    [Senate Hearing 119-326]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                          S. Hrg. 119-326

                         SANCTUARY CITIES: THE COST OF
                           UNDERMINING LAW AND ORDER
    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                            COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 March 10, 2026

                                   __________

               Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                www.govinfo.gov

                                   __________

                      U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    63-061                   WASHINGTON : 2026
    =======================================================================

                            COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                  LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina, Chairman
    CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa            JEFFREY A. MERKLEY, Oregon
    MIKE CRAPO, Idaho                    PATTY MURRAY, Washington
    RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin               RON WYDEN, Oregon
    ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas               BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
    JOHN CORNYN, Texas                   SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
    MIKE LEE, Utah                       MARK R. WARNER, Virginia
    JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana              TIM KAINE, Virginia
    PETE RICKETTS, Nebraska              CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
    BERNIE MORENO, Ohio                  BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
    RICK SCOTT, Florida                  ALEX PADILLA, California

                      Nick Myers, Majority Staff Director
                       Ben Ward, Minority Staff Director
                       Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk
                     Alexander C. Scioscia, Assistant Clerk

                              C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                            TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2026
                    OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                       Page
    Senator Lindsey O. Graham, Chairman..............................     1
    Senator Jeffrey A. Merkley.......................................     4
        Prepared Statement...........................................    47

                        STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

    Senator Grassley.................................................    20
    Senator Van Hollen...............................................    22
    Senator Johnson..................................................    24
    Senator Whitehouse...............................................    26
    Senator Cornyn...................................................    27
    Senator Lujan....................................................    29
    Senator Lee......................................................    31
    Senator Padilla..................................................    33
    Senator Kennedy..................................................    34
    Senator Kaine....................................................    36
    Senator Scott....................................................    38
    Senator Moreno...................................................    40

                                   WITNESSES

    The Honorable Chad Wolf, Former Acting Secretary U.S. Department
      of Homeland Security (2019-2020), and Homeland Security and
      Immigration Chair, America First Policy Institute..............     7
        Prepared Statement...........................................    50
    The Honorable Michael L. Chapman, Sheriff of Loudoun County,
      Virginia.......................................................     9
        Prepared Statement...........................................    55
    Ms. Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for
      Immigration Studies............................................    11
        Prepared Statement...........................................    57
    Mr. David J. Bier, The Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration
      Policy, Cato Institute.........................................    12
        Prepared Statement...........................................    67
    Mr. Brendan Duke, Senior Director, Federal Budget Center on
      Budget and Policy Priorities...................................    14
        Prepared Statement...........................................    84

                                    APPENDIX

    Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
        Mr. Bier.....................................................    95
        Mr. Duke.....................................................    96
    Charts submitted by Chairman Graham..............................    97
    Charts submitted by Senator Merkley..............................   103
    Statements submitted for the Record by Chairman Graham...........   107
    Statements submitted for the Record by Senator Merkley...........   122
    Document submitted for the Record by Senator Kaine...............   132
    Documents submitted for the Record by Senator Padilla............   136
    Documents submitted for the Record by Mr. Bier...................   181

                         SANCTUARY CITIES: THE COST OF
                           UNDERMINING LAW AND ORDER

                                  ----------

                            TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2026

                                               Committee on the Budget,
                                                           U.S. Senate,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:00
    a.m., in Dirksen 608, Hon. Lindsey O. Graham, Chairman of the
    Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Graham, Grassley, Johnson, Marshall,
    Cornyn, Lee, Kennedy, Moreno, R. Scott, Merkley, Whitehouse,
    Kaine, Van Hollen, Lujan and Padilla.
        Also present: Republican Staff: Nick Myers, Majority Staff
    Director; Erich Hartman, Deputy Staff Director; Lillian
    Meadows, Senior Counsel; Meghan Green, General Counsel.
        Democratic Staff: Ben Ward, Minority Staff Director;
    Melissa Kaplan-Pistiner, General Counsel; Joshua Smith, Budget
    Policy Director.
        Witnesses:
        The Honorable Chad Wolf, Former Acting Secretary U.S.
    Department of Homeland Security (2019-2020) and Homeland
    Security and Immigration Chair, America First Policy
        The Honorable Michael L. Chapman, Sheriff of Loudoun
    County, Virginia
        Ms. Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center
    for Immigration Studies
        Mr. David J. Bier, The Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration
    Policy, Cato Institute
        Mr. Brendan Duke, Senior Director, Federal Budget Center of
    Budget and Policy Priorities

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN GRAHAM

        Chairman Graham. Good morning. Welcome to the Republican
    hearing on Sanctuary Cities. Are our Democratic friends on the
    way? Should we wait? Do we know if they're coming? Could
    somebody find that out?
        I will go ahead and make sure our Democratic colleagues can
    have their time and ask their questions. So we're the Budget
    Committee, the mighty, mighty Budget Committee that did
    reconciliation and thank you very much. Right on cue. I would
    hope this Committee would take round two and see if we can do
    something on reconciliation round 2. But that'd be up to a
    group of us and talk to the leadership about that.
        But this hearing today, I think it's timely. We're trying
    to look at the budget impact of a policy called Sanctuary
    Cities. Now there are 200, I think cities, 14 States--We got a
    chart here somewhere--that engage in the practice of Sanctuary
    Cities.
        And what is that practice? Local officials, state local
    officials, basically have adopted a policy of not turning over
    to the federal government illegal immigrants subject to being
    turned over, because they don't like the policy. They don't
    want to engage in deporting these people.
        Now, under President Obama, I think three million people
    were deported and I don't believe any Republican refused to
    work with the federal government to deport these people. And
    when President Obama deported three million people, it was
    called being strong and good government. When we try to deport
    people as a result of being invaded by illegal immigrants for
    four years under the Biden administration, we're not seizing
    bad guys.
        I don't buy that at all. I think most Americans would like
    to get control over our country and sovereignty over our
    nation. Immigration done right can be a tremendous benefit to
    the country. When you obliterate the borders for four years and
    people from all over the world flood in, you got a problem and
    it needs to be fixed and cleaned up.
        As to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement
    (ICE), if we can make ICE more professional, if we can do
    things at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that make it
    more professional, count me in. I think Markwayne Mullen will
    be a great Secretary to do that. But to my Democratic
    colleagues, we'll never fix illegal immigration until you get
    to the source of the problem.
        And one of the problems we have is magnets to encourage
    future illegal immigration. I got 12 Sanctuary states, 200
    cities. There are 25,000 people that ICE had a detainer on that
    were refused to be turned over.
        Next one. We believe it endangers public safety, 10,000
    criminals released by Sanctuary policies who went on to be
    arrested for additional crimes. They should have been turned
    over. They weren't. They stayed in the country and they
    committed crimes, $9 billion in fraud that we know of and
    probably growing. 59 percent of illegal immigrant households
    are on government welfare programs costing taxpayers 42 billion
    a year.
        And that's some real, real money. Let me give you a real
    life example of what happens when you don't do this, right?
    Fairfax. I think we're going hear here in a minute from one of
    our sheriffs. Fairfax police warned prosecutors about a repeat
    offender months before deadly bus stop stabbing.
        And this gentleman here, Jalloh, what's his name? Jalloh,
    was in custody and had a pretty bad rap sheet. People in the
    prosecution business say, don't release this--I mean deport
    this guy, turn him over. Don't release him. That was good
    advice.
        It was not taken.
        This young lady here, Stephanie Minter, was murdered by
    this man. And we had this man in detention in Fairfax County
    and they refused to turn him over for deportation. He was
    allowed to stay in the county and the rest is history. A young
    mom is dead because of that decision.
        And who was this guy? He came to the country in 2012. He
    was arrested 30 times, rape, malicious wounding and assault.
    2020, ICE submits a formal detainer to deport him. The request
    is blocked by Virginia's attorney for Fairfax County, a Soros-
    backed prosecutor and defender of Sanctuary Cities who ignored
    the detainer.
        On May, 2025, he was arrested once more for stabbing and
    the individual in the leg, but was--but again released. 30
    arrests. May 2025 stabbed somebody in the leg. Let him go
    again. February 2026, just months later, he murders Ms. Minter.
        I'm not okay with that. I think that's offensive to who we
    are as a rule of law nation to the people in Fairfax County to
    this district attorney. I wish we could find a way for these
    people to sue you and make you pay a heavy price for ignoring
    your legal obligations under federal law and showing such poor
    judgment.
        How many arrests is necessary? How many people need to be
    stabbed before a guy like that is deported? And what's the
    upside of keeping them here? Is this the model citizen we want
    to keep in America? Now there's an ideology around Sanctuary
    City that needs to be broken and we're here to break it.
        I've got legislation designed to change this dynamic. Going
    forward if a local official or a governor, anybody refuses to
    cooperate with federal government in turning over people
    subject to deportation under federal law, they can be
    prosecuted because they should be prosecuted. You got to make
    it so that those who hang on to these illegal immigrants in
    defiance of federal law, that they feel the pain, not just the
    public.
        So my hope is that we can find a way forward to break the
    cycle of the damage being done from Sanctuary Cities, the cost
    incurred to the taxpayer and what happened to Stephanie, just
    like never happens again. We're not going to quit on this. If
    you want to defend it, you're welcome to do it.
        And this is not going away. You'll never have rational
    immigration as long as you have 12 states saying if you get
    here, you never leave. You're never going to fix this if you
    have 200 cities that practice Sanctuary policy, because the
    illegal immigrant believes I get there and never leave.
        I've tried to work with Democrats like many over here to
    find a rational solution to our illegal immigration problem.
    We're not going to ignore four years. So for Joe Biden
    obliterated our border. People came in from all over the world
    by tens of millions, flown into the interior of the country and
    only God knows where they're at.
        Look at the number of people on the terrorist watch list
    and how it's gone up 2,700 percent in '21, '22, '23. Where are
    these people? They don't know. I asked. Nobody knows where
    they're at. So in this invasion during the Biden
    administration, we had 11,000 murderers. Look at the number of
    people on the terrorist watch list. They're in our country and
    we don't know where they're at.
        So what we're going to do is be willing to reform ICE, try
    to fix problems that we've seen, but we're not going to give up
    on the idea that we need to right wrongs here and deport people
    that present danger and try to regain control over our
    immigration system.
        To my Democratic colleagues, what is the answer to
    Sanctuary Cities? Is it to continue the policy? Is it to
    eliminate the policy? All of us say eliminate it. I think the
    public is with us by like 80 percent. Until we eliminate the
    policy, you're going to see more and more stories like I just
    described and it is now time to call the question on Sanctuary
    Cities.
        Will it be the norm going forward in America or will it
    change? To my colleagues on this side of the aisle thank you
    for supporting this effort. We're fully committed to
    eliminating Sanctuary Cities for the good of the country. To my
    Democratic colleagues, we'd love to join with you in a rational
    way to do some things to make ICE more professional.
        But what you need to do in return is work with us to
    eliminate one of the biggest magnets to future illegal
    immigration, which is Sanctuary City policy. With that, Senator
    Merkley.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY \1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        \1\ Prepared statement of Senator Merkley appears in the appendix
    on page 47.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Senator Merkley. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. It's
    been a year since we've had a meeting of this Budget Committee
    and a lot has happened in that last year. Of course, one of the
    big things that happened was a piece of legislation that Trump
    called his Big Beautiful Bill, but most of us consider it a big
    ugly betrayal of the American citizen.
        What did it proceed to do? Slash nutrition for hungry
    children, gutted health care for millions of families,
    enormously increased the wealth of the already wealthiest in
    our country. That's certainly not government by and for the
    people; that's government by and for the powerful. And it
    massively increased our national debt, estimated to be a $30
    trillion increase over the next 30 years.
        And if interest rates are one percent higher than used in
    the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) model, call that a $50
    trillion increase in national debt over the next 30 years and
    it also massively increased the budget for ICE. I don't think
    you'll see many changes in budgets that look like this. You
    won't see a leap like this for housing in America, a
    fundamental need for families.
        You won't see this for health care in America. In fact,
    health care was savaged by the Big Ugly Bill. You won't see
    this for education in America, but you certainly see it for
    ICE. Now these issues of the impact on nutrition budgets and
    health care budgets and housing budgets and deficit and debt
    and the budget for ISOs are all very good topics for this
    Committee to hold a hearing on, but we haven't held a hearing
    on that.
        Now Trump has turned ICE into secret police. I can't
    believe that we now have secret police in America, but we do. I
    well recall studying secret police back when I was in college
    and the basic mark of them was they'd show up in unmarked vans,
    unmarked uniforms, no judicial warrant, knock down doors
    without a judicial warrant, grab people, detain them and often
    prevent them from having access and communication with families
    or lawyers.
        All of that's happening right now in America. We now have a
    secret police called ICE and it's a tremendous black spot on
    our nation that this has happened under this administration.
    Freedom and privacy, laws, norms and our Constitution all
    shredded.
        Heartbreakingly, three American citizens have been killed
    by ICE. Renee Good, Alex Pretti in Minnesota and Reuben Ray
    Martinez in Texas. Now when ICE killed Reuben Ray Martinez,
    they hid the facts. So most Americans aren't aware that a third
    individual was killed. But recent reporting by CBS News
    obtained the body cam footage showing him being killed by an
    ICE officer in March of 2025.
        Now ICE's budget has been increased by a factor of seven.
    The way that it operates has been dramatically changed from the
    norms of law and justice in a democratic republic to the
    strategy of secret police in an authoritarian regime. That
    would be a very good topic for a hearing, given how much ICE's
    budget has increased and we should be holding one in an
    examining that question.
        Wars come with enormous costs. We know that the wars in the
    Middle East and Afghanistan and Iraq were staggering in terms
    of blood and treasure. More than 7,000 Americans killed, more
    than 50,000 Americans injured, often life-altering injuries,
    more than $6 trillion of national treasure expended.
        So here we are. America's at war. That'd be a good topic
    for a budget hearing. Seven U.S. service members already
    killed. The Pentagon estimating a billion dollars a day. And in
    fact, some of my colleagues have said it's $2 billion a day, a
    big change in expenditures and revenues.
        But none of those are the topics of today's hearing, the
    first we've had in a year. But we do have this topic that my
    colleague has pointed out, Sanctuary Cities. Well, Sanctuary is
    a bit of misnomer. Sanctuary states and cities are not places
    that are a safe haven where immigrants cannot be detained or
    deported.
        It refers to the decision that local police will serve as
    local police and not be commandeered to be assistant ICE
    agents. These policies are rooted in the 10th amendment of the
    Constitution and my colleagues across the aisle like to lean on
    state's rights. It's certainly a state's right to refuse to
    have its local police commandeered to be assistant ICE agents,
    assistance now to ICE operating as a secret police in the
    United States of America.
        So the idea that local police do local police work and ICE
    agents do ICE work is protected by our Constitution. But
    there's also a public safety rationale behind it. We know that
    when local police serve as local police, they build
    relationships with the community and decrease crime.
        Research shows that jurisdictions that choose for local
    police to be local police and not assistance to a secret
    police, refusing to be commandeered as a federal agent, they
    have a higher median household income, they have less poverty,
    they have less reliance on public assistance, they have lower
    unemployment. Those all sound like pretty good things to me and
    they have lower crime rates.
        A 2022 study found that allowing local police to be local
    police, not commandeered to be assistant ICE agents, results in
    a decrease in crime rates in those communities. And why? Well,
    because in places where they do get commandeered to be
    assistant ICE agents, they get less information, less trust,
    less ability to prosecute and crime goes up.
        So if my colleagues are all for crime, then persist in
    trying to violate the 10th amendment and the wise wisdom of
    those states that see the wisdom in separation with different
    roles. And there's nothing about local police being local
    police that hampers federal immigration enforcement. In fact,
    when people are arrested, fingerprints, data, crime are all put
    into a national database.
        So the federal government has all it needs and if it wants
    to make sure that a person is handed over at the time that a
    person is completing their sentence in a local or state
    institution, all they have to do is get a judicial warrant, a
    judicial warrant. That's all that's required.
        We've already seen the harm that happens when the executive
    branch tells the executive branch that it's okay to override
    Americans' civil rights. Reason: we have separation of powers
    in our Constitution, something being seriously eroded under
    this administration.
        So as a reminder, each of these issues, slashing nutrition
    assistance, gutting health care, increasing the wealth of
    billionaires, exploding deficits and debts, transforming ICE
    into a secret police, launching a war, are all appropriate
    issues this Budget Committee should be focused on. But the
    decision by cities and states to enhance public safety by
    having local police focus on local police issues is not a new
    change.
        And so it's puzzling to me why that's the decision for this
    first hearing in a year. What we know is that states and cities
    that let local police be local police do pretty damn well.
        With that in mind, I've invited two expert witnesses to
    join us today, Mr. David Bier from the Cato Institute, an
    expert on Sanctuary policies and the broader concerns about the
    Department of Homeland Security and its $170 billion for
    immigration enforcement, with little accountability or
    oversight.
        Joining him is Mr. Brendan Duke from the Center on Budget
    and Policy Priorities, which focuses on critical budgetary
    concerns, including how the big ugly betrayal law exploded our
    debt and raised the costs for working families. So I appreciate
    both of you joining us today.
        And while he is not able to join us for today's hearing,
    Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield has written a statement
    and it explains how the home states, my home state Oregon, how
    their policy is to let police be police, has assisted and
    helped him and the law enforcement officers keep Oregon
    communities safe.
        As he notes in his statement, Oregon's police policies have
    peacefully coexisted with seven presidential administrations.
    Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter his statement into
    the record.\2\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ Statement submitted by Senator Merkley appears in the appendix
    on page 122.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Chairman Graham. Without objection.
        Senator Merkley. And I also asked unanimous consent to
    submit a statement for the record from the Law Enforcement
    Action Partnership,\3\ which states ``When local departments
    are pressured to prioritize federal immigration objectives,
    officer time and resources are diverted from serious threats
    such as violent crime, domestic violence and community safety
    concerns.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \3\ Statement submitted by Senator Merkley appears in the appendix
    on page 125.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        ``The result is a policing environment that is less
    effective and less trusted. Creating a less effective and less
    trusted local public safety environment should not be the
    objective of the federal legislature.'' Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Thank you very much. So the novel
    approach, the 10th Amendment protects Sanctuary Cities, I
    hadn't heard that one, but we'll talk about that later.
        So our witnesses are Secretary, former secretary Chad Wolf,
    Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    from 2019 to 2020 and the current Homeland Security Immigration
    Chair of the America First Policy Institute.
        Sheriff Michael Chapman has been the sheriff of Loudoun
    County, Virginia since 2012. I think you're next door to
    Fairfax County. You can tell us about that.
        Ms. Jessica Vaughan is Director of Policy Studies at the
    Center for Immigration Studies, where she has worked since
    1992. Welcome to y'all. If you'd rise and raise your right
    hand, please. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you're about
    to give this Committee is the truth, the whole truth and
    nothing but the truth, so help you God?
        Panel. I do.
        Chairman Graham. Thank you. Welcome to y'all. Mr. Wolf.

    STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHAD WOLF, FORMER ACTING SECRETARY,
    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND HOMELAND SECURITY AND
         IMMIGRATION CHAIR, AMERICA FIRST POLICY INSTITUTE \4\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        \4\ Prepared statement of Hon. Wolf appears in the appendix on page
    50.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Hon. Wolf. Well thank you, Chairman Graham and Ranking
    Member Merkley for the opportunity to testify before the
    Committee today.
        What we now commonly call ``Sanctuary Cities'' was born
    nearly 50 years ago in California and since then has exploded
    nationwide. According to the Department of Justice, 12 states,
    the District of Columbia, as well as 22 other jurisdictions for
    now are officially considered Sanctuary jurisdictions.
        But as the Chairman said, there are likely hundreds more.
    According to a 2024 report, nearly eight million illegal aliens
    resided in those jurisdictions and one in every three Americans
    or 120 million Americans live in Sanctuary jurisdictions.
        To be clear, this is not a localized phenomenon.
    Ultimately, Sanctuary policies affect every American. And so
    while not all Sanctuary jurisdictions have the exact same
    policies, they all share a core belief that it is acceptable
    and even justified to ignore illegal immigration and violations
    of our immigration law.
        But our law is clear. Title VIII, Section 1227 clearly
    states that aliens who entered the U.S. illegally or otherwise
    in the U.S. without lawful authorization are in fact removable.
    That is the mission of ICE. The law goes on to address those
    who harbor illegal aliens. Title VIII, Section 1324 states that
    any person who encourages or induces an alien to come enter or
    reside in the U.S. knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact
    of such coming to, entry or residence will be a violation of
    law.
        Now due to the supremacy clause and a long list of judicial
    opinions interpreting that, states do not have the authority to
    pick and choose which federal laws are recognized and enforced.
    And they do not have the authority to nullify federal laws by
    ignoring them or proactively creating obstacles to their
    effectiveness.
        Tragically, Sanctuary policies are unleashing devastating
    consequences for the American people, particularly those that
    live in those jurisdictions. In California, again the
    birthplace of the Sanctuary movement, local politicians
    released 4,641 criminal aliens from local jails in 2025, rather
    than handing them over to ICE for removal.
        Those criminals included aliens that had committed
    Homicide, assault, sexual predatory offenses and burglary. And
    just weeks ago, as the Chairman indicated in Fairfax County,
    just miles from where we are today, a criminal illegal alien
    with more than 30 arrests fatally stabbed a woman in the neck
    and that county, Fairfax County, has been a Sanctuary for
    almost a decade and this is the tragic result.
        Despite the dangerous nature of Sanctuary jurisdictions,
    there are some that will not stop until we've become a
    Sanctuary nation, largely free from all border enforcement and
    immigration enforcement. Calls for ICE-free zones, detention
    bans and even an outright abolishment of ICE are becoming
    increasingly common.
        The evidence is clear to restore the rule of law, common
    sense and public safety, the era of Sanctuary jurisdictions
    need to come to an end permanently. Thankfully, President Trump
    and numerous states are taking action, but legal challenges
    persist and Sanctuary jurisdictions are still largely able to
    exist under current law. Congress should take action.
        In my written testimony, I've outlined several
    recommendations to address this issue, including the need to
    hold local officials accountable for knowingly violating the
    law. Let us heed the lessons that we've learned from tragedies
    unfolding in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,
    Seattle, San Francisco and others. The American people are
    safer when state and local governments cooperate with federal
    immigration agencies. State and local governments should give
    our agents access to their jails and prisons, so that federal
    agents can screen prisoners, determine their immigration
    status, process removable aliens and transfer custody to
    federal authorities once an alien is released.
        This requires little effort from local governments, yet
    under Sanctuary policies, state and local officials often slam
    the door shut on immigration officers.
        I'd like to close with a simple question. For those who
    continue to support Sanctuary policies, how many more Americans
    need to die at the hands of illegal aliens released by
    Sanctuary jurisdictions? Sanctuary cities must become an
    artifact of American history, rather than the ongoing safe
    haven for drug dealers, narco-terrorists, murderers and
    dangerous people who threaten the safety and the security of
    the American people.
        And let me just end on a comment made by the Ranking
    Member, talking about secret police. I think that's an
    outrageous comment. I think the men and women of ICE are sworn
    law enforcement officers, they do their job, they're trained to
    do their job. They have a very dangerous job in what they do
    and to continue to denigrate their job and how they go about it
    in such a dangerous environment I think is a disservice to
    them.
        Senator Merkley. Mr. Chairman, since the testimony involves
    the comment I made, I will just reply that if you don't want to
    be secret police, don't act like secret police. And I laid out
    the factual basis on exactly all the qualities that they are
    utilizing now that are the hallmark of secret police around the
    world. Thank you.
        Chairman Graham. Mr. Chapman.

    STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL L. CHAPMAN, SHERIFF, LOUDOUN
                          COUNTY, VIRGINIA \5\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        \5\ Prepared statement of Hon. Chapman appears in the appendix on
    page 55.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Hon. Chapman. Chairman Graham, Ranking Member Senator
    Merkley and other Members of the Committee. I am Loudoun County
    Sheriff Mike Chapman and lead Virginia's most complex and
    largest full-service sheriff's office, employing over 900.
    Loudoun County sits just outside of Washington, D.C. and is the
    home to Leesburg, Middleburg and the Dulles International
    Airport.
        In Loudoun County, we celebrate a diverse community, have
    an extraordinarily diverse workforce. We welcome everyone here
    that's here legally and within our organization speak over 25
    different languages. I have served 47 years in this profession
    as a local police officer, a career Drug Enforcement
    Administration (DEA) special agent and for the past 14 years as
    an elected sheriff.
        I am honored to sit before you today to discuss our mutual
    concern of Sanctuary cities and counties. I am fortunate that
    Loudoun County is part of a traditional form of government that
    enables a sheriff to conduct all law enforcement, jail and
    court operations under one roof, essentially making me both a
    sheriff and a police chief.
        This differs significantly from our surrounding
    jurisdictions where appointed county, city and town police
    chiefs are the norm. Loudoun's form of government has enabled
    me to make decisions in the best interest of our citizens, free
    of mandated political agendas. It has also allowed me to be the
    only Republican law enforcement leader in all of Northern
    Virginia.
        That responsibility is a double-edged sword. While I don't
    answer to our 7-2 Democrat Board of Supervisors for policy
    decisions, I do receive my budget from them. This dichotomy
    causes significant friction, making this a very challenging
    area. Our system of government, however, provides our citizens
    with a check and balance.
        We endured a two year battle with our Board of Supervisors
    who pursued rather converting our sheriff's office into a
    police department several years ago, to exercise complete power
    and control over our agency. We defeated this aggressive action
    because our citizens ultimately decided that they prefer having
    a direct voice in who leads their public safety through the
    election process.
        This system and our common sense approach to problems
    putting citizens first is why the Sheriff's office has been
    awarded favor, government service for two years running in our
    local newspaper, and why I've been selected as favorite public
    servant for the past five years.
        Regarding immigration, it is important to distinguish
    criminal aliens who pose a threat to our community from
    immigrants here legally. Consequently, while our surrounding
    jurisdictions choose to be sanctuaries, not make this
    distinction and not honor ICE detainers, we do just the
    opposite. We have always cooperated with all of our state,
    local and federal counterparts including ICE, and have
    routinely notified ICE of those in our custody for criminal
    offenses who also had active detainers issued by ICE regardless
    of the presidential administration.
        We honor all detainers and warrants from other law
    enforcement jurisdictions, just as I would expect them to honor
    ours. These practices likely contribute to why our agency has
    the lowest crime rate in the entire Washington D.C.-Northern
    Virginia area, and is one of the safest counties in the entire
    United States.
        That doesn't mean we're exempt from problems related to
    illegal immigration. In 2024, we experienced five homicides,
    three of which were committed by people here illegally. Two of
    the three were committed by an Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13) gang
    member and in a neighboring county, one that refuses to contact
    ICE regarding the criminals they arrest, two homicides were
    committed in just over the past two months.
        One occurred within 24 hours after the criminal who had an
    outstanding ICE detainer on him was released from jail without
    any notification to ICE. The other, police questioned why the
    subject had been released and warned the prosecutor of danger,
    stating not if, but when he would assault again, resulting in a
    grandmother being stabbed to death at a bus stop. This
    exemplifies what happens with Sanctuary counties. Law
    enforcement's hands are tied by politicians and political
    agendas.
        Last year, I signed a 287(g) warrant service officer
    program agreement, which enabled us to hold a person arrested
    for a criminal violation an additional 48 hours for ICE, in the
    event ICE couldn't pick them up immediately. This enabled us to
    safely turn over criminal illegal aliens to ICE who otherwise
    would have been released into our community and could pose an
    additional threat to our residents.
        This simple process has kept ICE from having to conduct
    street operations in our area. I have told my community that
    not turning over criminal aliens to ICE, who could endanger our
    residents, would be irresponsible and dangerous to the very
    people I've sworn an oath to protect. This process, which has
    worked well for us, is likely to become far more challenging
    considering the legislation currently in motion in Richmond.
        Our governor rescinded the previous administration's
    executive order, which enabled jurisdictions to cooperate with
    ICE. This was followed by legislation proposed by both houses
    of our general assembly, which if passed and signed by the
    governor, will likely require judicial warrants from ICE for
    local law enforcement to act on anything.
        Considering illegal immigration is a civil offense, this
    action will no doubt force us to release detainees incarcerated
    by us for criminal offenses unrelated to immigration back into
    our communities, where they could pose an additional threat to
    our citizens.
        If this Committee can exercise any leverage to influence a
    different outcome, I am confident that law enforcement
    officials throughout Virginia and other locations who are
    familiar with these challenges would be grateful. We take our
    jobs seriously and want to keep all of our citizens safe. Thank
    you for your attention and, I look forward to answering any
    questions.
        Chairman Graham. Ms. Vaughan.

       STATEMENT OF JESSICA VAUGHAN, DIRECTOR OF POLICY STUDIES,
                   CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES \6\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        \6\ Prepared statement of Ms. Vaughan appears in the appendix on
    page 57.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Ms. Vaughan. Good morning and thank you. More than half of
    removable aliens live in those jurisdictions that have
    Sanctuary policies intended to hinder immigration enforcement
    and prohibit cooperation between state and local law
    enforcement and federal immigration enforcement, which is
    almost always a violation of federal law and imposes enormous
    costs on taxpayers.
        My organization has been tracking these policies since
    2015, and we maintain a list and map of jurisdictions and
    policies on our website. Those who promote Sanctuary policies
    often claim that they're needed to build trust with immigrants,
    so that they'll report crimes or to avoid distracting local law
    enforcement agencies with immigration enforcement.
        These claims are disproven and disingenuous. In fact,
    Sanctuary policies are an irrational political response based
    on disagreement with federal immigration policy and opposition
    to enforcement of immigration laws. The motivations for
    Sanctuary policies are ideological and political, but the cost
    of Sanctuary policies is unfortunately very tangible.
        First, the public safety costs, and these are the most
    significant and problematic. Between October of 2022 and
    February of 2025, Sanctuary jurisdictions refused more than
    26,000 detainers for criminal aliens. Half of these were in
    California and large numbers also were released in Illinois,
    Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
        The individual jails that released the most were Santa
    Clara County, California, Cook County, Illinois and Fairfax
    County, Virginia. In 2024 alone, the Fairfax County sheriff
    declined to honor 744 detainers for criminals that she had in
    custody. That's more than two a day. Some of these are gang
    members with long rap sheets who get arrested over and over,
    costing county taxpayers, untold sums in repeated crimes,
    prosecution and incarceration. Others are child predators and
    sex offenders.
        Oregon is another place that protects criminal aliens with
    strict Sanctuary policies. Last fall, ICE actually had to issue
    subpoenas just to try to get four Oregon sheriffs to share
    information on violent felons who had been released despite ICE
    detainers. They had convictions for rape, assault, child
    exploitation and kidnapping, among other crimes.
        What possible reason can there be for not cooperating with
    ICE for their removal? It's certainly not a public safety
    reason, and it seems as if they actually want to make
    immigration enforcement as costly and labor intensive as
    possible. Besides blocking law enforcement agencies from
    cooperating with ICE Sanctuary states typically have other
    policies that attract illegal settlement and thus burden
    taxpayers with support of illegal immigrants.
        Besides funding emergency health care and schooling for
    all, a number of Sanctuary states go farther and choose to
    provide Medicaid subsidized health insurance, nutrition
    assistance, housing and much more. Illegal immigrants use these
    welfare programs in large numbers. My organization has found
    that over 60 percent of illegal alien-headed households are
    using at least one form of welfare program and usually more
    than one, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars to
    taxpayers.
        This is why any resources spent on immigration enforcement
    actually save taxpayers money, taxpayer money in the long run.
    It is my repeated observation that the politicians who support
    Sanctuary policies are not moved by the costs or the pain their
    policies have caused American families.
        Victims like Stephanie Minter, Denny McCann, Drew
    Rosenberg, Matthew Denice, Dominic Durden, Laken Riley and Kate
    Steinle and so many others. These are priceless lives lost to
    Sanctuary policies, and it's wrong to trivialize their loss as
    a statistical blip.
        Some states like South Carolina, Florida and Texas, have
    banned Sanctuary policies. The Trump administration is making
    progress through outreach and litigation, but while the federal
    government likely cannot force Sanctuary jurisdictions to do
    the right thing, it can create consequences for sanctuaries.
    Congress needs to create additional consequences like
    disqualification from certain federal funding, so that
    taxpayers are not subsidizing sanctuaries.
        Congress should also clarify that state and local police
    have the authority to cooperate with immigration enforcement,
    so that they can't be blocked from doing it by state or local
    laws. In addition, those who are seriously harmed as a result
    of Sanctuary policies should have some resource in the courts.
    Thank you.

       STATEMENT OF DAVID J. BIER, THE SETZ FOUNDATION CHAIR IN
                 IMMIGRATION POLICY, CATO INSTITUTE \7\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        \7\ Prepared statement of Mr. Bier appears in the appendix on page
    67.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Mr. Bier. Chairman Graham, Ranking Member Merkley and
    distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the
    opportunity to testify.
        For half a century, the Cato Institute's research has shown
    that people, whatever their ancestry, background or birthplace,
    can thrive in a free society. Immigrants come to work for us
    and with us to make our lives better. They work at higher rates
    and are nearly twice as likely to start businesses here.
        Immigrants have reduced government deficits by 14 and a
    half trillion dollars over the last 30 years, and yet Congress
    has not updated the legal immigration system during that entire
    time. So just three percent of all legal immigrant applicants
    were approved in 2024.
        Rather than fix this broken system, the new administration
    banned half of all the legal immigrants who had made it to the
    end of that process, including spouses and children of U.S.
    citizens. The fallout from this flawed system is left to our
    cities to manage. In many areas one in five residents lives
    with someone here illegally.
        Mass deportation is not an option for these places. It is
    an attack on them. It is taking Americans, Americans away from
    their spouses, parents, pastors, parishioners, employees,
    employers, customers and friends. It's not us Americans versus
    them immigrants. Cities know immigrants are part of us. They
    also know that immigrants are here to build, not destroy.
        A mountain, literally a mountain of research proves that
    immigrants and reasonable limits on participation with ICE do
    not increase crime rates. Immigrants, even illegal immigrants,
    are half as likely to be incarcerated for crimes in the United
    States. According to DHS, only about three percent of illegal
    immigrants have any criminal convictions.
        Immigrants reduce crime rates, which means your less likely
    to be a victim of a crime. Let me be clear. When a non-citizen
    does victimize someone, they should be convicted, imprisoned
    and deported. But it is DHS that has ignored this formula. Just
    28 percent of the people detained by ICE right now were
    convicted of any crime at all.
        This is no surprise. DHS has abandoned its public safety
    mission. It has stripped millions of vetted immigrants of their
    legal status, just so that it could deport them. Instead of
    protecting us, DHS violates the Constitution. Its massed agents
    invade our homes without warrants. They detain without
    evidence, and they deport without due process. They intimidate,
    beat and even kill Americans who protest. They arrest legal
    immigrants for writing opinion articles. They lie to the courts
    and then they ignore them.
        With all this unconstitutional mayhem, Congress should not
    itself violate the Constitution by threatening local law
    enforcement, not for interfering with ICE, but rather for
    following their own local laws that they swore an oath to
    uphold.
        Under our system of federalism and the Constitution,
    Congress can't force cities to do its bidding, whether on
    immigration, guns or the environment. If Congress wants cities
    to help DHS, it'll need those cities to trust DHS. But to get
    trust you need to be trustworthy, and this DHS is not.
        Consider this. Before this administration, non-citizens
    were more likely to report serious crimes to the police than
    the U.S.-born population. Now, DHS is arresting immigrant crime
    victims. For example in Iowa, a shooting victim who helped
    bring to justice violent robbers was arrested by ICE before he
    had even healed.
        But since he had a pending charge for an unpaid traffic
    ticket, ICE considers him a criminal. This has caused filings
    for U visas for crime victims working with police to drop by 63
    percent. This is not making Americans safer. Congress must
    require DHS to focus on real threats, and it must empower
    Americans to sue federal agents for violating the Constitution.
    We need accountability and constitutionality to restore trust.
    Thank you.

      STATEMENT OF BRENDAN DUKE, SENIOR DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUDGET,
               CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES \8\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        \8\ Prepared statement of Mr. Duke appears in the appendix on page
    84.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Mr. Duke. Thank you. Chair Graham, Ranking Member Merkley
    and Members of the of the Budget Committee. My name is Brendan
    Duke, and I'm Senior Director for Federal Budget Policy at the
    Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
        The Center on Budget is a non-partisan research and policy
    institute that advances federal and state policies to help
    build a country where everyone has the resources they need to
    thrive and share in the nation's prosperity.
        Let me first begin with an overview of our fiscal situation
    for the Budget Committee. Analyses typically focused on
    government spending and revenue as shares of the economy. In
    2025, revenue was 17 percent, which is around the same level as
    in 1985. Programmatic spending on the other hand grew seven-
    tenths of a percentage point since 1985.
        But Social Security and Medicare are responsible for more
    than 100 percent of the increase in spending, because the
    country has gotten older. That is nobody's fault. I'm sure
    everyone on this Committee wishes they had the same knees or
    back they did 40 years ago. Similarly, we all wish we had the
    demographics and ratio of working age Americans to retirees
    that we had 40 years ago.
        The combination of population aging in basic arithmetic
    means we will face a choice between raising revenue past the 17
    percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) level set when the
    country's demographics were more favorable, or making drastic
    cuts to important programs.
        The retirement of the baby boom was a predictable and
    predicted development. But at the beginning of the 21st
    century, we had a fiscal system that would deliver adequate
    projected revenue to meet our needs. Rounds of
    unpaidfor tax cuts ruined that. Take a look at
    projections for 2025 that were made right before most of the
    Bush tax cuts were made permanent, and before anyone even
    thought of the Trump tax cuts and compare them to the actual
    2025 numbers.
        The 2025 deficit is much higher than projected in 2012,
    despite programmatic spending being lower than projected. The
    reason the deficit roses revenues come in far lower than
    projected as a result of those unpaid-for tax cuts.
    Importantly, Social Security, Medicare and other health
    programs such as Medicaid and premium tax credits also came in
    below CBO's 2012 projections.
        What all of this ultimately shows is that it's entirely
    possible to meet our commitments to seniors, while ensuring
    millions of low and moderate income Americans have health care
    and food if we are willing to raise the revenue to do so.
    Instead, Congress made a different choice last summer. The
    giant reconciliation bill adds $3.4 trillion to the deficit, as
    it extends tax cuts tilted to the wealthy despite cutting
    Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid
    by about 20 percent by 2034.
        CBO more recently estimated this figure at $4.7 trillion
    over the new budget window and including interest. Notably,
    this $3.4 trillion cost is higher than the cost of extending
    all of the expiring tax cuts for all families, including for
    millionaires, but without the cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, and it
    would have cost far less than, to extend the tax.
        That's for the 98 percent of families making under $400,000
    without those cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. In other words, the
    cuts to health care and food assistance in the reconciliation
    bill were entirely the result of Congress's choice to load the
    bill with tax cuts beyond the 2017 tax cuts, along with large
    increases for defense and immigration enforcement.
        The result is millions of low income families will lose the
    ability to afford the high cost of groceries or go to the
    doctor when they're sick, cuts that a vast majority of the
    public staunchly oppose. Moreover, the entire cost of the tax
    cut was essentially offset by the Trump administration's
    decision to raise taxes on imported goods.
        Cutting income taxes financed by taxes on imported goods is
    a poor trade. It is both economically inefficient and further
    pushes the burden of financing the government from high income
    to low and middle income families.
        In fact, the combo of the Trump administration's tariff
    regime and the spending cuts on the reconciliation bill will
    leave households in the bottom 70 percent worse off. The
    Supreme Court last month handed the Trump administration an
    opportunity to save face by ruling that many of these sweeping
    tariffs were illegal.
        Instead of using the Court decision to back down on a
    failed policy, Trump has instead replaced those struck down
    tariffs with a sweeping 10 to 15 percent across the board
    tariff. I think we can all agree that the steps required to
    significantly improve the outlook, whether through revenue
    increases, program cuts or both can be politically challenging.
        Immigration can reduce the need for those difficult
    measures. Immigrants contribute to our communities and the U.S.
    economy in many ways. In particular, they improve our fiscal
    outlook by boosting our national birth rate and they boost our
    workforce. Last month, CBO evaluated the economic and fiscal
    effects of the administration's anti-immigrant policies. CBO
    cut in half the projection of the annual growth rate of the
    U.S. population over the next few 10 years.
        CBO now estimates that the 2035 working age population will
    be 2.4 million people smaller than in its previous projection.
    This has important fiscal costs too. CBO projects that the
    administration's actions to reduce immigration will increase
    deficits by $500 billion over ten years, principally by
    reducing the number of taxpayers.
        Those higher deficits will make deficit reduction that much
    harder, adding to the damage from H.R. 1. Financing income tax
    tilted to the wealthy by cutting programs and raising import
    taxes while discouraging and disparaging immigrants is no way
    to fix our country's fiscal imbalances.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Graham. Thank you all for your testimony.
        We'll do five minute rounds.
        Mr. Bier, is it accurate that Barack Obama deported three
    million people when he was president?
        Mr. Bier. Those are total removals, not people deported
    from the interior.
        Chairman Graham. What does that mean?
        Mr. Bier. Well, there are people deported from the borders
    who never lived in the United States.
        Chairman Graham. Were there people deported inside the
    United States?
        Mr. Bier. Well, I mean I think it's a little bit unfair to
    compare people deported at the border----
        Chairman Graham. Oh, hey, hey, hey.
        Mr. Bier [continuing]. Versus people in the interior. I
    think Jessica would agree to this.
        Chairman Graham. So hey. Hey listen, listen. You don't want
    to answer a question, that's fine, but don't tell me what's
    fair and unfair. Bottom line. Did he use judicial warrants to
    deport anybody? When he deported somebody interior, did he have
    a judicial warrant?
        Mr. Bier. No.
        Chairman Graham. No. Why? Because it's stupid. Mr. Wolf,
    tell me what would happen if we adopted his approach. You can't
    deport anybody unless you have a judicial warrant. Would that
    be effectively the end of deportation?
        Hon. Wolf. I think it would. I mean if you just look at----
        Chairman Graham. Don't you think that's what they want to
    do?
        Hon. Wolf. In part, absolutely.
        Chairman Graham. These people over here want to stop
    deportation.
        Hon. Wolf. So if you just look at the 1.5 or 1.6 million
    individuals here with a final order of removal, right? They've
    been through the judicial process. They've been to an
    immigration judge, probably an Immigration Board of Appeals,
    and every time the judge says, you don't have a legal right to
    be here.
        If you had to get a judicial warrant for each one of those,
    you'd be here for the next 20 years trying to remove those
    1.6----
        Chairman Graham. But when a Democrat says you need a
    judicial warrant to deport somebody, they're turning--Obama
    didn't do it, did he?
        Hon. Wolf. Not that I'm aware of, no.
        Chairman Graham. No. No, he didn't because it's impossible.
    You just stop the whole system. You're not trying to reform
    ICE. You're trying to stop deportations. If it were up to you,
    we'd have more illegal immigrants. I hope people are paying
    attention to what the hell is going on in this country.
        Sheriff, tell me about what it's like to live next to a
    Sanctuary county.
        Hon. Chapman. Well, we're the only ones that actually work
    with ICE and are able to get people out based on our 287(g). We
    turn them over to ICE. We arrest them for criminal violations
    outside of their immigration status. They come and they pick
    them up and they're gone. And I'll tell you, it's made a big
    difference. We had----
        Chairman Graham. Well, those laws that you're enforcing,
    were they on the books before Trump became president?
        Hon. Chapman. Yes.
        Chairman Graham. So all these laws were there before Trump
    became president and Obama used them. Now, when we use them,
    all of a sudden we're Nazis. I think people see through this.
    Do you believe Sanctuary City policy is bad for crime, Mr.
    Chapman?
        Hon. Chapman. I do. I think, you know, the ability--if you
    look at us and compare it to our next door neighbor there they,
    I think, maybe have notified ICE maybe about seven times last
    year, where it was 184 times for us.
        Those are people that could have been released back to our
    community, that could have committed other crimes, and we don't
    need that here. It's irresponsible of me to allow that to
    happen and let these people back in our community.
        Chairman Graham. Ms. Vaughan, how would you--what's your
    takeaway about Sanctuary City policy? What damage has it done
    to our country, if any?
        Ms. Vaughan. Well, there's the cost of the lives lost to
    illegal aliens who were released by Sanctuaries. That's
    priceless. There's the fiscal----
        Chairman Graham. This case behind me, Jalani. Is that his
    name? He should have been deported. Do you agree Ms. Vaughan?
        Ms. Vaughan. Absolutely, yes.
        Chairman Graham. You know, you're talking about suing
    somebody who's been abused by the government. Why don't we sue
    local prosecutors who put this in motion? I'd love to do that.
        So I'm going to try to find a way to give victims a chance
    to go to court when a local prosecutor puts back on the streets
    somebody with 30 priors. That's some--do you support that idea,
    empowering people?
        Ms. Vaughan. I do. I think that that would be an effective
    deterrent to Sanctuary policies, because they're adopted----
        Chairman Graham. Make these counties and cities pay.
        Ms. Vaughan. Right. They're adopted for political reasons,
    not public safety reasons.
        Chairman Graham. Yeah. What are--what's the upside of
    ignoring federal law and keeping people like this out of
    federal custody? It's a political choice.
        So let me ask you this question. There was a clerk of
    court, Mr. Wolf, in Kentucky that did not want to issue a
    marriage license to a gay couple, in spite of the fact Supreme
    Court said that gay marriage was legal, and she went to jail.
    Do you think that's a good outcome? Should she have gone to
    jail for refusing to obey the law?
        Hon. Wolf. I think it's important to obey the law.
        Chairman Graham. Yeah, I do too.
        Hon. Wolf. The law is the law.
        Chairman Graham. And when I suggested that the clerk of
    court who had a religious view, that she could not in good
    conscience issue a marriage license to a gay couple, even
    though the law required, she needed to get out of her job. I
    was--boy, what a great guy I was then.
        Now the shoe's on the other foot. All of a sudden, that's
    not--that's not a good idea. You can--what you want to do is
    just ignore the laws you don't like. Is that where we're
    headed, Mr. Wolf?
        Hon. Wolf. I believe it is.
        Chairman Graham. Well, let's stop it now. Let's end this
    madness. There is no upside to Sanctuary Cities. It's all
    downside. Senator Merkley.
        Senator Merkley. Well, no upside other than, higher median
    household income, less poverty, less reliance on public
    assistance, lower unemployment and safer communities, all of
    which seem pretty much on the upside from my point of view.
        Mr. Duke, what effect did the Big Beautiful Bill, as Trump
    called it, have on debt over the ten year budget window?
        Mr. Duke. CBO shows that it adds $4.7 trillion to the
    deficit.
        Senator Merkley. That's a pretty whopping sum.
        Mr. Duke. It's enormous.
        Senator Merkley. For one piece of legislation, and over 30
    years?
        Mr. Duke. It comes to $30 trillion with a T.
        Senator Merkley. Wow.
        Mr. Duke. Yeah.
        Senator Merkley. What's our national debt right now?
        Mr. Duke. As a share of GDP, it's around 100 percent.
        Senator Merkley. And that's about $30 trillion?
        Mr. Duke. Yeah.
        Senator Merkley. So another $30 trillion. But if interest
    rates are one percent higher, how much more does that add to
    the debt?
        Mr. Duke. I can't believe I'm saying these numbers, because
    they sound like they're from Star Trek, but $50 trillion.
        Senator Merkley. Yeah, $50 trillion. Well, thanks a lot
    folks for passing a bill that's going to add $30 to $50
    trillion to our national debt, suppressing our investments in
    health care, housing, education, public safety, transportation,
    all important things for the welfare of America.
        And Mr. Duke, how did that bill affect the size of the
    working age population?
        Mr. Duke. Yeah. So basically the combination of that--so
    first that bill funded ICE a lot, as you showed, and CBO says
    that it is going to shrink the number of people who are in the
    workforce, because they are going to leave the country or be in
    detention camps. That directly shrinks our tax base.
        Senator Merkley. Okay. So that has an overall effect on the
    GDP of our nation?
        Mr. Duke. Fewer working people means smaller GDP.
        Senator Merkley. Okay. Mr. Bier, in states or cities that
    have policies referred to as Sanctuary policies, but more
    accurately that dedicate local police to doing local police
    work, do those locations fully cooperate in detaining somebody
    when there's a judicial warrant for them?
        Mr. Bier. Yes, absolutely. They turn over anyone subject to
    a criminal matter upon notice by the federal government that
    they have a warrant.
        Senator Merkley. So those jurisdictions have entered into
    the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) federal database
    fingerprints, arrest record, what that person's being detained
    for, how long they're being held. Federal government has all
    that information.
        Mr. Bier. Exactly, yes. So they could go and get those
    individuals anytime they want. And in this case in Virginia,
    for example, the Laken Riley Act, which they all supported,
    directed the Department of Homeland Security to get those
    people.
        And instead of getting those people, they're out on the
    streets profiling random Hispanic workers going to their jobs.
    So it's a total misdirection to blame the county, when the
    Department of Homeland Security isn't even following the law
    that they passed.
        Senator Merkley. Why not, since they could get that warrant
    and pick up those individuals who have committed violent
    crimes?
        Mr. Bier. Because the White House has created an arrest
    quota that's the only metric for success for them. How many
    arrests can you make today? And the fastest way to make arrests
    is indiscriminate raids, indiscriminate profiling of people on
    the street.
        That's what's led to this huge jump in the number of
    people, and the frankly chaos that we're seeing in cities
    across the country.
        Senator Merkley. So there was a chart in your longer
    written testimony showing that only five percent of the
    individuals booked by ICE have ever had a violent criminal
    conviction.
        Mr. Bier. Yeah. And not only that, if you look at my
    written testimony as well, I talk about how the Department of
    Homeland Security has its own internal threat assessment that
    they assign to each individual who comes into their custody.
        And those people have to prioritize. They actually have a
    mandate. They can't be all political. They have to figure out
    who is actually a threat. And of those people, only ten percent
    received the highest threat level and 70 percent were deemed by
    the Department of Homeland--this Department of Homeland
    Security, to not be a threat at all.
        Senator Merkley. So how does that match the campaign
    rhetoric about we're going to go after the worst of the worst,
    which I think 100 percent of Americans supported the idea that
    anyone who had committed a violent crime should be--should be
    investigated, should be prosecuted, should be if convicted and
    incarcerated should be deported. But those numbers don't match
    that.
        Mr. Bier. Great campaign messaging, great messaging for,
    you know, a $200 million ad campaign by the DHS Secretary. Not
    based in reality at all. On day one of this administration,
    they rescinded all policies that forced ICE to focus on violent
    offenders and people with criminal convictions.
        Senator Merkley. They did the exact opposite of what they
    told the citizens they were going to do during the campaign.
        Mr. Bier. It was a lie, just like it was a lie about all
    the things they said about Renee Good and Alex Pretti and all
    the other people that they've killed over the last year.
        Senator Merkley. And you recommend--do I have time for the
    last question, or my time has expired?
        Chairman Graham. Sure. Go ahead.
        Senator Merkley. You recommend in your testimony that there
    be a private right of action when individuals' civil rights are
    violated. Now my understanding is that if local police or state
    police violate your civil rights, you have a cause of action
    against that; is that correct?
        Mr. Bier. Yeah. Under Title 42, Section 1983, there's a
    private right of action against state and local, but not
    against the feds.
        And this is a critically important issue, because right now
    they're recruiting all these state and local officers into
    essentially the ICE framework, which gives them immunity
    against all constitutional violations that they carry out while
    working in conjunction with the federal government.
        So we need to expand that to cover federal officers as
    well, to make sure we don't have this immunity creep into every
    police department in America, which is their goal, including
    through this bill that we're talking about today.
        Senator Merkley. So when the Vice President said ICE agents
    have absolute immunity in violating people's civil rights, he
    was right?
        Mr. Bier. Effectively, yes. Right now, as the law stands.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Thank you. Just one point of
    clarification. Is it your position that a non-violent illegal
    immigrant shouldn't be deported?
        Mr. Bier. My position is that we should give people who are
    peaceful people a path to citizenship. You endorsed that
    principle for many years, Senator.
        Chairman Graham. So no matter how many people come?
        Mr. Bier. No. It should be based on whether people have a
    demonstrable basis to remain in the United States, which is
    whether they contribute to this country or whether they're a
    threat to it.
        Chairman Graham. I guess----
        Mr. Bier. We should have all laws----
        Chairman Graham. I guess what you don't understand, and I
    don't want to, I'm familiar with the Gang of Eight bill, shut
    down illegal immigration. We did away with the magnets. We're
    going to give people a chance who've been here for a long time.
        Mr. Bier. Your bill had the exact opposite approach of what
    this Department of Homeland Security is carrying out.
        Chairman Graham. Listen, listen. For four years, Biden
    obliterated the border. 11 million people came in and the bill
    I was working on would have prevented that. He took everything
    we were trying to do to stop illegal immigration, be fair to
    the ones here and blew a hole in it, and now we got 11 million
    more and you want to give them amnesty. They'll never stop.
    Senator Grassley.

                     STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY

        Senator Grassley. Yeah. The United States is a country
    based on the rule of law, and it's against the law to enter our
    country without our permission.
        And I compliment the Chairman for having this hearing, and
    his strong statements and his strong questioning. We all know
    that our country benefits from legal immigration and entering
    our country. This is a Budget Committee, and my questions will
    basically be based upon budget impact and cost to our
    government.
        Mr. Wolf, there are some legal limitations that prevent
    states from completely excluding illegal immigrants from access
    to some of their government programs. What are those
    limitations and what immediate steps considering those
    limitations can the federal government take to minimize the
    fiscal burden of Sanctuary jurisdictions?
        Hon. Wolf. Yeah. I think when we talk about public
    benefits, whether they're federal or state benefits, I think
    and the Chairman I believe mentioned this earlier, these are
    strong magnets of why folks decide to come to the United States
    illegally.
        Now there's a variety of different reasons for them to do
    so. But if they're able to stay in a jurisdiction that shields
    them from law enforcement, that provides public benefits,
    particularly at the state level, but also at the federal level,
    both need to be looked at, that continues to incentivize those
    individuals to come and to stay.
        And so when you look at how to secure the country, it's it
    not only border security, it's a big part of it, but it's also
    getting at these pull factors, and those public benefits are a
    big part of that. I think the American people are generous. I
    think they want to help people that need true help.
        But to have folks that come here to the country illegally
    choose to stay illegally, have no protections under U.S. law
    and continue to get public benefits, I think that's where the
    American people draw the line.
        Senator Grassley. Ms. Vaughan, Sanctuary jurisdictions
    frame their policy as squarely a matter of local policy. But we
    know these policies have both broader public safety and fiscal
    effects on areas beyond their border. So what are some examples
    of the cost to both the federal government and the state
    government caused by Sanctuary policies that are often
    forgotten or overlooked, with emphasis upon forgotten or
    overlooked?
        Ms. Vaughan. Well, I think too many of the victims of these
    policies have been forgotten. I named a few of them, but these
    families are still suffering silently. Another forgotten cost
    is the cost of providing benefits, taxpayer-funded social
    services to illegal alien households.
        And federal law currently allows states to choose to do
    that if their legislature approves it, at enormous costs, and
    some of those dollars are federal dollars. So all of us as
    Americans share the cost burden of that arrangement, and
    Congress can do something about that.
        But there's also the cost of the erosion of the integrity
    of our immigration system, when individual states and
    jurisdiction and local jurisdictions can obstruct the
    enforcement of federal laws that are passed by Congress without
    consequence. Even though they are--many of these Sanctuary
    policies are clearly in violation of Section 1373 and 1644 of
    the Immigration Act.
        And so, you know, it's a slap in the face to legal
    immigrants to have--say allow these policies that shield
    individuals from immigration enforcement, most of whom are
    criminal aliens. Immigrants don't want to live with these
    policies either. Something like 70 percent of the American
    public is opposed to Sanctuary policies for all of these
    reasons.
        Senator Grassley. Mr. Wolf, if you can answer this
    question. It's in regard to the 11 million people that came
    here under Biden and Harris. Over that period of time, did
    illegal immigrants seek out Sanctuary jurisdictions for safe
    harbor? And is there any evidence to back up your statement?
        Hon. Wolf. Well, I think if you look historically at where
    illegal aliens reside now, they reside all across the United
    States. But if you were to do a heat map, you would see them
    in--the majority of them in places like New York City, Chicago,
    Los Angeles and others that have these Sanctuary jurisdictions.
        So, yes. I do believe over time that illegal aliens do tend
    to, go to these types of jurisdictions.
        Senator Grassley. I got six second left. Sheriff Chapman,
    what are some examples of state and local cost increases those
    jurisdictions incur?
        Hon. Chapman. Well, I look at the funding that goes to our
    state and local, the folks that surround us and folks that do
    not support, you know, the immigration policies here and the
    funding that they get. And I think if that was curtailed, maybe
    they might look at this a lot more seriously.
        But it is a cost to us. It's a cost of putting people out
    there. You're talking about more homicides, you're talking
    about--we've had our share locally here and certainly as a
    Chairman brought up, and we've had them in Loudoun County. And
    it's a human factor that is really important here. We want to
    keep our people safe and keep them alive.
        Chairman Graham. Senator Whitehouse.
        Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Van Hollen. I apologize.

                    STATEMENT OF SENATOR VAN HOLLEN

        Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
    Wolf, if I could start with you. You would agree that in
    America, people have the right to peacefully protest under the
    First Amendment, right?
        Hon. Wolf. Correct.
        Senator Van Hollen. You would agree that people have the
    Constitutional right to due process, right?
        Hon. Wolf. Correct.
        Senator Van Hollen. Would you agree with Kristi Noem, who
    characterized Renee Good as a domestic terrorist? Is Renee Good
    a domestic terrorist in your view?
        Hon. Wolf. I've been very clear on this point when that
    incident occurred, as well as, the Pretti incident as well, as
    to let that investigation play out before any comments are made
    about the motives of any of the individuals involved, including
    the law enforcement officers.
        Senator Van Hollen. So clearly it was wrong to label them
    domestic terrorists, right?
        Hon. Wolf. Again, I don't--I'm not at the department. I
    don't know what the information she had. If you're asking me my
    opinion, I would have wait till the investigation play out
    before I rendered any decision.
        Senator Van Hollen. So you think it's still an open
    question, as to whether or not they're domestic terrorists?
        Hon. Wolf. Again, I'm going to let the investigation play
    out.
        Senator Van Hollen. It sounds like you do, which I think,
    you know, the country has seen the videos, okay. So I find it
    outrageous that you would sit here today and hold open the idea
    that they were domestic terrorists. Their parents and their
    loved ones deserve an apology from the U.S. government. And I
    find it outrageous that you're taking the position that you are
    here today.
        Hon. Wolf. I'm not taking a position.
        Senator Van Hollen. Yes, you are. By taking no position and
    leaving on the table the notion that they're domestic
    terrorists, you are taking a position.
        Mr. Bier, thank you for emphasizing the big lie, that what
    the Trump administration is doing is going after the worst of
    the worst. As Senator Merkley pointed out and as you've shown,
    that's just not true. I mean nobody wants people who are here
    illegally committing violent crimes, but the overwhelming
    majority of people who are in detention right now, by ICE's own
    admission, pose no risk to public safety, is that right?
        Mr. Bier. That's right. Over 70 percent were given no
    threat level at all. They could be released right now without a
    threat to the public.
        Senator Van Hollen. Yeah. So this is just such a big lie. I
    mean that's what we're seeing playing out in this forum and out
    of the White House from people like Stephen Miller and the
    President of the United States.
        Could you talk about another big lie? We do know that the
    so-called Big Beautiful Bill, as Republicans called it,
    increased the debt massively, like over 4 trillion bucks,
    right? They gave tax cuts to billionaires permanently. They cut
    health programs, they cut food safety, food programs.
        They had a walloping increase for ICE, like seven times its
    regular budget. And at the same time, we hear people like
    Stephen Miller and others claiming that it's actually
    immigrants who are the cause of increasing our deficits and
    debt. In fact, they've said that immigration is the cause of
    the growing national debt, and immigrants take more from the
    country than they contribute.
        Now, Mr. Bier, you've looked at this question very closely.
    Could you just respond to what I think is the second big lie?
        Mr. Bier. Yeah. Over the last 30 years, we looked at all
    the government budgets, federal, state and local combined.
        Immigrants reduced deficits by 14 and a half trillion
    dollars, which is about a third of all of the total deficits
    during that period of time. And it's easy to understand why,
    because they work at 12 percentage points higher than the
    national average.
        They use less benefits because they're subject to
    constraints, unique barriers to applying for those benefits in
    particular Social Security and Medicare, where those are by far
    our largest programs and they're not eligible for those at all
    if they're here in the country illegally, or if they came
    legally and they don't have a sufficient work history to
    qualify.
        So you have clear reasons for believing that they are
    reducing the deficits and debt. They are a benefit to this
    country, and we need more people who are going to contribute in
    the future as our population ages.
        Senator Van Hollen. Could you amplify a little more on the
    issue of Medicare and Social Security, because those, you know,
    trust funds in just a couple years there won't, you know, be
    enough to pay out full on the dollar for Social Security and
    Medicare?
        Mr. Bier. That's right.
        Senator Van Hollen. But as you pointed out, there are many
    immigrants that are paying into that, but not paying out. So
    could you just elaborate on that?
        Mr. Bier. According to the Social Security Administration,
    we need about 35 million more workers in order to keep revenues
    equal to expenses by the middle of the 2030's.
        So we are at a position right now where immigration is not
    going to solve it. Obviously, it's not going to solve it. But
    it is moving us in the right direction. These are people who
    are showing up. They're ready to work. They're often prime age
    individuals who are ready to enter the labor force.
        So it's a huge benefit fiscally to the United States to
    have these people who want to contribute to our country.
        Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. And thank you for exposing
    two of the big lies coming out of the Trump administration.
        Mr. Bier. Thank you.
        Senator Van Hollen. Thank you.
        Chairman Graham. The information we have is that 64 percent
    of the people encountered by ICE are either convicted or
    pending criminal charges. So if somebody's wrong, we'll find
    out who's lying.

                      STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

        Senator Johnson. Mr. Chairman. Yeah. Let's talk about some
    realities here. The Ranking Member talked about the funding for
    ICE rose dramatically this first year of the Trump
    administration. Well, this is why, because for the previous
    four years, President Biden and the Democrats opened up the
    border. Now I like this chart. First of all, saved the
    President's life.
        But the other reason I like this chart is it shows cause
    and effect. And the catalyst for this explosion in illegal
    immigration really was deferred action on childhood arrival.
    That's what sparked this. That created the first incentive for
    people to come this country illegally. That started the first
    wave.
        Now back in 2014, these were massive numbers. I remember
    President Obama calling it 2,000 a day. It was, you know, a
    humanitarian crisis. I think under Biden we had over 14,000 a
    day average. So Mr. Wolf, you were Acting Secretary trying to
    clean up the Obama mess.
        You know, I remember leading a delegation down to McAllen,
    Texas during the Obama administration, where we looked at the
    facility they set up and everybody, Democrat, Republican, were
    singing the praises of DHS for kind of skirting the rules and
    establishing a facility that would keep the children safe, as
    they were being encountered and detained across the border,
    because of the incentive of Deferred Action for Childhood
    Arrivals (DACA).
        A couple years later in the Trump administration, that
    exact same facility, all of a sudden now the Democrats are
    calling that kids in cages. I mean first of all, will you just
    confirm the fact that that was the exact same facility that we
    praised in 2014, and all of a sudden 2017, those are kids in
    cages?
        Hon. Wolf. That's correct. Those were Border Patrol
    facilities.
        Senator Johnson. I think out of your Department, last year
    we got a memo that said of the millions, and nobody knows
    exactly how many millions came in here, the wide open border. I
    mean this is--I mean it's so out of whack. 650,000 people that
    are at large in America have committed crimes. 15,000
    murderers, 20,000 rapists. Mr. Bier, you're shaking your head.
        Mr. Bier. They're not at large. The murderers are in
    prison. They're in prison, where they should be.
        Senator Johnson. They're not detained.
        Mr. Bier. They're detained by the state. They're not
    detained by ICE. They're in prisons ready to be deported. Now I
    don't----
        Senator Johnson. Ms. Vaughan, have you kept track of how
    many people have been murdered, raped, victims of vehicular
    homicide at the hands of somebody that the Biden administration
    let in this country?
        Ms. Vaughan. I wish there were a way to do that. But so
    many law enforcement agencies do not keep track of the
    immigration status of people in their custody. They don't want
    to know.
        Senator Johnson. Would you say it's in the hundreds?
        Ms. Vaughan. Yes.
        Senator Johnson. Thousands?
        Ms. Vaughan. Yes.
        Senator Johnson. Tens of thousands?
        Ms. Vaughan. One data point that I do know is that at a
    certain point a few years ago, ICE determined that there were
    10,000 deportable criminal aliens who were released by
    Sanctuary policies, who subsequently re-offended within 18
    months.
        Senator Johnson. So where is the outrage on the other side
    of the aisle to those victims and their families? You know, we
    had a hearing and in Homeland Security, and they were talking
    about the trained activists. The number was very large I mean,
    but I couldn't believe it.
        Trained activists that are trained to basically interfere
    and obstruct with the legal law enforcement actions. And I made
    the comment, I can't imagine encouraging my supporters, first
    of all, to get trained to obstruct justice much less than go
    ahead and do it. Put yourself in harm's way, knowing people are
    going to potentially get hurt.
        Well, people did get hurt. Three people lost their lives,
    and now the other side exploits those martyrs while they
    completely ignore the thousands. Let's face it, it's thousands
    of the Laken Rileys and those individuals, you know.
        Where's the outrage to the crimes committed by that massive
    wave? And of course, I didn't want to have to spend money on
    ICE. But what are you going to do and trying to clean up this
    mess? I mean it is difficult enough for you to clean up Obama's
    mess. Try and clean up Biden's mess, and rather than getting
    help from the other side, no.
        They trained activists to obstruct trying to clean up that
    mess. That's the reality of the situation. That's why I agree
    and I appreciate this hearing. We have to end Sanctuary Cities,
    because it's just another incentive, a massive incentive for
    more illegal immigration. And the next time Democrats get in
    power, they'll open it up again. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Senator Whitehouse.

                    STATEMENT OF SENATOR WHITEHOUSE

        Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman. Let me first
    observe for my colleagues here that ``Sanctuary City'' is a
    political term. It's not a technical term as your own witness
    has acknowledged, and it's important to get things right.
        So I want to just describe what's happening in Rhode
    Island. In Rhode Island, our federal district court has decided
    that local and state police officers can be held liable if they
    hold a person under an ICE detainer without a proper warrant,
    that the warrant requirement actually applies. And particularly
    when you're dealing with someone's freedom, detention. And that
    decision is not a fluke. It has been upheld by the United
    States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
        So in my state, the district of Rhode Island from a federal
    point of view, and in my circuit the United States Circuit
    Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, it is binding law that
    state and local officials who hold somebody under an ICE
    detainer where ICE hasn't bothered to get a warrant, can be
    held civilly liable. So we need to face that fact, because
    that's actually binding federal law.
        The second comment I want to make is about the behavior of
    ICE agents when they operate in Rhode Island. Those of you on
    the Judiciary Committee will remember me describing the set of
    affairs to then Secretary Noem. So masked agents appear in the
    Rhode Island Superior Court courthouse. They're operating in
    violation of an agreement that they have with the Court not to
    operate in that courthouse.
        They are operating with cameras, in violation of a
    courthouse rule that forbids taking photographs. They're
    pursuing a 30 plus year-old individual who they have mixed up
    with a high school intern who is interning for one of our state
    court judges. The state court judge is going to take the intern
    back to high school, so they walk out to the judge's car.
        If the ICE agents hadn't bothered to figure out who the
    judges were in the courthouse, when they got to the car, parked
    in a judge's only spot, they had the information necessary to
    deduce that this might be a judge. But rather than accept the
    judge's representations that he was returning an intern to the
    high school, I'll take out the full F-bomb because they used
    the actual full word.
        They told the judge ``We are going to smash your effing
    windows and we're going to drag you out of your effing car if
    you don't turn over this intern to us.'' And then they grabbed
    the intern, and they took the him into another car for half an
    hour and figured out that the high school intern was not the 30
    plus year-old person they purported to be looking for.
        Why would regular law enforcement, why would those sheriffs
    in the courthouse want to cooperate with an agency whose
    legal--whose law enforcement behavior is so wildly
    irresponsible and unprofessional? It's hard to imagine. And
    when I asked Secretary Noem about the problem of deconfliction,
    I think pretty much everybody in law enforcement understands
    what deconfliction is. Even if the state police aren't
    cooperating with the Bristol Police, when they run in to do a
    raid in Bristol, they will let the Bristol police know that
    they're going to do a raid so that when calls come in about
    cars in the street or people with guns or whatever, the local
    police department know what's going on.
        Deconfliction is elementary stuff that is taught to law
    enforcement, and yet ICE refuses to deconflict and the
    secretary didn't know the difference between deconfliction and
    cooperation. So clearly there's a massive hole in the way in
    which DHS thinks about this stuff, and it is in that
    environment that I think a lot of sensible decisions are being
    made by local police chiefs, about whether they want to
    cooperate with an organization that behaves in unreasonable and
    unprofessional ways, that threatens judges with violence and
    that refuses to even give them the courtesy of deconflicting
    when they're operating in their jurisdiction. Thank you,
    Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Thank you. Senator Cornyn.

                      STATEMENT OF SENATOR CORNYN

        Senator Cornyn. Well Mr. Chairman, I think President Trump
    has done it again, exercising almost magical powers, turning
    Democrats into budget hawks.
        It's an amazing thing to behold, And of course they
    reflexively oppose anything and everything that he proposes,
    whether it's standing to honor law enforcement and public
    safety and not illegal immigrants, whether it's eliminating the
    threat of nuclear weapons and the number one state sponsor of
    terrorism. They take the side of the state sponsor of
    terrorism. It's just amazing to me to behold.
        Sheriff, I was struck by the Ranking Member's introduction
    to his comments. He said let the police be the police, and I
    assume that would extend to other law enforcement officers like
    you and the sheriffs and other folks who maintain public
    safety. But is the collective role and job of law enforcement
    officers like yourself to protect public safety?
        Hon. Chapman. It is, and I think we all need to work
    together. One of the things that was just left out of the
    testimony just provided is the fact that communication is
    important to this, and we work very well with our counterparts.
        And a lot of times it's because of the chiefs are driven by
    the politicians above them, that don't allow them to actually
    work properly and cooperatively with our federal and other
    local counterparts. When you have that level of communication,
    you can work these issues out in advance before you have a
    problem like, you know, what the Senator was just saying.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, a lot of it boils down to
    information-sharing; correct?
        Hon. Chapman. That's correct.
        Senator Cornyn. And even where in the Senator Whitehouse's
    Circuit, the judges said that maybe local law enforcement can't
    keep people beyond their jail sentence without some other
    additional warrant.
        Let me ask you to go out on a limb here a little bit. If
    the two individuals who tragically died in Minneapolis, who
    interfered with law enforcement operation by ICE, if there had
    been the kind of cooperation that you demonstrate in Loudoun
    County and the sort of cooperation that you've advocated for
    here, do you think it's like more likely than not that those
    two individuals will still be alive?
        Hon. Chapman. Well, I can't really speak directly to that.
    What I can tell you is that the cooperation that we've had
    actually works well, and I do believe that that would have had
    an impact there. When you're talking about 287(g) and again,
    Senator Whitehouse's information, we have an agreement with ICE
    and our people are trained in order to hold onto people for a
    little bit up to 48 hours after they're incarcerated for a
    completely separate offense with us, okay.
        Senator Cornyn. That's a memorandum of understanding
    between the feds and the local law enforcement?
        Hon. Chapman. That's right. And that way they're already in
    custody. All we got to do is turn them over. They don't only
    have to come to the community to do--very often to do any
    enforcement operations. So it actually works out well.
        And to get on the front side of this and to have that level
    of communication prevents that kind of thing. But if you have
    politicians that are directing you to act in a particular way
    it really, you know, really messes up the system here, and I
    think that's largely the problem.
        We all want to work together. We work with everybody. All
    of our federal counterparts, all of our state and local
    counterparts, which I believe is one of the reasons we got one
    of the lowest crime rates in the entire country.
        Senator Cornyn. And you have--as a result of that
    cooperation, you haven't experienced any of the tragic
    consequences that we saw in Minneapolis?
        Hon. Chapman. We've actually had--before that, we actually
    had people that were--had not been arrested by us that
    committed crimes. But anybody that's been arrested by us and
    turned over to ICE is not a problem. They're out of our hands.
        Senator Cornyn. And Mr. Wolf, you were of course former
    Secretary of Homeland Security, and our Democratic colleagues
    say that they won't fund the Department of Homeland Security
    and alleviate these long waiting periods that citizens are
    experiencing at airports all around the country. They won't
    fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), until
    federal warrants are required.
        Now will you explain how a final order of deportation is a
    civil matter, and that requiring after that due process has
    already been exhausted why requiring a criminal warrant would
    be not only unnecessary, but also destructive of ICE's ability
    to actually enforce immigration law?
        Hon. Wolf. Absolutely. An alien will go before an
    immigration judge through--towards the end of their pendency of
    their hearing. They will go before an immigration judge and
    they will rule on their case.
        If they want to appeal that, they'll go to the Immigration
    Board of Appeals and they could perhaps even appeal that
    outside of that. And in every case a judge, through the due
    process, they'll have an attorney with them through the due
    process, says you don't have a legal right to remain in the
    United States and it's time for you to self deport. It's time
    for you to leave.
        And we know, as I indicated earlier, about 1.6 million of
    those individuals have said ``No. I'm going to defy that order.
    I'm going to stay here in the United States. I don't want to go
    back to my home country.''
        And then ICE is coming in at the very end of this process,
    enforcement removal officers, to effectuate that judge's order,
    to understand and to remove that individual from the country.
        And in some cases, they are in their house, and so they
    have a final order of removal. They have reasonable suspicion
    that that individual is in that house. They have likely
    observed that individual go in and out of that house, and they
    are there to remove that individual.
        It's very different than a judicial warrant, where you're
    just going into arrest someone who's then going into the due
    process system, has to go before a judge, have their case
    heard, all the facts. That is not as what is occurring when you
    have a final order of removal.
        Senator Cornyn. Thank you.
        Chairman Graham. Senator Lujan.

                       STATEMENT OF SENATOR LUJAN

        Senator Lujan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Everyone, thank
    y'all for being here today. And I just want to begin by
    reminding everyone this is the first hearing of the Budget
    Committee in this Congress.
        This is the first one, 13 months into this Congress. Oh,
    you're saying second, sir? I appreciate that, Chairman. Second.
        Voice. What was the first one?
        Senator Lujan. Look. When we talk about what's happening to
    constituents across the country right now, you'd think there'd
    be some hearings about the high cost of everything. They're
    detainers, 287. I certainly hope we get to that place.
        But since we're here today and we're not talking about the
    high cost of groceries or how expensive it's to get a birthday
    cake for your kids, gas prices through the roof, housing
    unaffordable, my Republican colleagues want to have a
    conversation about the One Big Beautiful Bill that they passed,
    which by the way we've now learned from the Congressional
    Budget Office that the legislation increased the federal
    deficit by $3.4 trillion. Trillion.
        That's a lot of money, while failing to provide real relief
    to middle and low income families. So, look. The proposal's
    tied to the package and its broader agenda included cuts to
    programs like food, like SNAP, providing support to millions of
    working families just to put food on the table.
        So as we sit here in the Senate Budget Committee, yes or
    no, and my question is to Mr. Duke. Does focusing federal
    attention on punishing so-called Sanctuary Cities meaningfully
    address the affordability crisis Americans are facing?
        Mr. Duke. No.
        Senator Lujan. Does it lower health costs for a child with
    diabetes?
        Mr. Duke. No.
        Senator Lujan. Does it make the gas that people put at a
    gas station into their vehicles more affordable to get to work,
    or does it make it more expensive?
        Mr. Duke. It has nothing to do with gas.
        Senator Lujan. Does it help a single mom afford to put food
    on the table?
        Mr. Duke. No.
        Senator Lujan. Does it address the medical solvency issues
    to make sure seniors can count on their benefits?
        Mr. Duke. It addresses them by making them worse.
        Senator Lujan. Does it help a young couple who wants to buy
    a home and start a family maybe afford that house?
        Mr. Duke. It does not help.
        Senator Lujan. Well, what the hearing discusses does not
    include anything that I just asked about, and the constituents
    I've been talking to at home are saying when's Congress going
    to get off their rears and do something about the prices that
    we're hitting every day, as opposed to just protecting the
    Epstein class and not demanding that these documents and
    everything else get released?
        So Mr. Wolf, you had responsibilities in a few of these
    places, and I appreciate the responses you were providing to
    one of my colleagues now about the process that you believe is
    fair, that allows ICE agents to go into someone's house without
    a judicial warrant. I just--it's hard for me to continue to
    listen to justification on how American citizens can have their
    homes broken into without a judicial warrant. I don't
    understand this, that American citizens, it's okay for an
    American citizen to have their windows on their car bashed in.
        That's not okay, and with all these conversations about
    Artificial Intelligence (AI) and some of these companies now
    that are working with ICE for facial recognition, which I have
    concerns about, what I don't understand now is how the
    Department of Homeland Security has access to the best facial
    recognition, AI.
        DHS says they know who the violent criminals are. Their
    words. They say they know who they are. And if they only had
    access to facial recognition, they could go find all the
    violent criminals. Well, why aren't they doing it? It's one
    unanswered question after another. It's one American right
    after another that is being torn apart, and there's
    justification now to say we can pound in your door.
        We can go in your house if you're an American citizen, or
    we can bust out your windows and drag your butt out of a car as
    an American citizen. I just don't get it, Mr. Chairman, and I
    hope we have some hearings about getting answers to that,
    because I think there's agreement between Democrats and
    Republicans on this issue.
        We don't want American citizens being treated this way.
    None of us. We want to go after the violent criminals. We both
    agree with this. I certainly hope that we can have a thorough
    and thoughtful hearing and get some answers to that as well,
    and that everyone agrees, stop doing that. Mr. President, tell
    your folks to stop doing that.
        I hope now that Senator Mullin, who's going to be Secretary
    of Health or Homeland Security, maybe he'll get these people to
    stop all the bad shit and to go after the bad people. Then
    we'll be in a better place. Thank you for the time, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Thank you. Yeah. We'll have a hearing on
    affordability and Ms. Vaughan, what percentage of a legal
    immigrants in Sanctuary Cities or just in general receive
    federal benefits?
        Ms. Vaughan. I don't have numbers for specific Sanctuary
    jurisdictions.
        Chairman Graham. Yeah, just in general.
        Ms. Vaughan. but nationally, it's more than 60 percent----
        Chairman Graham. So more than 60 percent of illegal
    immigrants receive federal benefits, and it has absolutely no
    budget impact. Well, that's interesting. Senator Lee.

                        STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEE

        Senator Lee. Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this
    hearing. Thanks to each of you for being here. I want to say at
    the outset a couple of things. First, I'm not familiar with
    many countries that are asked to simply ignore their own
    immigration laws, separate and apart from their criminal laws,
    just their own immigration laws.
        Those countries that do exist or may have existed over time
    don't remain countries very long, because things happen when
    you don't enforce your own immigration laws. We don't have to
    travel very far in our own continent or throughout Europe or
    Asia or Africa, to see what would happen if one of us entered
    one of those countries, took up residence there unlawfully. It
    likely wouldn't end well for us.
        I also want to observe that there's been several mentions
    here today about the difference between state authority and
    federal authority in reference to state's rights. I don't like
    using the term state rights, not only because it conjures
    George Wallace's image, also because it's inappropriate.
        States don't have rights. Individuals have rights. States
    have authority. It's the inverse polar opposite of a right. We
    have parallel authority with parallel sovereign jurisdictions
    in this country. The U.S. government, the one headquartered in
    this city where we sit today, has authority over our
    immigration laws, laws governing naturalization.
        Who may enter the country, who may stay, under what terms
    and conditions or for what period of time. We do need our
    federal government to be able to undertake those efforts, to
    perform those efforts well. We've adopted a number of
    techniques to procure and encourage the cooperation of state
    and local jurisdictions.
        Sometimes those have been ignored, and that is unfortunate.
    I'll get more to that in a moment. But look, we're exploring
    something today that is not without cost. The cost of an
    unsecured border, an unprecedented illegal immigration during
    the four years of the Biden administration, remain both
    stunning and debilitating.
        The Trump administration, for its part, quite fortunately
    has done a very effective job at securing the border and
    beginning the process of deportations on a very large scale.
    But there's a lot of work left to be done to deport the many
    millions who remain in this country, for us to be able to
    restore law and order, people who if they did immigrate to
    almost any other country on Earth, would be in a whole lot of
    trouble and would be facing those things.
        And yet we're made to feel as if we would be doing the
    wrong thing by enforcing our immigration laws as such. That
    important work that's being done carried out every day by brave
    men and women in federal law enforcement, continues to be
    obstructed across the country, as radical leftists, who are
    proudly, aggressively supporting Sanctuary Cities, are trying
    to try to undermine the enforcement of federal law.
        These Democrat-controlled state and local governments have,
    in many instances, been working actively, aggressively through
    these Sanctuary City policies to subvert not just federal law,
    but the enforcement of federal law by duly sworn and authorized
    federal law enforcement officials.
        And they are trying to do one thing by enforcing the law,
    which is to prioritize the well-being of American citizens and
    the safety of the American homeland. This terrible reality that
    we face is highly offensive to the citizens of the United
    States, especially those who have done the work to immigrate to
    this country legally and to do it the right way.
        Now believe it or not, not that long ago, Democrats
    supported and President Clinton himself signed into law the
    Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act,
    commonly known as IIRIRA. That Act in expanded border
    enforcement capabilities and helped bring immigration under
    control at a time when illegal immigration to the United States
    was far less frequent, far less of a large problem than it has
    been in recent years.
        In 2016, President Trump ran for President and was elected
    on a promise to stop illegal immigration. Democrats intending
    to oppose the President at every turn decided to depart in that
    moment from their previous, more common sense position, and to
    go all in on the belief that our nation should effectively have
    no border at all, that borders are sort of aspirational
    suggestions that we can look the other way on.
        That brings us to the topic of today's hearing, the cost of
    Sanctuary Cities. So what is that cost? Well, the cost is
    clear. It is waste, fraud and abuse by illegal aliens who
    shouldn't be within our borders. We saw this in Minnesota and
    we've seen it elsewhere. The cost is clear more than anything
    else.
        It's the loss of human life, innocent human life. Innocent
    American lives at the hands of illegal aliens, who have
    perpetrated some of the most heinous attacks on innocent
    American lives in recent memory. And these are entirely
    preventable, entirely avoidable crimes, crimes that would not
    have happened but for our open border policies facilitated by
    Sanctuary Cities.
        The cost is clear. It's also the increased additional
    avoidable tax burden on state, local and federal taxpayers, who
    are expected to subsidize and in fact are forced to subsidize
    problematic social welfare programs that illegal aliens have
    obtained eligibility for through fraudulent means or various
    loopholes, to say nothing of the education system, which
    because of a Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe four and a
    half decades ago, states are also forced, by no choice of their
    own, to supply that additional benefit as well.
        So, look. The cost is clear. It's all over the place. We
    can't ignore it, and by continuing to ignore it, we create
    additional problems. Let's not dress this up as something that
    it is not and never can be. Thank you.
        Chairman Graham. Mr. Padilla.

                      STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

        Mr. Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to echo the
    sentiment that several of my colleagues have mentioned earlier
    in this hearing, in more than just being surprised that this is
    well, I guess the second hearing for this Congress, but the
    first of this calendar year.
        It is not about the federal budget, not about an economic
    outlook. But I understand why the Republican majority wouldn't
    want to talk about that, not while gas prices are spiking
    because of an unauthorized war against Iran. Instead, we're
    here to discuss how off base this whole Sanctuary conversation
    really is.
        Now I know it's an area of passion for the Chairman. We've
    debated Sanctuary policies on the floor of the Senate. As I've
    objected to the legislation he has presented that would promote
    federal overreach, in my opinion. I think part of my
    frustration comes from the fact that there's a fundamental
    misunderstanding about what Sanctuary policies are and what
    Sanctuary policies are not.
        Sanctuary policies do not mean that there are no laws in
    Sanctuary cities or states. They do not keep ICE and other
    federal agencies from entering a city or a state to arrest
    violent criminals as they're released from prison. Sanctuary
    policy simply affirm that immigration enforcement is the job of
    the federal government, and that the federal government cannot
    unilaterally decide to co-opt state and local authorities or
    their resources, precious resources in carrying out these
    responsibilities.
        True, there's some states and local jurisdictions who may
    choose to coordinate, collaborate, but there's many who don't
    for their justifiable reasons. It means carrying out
    immigration enforcement activities is ICE's purview, while
    respecting state and local law enforcement agencies to make
    their own decisions about how to focus and direct their limited
    resources that they deem best protects and serves their
    constituents.
        It means prohibiting federal overreach through policies
    that have been upheld by the courts. And so I'm glad several of
    my Republican colleagues are here to listen me to me quote
    Justice Scalia in the case Prince v. United States.
        ``The federal government may neither issue directives,
    require the states to address particular problems, nor command
    the states'' officers or those of their political subdivisions
    to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.''
        Look, folks. We can have disagreements on policy, but the
    fundamental misunderstanding about what Sanctuary policies are
    has led to the promotion of enforcement actions across the
    country that have become damaging to our communities and to our
    local economies.
        So it seems to me that this debate has not really been
    about public safety, because if it were, we could also be
    talking about how the data shows that Sanctuary policies
    actually make communities safer, healthier and more prosperous.
        That's right. The evidence shows, the research shows
    Sanctuary jurisdictions have lower crime rates, higher meeting
    household income, less poverty, less reliance on public
    assistance, higher labor force participation and lower
    unemployment.
        That's right. Seems like Sanctuary cities are helping to
    make America great. I said it. So let's stop perpetuating the
    lies. Let's ensure that ICE and United States Customs and
    Border Protection (CBP) agents are accountable and conduct
    their jobs in accordance with the law and the Constitution.
    Let's allow local law enforcement leaders to do what they deem
    is best for public safety.
        And Mr. Chairman, just so you know that I'm not
    exaggerating in my claims, I'd like to submit for the record
    articles and reports from researchers at the University of
    Texas-Austin, from the Center for American Progress, from the
    University of Arizona, University of North Carolina and the
    American Immigration Council.\9\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \9\ Documents submitted by Senator Padilla appears in the appendix
    on page 136.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Chairman Graham. I have no objection.
        Senator Padilla. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Senator Kennedy.

                      STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

        Senator Kennedy. Secretary Wolf, thank you for your
    service. Why in your opinion do so many, not all, but so many
    of my Democratic colleagues believe in open borders?
        Hon. Wolf. Well, that's a good question. I think it's a
    couple of different fronts. One, it would be they don't believe
    in immigration law. They don't like enforcement, they don't
    like removing of individuals.
        Senator Kennedy. What else?
        Hon. Wolf. And they believe that--there are some that
    believe that anyone and everyone should be able to come to the
    U.S., whether they apply for protections under what else U.S.
    law or not.
        Senator Kennedy. What else?
        Hon. Wolf. And then there are some probably that would like
    to see more voters in the U.S. as well.
        Senator Kennedy. Ms. Vaughan, some of my colleagues for
    whom I have great respect, believe that the 10th Amendments,
    the 10th Amendment allows local governments to ignore federal
    immigration law and implement Sanctuary policy.
        The Supreme Court has ruled that racial quotas represent a
    pernicious form of racial discrimination. Can local governments
    ignore that ruling under the 10th Amendment?
        Ms. Vaughan. Well, the 10th Amendment is about----
        Senator Kennedy. And can they--answer my question, please.
        Ms. Vaughan. The 10th Amendment is about commandeering, and
    so it's not really appropriate to this because----
        Senator Kennedy. Is the answer yes or no, ma'am?
        Ms. Vaughan. Could you ask me again because I don't
    understand the relevance to--I'm sorry, because ICE is not
    asking them----
        Senator Kennedy. Secretary Wolf, you heard my question.
    Under the guise of the 10th Amendment, can local governments
    ignore Supreme Court ruling?
        Hon. Wolf. I don't believe they can.
        Senator Kennedy. Okay. Women have the right to vote in
    America by statute and by Constitutional interpretation. Under
    the guise of the 10th Amendment, can local governments just
    ignore that and prohibit women from voting?
        Hon. Wolf. No.
        Senator Kennedy. Mr. Duke, you worked for President Biden
    and Vice President Harris, didn't you?
        Mr. Duke. Yes.
        Senator Kennedy. And I listened carefully to your testimony
    today. You expressed--well, you offered the opinion that the
    One Big Beautiful Bill is terrible in part because it will
    cause deficits. Is that, is that right?
        Mr. Duke. Yes.
        Senator Kennedy. Isn't it a fact that the profligacy of
    President Biden caused nine percent inflation in America?
        Mr. Duke. No.
        Senator Kennedy. Okay. Isn't it a fact that if President
    Biden had discovered life on Mars when he was president, he
    would have immediately sent it money?
        Mr. Duke. I don't believe so.
        Senator Kennedy. Oh, you don't? Okay. Well, I appreciate
    your newly found fiscal conservatism.
        Mr. Bier, you seem to be a very smart guy and you seem to
    be a nice enough guy.
        Mr. Bier. Thank you, Senator. You seem smart as well.
        Chairman Graham. I object. [Laughter]
        Senator Kennedy. Don't, don't you----
        Mr. Bier. That was the Chairman, not me.
        Senator Kennedy. Don't you think your hyperbolic statements
    undermine your credibility?
        Mr. Bier. What hyperbolic statement did I make?
        Senator Kennedy. On February the 11th, 2026, you posted on
    Bluesky, quote--my words or your words, not mine. ``The
    Democrats'' video telling service members to ignore illegal
    orders didn't go far enough. They should have also urged them
    to refuse unethical orders, whether illegal or not. There are
    many things deemed legal that are still obviously unethical and
    everyone should hold themselves to this higher law.'' Did I
    read that correctly?
        Mr. Bier. I believe you did. Do you disagree with it? Do
    you think people should do unethical things in their capacity
    as----
        Senator Kennedy. On December the 31st of 2025, you posted
    to in front of----
        Mr. Bier. But wait, wait. Do you disagree with----
        Senator Kennedy. But wait, let me finish my question, sir.
    In front of God and country. You said ``They,'' referring to
    Republicans, ``think they can troll their way into us accepting
    ethnic cleansing.'' Your words, not mine. Did I read that
    correctly?
        Mr. Bier. That was in regard to a Department of Homeland
    Security----
        Senator Kennedy. Did I read that correctly?
        Mr. Bier [continuing]. Post about advocating 100 million
    deportations. That is what DHS has tweeted from their own
    account.----
        Senator Kennedy. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
        Mr. Bier [continuing]. 100 million deportations would be
    ethnic cleansing. You would be removing----
        Senator Kennedy. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
        Mr. Bier [continuing]. One-third of the country. So yes,
    there are people within the Department of Homeland Security----
        Senator Kennedy. Truth can just gut you like a fish. And
    you don't think this is hyperbolic? Give me 30 more seconds.
        Mr. Bier. I think advocating 100 million deportations is
    ethnic cleansing.
        Senator Kennedy. I'm having fun, Mr. Chairman. On February
    5th, you said the following on Bluesky.
        Mr. Bier. Your time is up.
        Senator Kennedy. ``These are all good. But there's no
    enforcement mechanism.'' I'm sorry. Let me try a better one.
        On March 2nd, you said ``If you rule against Trump's
    population purge agenda,'' no hyperbole there, ``The nativists
    will name you, threaten you and come after you. These judges
    are much braver than the ICE agents who hide behind masks while
    violating the Constitution.''
        Mr. Bier. They are much braver. They put their names on
    their rulings, and they stand behind their Constitutional
    rulings. When I talk about population purge, I'm talking about
    the fact that they're trying to deport U.S.-born citizens,
    people born here. They are trying to deport them as well.
        So it's not a mass deportation agenda. It is also an agenda
    intended to reduce the population of the United States,
    including U.S.-born people----
        Chairman Graham. Thank, thank you.
        Mr. Bier [continuing]. So these are not hyperbolic
    statements. I appreciate you reading my account. I appreciate
    your concerns.
        Senator Kennedy. What planet did you just----
        Chairman Graham. Wait, wait, wait.
        Senator Kennedy. Wait a minute, Mr. Chairman. What planet
    did you just parachute from?
        Chairman Graham. No, no, no. Hey guys.
        Senator Kennedy. You trigger my gag reflex, Mr. Bier.
        Chairman Graham. So we got a process here, and it's good to
    know you don't have an agenda. Senator Kaine.

                       STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAINE

        Senator Kaine. Mr. Chair, thanks for doing this, and
    Sheriff, welcome. I've got a Virginian at the table and that's
    why I wanted to come. My sheriff in his testimony said ``It is
    important to distinguish criminal aliens who pose a threat to
    our community from immigrants here legally.''
        All of us agree with that. We should try to find that
    balance. I don't think we're balanced right now. I've been here
    13 years. I wish we'd have a hearing about the positive impact
    immigrants make on the United States. We've never had that
    hearing in this Committee or the Health, Education, Labor and
    Pension (HELP) Committee or any others. When we have hearings,
    it's about immigrants doing bad things rather than about----
        Chairman Graham. When y'all were in charge, why didn't you
    have them?
        Senator Kaine. Well, can I take my time? Can I take my
    time? Because I think what happens, I think what happens----
        Chairman Graham. You get a whole minute more.
        Senator Kaine [continuing]. When the only hearings about
    immigrants are about crime, and we have a President who calls
    people's countries shithole countries. I got a lot of
    immigrants in the United States and in Virginia who feel like
    they're being targeted.
        And let's talk about positives. I'm going to use Loudoun as
    an example. The sheriff is rightly proud of Loudoun County.
    420,000 people in the last census. It's probably coming up to
    450 now. It is not only one of the safest jurisdictions in the
    United States, it's also by recent count the wealthiest county
    in the United States.
        And guess what? 25 percent of the population and climbing
    is immigrant. 25 percent. Safe, economically successful
    immigrant. And I also applaud this Sheriff's Department. If you
    have something to do or if you don't have something to do on
    Halloween sometime, go to the Halloween parade in Leesburg and
    you'll see the Sheriff's deputies helping order and they all
    wear uniforms with their names on them. None of them wear
    masks.
        The county's been an innovator in body camera, in body
    camera use. Wow. What a novel concept. I like the
    professionalism that I see with your Sheriff's Department, and
    I think we could use it at the federal level.
        Here's an issue about Sanctuary Cities in the Trump
    administration. DHS--Mr. Chair, you might like this one. DHS in
    May put out a list of Sanctuary cities and they included 34
    Virginia communities, cities and counties on that list. It
    provoked laughter in Virginia.
        There were cities that were not cities but counties. There
    were counties that were not counties, but cities. There were
    jurisdictions that have virtually no immigrants whatsoever
    listed as Sanctuary communities. Here was my favorite, the city
    of Duffield, Virginia.
        Now, if you don't know where Duffield is, you're not alone.
    Scott County, deep in Appalachia, 0.6 square miles, 76 people,
    not a single immigrant, not even a police department. Sanctuary
    City. Virginia laughed the DHS out of the office. And so in
    October, this was in August. I'm sorry, this was in May.
        In August, United States Department of Justice (DOJ) came
    back and did a new list, number of Sanctuary Cities in
    Virginia, zero. They redid the list in October. Number of
    Sanctuary Cities in Virginia, zero. Mr. Chair, I'd like to
    introduce DHS's bogus Sanctuary Cities list into the
    record.\10\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \10\ Document submitted by Senator Kaine appears in the appendix on
    page 132.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Chairman Graham. Without objection.
        Senator Kaine. And then Mr. Chair, my last question is,
    look. I'm not on Judiciary, and the bill that you have about
    imposing liability on local officials would suggest that the
    only fault in this area lies on local officials.
        Now if you have a markup, it'll be in Judiciary. And I'm
    not on it, but my question is sort of for you. Isn't what's
    good for the goose, good for the gander? What about all the
    times when I was governor of Virginia, 2006-2010, and my DOC,
    Department of Corrections or local law enforcement, told ICE
    and the federal immigration agencies, three years under
    President Bush, one year under President Obama that ``Hey,
    we've got somebody here who is not lawfully here. Please come
    pick them up, and ICE didn't show up.''
        And ICE still is not showing up. So often the bad examples,
    including one of the ones in Fairfax recently, repeated
    instances of ICE having this person in their purview, in their
    grasp and then letting them go. So wouldn't it be--I mean if
    you're going to do a bill and and blame cities for this, and
    try to impose liability on their local taxpayers?
        What about letting people sue ICE, when hard-working local
    officials and sheriffs let folks know ``Hey, we got folks here
    that, you know, are here unlawfully. Come pick them up.'' And
    when they don't come pick them up, shouldn't they be liable for
    that?
        Chairman Graham. Maybe that's something we could do
    together. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Be glad to work
    with you.
        I think those days were probably over with this
    administration. But the idea that the federal government had
    notice and the local community is willing to turn them over and
    they turned a blind eye and somebody got hurt, I would be
    willing definitely to create liability there.
        Senator Kaine. And I'll just conclude Mr. Chair and say,
    you know, the mayor in me, the governor in me gets mad when
    things like this get blamed on mayors and governors, when often
    it's complete dysfunction at the federal level under multiple
    administrations. That's the real culprit. I yield back.
        Chairman Graham. Right. The lawyer in me wants to hold
    people accountable who create problems. Senator Scott.

                       STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT

        Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman. Thanks for holding this
    important hearing. The United States is a nation of law and
    order. Those two things go hand in hand because when you have
    laws that are obeyed, you have order in your communities. But
    for too long, liberal states and cities have decided to simply
    ignore the federal laws they don't agree with.
        When I was the governor of Florida, I didn't have to worry
    about our sheriffs not enforcing law but President Trump and
    our federal law enforcement have to worry about that every day.
    The American people voted very clearly to secure the border.
    That's what the election was about, and stop illegal
    immigration we're a country of legal immigration, not illegal
    immigration.
        And without a single new law being enacted, President Trump
    has delivered and secured the border when President Biden said
    he couldn't do it. President Trump and the heroic men and women
    of our ICE and border patrol are enforcing our laws and they're
    securing our nation and the crime rate is down.
        But some Americans say no, we won't follow federal law. We
    want to be a Sanctuary for people who broke the law to enter
    our country illegally. It is a violation. It's against the law
    to come into our country illegally, like most countries. It's
    dangerous. It's costly to the American taxpayer and has
    horrific consequences. That's why I and my colleague on this
    Committee, Senator Moreno, have introduced two bills to curb
    this kind of dangerous disregard for the law.
        Our unifying American Security Interest Act and Sanctuary
    Jurisdiction Event Security Enhancement Act, which stopped DHS
    funding grants and financial assistance from going to cities
    and jurisdictions that refuse to support our ICE and DHS agents
    in their efforts to keep our streets safe.
        Americans clearly don't want their tax dollars used for
    handouts to illegal aliens for health care or food stamps while
    we have American citizens here at home who are going without.
    And that's exact kind of waste and financial mismanagement that
    these bills will stop.
        But that's just the financial cost. Let's talk about the
    human costs. Laken Riley, a nursing student, 22 years old in
    Georgia was beaten with a rock and strangled by a Venezuelan
    illegal alien, who had been caught at the border and released
    under Biden's Open Borders rules.
        Rachel Morin, 37 of Maryland, a mother of five who was
    raped and murdered while hiking by a Salvadorian criminal alien
    who crossed our border illegally, not once, not twice, but
    three times under Biden. Kate Steinle, 32, died in her father's
    arms on a San Francisco pier after being shot by a five-time
    Mexican deportee, who was allowed to roam freely because the
    city's Sanctuary policy led local officials to ignore an ICE
    detainer.
        These are just a few of the many lives cut short in the
    potential unrealized lives because of Biden's Open Borders,
    that allowed dangerous people to come into this country, and
    the Sanctuary Cities that chose to support and encourage these
    criminals.
        I'm from Florida. We are an immigration state, legal
    immigration. We don't support illegal immigration.
        Sheriff Chapman, my question. How can open borders and lax
    immigration policies like a Sanctuary Cities be considered
    humane by Democrats if they fail to protect the very citizens,
    Democrats and other elected officials are meant to serve, and
    they're under oath of office to serve.
        Hon. Chapman. Well, I agree with that. I mean the most
    important thing is for us to keep safety, keep our people safe
    and we've got to do everything in our power, and that includes
    working with everybody. I make that point all the time to my
    constituents, saying ``Look. We want to work with all of our
    federal counterparts. We all have different missions here,
    different cogs in the wheel. But we all have to work together
    to keep everybody safe.''
        Senator Scott. Is it better for you if you turn somebody, a
    criminal over to ICE, rather than let them back into the
    community?
        Hon. Chapman. Absolutely, absolutely.
        Senator Scott. Mr. Wolf, in Sanctuary Cities, local
    authorities can decline ICE detainers, which means that
    criminals are released back in the community rather than
    transferred safely into ICE custody.
        This creates opportunities for illegal fugitives to
    relocate or re-offend, like in the tragic murder of Kate
    Steinle. It also forces DHS officers to go into neighborhoods
    to root out violent criminals. Not only does this cost the
    taxpayer more; it also increases the risk for everyone
    involved, including bystanders, DHS officers and potential
    future victims.
        How do these policies prioritize offenders over American
    victims by obstructing deportations?
        Hon. Wolf. Well, when ICE is required to go into a
    community, out on the streets, right, instead of going into
    that jail setting and picking up that criminal illegal alien;
    it'll take one or two officers to go into a jail setting.
        If they have to go into their neighborhood, it's going to
    take 15 to 20 officers to apprehend that same individual.
    You're putting not only the officers at risk, you're putting
    that alien at risk and you're putting others in that community
    at risk.
        So the idea here, and it's an ironic kind of play here, is
    that individuals and politicians that want less ICE in their
    jurisdictions, they will give them Sanctuary policies to say
    ``We want ICE out.'' But in fact, it just requires them to be
    more in their communities because they won't go into a jail
    setting.
        They have to go into their neighborhoods. They have to
    continue to enforce immigration law. So if your idea is I want
    to see less ICE in my community, I don't like immigration
    enforcement, let them into your jail. Let them pick up those
    criminal illegal aliens. Otherwise, they're going to be out on
    your streets because they have to continue to enforce
    immigration law.
        And of course, it's better with local law enforcement
    support and cooperation. But again, in many jurisdictions,
    Sanctuary jurisdictions, we don't see that either.
        Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman.
        Chairman Graham. Senator Moreno.

                      STATEMENT OF SENATOR MORENO

        Senator Moreno. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A quick question
    for all of you. You can just do a very simple if it's okay, yes
    or no. I'm going to try to ask it as a simple yes or no
    question. Are you familiar with U.S.C. 1325?
        Hon. Wolf. Yes.
        Hon. Chapman. No.
        Ms. Vaughan. Yes.
        Mr. Bier. Yes.
        Mr. Duke. No.
        Senator Moreno. You're not. Okay. So the law passed the
    1952 is the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA). It talked
    about how the country controls immigration.
        Mr. Wolf, we'll start with you. Do you think that we made a
    mistake passing that law, that prohibits people from entering
    this country illegally?
        Hon. Wolf. No, I don't think that's a mistake.
        Senator Moreno. Sheriff, do you believe we made a mistake
    passing that law?
        Hon. Chapman. No, I don't think so.
        Senator Moreno. Ms. Vaughan?
        Ms. Vaughan. No.
        Senator Moreno. Mr. Bier?
        Mr. Bier. It was a mistake to not let them come legally.
    That's what we need.
        Senator Moreno. But that's not what the law said.
        The law said you can't enter the country illegally. Was
    that a----
        Mr. Bier. There were definitely mistakes in the INA, many
    mistakes.
        Senator Moreno. Was that part--don't be cute. Was that part
    of the law a mistake, yes or no?
        Mr. Bier. The part of the law that says you can't come
    legally? Yes, that was a mistake.
        Senator Moreno. That was a mistake, that you can't come
    illegally?
        Mr. Bier. No, legally. Legally is what I said.
        Senator Moreno. Okay. So you haven't answered to my
    question. But that's okay. You're a smug guy and that's part of
    your shtick. How about you?
        Mr. Duke. I don't know anything about this law.
        Senator Moreno. Do you think it should be a crime to enter
    the country illegally?
        Mr. Duke. I don't know anything about this. I'm here to
    talk about budgets.
        Senator Moreno. Well, no, no. You don't have to--look, I'm
    not a lawyer. You don't have to be a lawyer. It's a simple
    question. Should it be a crime? I'll say it slowly. Should it
    be a crime to enter the United States of America illegally
    without permission?
        Mr. Duke. I don't know anything about that.
        Senator Moreno. Do you have a home?
        Mr. Duke. I rent.
        Senator Moreno. Do you have a place that you sleep in?
        Mr. Duke. Yes, correct. Okay. Should it be a crime for
    people to enter your home without permission?
        Mr. Duke. Yes.
        Senator Moreno. You're pretty certain on that one?
        Mr. Duke. Yes.
        Senator Moreno. Okay. But you're not sure if it's okay to
    enter America without permission. Which is our home, by the
    way.
        You don't know about America? Okay. Gotcha. All right. So
    this is the best the Democrats can come up with Mr. Chairman. I
    hope the Ranking Member can listen for just a second, if you
    don't mind. This is the best witnesses you've got?
        A guy who can't distinguish whether it's okay to have
    people enter our country illegally. Of all the millions of
    people that you could have chosen to testify----
        Senator Merkley. To my good colleague----
        Senator Moreno. Oh, let me finish. The best you have is a
    guy who has no idea what our immigration law is and isn't sure
    if somebody should enter the country illegally.
        Another guy is a smug guy who obviously has an agenda.
        And in fact, let me just ask you a question, because I
    was----
        Senator Merkley. Maybe you can maybe stick to the facts,
    instead of badgering the witnesses.
        Senator Moreno. I'm not badgering the witnesses.
        Senator Merkley. Well, you're attacking them.
        Senator Moreno. I'm asking simple questions.
        Senator Merkley. Yeah, why don't you ask some actual
    factual questions?
        Senator Moreno. But why don't you do this? Why don't you
    speak when it's your turn? Oh, because we actually take turns.
        Senator Merkley. You're addressing me, so I am addressing
    you back.
        (Simultaneous discussion.)
        Senator Merkley. You're looking right at me. You're
    addressing me.
        Senator Moreno. Because here's what I find out ironic, is
    that you follow rules here about speaking order. People can't
    speak out of turn, but it's okay with you that people enter our
    country and skip their turn. See----
        Senator Merkley. Oh, now you're attributing views to me I
    haven't expressed. Isn't that interesting?
        Senator Moreno. What I would love to find interesting----
        Senator Merkley. Not only are you attacking the witnesses,
    now you're attacking your colleagues here on the dais, which I
    think is very inappropriate.
        Chairman Graham. Gentlemen, gentlemen. Wait a minute. I'm
    in charge.
        Senator Moreno. Yes, sir.
        Chairman Graham. You ask him a question.
        Senator Moreno. Yes.
        Chairman Graham. He'll get a chance to answer that
    question. Finish your time.
        Senator Moreno. Thank you. All right, moving on to the next
    question, Mr. Sheriff. How important is it for local law
    enforcement to cooperate with federal officials?
        Hon. Chapman. I can tell you it's worked for us, and it's
    kept our crime rate down extraordinarily low.
        Senator Moreno. So if somebody is in your position in
    Hamilton County, which is the county where Cincinnati is with
    the Cincinnati Chief of Police, would you advise them that you
    think it's helpful to cooperate with law enforcement?
        Hon. Chapman. Absolutely.
        Senator Moreno. Okay. Do you find it interesting that
    politicians who have no idea, no background in law enforcement,
    will pass laws that prohibit law enforcement to cooperate with
    federal officials, local law enforcement? Do you think that's a
    good idea?
        Hon. Chapman. No, it's not a good idea.
        Senator Moreno. It's a terrible idea. Do you have death
    threats against your sheriff deputies on a regular basis?
        Hon. Chapman. We get threats. Not that often, but we do.
        Senator Moreno. Constant, constant death threats or do you
    get constant?
        Hon. Chapman. Not constant death threats, but we do get
    threats, yes.
        Senator Moreno. Do you have drug cartels that have bounties
    out for your deputies?
        Hon. Chapman. No. No, we don't.
        Senator Moreno. Do you get your agent's doxed, where they
    go to your agent's--your deputies' homes and threaten their
    children and their wives and their kids?
        Hon. Chapman. No, we have not.
        Senator Moreno. Do you get politicians that call your
    deputies Gestapo and Nazis?
        Hon. Chapman. We've had certainly politicians, not locally
    here, but certainly we've had a lot of people in the community
    that have said that.
        Senator Moreno. Do you find any of that helpful when
    talking about law enforcement agencies? Because see, here's the
    irony. What we're disparaging is the people whose job it is to
    enforce the laws.
        And I find it extraordinarily interesting that the people
    in charge of making these laws are disparaging the people who
    are enforcing those laws.
        And I wonder and I'll ask for the record if the minority
    witnesses could just sign an affidavit that they have not
    received any money, and the organization that they work for or
    participate in from any organizations tied to the Mexican drug
    cartels, which would have an absolute incentive to have illegal
    migration at the levels that we saw under Biden?
        Chairman Graham. If you have any reason----
        Mr. Bier. We haven't accepted any drug cartel money.
        Senator Moreno. Again, if they could just put that in
    affidavit or an affiliated organization.
        Chairman Graham. You okay, Mr. Duke?
        Mr. Duke. I'd like to look at the affidavit.
        Chairman Graham. Okay, fair enough. But do you know if
    you've accepted any money?
        Mr. Duke. I do not know of anything like that.
        Chairman Graham. Right. Yeah, sure. Okay. Thank you. All
    right. So good hearing. Senator Merkley, I'll let you go first.
    I'll have a few words, then we'll go vote.
        Senator Merkley. Well, let's start with the Gang of Eight
    that my colleague referred to from 2013. Democrats and
    Republicans came together, four and four. They crafted a bill
    on immigration.
        It was all about the rule of law on the border. Democrats
    and Republicans together saying the rule of law matters, and it
    addressed many of the immigration challenges that we have in
    different sectors, be it employment, agriculture, a path to
    citizenship for people who'd been here a long time, a path to
    citizenship for Dreamers, Democrats and Republicans together.
        So one of the myths we've heard today from some of my
    colleagues is that Democrats don't support the rule of law.
    Absolutely wrong. What happened to that 2013 bill that went
    over to the House of Representatives controlled by Republicans,
    they would not even hold a hearing on it.
        They wanted to keep an open sore of immigration as a
    political issue. In 2024, Democrats and Republican Senate came
    together again, crafted a deal and it was President Trump as a
    candidate who said ``Don't do it. I want to keep immigration as
    an election issue.''
        So I just think it would be more productive if we quit
    casting aspersions across the aisle, and go back to the
    philosophy of 2013 and work together to actually get a bill
    done, or the philosophy of 2024. And certainly all of us agree
    in going after violent criminals.
        That's the second myth that was presented today that people
    don't support going after violent criminals. Absolutely a myth,
    and it's just irritating to continuously hear that.
        Myth number three from one of my colleagues was that
    Democrats won't fund FEMA. In fact, last week in the Senate we
    asked unanimous consent to fund FEMA and the Coast Guard and
    Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and it was the
    Republicans that objected. So let's clear up that piece.
        The next myth, that is that undocumented individuals
    receive benefits. It is illegal under the law for undocumented
    individuals to receive Medicaid or Medicare or Children's
    Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or SNAP or Social Security
    benefits.
        Another myth, that states that have decided that local
    police are more effective being local police, somehow attract
    immigrants because they're not held accountable to the law.
    They are held accountable to the law. In fact, you have lower
    crime rates in those states. So that's kind of interesting.
        And in fact, we see that some states like Texas, they have
    50 percent more undocumented immigrants as a ratio of
    population than Oregon does. So clearly it's not Oregon's
    policies that say we're more effective and safer and more
    prosperous when ICE does ICE and local police do local police
    work.
        And yet another myth. One of my colleagues across the aisle
    said ``States do not have powers.'' He says they do not have
    rights. But they do have powers, the 10th Amendment. The powers
    not delegated to the U.S. by the Constitution are reserved to
    the states and to the people.
        And that is why the federal government cannot commandeer
    individuals in the states to do federal responsibilities. It's
    called the Constitution of the United States of America.
        Another myth was that it's less safe in states where local
    police do local police work. There's many statistics that show
    the opposite of that. But let's just take for example, where is
    the highest murder rate in America? Is it in a state where
    local police are assigned to local police?
        No. It's Mississippi. Who's the second highest murder rate?
    Louisiana. How is the murder rate in Oregon? It is one-fourth
    of what is in those states. So let's be clear again. This myth
    that you have higher crime rates in places where the local
    police gain the trust of the people, work carefully between
    state and local and with federal officials, but they don't do
    the work of ICE.
        And if ICE knows that someone is in a jail, and they know
    because it's in the federal database and the FBI database and
    they want that person, it only takes a couple days to go get a
    judicial warrant and pick that person up. Every time there's a
    judicial warrant, that person is held.
        So if it's just being lazy or sloppy or whatever else,
    there's a whole lot of misinformation coming forward here that
    needed to be corrected.
        Chairman Graham. Well, thank you very much. I have a
    different view of things. I really appreciate the hearing.
    Obama deported three million people. I don't think all of them
    were criminals. They didn't use judicial warrants. What you're
    trying to do is make it impossible to deport people.
        If you have to go to a judge and get a judicial warrant to
    deport somebody, you effectively destroy the ability to deport.
    You're denying Trump the same system you are giving Obama. This
    hearing to me is stunning. I'm so glad we had it. You're all in
    on Sanctuary City policy.
        If you're looking to America, if you're looking for anybody
    to change this system, our Democratic friends have no interest.
    They think it's good for America. The more illegal immigrants,
    the better. I don't. I'd like to have a rational immigration
    system.
        Gang of Eight. I was involved in it. What we tried to do is
    stop future flow and the trade-off was to give people a pathway
    to citizenship, knowing you would stop future flow. You're
    right. The House blocked the bill during 20 to 2020--from 2020
    to 2024, Joe Biden destroyed every concept of rational
    immigration.
        He made it impossible for a Republican to sit down and talk
    with a Democrat, because during his four years, he took every
    rule and ignored it. There are no taxpayer dollars associated
    with legal immigrants. They were flown into the country on
    airplanes. They were bussed in, they were fed, they were given
    housing.
        11 million people are not living in the streets. They're in
    some apartment or a house somewhere, and if you don't think
    that affects housing, that's crazy. 11 million people came at
    least in a four-year period, and to hear you say it, no impact
    on this country, that's just absurd.
        So what are we going to do? We're going to try to start
    with the magnets. If you don't think Sanctuary City policy is a
    magnet for future illegal immigration, that's just insane. How
    can you fix it if you don't take the magnets off the table?
        The bottom line is I want a vote on my bill to hold local
    and state officials accountable for violating federal law, when
    they should enforce it like they did during Obama, and you
    won't let me have a vote. You won't let me have the debate. The
    reason you don't want to vote is because 70 to 80 percent of
    the American public think the policies you're pushing are
    harmful.
        There is a budget impact to being overrun in a country in a
    four-year period. To think this is not a problem is insulting
    to the American people. It is a problem, and you try to
    rationalize it and make it a good thing. It's not a good thing.
    It's a bad thing. At the end of the day, if you can't answer
    the question ``It should be a crime to come into the country
    illegally,'' that says all you really need to know about the
    people here.
        Of course it should be. It should be a crime as Senator
    Moreno said, to go in your house without being invited. We
    cannot have a sovereign nation when people just show up and
    come in and go anywhere they want to go. That's just not
    rational.
        We've got more people on the terrorist watch list than
    we've ever had, 2,700 percent. The people who have come here
    are all not well-meaning. I understand immigration pretty well.
    I understand the need to fix it. The American people want to be
    fair.
        But Senator Merkley, they're not going to buy into a system
    that constantly allows people to come in unchecked. Once you
    can prove to them you've stopped illegal immigration, then we
    could have a rational discussion about what to do with people
    who have been here a long time.
        But you've doubled or tripled the number of people. So all
    I'm going--all I will say, this is a debate worthy of a great
    nation. Our Democratic friends are accepting of a Sanctuary
    policy. They don't think it's a problem. I do. Let's have a
    debate. Let's have a vote.
        This will be good for the country going into 2026, as to
    who should be in charge of controlling our borders and
    enforcing law. This administration is enforcing the law.The
    prior administration obliterated the law. Thank you very much
    to all of you for coming. I appreciate your time and attention.
    Senator Merkley, thank you. The hearing's adjourned and oh, one
    second. I want to introduce a statement. Yeah, you didn't
    finish up.
        Donald Rosenberg was unable to be here. I'd like to put his
    statement in the record. He represents Victims of Illegal Alien
    Crime. Without objection I'd like to introduce this statement
    if that's okay. Is that okay? \11\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \11\ Statement submitted by Chairman Graham appears in the appendix
    on page 107.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Senator Merkley. Yes.
        Chairman Graham. Thank you. I want to thank our witnesses
    for appearing before the Committee. You want to finish your
    thought? Go ahead.
        Senator Merkley. Mr. Bier, you have a pile of documents
    that you want to enter into the record. What are those
    documents?
        Chairman Graham. Without objection.
        Mr. Bier. These are all the studies that show that
    immigrants do not increase crime, and places that place
    restrictions on ICE cooperation are not resulting in an
    increase in crime.\12\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \12\ Documents submitted by Mr. Bier appears in the appendix on
    page 181.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Chairman Graham. Without objection.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you.
        Chairman Graham. Okay. The hearing record will remain open
    until noon tomorrow for the submission of questions to the
    record to the Committee Clerk. The hearing is adjourned. Thank
    you all very, very much.
        (Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., Tuesday, March 10, 2026, the
    hearing was adjourned.)
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