states, and eventually overtake
the country.
So, we are seeing a convergence of criminals, terrorists,
and all kinds of illicit actors coming together, who may not
agree, who may fight on turf battles, but fundamentally want
the country to become illicit and----
Mr. Higgins. So, the criminal networks that already existed
in our cities and our sovereign states across the country, how
are they battling for their territory?
Are we seeing an expansion of violent crimes and serious
property crimes push into parts of our communities that had not
historically seen that crime, because of the expansion of turf,
just the numbers of criminal operators battling for turf? How
is that happening across the country?
Mr. Humire. No, that is absolutely the case. I think you
are seeing territorial control and territorial capture. That is
fundamental to transnational organized crime. Territory is what
they are going after. They want to capture territory, take it
away from the state, and impose their own kind of criminal
governance.
But what we are seeing is that put on steroids. Because
when you add the state element, nation-states now using these
transnational criminal organizations, you are seeing an element
of ability to put these criminal organizations into overdrive.
I will give you one example, Venezuela's Tren de Aragua.
Just in the last year, we have seen it expand from 4 states to
over 23 states inside the United States. That does not happen
on its own. That happens because there is a government back in
Venezuela that is providing guidance, direction, and resources
to be able to expand throughout the country.
And that Tren de Aragua is doing exactly what you are
saying, Mr. Chairman, taking over a place that never saw this
kind of violent crime before.
Mr. Higgins. Yes, sir. Thank you for that clarification.
My time has expired.
I recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Lee, for 5 minutes for
questioning.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think we need to be real about the goals of this
Administration's radical and cruel immigration plans. It was
shocking to hear, during the hearing last week, Republicans
truly believe no one is calling for mass deportation, that only
criminals are being targeted by ICE.
But we know that this is simply not the case. In fact,
Trump's so-called border czar, Tom Homan, has vowed that the
Trump Administration will apply ``shock and awe'' tactics to
its immigration enforcement and will carry out ``the biggest
deportation operation this country has ever seen.''
ICE's own statistics show that the number of immigrants
detained without criminal records rose by 334 percent from mid-
January to late February. That is about a month. Within the
group of immigrants cruelly sent to Guantanamo Bay, 51 had no
criminal record at all.
Trump and Republicans want you to think all immigrants are
criminal and, therefore, they should all be deported. But the
reality is that immigrants are significantly less likely to
commit crimes than those born in the U.S.
So, now we are seeing some Republican-led states make their
own--or, excuse me--the very existence of these folks the
crime.
Sheriff Gualtieri, yes or no, Florida recently passed a law
that makes it a crime for adults to enter Florida after
entering the country without legal status.
Sheriff Gualtieri. That is true.
Ms. Lee. You also have worked closely with the Trump
Administration to expand cooperation between your officers and
ICE agents, correct?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Yes.
Ms. Lee. In fact, one of the other portions of these
sweeping immigration changes in Florida also includes bonuses
to incentivize officers to work with ICE, correct?
Sheriff Gualtieri. There was a provision in the recent law
to compensate them, yes.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
So, to recap, Florida has passed laws that target all
undocumented adults, slaps them with a crime for merely
entering Florida, and then offer law enforcement more money to
ship them off to ICE custody. That seems like a lot of mass
deportation to me.
Judge Doyle, it is fair to say you have a lot of experience
in immigration law, from private practice to DHS, to ICE, and
then as an appointed immigration judge. Does this kind of
heavy-handed enforcement make our communities safer, in your
opinion?
Ms. Doyle. Absolutely not, Ranking Member Lee. As I
discussed, a number of our cities are, in fact, perfect
examples of what trust can build, what community policing can
build, which is the safest big city in the country.
Ms. Lee. Does allowing ICE to enter schools, churches, and
hospitals make our communities safer?
Ms. Doyle. Absolutely does not. As I mentioned, and to
quote Mayor Wu, ``A scared city is not a safe city.''
Ms. Lee. From your experience, what approaches to community
safety have worked, especially those with immigrant
populations?
Ms. Doyle. As I mentioned, community policing is really the
cornerstone of a safe city. And that requires trust between
police and the people with which they work in the community. It
allows people comfortable to come forward and report crimes and
work with the police to eradicate crime and harm in the
communities.
Ms. Lee. Just last week, Republicans paraded the Boston
Mayor out here for her city's policies, as we have heard. But
Mayor Wu made it clear that Boston has lower crime and is a
safer city compared to many Republican districts.
Unfortunately, facts and data just are not on your side.
We need proactive investment and support for our
communities. Parents should not have to live in fear that
taking their child to school or to the doctor will result in
their arrest or deportation.
It is simply un-American to turn these essential places
into symbols of fear, as targets of extreme immigration
enforcement.
While Trump and his Republican cronies are fearmongering
with their claims of crime, drugs, cartels, it is all too clear
that their mass-deportation agenda extends to millions of our
loved ones, neighbors, and coworkers who have never committed
crimes.
None of these policies will strengthen or help our
communities. The only people who seem to be benefiting besides
the talking heads at Fox News are the billionaires running the
private prisons. For them, it is good business to detain
people.
In addition to The GEO Group reopening a detention facility
in New Jersey, it was announced last week that CoreCivic is
reopening the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley,
Texas, to hold immigrant families. Yes, that includes children.
The center can hold up to 2,400 people, making it one of ICE's
largest detention centers.
CoreCivic alone stands to make $180 million on this deal.
That is taxpayer dollars going to billion-dollar corporations
to detain families and children rather than being invested into
your communities.
And you can bet that the priority for these private
corporations will be making a profit, not treating immigrants
humanely or responsibly. Maybe DOGE and Elon should, or could,
set their sights on these private prisons rather than on your
Medicaid and your Social Security.
Cruelty is the point. And protecting people is simply not a
priority for this Administration. Our communities deserve
investments and support, not terror in their safe spaces.
I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
I recognize my colleague, Representative Gosar, for 5
minutes for questions.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As we heard last week, radical sanctuary cities are
violating Federal immigration law by directing local law
enforcement to ignore President Trump's immigration policies.
Law enforcement officers should not be the ones wearing the
bureaucratic handcuffs, Mr. Chairman, it should be the illegal
aliens.
Cartels and transnational criminal organizations and
foreign terrorist organizations are committing crimes and
fueling the fentanyl crisis in the United States. The Wilson
Center reports that trafficking of fentanyl in Arizona and
California is a direct result of the Sinaloa Cartel and the
Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
A January 2020 DEA report also credits these cartels at the
same time with supplying of illicit fentanyl within the U.S.
How did Biden respond? In August 2023, he sent 140
additional Homeland Security Investigative [sic] agents to the
southwest border--but only to assist with administrative tasks
like hospital watch and transportation. We need these folks to
enforce immigration laws, not facilitate illegal immigration.
But within just 1 month, the Trump Administration has seen
the lowest border encounters in history. That means Biden
simply was not protecting Americans by enforcing the law.
Law enforcement jurisdictional issues do not help either.
Almost 30 percent of Arizona is comprised of Tribal lands and
is an additional optional practical 280 State law or to
exercise partial state criminal jurisdiction over Tribal lands.
There is a significant lack of partnership among the Federal,
state, and local entities.
Mr. Humire, are you familiar with SB 1070?
Mr. Humire. No, I am not.
Mr. Gosar. It was an Arizona law. It was very
controversial. It might be before your time.
Sheriff, are you familiar with SB 1070?
Sheriff Gualtieri. No, sir, I am not.
Mr. Gosar. OK.
How about you, Ms. Doyle?
Ms. Doyle. No, sir, not in detail.
Mr. Gosar. OK. Well, it--Arizona wanted to enforce its own
border, and they went up to the courts, and they said,
``Supremacy Clause.'' OK?
So, that is why I turned on the good old mayors. Their
state offered sanctuary cities, so that is against the law to
do that. That is standing law.
So, let me ask you a question, Ms. Doyle. Now that you are
teaching. You are teaching, right? You are still teaching?
Ms. Doyle. Not any longer, no.
Mr. Gosar. OK. Well----
Ms. Doyle. But I did.
Mr. Gosar. OK. But how did you present that to your
students? Did you say what you believe now is going on in
Boston is OK, or did you say it was my opinion? How did you
teach that? Because how you interact there really puts an
institution in jeopardy, does it not?
Ms. Doyle. Boston follows all the state, local, and Federal
laws. They are not in violation of Federal law. In fact,
Philadelphia and California's policies have been upheld by
Federal courts as well.
Mr. Gosar. The Supreme Court?
Ms. Doyle. Not to my knowledge. It has not gone to the
Supreme Court.
Mr. Gosar. Well, that is why I asked. SB 1070 went to the
Supreme Court. It went all the way up to the Court, so it is
the law of the land. So, you are violating the law. And you are
putting your students that you are teaching at risk. So, I find
it very offensive that we see that.
Mr. Humire, we are unique in Arizona with we have over 20
Tribal jurisdictions. Because Tribal law enforcement does not
always have the resources necessary to conduct immigration
enforcement, criminal cartels target Tribal lands, leading to
increased crime and drug trafficking in Indian Country.
Are you familiar with the Arizona Tribe called the Tohono
O'odham Tribe?
Mr. Humire. No, I am not.
Mr. Gosar. It spans 62 miles of the southern border. They
refused to have the border wall put on their territory. And yet
this is one of the major areas--and my colleague from Arizona
will also attest to this--that they bring in human trafficking
and a lot of the illicit drugs.
Sheriff, are you familiar with the Tohono O'odham?
Sheriff Gualtieri. No, I am not.
Mr. Gosar. Is your jurisdiction on Tribal lands different?
Sheriff Gualtieri. No. We do not have Tribal lands where we
are in----
Mr. Gosar. We have got over 20 Tribes, so it is pretty
interesting.
Sheriff Gualtieri. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. But your 287(g)--you have got so many people
coming across there, you have got to use these programs, right?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Correct.
Mr. Gosar. And it is--you are utilizing all the manpower
aspects, right?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Right. We--in the jail and now, soon, on
the street. We will be fully cooperative with ICE in helping
them do their job.
Mr. Gosar. Now, there is a difference between, Mr. Humire,
there is a difference between illegal immigration and legal
immigration, right?
Mr. Humire. Correct.
Mr. Gosar. And I am in favor of legal immigration, not
illegal immigration.
Mr. Humire. Correct, Congressman.
Mr. Gosar. Because we have got all these people doing the
right thing standing in line, right, trying to get in this
country. I would have much rather said, if we need 5 million
workers, well, this is your magic day. Because it is a
violation, at least a misdemeanor, to try to violate this
country's laws.
Mr. Humire. Correct, Congressman. If I may?
Mr. Gosar. Go ahead.
Mr. Humire. There is a perverse incentive with illegal
immigration in that it incentivizes more illegal immigration.
So, what you are doing is, you are actually taking incentives
for migrants to choose a path of illegality that is dangerous,
that is treacherous, instead of choosing a legal path.
You can make an argument to reform legal migration, but
first you have to stamp out illegal immigration.
Mr. Gosar. I will have a bunch of follow-up questions for
the record.
Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman yields.
The Chair recognizes Congressman Bell for 5 minutes for
questioning.
Mr. Bell. Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
As many of you know or are learning now, I represent the
First congressional District of Missouri, the Show Me state.
And today I am asking my Republican colleagues to show me where
their principle stands when it comes to law enforcement, public
safety, and respect for law.
Local and Federal enforcement coordinate all across the
country. Specifically in my state and my district, we see that
all the time. And as a Member of Congress, but also as a former
judge and as a former prosecutor, these are things that happen
all over the country, in every county, if you will.
And so, quickly, because my time is short, Judge Doyle, did
you have any comments on the detainer--with respect to
detainers? Because I heard some information that did not seem
right to me that was spoken.
Ms. Doyle. Thank you for that question, Representative
Bell.
Exactly. Detainers, immigration detainers--and the sheriff
had explained this, actually, in his opening statement as
well--are voluntary requests for cooperation. The way
detainers, immigration ICE detainers, work at the moment is
that they are voluntary. It is up to the receiving entity to
determine whether they will honor the detainer or not.
And, additionally, some states like Massachusetts have laws
or rulings by the courts that prevent prisons and jails from
holding an individual past the time that they wrap their
sentence.
Mr. Bell. Thank you.
And so, what I also want to get to is, in 2021, Missouri,
my home state--and I did not support this, but--they enacted
the Second Amendment Preservation Act, also known as SAPA.
Sheriff, are you familiar with that?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Sorry, I am not.
Mr. Bell. No problem, no problem. It was struck down as
unconstitutional. But, before we get to that, this law declared
certain Federal firearm regulations as essentially illegal in
the state.
So, under SAPA, if a local police department cooperated
with agencies like the ATF in enforcing gun-safety laws, it
could face fines of up to $50,000. As a result, law enforcement
officers across the state were forced to withdraw from Federal
task forces, stop sharing critical crime data, and limit their
ability to crack down on gun trafficking and violent crime.
This reckless policy was not just bad law; it was
unconstitutional. And it was finally found unconstitutional by
the courts.
Unlike so-called sanctuary laws, Missouri's SAPA law was
ultimately struck down but because it expressly countermanded
Federal law and violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S.
Constitution, which ensures that Federal law is the law of the
land and cannot simply be ignored or negated by individual
states.
So, now here is where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to
ignore. So, just last week in this very Committee, I listened
to my Republican colleagues argue at length that state and
local law enforcement should step into the shoes of Federal
immigration enforcement and do the Federal Government's job for
them.
They insisted that cities undermine the rule of law by
exercising their sovereign right to put public safety over
immigration enforcement and decline ICE's voluntary civil
requests--because that is what they are--to detain someone
longer than the law permits.
They even went so far as to argue that cities and states
that fail to meet Donald Trump's immigration-policy demands
should lose all Federal funding.
The reality is that, unlike the SAPA law, none of these
laws conflict with Federal law. None of them prevent ICE from
doing its job or carrying out Federal immigration policy, and
none of them prevent cities from cooperating closely with
Federal law enforcement across a range of areas, as cities have
been doing every day.
But when it comes to gun laws, suddenly those same
Republican lawmakers are nowhere to be found. They actively
supported the SAPA law, a law that actually did prevent the
Federal Government from executing its policies by prohibiting
local law enforcement from enforcing Federal gun laws and,
incredibly, threatening police officers with penalties for
simply working to keep illegal firearms out of the hands of
violent offenders.
So, it seems like Republicans are trying to have it both
ways. So, I am asking, where do Republicans stand?
Deprioritizing public safety and burning the relationships that
they have built with their communities? Are we--where is the
consistency?
And I did not hear anyone say, oh, this is a problem with
that law, with the coordination of local law enforcement and
Federal law enforcement. But now, all of a sudden, we are
seeing this requirement that local law enforcement do the job--
not the coordination and working together, but the requirement
to do the job. And so----
Mr. Biggs. Point of order.
Ms. Boebert. His time has expired.
Mr. Bell. I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman yields.
Point of order?
Mr. Biggs. Yes. The time had expired, Mr. Chairman. I hope
I get that same extra 30 seconds.
Mr. Higgins. Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely. I had--the Chair had
acknowledged earlier the generous use of time.
Mr. Biggs. You are a generous----
Mr. Higgins. And I am honored to extend that generous use
of time to my colleague Mr. Biggs for 5 minutes or so for
questions.
Mr. Biggs. You are a generous Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
My first question will go to you, Mr. Humire. Can you
discuss how the cartels have been able to build stronger
illicit networks within the United States?
Mr. Humire. Essentially, the cartels have been utilizing
all kinds of revenue streams. It started with cocaine. It has
moved to synthetics. It is now into human smuggling, human
trafficking. And pretty--there is a range of illicit
enterprises that the cartels are taking over.
They are not just operating in Mexico; they are operating
all throughout the Western Hemisphere, in fact, the world. They
are appearing in Europe. They are appearing in Canada. And what
they are doing is they are creating an enterprise that is
upwards of--cocaine itself, $170 billion annually, a year.
So, these are things that many governments have a hard time
to outpace in terms of the financial resources. So, our hope is
not to outpace them dollar for dollar, but yet to understand
how they operate and dismantle those logistics.
Mr. Biggs. And when was the last time you were at the
border, Mr. Humire?
Mr. Humire. About 3 weeks ago.
Mr. Biggs. OK.
Sheriff, a question for you is: Will you please just
briefly discuss the importance of the 287(g) program, how you
have utilized it, and whether you think it is working?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Well, it is absolutely working.
And one of the things that is important with these
immigration detainers is that what Ms. Doyle did not
acknowledge in her response was that, under policy, every
single time that one of these, quote, ``voluntary'' detainers
is issued, it is accompanied by an arrest warrant, an I-205 or
an I-200. So, they are not voluntary, in the sense that they
have a warrant that is accompanying them.
So, there are three models: There is the Warrant Service
Officer Program to get these warrants served in the jails.
There is the jail enforcement model, which is full-blown
investigations in the jail. And there is the DIO, designated
immigration officer, on the street.
Where we help ICE--and we are helping ICE to take these
criminal illegals off the street. It is very important, and it
does go to public safety. And it is shortsighted and it is
wrong to have sanctuary-city policies, because it creates
officer-safety issues and public-safety issues.
These sanctuary-city policies are saying that we are not
going to hold these criminal illegals, we are going to put them
back out on the street. And then ICE has to go back into the
community and find these criminal illegals.
If they would just allow ICE to come into the jails and
take the rapists and the murderers and the robbers and the
burglars and the child-porn people out of the jails and deport
them, they would keep them from going into the street.
And everybody is all up in arms about these collaterals,
these people who do not commit any crime. Well, let them go
into the jails and focus on the criminals, and then that would
not happen.
They are shortsighted in these sanctuary-city policies.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
And you get to the point, which is, if you hand over the
individual in the jail, everybody is safer. The officer is
safer, the criminal is safer, and the community is safer.
Sheriff Gualtieri. One hundred percent, Mr. Biggs.
Mr. Biggs. So, I just have to ask this question of you, Mr.
Humire. Is it radical to open up your border? Is it extreme to
open up your border? Is it ``cruelty is the point'' when you
open up your border, and that causes something like 60 percent
of every female coming across the border to be raped, and no
matter what the age is, and about 35 percent of every male
coming across to be raped? Does that sound like a humane
policy?
Mr. Humire. Absolutely not.
If you want to dismantle your democracy, you have to
dismantle the sovereignty. A border protects the sovereignty of
your country. The first step to dismantling democracy is to
erode a sovereign border.
And, in fact, migrants are oftentimes the victims of all
this. They are the ones that get killed, raped, trafficked. And
so, the best form of migrant care is actually border security.
Mr. Biggs. And, Sheriff, when is the last time you were at
the border? Any border--Texas, Arizona?
Sheriff Gualtieri. It has been a while.
Mr. Biggs. OK.
Ms. Doyle, when is the last time you were at the border?
Ms. Doyle. I would say about 10 months ago.
Mr. Biggs. Ten months ago?
Ms. Doyle. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. Which border did you go to?
Ms. Doyle. I have been both to the San Diego Sector as well
as El Paso Sector.
Mr. Biggs. OK.
Ms. Doyle. And the northern border as well, I should
mention----
Mr. Biggs. OK.
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. In Seattle.
Mr. Biggs. So, I was there about 3 or 4 weeks ago, myself,
down at the border, and it is night and day. Because I have
been down to the border--I grew up in what was in a border
district in Arizona. It is night and day.
And what causes that? Is it because we enacted new
legislation? No. I do not care what former President Biden
said. He said, you have to have new legislation. That was
false. It was a lie. What it took was enforcing the law.
And that is not what the sanctuary cities are doing. We had
a nice discussion, your mayor and I did. I had a nice
discussion with all the mayors. They all have criminal
culpability. I think you misinterpreted the statutes, the three
Federal statutes that I referenced last week.
The bottom line is, if you want to have safer communities,
you control your border. You have to control your border. And
you enforce the law. That is what has dried it up.
If you go down to the T.O. Res, and what you see there--and
I met with some folks from there today--I will tell you, I like
those people a lot, but they--through the Vekol Valley, that is
the number-one human-trafficking, drug-trafficking, and human-
smuggling corridor in the world, even now because we cannot
enforce the law adequately in that 62 linear miles.
You want safety? That is what you profess you want. Then
you better enforce the law. And that is not cruelty. It is
not----
Ms. Lee. Mr. Chair, he has had his extra 30 seconds.
Mr. Biggs. It is not cruelty. It is not, you know, in spite
of the rudeness of my----
Ms. Lee. Point of order.
Mr. Biggs [continuing]. Colleague across the aisle,----
Ms. Lee. We did not give Mr. Bell an extra minute.
Mr. Biggs [continuing]. It is not extreme; it is not
radical.
Mr. Higgins. If the gentleman would pause.
I recognize your point of order. The Chair has allowed
Members on both sides to speak----
Ms. Lee. Certainly, but he was not----
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. In some cases, I believe, over a
minute.
Ms. Lee. No, actually, he was only over 30 seconds, and the
gentlewoman interrupted him, and he did not get to finish his
thought.
Mr. Higgins. We do not need to check the record.
Ms. Lee. We can.
Mr. Higgins. The Chair is going to allow the gentleman to
conclude his questioning.
Ms. Lee. And I think we should do that, but I do think that
we should----
Mr. Biggs. Mr. Chairman?
Ms. Lee [continuing]. Do things with fairness.
Mr. Biggs. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Higgins. Mr. Biggs is recognized.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
And I am happy to yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
your indulgence.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, sir. I shall continue to extend
that indulgence, including----
Ms. Lee. Oh, I just wanted to----
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. To Ms. Simon, who is now
recognized for 5 minutes for questions.
Ms. Simon. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, Ranking Member Lee.
I just have a couple of quick questions.
Some folks on our side of the aisle know that I dig into
the congressional Record daily. And in 1942 there was an
executive order, Executive Order 9066.
And I am sure, Professor, you know that order.
You also may remember, if you have studied 1942, there was
also the congressional act--it was an act passed by Congress;
it was called Public Law 503.
Just like Public Law 503 and just like the Executive Order
9066, I would assert that, at some point, this Nation, too,
will have to reckon with the shame of what we are doing.
You might recall, in 1942, that members of the Japanese
community as a whole were interned based on who they were,
because this Congress, at that time, as did the President, said
that they were all, indeed, criminals.
They were interned in my district. They were taken out to
the streets, with keys on their necks, and incarcerated for
months and months and months, not given the civil rights that
they deserved.
I have a quick question for Professor--or, I should say,
Judge Doyle. Actually, it is a two-part question. I will ask
it, and you can answer.
We have talked a lot about detainers here. I worked in a
jail for quite some time, particularly around DV, and I know,
even in the most progressive of cities, judges have a lot of
power here. When someone comes in for--they are arrested and
they are charged. They come in the morning; the charging
attorney charges them. They are still in custody. They do not
have, usually, a preliminary hearing for quite some time. But
if you are arrested for rape, if you are arrested for child
pornography, are you getting out that same day or a couple of
weeks?
I just want you to just answer, if you are charged with a
serious crime by a district attorney--I know you are on the
civil side, but I am just curious--we are just not throwing
people out.
Ms. Doyle. And you are talking about in the immigration
system or in----
Ms. Simon. No. I am asking in the criminal system.
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. The criminal system?
Again, my experience there is less, but I would say,
extremely unlikely that someone with a violent criminal charge
would be released, in my experience.
Ms. Simon. My other question is really around detainers. I
want you--actually, it is a three-part question. I want you to
talk a little bit about the detainment process.
You know that, in some jurisdictions around the country,
the public defender's office, who is on the criminal side, is
also working with the civil side. In the immigration court, we
know that folks do not have rights to attorneys on the
immigration side. I want you to talk a little bit about that.
But, moreover, in your experience, after you were pushed
away from the bench, I am curious to understand your
understanding of what is wrong, in part, with our immigration
system, particularly the asylum process, knowing that there is
over 160,000 people without papers right now waiting and
waiting and waiting and waiting to be able to access what we
believe as Americans is a right to an asylum process. Some
folks in this room call them illegal and dehumanize them, but
these are folks who are escaping persecution.
So, again, those two questions around detaining and really
what we really need to do to break open a criminal justice
system that actually works and an immigration system that is
not broken.
Ms. Doyle. So, to take the second question first, the
system--the asylum system, the immigration court system, OPLA--
needs additional funding. There are 3.7 million cases currently
in the immigration court backlog. There are 700 judges.
Department of Justice has asked for additional judges, yet they
have been firing judges, inexplicably.
Ms. Simon. You, too, ma'am, were fired. Is that correct?
Ms. Doyle. Yes, I was.
And it is very important, also, that----
Ms. Simon. In your court--actually----
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. We have more----
Ms. Simon [continuing]. In your courtroom, would you ever
see children by themselves without an attorney?
Ms. Doyle. Absolutely. A number of the undocumented
children do appear without counsel.
We had provided a juvenile court docket so that children
would not be mixed in with adults and that the OPLA attorneys
could put their eyes on them and work with----
Ms. Simon. So, funding----
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. Homeland Security Investigations--
--
Ms. Simon. We know funding, and we know that folks who
are----
Ms. Doyle. We do not have funds for any of that.
Ms. Simon. We need funding to create a system that actually
works----
Ms. Doyle. Absolutely. And----
Ms. Simon [continuing]. For folks. But talk about----
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. Ultimately, we need comprehensive
immigration reform, because there has to be legal pathways. As
Representative Gosar mentioned, there has to be legal pathways
for legal immigration that the employers and that the
individuals that are fleeing fear can utilize and such that our
border is safe and that our communities can be responsive.
Ms. Simon. Judge Doyle, you have 3 seconds. Talk about the
detainers.
If I can have 5 seconds?
Ms. Doyle. I am sorry. Can you remind me----
Ms. Simon. The detainer issue.
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. What you wanted me to say?
Ms. Simon. The civil rights around detainers.
Ms. Doyle. Detainers issues, yes.
So, again, detainers are voluntary. They are administrative
warrants; they are not judicial warrants. And that each
community should be able to work together with their
communities to either enforce warrants as they see fit--again,
Boston, being the safest large city in the country, works
closely, community trust, with their city and their community
and their police and with ICE, also, when needed, but----
Ms. Simon. I appreciate the example. I am going to have to
yield back.
Ms. Doyle. Yes.
Ms. Simon. Thank you so much for your testimony today, all
of you.
Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
Congresswoman Mace is recognized for 5 minutes for
questioning.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to keep it to
5 minutes.
Ms. Doyle, you taught--you are an immigration attorney?
Ms. Doyle. Yes.
Ms. Mace. OK. And you teach immigration law?
Ms. Doyle. I have in the past, yes.
Ms. Mace. And you were a legal advisor to ICE?
Ms. Doyle. I was, yes.
Ms. Mace. Question: Do you support President Trump's policy
to designate cartels as terrorist organizations?
Ms. Doyle. I think that by designating----
Ms. Mace. It's a ``yes'' or ``no.'' Do you support
President Trump's policy to designate cartels as----
Ms. Doyle. I support focusing on national security in----
Ms. Mace. Do you support President----
Ms. Doyle. dealing with our immigration.
Ms. Mace [continuing]. Trump's policy to designate cartels
as terrorist organizations,
Ms. Doyle. I think it is important----
Ms. Mace [continuing]. ``Yes'' or ``no''?
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. To focus on national security.
Ms. Mace. OK.
Should rapists--should illegals who are here illegally who
rape American women and girls--should they be deported, ``yes''
or ``no''?
Ms. Doyle. Individuals with serious criminal convictions
such as that are deported every single day.
Ms. Mace. Oh, no, they are not.
What about murderers? Do you think murderers should be
deported?
Ms. Doyle. Murderers are also subject to deportation.
Ms. Mace. OK.
So, there is a sanctuary sheriff named Kristin Graziano in
Charleston County, South Carolina, who refused to work with
ICE--refused to work with ICE. And she was letting criminal
illegals out on the street who are raping my constituents,
raping women in Charleston, in South Carolina--pedophiles,
child molesters, murderers out onto the streets of South
Carolina. This is happening in bright-red South Carolina, this
sanctuary sheriff.
So, they are not being deported, because there are
sanctuary mayors. You want to quote Mayor Wu as being this gift
from God about safety. I mean, she was literally, like,
praising or sending her condolences to a knife-wielding maniac
trying to murder people on the streets of Boston. It is crazy
to me.
And here, you have a law degree, you have advised on
immigration to ICE, and you cannot even say whether or not you
want the cartels to be designated as terrorist organizations.
You are hiding behind some little lofty quote about national
security, which is not really making a whole lot of sense.
One of the things I did want to fact-check some of my
colleagues on today is this idea--and it has been said by
multiple people, online and in this hearing today--that it is
not illegal to come here illegally. Well, under Title 8, it
actually is--Title 8, U.S.C. 1325, about the improper entry of
an alien. It is breaking the law when you enter here illegally.
And our witness Ms. Doyle cited in her opening presentation
the 10th Amendment, that it gives absolute control to states
and cities and counties to handle the immigration issue. It
actually does not. And I am shocked, as an attorney, that you
do not know the law. Because it says, under the law, and in
multiple places, especially in longstanding Supreme Court
precedent--but the 10th Amendment says, the power is not
delegated to the Federal Government or reserved for the states.
Congress's power to regulate immigration primarily stems from
Article I, Section 8, Clause 4, and that is the power to
establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and under Article
I, Section 8, Clause 3, power to regulate commerce with foreign
nations.
I am not even an attorney, and I could easily look that up.
I think we need to have higher standards for those who are
lawyers and also practicing law and teaching law to our
students, because-- there is a longstanding Supreme Court
precedent, also, that has recognized Congress as having plenary
power over immigration and not, actually, the states. And
``plenary'' means absolute control.
So, last year, I exposed a sanctuary sheriff who was doing,
day after day after day, months after months--I exposed her for
releasing the worst of the worst, the most violent, those
illegals that were committing the worst possible crimes. I
fought to get rid of this sanctuary sheriff, Kristin Graziano,
when I had documents sent to me by a whistleblower, and I ended
up talking to multiple sources about this.
I was one of the only elected officials that called out our
sanctuary sheriff in South Carolina, Kristin Graziano. No one
in state-wide elected office--not my attorney general, Alan
Wilson; not my lieutenant Governor, Pam Evette--if you are
listening and you are watching, you stood by, silent, as a
sanctuary sheriff let out murderers, let out rapists, let out
child molesters and pedophiles out onto the streets of South
Carolina. It was wrong. It was unethical. It was illegal.
I had 145 Democrats vote against my bill, the Violence
Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act. 145 Democrats voted
against deporting those who are here illegally, the worst of
the worst--murderers, rapists, pedophiles.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back. I did it in record time today.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
Congresswoman Boebert is recognized for 5 minutes for
questioning.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hu--``Humire''?
Mr. Humire. Yes.
Ms. Boebert. So, we have seen under the Biden
Administration the failed open-border policies that really
fueled and exasperated the immigration crisis, the illegal
immigration crisis in my home state of Colorado.
And the previous Administration released at least 11
million illegal aliens and at least 100 known terrorists and,
estimates indicate, 250,000 to 585,000 pounds of fentanyl into
our communities, Colorado being the number-two state in the
Nation for fentanyl overdoses--really, fentanyl poisoning. Most
of these folks are not seeking after fentanyl but they are
being tricked into taking it.
How do you believe that the Biden Administration's policies
empowered terrorists and these terrorist organizations, like
Tren de Aragua, to commit violent crimes against American
citizens, especially in places like Colorado and Aurora?
Mr. Humire. The Biden Administration's immigration and
border policies provided a magnet for all kinds of criminals
and terrorists to basically say, ``Oh, the border is open. We
are going to move in.'' And that empowered enemies and
adversaries of the United States, including nation-states, to
then steer those migrants to be able to come into our country.
And, Ms. Congresswoman, you mentioned the Tren de Aragua.
Ms. Boebert. Uh-huh.
Mr. Humire. The Tren de Aragua is uniquely a phenomenon of
the Biden Administration. It did not exist inside the United
States prior to 2021.
In fact, most of the Venezuelan migration that was leaving
that country since 2014 fled south, through South America.
Because the Venezuelan Government was able to establish both a
land bridge through the Darien Gap, a once-uncrossable border
between Panama and Colombia, and an air bridge into Mexico,
they timed that because they knew that President Biden was
going to open the border.
Now we have Tren de Aragua in 23 states, including your
state of Colorado. And they have captured, killed, and raped
all kinds of Americans throughout the country.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you for highlighting that this is a new
problem that we were not encountering before, with this gang
presence in our country.
And now, recent reports have been about leaks taking place
within law enforcement, sensitive information detailing the ICE
raids targeting illegal criminal aliens.
How do these leaks affect law enforcement efforts to keep
the country safe?
Mr. Humire. I am familiar with the leak that happened in
your state, in Colorado, that was a major raid. That was more
than 400 agents that were deployed to basically take down the
Tren de Aragua in apartment complexes.
That not only puts at risk the law enforcement officials
that are engaged in that raid, but it puts at risk the entire
community, because it allows that gang to figure out the leaks,
the vulnerabilities in our law enforcement system.
What I am very concerned about, the Tren de Aragua in
particular, is very adept at co-opting government officials.
They have done this throughout countries all throughout South
America. Because they use this later to be able to create media
apparatuses, other kinds of propaganda, to defend their
interests, which is through illegal migration.
Ms. Boebert. Yes.
And a question that I did want to ask you: How does it help
or hurt when Members of Congress see this and engage in the
leaks and prop them up and then even have special townhall-like
events where they are telling illegal aliens how to remain in
the country?
Mr. Humire. Well, they are either wittingly or unwittingly
aligning themselves with that transnational criminal
organization's strategic objectives.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you.
Ms. Doyle, in Aurora, Colorado, we have been talking about
the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and they were tied to
incidents at multiple apartment complexes where violent gangs--
they had events like home invasions, shootings, kidnappings,
assaults, and extortion for rent payments. And just last year,
nine suspected TDA members were charged after a violent home
invasion into an apartment complex and left two victims
seriously injured.
As a legal advisor under the Biden Administration, did you
ever advise anyone that we should be doing something to prevent
this kind of gang activity in our communities?
Ms. Doyle. I am unable to discuss due to my ethical
obligations to confidentiality any advice I gave, but I----
Ms. Boebert. Are you not here as a Principal Legal Advisor?
Ms. Doyle. But I cannot break my confidentiality for any
specific advice.
I will tell you that we always focused on national security
and public safety and supported the brave and hardworking law
enforcement officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and
Homeland Security Investigations.
Ms. Boebert. Did you ever advocate for coordination between
Federal law enforcement officers and local and state----
Ms. Doyle. Yes.
Ms. Boebert [continuing]. Law enforcement officers?
Ms. Doyle. Yes.
Ms. Boebert. Well, we have in Denver and in Colorado two
different--multiple statutes that prevent that coordination.
So, were there conversations and are you still advocating,
if you were, to have those sanctuary policy laws removed so we
can have that coordination?
Ms. Doyle. Each community should be able to determine
themselves what works for their community. As we mentioned,
holding Boston up as the safest large city in the country----
Ms. Boebert. Oh, I think our Federal laws----
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. Which does not allow----
Ms. Boebert [continuing]. Would keep our communities the
safest. Our Federal laws are on the books and say that they
should require state and local law enforcement officers to
collaborate with Federal immigration authorities.
Ms. Doyle. I think local----
Ms. Boebert. However, the Biden Administration empowered
sanctuary cities.
And as a legal advisor, I would just assume that you were
part of the empowering of places like Denver to pass these
ordinances. Is that true?
Ms. Doyle. Local mayors, cities, towns, and the states
should be able to determine their own policies and their own
approaches. And while we worked for ICE, yes, we always
encouraged cooperation as far as----
Ms. Boebert. I believe Federal law should be followed at
all costs. Thank you, ma'am.
My time has expired.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
My colleague, Mr. Perry, Congressman Perry, is recognized
for 5 minutes for questioning.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Sheriff, according to ICE--you are the sheriff, right?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Yes.
Mr. Perry. Florida, yes, Pinellas County?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Yes.
Mr. Perry. According to ICE, as of July 21 last year, there
were 662,566 illegal aliens with criminal histories free in the
United States. And, of course, those are just the ones that ICE
knows about.
Now, I happened to be present at a hearing a week or a week
and a half ago with the mayors of some of what people would
describe as ``sanctuary cities.'' Now, I found it interesting
that none of the folks that were testifying, the mayors, they
would not refer to them as ``sanctuary cities.'' They referred
to them as ``welcoming cities.'' But that is another story.
Maybe we will get into that.
But be that as it may, they all claimed that there was no
correlation between increased crime rates and illegal
immigration. Fascinating.
At the same time, none of them--well, they all admitted to
not keeping any records regarding immigration status of the
people that they arrested or that were arrested in their cities
for criminal activity.
And I am just wondering--look, you are a law enforcement
guy. This is your vocation.
Sheriff Gualtieri. Uh-huh.
Mr. Perry. This is what you do. This is your passion. What
are we supposed to think, what are members of the public
supposed to think when they see that?
The claim is made that there is no correlation. Yet it
seems pretty obvious to me that you cannot know the answer if
you are not going to ask the question.
Am I out of the ballpark here, or what is happening?
Sheriff Gualtieri. No, you are completely in the ballpark.
It is ridiculous to think that the people who are here
illegally and are also committing crime are not a horrific
impact to every community in this country.
And when you have these sanctuary policies--that are not
welcoming policies, because even people who are here illegally
who are not committing crime, they do not want to be victims of
crime.
And so, it is disingenuous to say that we are not going to
ask, we are not going to track these people who we are
arresting who are committing all these crimes to know their
immigration status, because those are the people that we need
to get rid of. If you come into this country illegally and you
are not here because of proper legal status, you need to go,
and you need to go yesterday.
And that is what law enforcement needs to be focused on,
and that is what every city should be focused on, is not to
encourage, not to allow, not to permit these people to wreak
havoc in our communities. And that is what they are doing.
Mr. Perry. So, I suspect you have pledged an oath to keep
the citizens that you--you are an elected sheriff, right?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Right.
Mr. Perry. You pledged to keep them safe under the
authority of your law enforcement position.
You know, what is the impetus for an elected official to
not want to know--like, to not collect that information?
And, you know, we are the Federal Government, right? So, we
do not want to be telling--listen, law enforcement is a state
and local issue, generally speaking, as it should be. So, we do
not want to tell you how to run your railroad here.
But what are we to do? How are we going to get the
information to make good decisions and good policy decisions,
other than just conjecture, if you are not going to collect
that information? Do you have any advice for us? Do you have a
recommendation for us?
I mean, the Mayor of Chicago said he is a welcoming city,
and over and over again complained that the Governor of Texas
was sending all these people to his city. But he was saying he
is a welcoming city; he is welcoming them. And, apparently, he
did not get the memo that those people were not forced to come
to Chicago; they chose to go to Chicago. And I suspect they
chose to go to Chicago because he was welcoming them because
they were seeking sanctuary--and that is, sanctuary from law
enforcement.
How do we--if we have local officials who are sworn to
protect their citizens and uphold the law but refuse to collect
information regarding the law and infractions by people here
illegally, how do we get that information?
Sheriff Gualtieri. Well, you cannot reconcile that. Why
would you be welcoming to people who are here illegally and
here committing crime?
You know, there is also 1.4 million people that have final
orders of deportation with I-205s, which are the removal
warrants, who have just thumbed their nose at the immigration
courts, the immigration system, and said they are not leaving.
So, there are a whole lot of people who are not the people
that they want to talk about, which are the people that have
been here for 15, 20 years who are a product of failed
immigration policies and are just going about their business.
That is what they want to talk about. They do not want to talk
about all the people who are thumbing their nose at the system,
that have warrants outstanding for them, that are committing
crime, that are wreaking havoc in the communities, and the ones
that we are desperately trying to get rid of and to remove and
to deport because they are a problem for all of us.
And, again, like I said, they are a problem for U.S.
citizens. They are a problem even for those that are here
illegally who are not committing crime. And to say we welcome
them? That makes no sense.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman yields.
After consultation with the Ranking Member, I request
unanimous consent that each side be given 2 minutes of
additional time to question the witnesses.
Without objection, so ordered.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Gosar for 2 minutes. And if you
have 30 seconds to yield, we will appreciate it, at the end of
your 2 minutes.
Mr. Gosar. OK.
Mr. Humire, you brought up NGOs. So--and this is an
interesting topic for me, because I want to find out, you know,
if you took any Federal money for an NGO, whether you got it
directly or indirectly--that we should know about that to make
our decisions.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Humire. I would.
Mr. Gosar. So, transparency is a big deal?
Mr. Humire. Correct.
Mr. Gosar. OK.
Let me ask you--I want to put it in for the record, 8, U.S.
Code 1324, for the record.
Mr. Higgins. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Gosar. Are you familiar with that code, Mr. Humire?
Mr. Humire. I am not. I am sorry.
Mr. Gosar. It is bringing in and harboring illegal aliens--
certain illegal aliens.
Are you familiar with it now?
Mr. Humire. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. OK.
So, before I go to this question, Ms. Doyle, I think you
misunderstood me. The only thing I changed about the
immigration system is the OPT program. Are you familiar with
the OPT program?
Ms. Doyle. I am, yes.
Mr. Gosar. So, what we did is we gave the richest of the
rich the opportunity to bypass quotas, right? We allowed the
big platforms to bring in anybody you want, there is no caps,
and they got a 15-percent discount after paying these people a
lot less.
So, they are not paying their fair share. They are not
paying their fair share. Let me say that again. They are not
paying their fair share of taxes, Social Security, and
Medicare. Right?
Ms. Doyle. When you are saying ``OPT,'' you mean Optional
Practical Training----
Mr. Gosar. Oh, yes, absolutely.
Ms. Doyle [continuing]. For students? OK.
Mr. Gosar. Yes.
So, it--and coming back to my question for Mr. Humire, that
is a flagrant violation of law, isn't it?
So, I am looking forward to finding out more about this,
about who is aiding and abetting who here. Because a lot of
this was trafficking children, right? We heard Mr. Biggs talk
about it--women and children.
And last but not least, tell me, does everybody qualify for
asylum?
Mr. Humire. No.
Mr. Gosar. What is the determination?
Mr. Humire. Political, religious, or racial persecution.
Mr. Gosar. They have to prove it, right?
Mr. Humire. Correct.
Mr. Gosar. OK.
Well, I yield back to Mr. Chairman. Thanks for the
opportunity to get that in the record, and I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. Yes, sir.
The gentleman yields.
And the Chair recognizes the Ranking Member for 2 minutes
for additional questions.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just want to take a moment to clarify a couple of the
things that we heard throughout this Committee, particularly on
detainer requests and the legality of them.
My Republican colleagues are once again propagating the
myth that state and local laws that decline ICE detainer
requests or prevent the sharing of certain information with ICE
are in violation of the Constitution and Federal law, so I
would like to set the record straight.
The courts have repeatedly affirmed the legality of these
state and local laws. For example, in 2020, the U.S. Supreme
Court had an opportunity to overturn the California Values Act
but instead upheld the Court of Appeals decision that the law
was unconstitutional. And the Third Circuit Court of Appeals
has held that immigration detainers, quote, ``do not and cannot
compel a state or local government agency to detain suspected
aliens subject to removal.''
I will also remind my colleagues that the Supreme Court has
repeatedly held that the Constitution prohibits the Federal
Government from commandeering state and local law enforcement,
exactly as the Trump Administration is doing right now.
If I could ask a question very quickly, changing gears a
bit: Judge Doyle, you were recently appointed under President
Biden to serve as an immigration court judge but were
dismissed.
Can you tell me about the immigration court backlog and how
the actions of the Trump Administration, like your dismissal,
are hurting the immigration system?
Ms. Doyle. Yes, Ranking Member Lee.
As I mentioned, there is 3.7 million cases currently in the
backlog. With the aggressive enforcement that is going on, that
number will balloon. In addition to the termination of TPS and
the parole status, that number will continue to grow.
The 13 people that were in my class that were all fired on
February 14, we each represented the completion of between 500
and 700 cases in a year. That is between 7,000 and 9,000 cases
that will now no longer be heard in the immigration courts,
adding to the backlog and to the difficulty of getting people
through the system, those that are eligible being able to get
their relief, and those that are not eligible being ordered
removed.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
And with the remainder of my time, I would like to ask
unanimous consent to enter a couple things into the record.
Mr. Higgins. What all is it?
Ms. Lee. I have an NPR article that shows immigrants are
less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens.
Another report about the effects of sanctuary cities on
crime, one showing that sanctuary cities are actually safer
than others, specifically that, on average, 35.5 fewer crimes
committed per 10,000 people in sanctuary counties compared to
non-sanctuary counties.
Mr. Higgins. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. In closing, I would like to thank our
panelists----
Ms. Boebert. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. Once again for their testimony
today.
Have I missed someone?
Mr. Perry. Do we not get the 2 minutes?
Mr. Higgins. Oh, we had the total of 2 minutes agreed to by
unanimous consent----
Ms. Boebert. We are OK with that----
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. Not 2 minutes of additional
questions----
Mr. Perry. Oh, OK.
Ms. Boebert. We are OK with that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. A total of 2 minutes.
I yield to Ranking Member Lee for closing remarks.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to our panel of witnesses for coming in and
testifying at today's hearing.
What we heard today was Republicans lumping in whole
communities and cultures into one faceless label that they can
blame all of the country's problems on. They can create the
narrative that it is us versus them.
Republicans push again and again this myth that all
immigrants are violent criminals, which is simply not true. We
know that immigrants are significantly less likely to commit
crimes than people born in the U.S. But painting them with a
broad brush makes it easier to villainize them.
I know we are going to be spending a lot of time this
Congress talking about immigration, and Republicans are going
to continue to talk about public safety, as we should. I think
we can all agree that we want to live in a safer world. I think
we can all agree that we want policies that make us safer, but
because of policy choices, we do not have that safety.
I did not hear any Republicans talking about tackling the
root causes of migration or the root causes of global
instability. Republicans know that mass-deportation policies do
nothing to actually fix these problems.
But they are not proposing real fixes, because it is
expensive--or, rather, it is quite lucrative for those
exploiting the status quo.
If my Republican colleagues were serious about reducing
crime, this hearing would have been about investing in our
communities and addressing the root causes of crime. But these
things cost money and take time. Instead, they are working to
divest from our communities and to only fund ICE mass-
deportation raids and tax cuts for their billionaire donors.
Real change is hard. And ``us versus them'' makes a better
sound bite for Fox News.
So many of the crimes Republicans are speaking about, like
thefts or muggings, are crimes of desperation. If we get rid of
the things that cause the desperation, we could get rid of the
crime.
Food insecurity, housing insecurity, a lack of high-quality
public schools, our polluted air and water, having to work
multiple jobs and barely scraping by--those are problems that
cause crime. The true enemy is poverty, not immigration status.
We need jobs that pay a living wage so that people can
afford their necessities and to spend time with their loved
ones and their families. We need affordable mental health and
addiction treatment to help those suffering. We need humane
immigration policies that lift those communities up and address
the root causes of immigration.
Until we work on investing in wraparound services--
healthcare, after-school programs, and balance interrupters--we
are not having a serious conversation about crime.
But the reality is that those things cost money, again. And
in this age of DOGE, it is cheaper to ``other'' a community.
For Republicans, sometimes it may seem easier to send ICE
agents into hospitals than to make sure that those inside can
afford the healthcare they need. It is easier to send and
station ICE agents right outside of your school, your child's
school, instead of spending money on resources to educate your
child.
Children are afraid to go to school. One reportedly wrote a
goodbye note to their friend, saying, ``If ICE takes me, do not
forget about me.''
If we are going to talk about criminals, we should maybe
talk about the things that Elon Musk is doing, such as
ransacking this country right before our eyes. He is slashing
and burning government programs, putting our personal data at
risk, and fattening his own bank account with government
contracts.
Musk and other billionaires are the ones benefiting from
keeping people poor and desperate. They keep your wages low and
your rent high. They price-gouge and exploit workers and
pollute the environment.
We should talk about how Donald Trump has levied steep
tariffs on our closest allies, tanked the stock market, and
refused to consider that his policies threaten to plunge this
country into a recession.
But y'all do not want to talk about that.
This cycle of scapegoating marginalized communities is lazy
and dangerous and does nothing to make our country a safer and
better place to live.
I hope in future hearings we can focus less on demonizing
immigrant communities and more on ways to truly better our
communities. I know that that is what we want. I know that if
you have taken the oath of office in this country, that you
want all of our neighbors in all of our districts to live a
safer life.
With that, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
I recognize myself for closing remarks.
I have been stating very clearly in committees and in my
public conversations in service to ``we, the people'' for many
years, reflective of my background in law enforcement, that
effective policies that lean toward enforcing the law lead to
safer communities and more economically prosperous communities.
It is difficult to do business when violent crime or out-of-
control property crime is a threat. Clearly, every American
understands that.
And for the last 4 years, our Nation has suffered from
quite a porous southern border. And we were advised that the
executives--there was nothing they could do about it.
And they even created what they referred to as ``legal
pathways''--America, listen to this. They created ``legal
pathways,'' they would call it, for illegal immigration. This
is where a corroboration between the previous Administration's
Executive and the cartel human-trafficking business and drug
trafficking--it is where you saw actual corroboration between
our Federal Government and cartel operations.
So, folks would ask me, how long would it take to secure
the border if we were to enforce the law? I would say, if you
have a change in policy, 2 weeks. In 2 weeks, we will have
things shut down. Right? The cartels will need a new business
model, man. Because they have been making a lot of money. I am
talking about a billion dollars a week, by some estimates. And
they have been building that business model for years, wide-
open, running into our country. Our entire country has been the
victim of cartel human and drug trafficking.
And now these--the illegal immigrants that are what we call
in law enforcement ``in the game,'' if they are involved in
criminal networks, I would tell them right now, ICE is coming.
You can either self-deport and maybe make it back across the
border with some of the possessions that you have got, or you
can wait for ICE to hit your neighborhood.
And the local law enforcement and state law enforcement
that is of a mind to participate with Federal law enforcement
operations, I am telling all of them to get geared up, get your
mind right, get your training and certifications squared away,
because you will very soon be given the opportunity to join a
task force with ICE in your state, in your community, to remove
criminal illegals from your state and your community. And this
is going to be an ongoing operation.
I must say, as part of my closing, that I think we are
going to have vibrant, vigorous debate in this Subcommittee. As
long as I am the Chairman, I am going to encourage that debate.
And I very much appreciate the Ranking Member meeting with
me prior to this first Subcommittee hearing. And I am going to
do my best to manage both sides. And I am just respectful of
your engagement, Ms. Ranking Member.
And I thank the witnesses for being here today.
We have a lot of work to do. This Subcommittee is going to
be a part of the restoration of law and order in our country.
And, with that, I will remind that all Members have 5
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:54 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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