[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROBLEMS WITH ICE INTERROGATION, DETENTION, AND REMOVAL PROCEDURES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,
CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY,
AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 13, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-80
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
40-742 PDF WASHINGTON : 2008
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan, Chairman
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California LAMAR SMITH, Texas
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JERROLD NADLER, New York Wisconsin
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida RIC KELLER, Florida
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California DARRELL ISSA, California
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MIKE PENCE, Indiana
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
BETTY SUTTON, Ohio STEVE KING, Iowa
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois TOM FEENEY, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees,
Border Security, and International Law
ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairwoman
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois STEVE KING, Iowa
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California ELTON GALLEGLY, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Chief Counsel
George Fishman, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
FEBRUARY 13, 2008
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 1
The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Iowa, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration,
Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law.. 2
WITNESSES
Mr. Gary Mead, Assistant Director for Detention and Removal, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Oral Testimony................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
Mr. James J. Brosnahan, Senior Partner, Morrison & Foerster, LLP
Oral Testimony................................................. 30
Prepared Statement............................................. 32
Ms. Marie Justeen Mancha, Student, Tattnal County High School
Oral Testimony................................................. 34
Prepared Statement............................................. 35
Mr. Michael Graves, Member United Food and Commerical Workers
Union Local 1149
Oral Testimony................................................. 36
Prepared Statement............................................. 38
Ms. Kara Hartzler, Attorney, Florrence Immigrant and Refugee
Rights Project
Oral Testimony................................................. 40
Prepared Statement............................................. 43
Ms. Rachel E. Rosenbloom, Human Rights Fellow, Center for Human
Rights and International Justice at Boston College
Oral Testimony................................................. 67
Prepared Statement............................................. 69
Mr. Dan Stein, President, Federation for American Immigration
Reform
Oral Testimony................................................. 79
Prepared Statement............................................. 80
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record........................ 93
PROBLEMS WITH ICE INTERROGATION, DETENTION, AND REMOVAL PROCEDURES
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2008
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship,
Refugees, Border Security, and International Law
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:38 p.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Zoe
Lofgren (Chairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Lofgren, Gutierrez, Jackson Lee,
Waters, Delahunt, Sanchez, Ellison, King, and Gallegly.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. We have noticed this for a
postponement to 2:30. We have a private bill we need to take
action on, but we need a working quorum to do that. So we will
interrupt our hearing when we obtain that quorum, and we will
begin now with our oversight hearing.
This is the hearing of the Subcommittee on Immigration,
Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law.
And without objection, the Chair will recess the hearing as
necessary to accommodate our vote.
Six months ago, I first heard about a U.S. citizen deported
from the United States, Pedro Guzman, who had to get himself
caught by the Border Patrol in order to get back into his own
country.
At that time, I had hoped that this case was an isolated
incident. I asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement for
answers on this case, and specifically for procedures to help
prevent another deportation of a U.S. citizen.
Instead, I received a perfunctory response more than a
month later with no answers and an apathetic attitude toward
protecting U.S. citizens from deportation.
Without objection, I would like to enter my letter and the
ICE response into the record.
There is never a justification for the deportation of U.S.
citizens, let alone the negligent attitude toward helping to
locate and return a U.S. citizen when he or she is erroneously
deported.
Six months ago, I feared this Nation might be entering
another era that would become one more blight in our Nation's
history. Based upon the witness testimony I have read for today
and a long list of other individual cases, I feel we have
arrived at that era where an overzealous government is
interrogating, detaining, and deporting its own citizens while
treating noncitizens even worse.
It is true that ICE's enforcement capacity has grown
exponentially in the last several years. But based upon today's
testimony, it appears training and oversight at ICE has lagged
far behind.
I am hopeful that this hearing will not only show us where
the problems lie but also lead us to solutions. I have many
questions beginning with the long list I asked in my June 26,
2007, letter to ICE that was essentially ignored.
I would like to know specifically what procedures are in
place to train and oversee ICE agents during detention,
interrogation, and removal processes. And I would like to know
exactly how ICE ensures it is not interrogating, detaining, or
deporting U.S. citizens.
And I would like ICE to explain how it is that its
policies, procedures, and management allows for each of the
situations described today by our U.S. citizens, witnesses, or
their representatives.
At this point, I would now like to recognize our
distinguished Ranking minority Member, Steve King, for his
opening statement.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
U.S. citizenship is, of course, an absolute defense to
immigration removal proceedings. No citizen should live in fear
of being detained by immigration officials or deported from the
country, so our government should do everything reasonably
necessary to ensure that does not happen.
I am confident that ICE is taking those steps that we would
all want it to take to ensure that U.S. citizens are not being
detained or deported even for brief periods.
That is not to say that there has never been a U.S. citizen
detained or deported. But it is a very rare occurrence, at
least statistically.
ICE will describe a few instances in which a U.S. citizen
was detained or deported.
For instance, a U.S. citizen child was detained after his
illegal immigrant father was arrested on a fugitive warrant.
ICE repeatedly asked the father to provide the name of a
caretaker for the child, but the father refused to do so.
So ICE was faced with the choice of holding the boy until
Child Protective Services could be called or releasing him
without supervision. Luckily, after several hours, the father
gave ICE the name of a caretaker, and the child was released.
ICE also indicates that some U.S. citizens chose to claim
Mexican citizenship and agree to voluntary removal to avoid
background checks that may reveal a criminal record. These
persons know they can later easily enter back into the United
States from Mexico using U.S. identification documents.
There are often extenuating circumstances in these cases of
deportation of U.S. citizens. There are safeguards in place to
prevent the detention and deportation of citizens.
Those safeguards include everything from questioning and
records checks by ICE officials to processes set out in the
Immigration and Nationality Act for a Federal Court to follow
up a claim when U.S. citizenship is made.
ICE does not aim to harass and deport U.S. citizens. It has
got a lot of work to do. It doesn't need to take on any more.
It seems to me that instead of focusing a hearing on the
extremely unusual instances where citizens have been
accidentally detained or deported, we should focus on the
millions of illegal immigrants who should but are not being
removed from this country.
Last year, ICE removed 238,204 illegal immigrants from the
United States. That number includes many thousands of expedited
removals at ports of entry and along the borders. So the number
of people deported is actually a lot less.
There are an estimated 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants
in the United States. I think the number is greater than 20
million. But by those numbers, only 1 to 2 percent or less of
the U.S. illegal immigrant population was removed last year.
Our government should be deporting many more people. We are
hardly ahead of the Mexican government, which deported, by one
set of records, 125,000 last year. My notes from a speech by
Vicente Fox just late last fall say that they had deported
250,000.
In either case, either proportionally or in raw numbers--
the population of Mexico is about a third of that of the United
States--they are deporting more people out of Mexico than we
are out of the United States.
While I understand the reason behind this hearing, we
should not take a lack of malice on the part of ICE--we should
note the lack of malice on the part of ICE to detain or deport
U.S. citizens. We should note the rarity and brevity of
occurrences, and we should note the safeguards that ICE has in
place to reduce such occurrences to the absolute minimum.
Finally, as to worksite enforcement actions at locations
where mass lawbreaking is taking place, the U.S. citizens
affected should blame their reckless employers and illegal
immigrant co-workers.
They should not blame the dedicated Federal officials
trying to enforce our laws for all our benefit.
There is a huge human haystack of humanity that crosses our
border every night that has piled up here in the United States.
And it is the cumulative effect of lack of enforcement going
clear back to 1986; employers who break the law, and the
incentive that is there is a big job that ICE has ahead of
them.
With all of those numbers to work with, and by the way,
interdicting my numbers, a year before last, 1,188,000 on our
southern border--it is a huge number. To deal with all of that
without a single mistake would be asking too much of a mortal.
And so we want you to do your best at ICE. And we want to
look at these cases and make sure that American citizens are as
protected as possible as part of your job in enforcing
immigration law and also, by enforcing it, protecting American
citizens.
I thank the witnesses in advance for their testimony.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I yield back my time.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
We have two distinguished panels of witnesses here today to
help consider the important issues before us.
Seated on our first panel, it is my pleasure to introduce
Gary Mead. Gary Mead is the assistant director of management in
the Office of Detention and Removal Operations at Immigration
and Customs Enforcement.
Prior to joining ICE in 2006, he served with the U.S.
Marshals Service. He worked as the associate director for
administration, the associate director for operations support,
and the assistant director for management and budget. He holds
a bachelor's degree from Sacher University of New York, a
master's from Bowling Green State University, and graduated
from the management program at the National Defense University
here in Washington.
Mr. Mead, your written statement will be made part of the
record in its entirety.
We ask that each witness summarize their testimony in 5
minutes or less and help to stay within that timeframe.
We do have that little machine in front of you. When the
yellow light goes on, it means you have 1 minute left. And when
the red light goes on, we do ask you to complete your thoughts
and conclude, so that we can get to our questions.
So we would invite you now, Mr. Mead, to give us your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF GARY MEAD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR DETENTION AND
REMOVAL, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
Mr. Mead. Good afternoon, Chairman Lofgren and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee.
My name is Gary Mead, and I am the assistant director for
management in the Office of Detention and Removal Operations at
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Among its many responsibilities, ICE promotes public safety
and national security by ensuring the safe and efficient
departure from the United States of all removable aliens
through the fair enforcement of the Nation's immigration laws.
One of its core missions is the apprehension, detention,
and removal of inadmissible and deportable aliens. In carrying
out this mission, ICE officers are ever mindful of their sworn
duty to protect the rights of all individuals to the best of
their abilities.
ICE officers must interview hundreds of thousands of
individuals annually to determine citizenship and immigration
status. ICE uses its authority to question individuals
regarding their citizenship and legal right to be in the United
States with the utmost professionalism and respect for
individual rights.
Over the last 4 years, more than one million individuals
have passed through ICE detention facilities. During fiscal
year 2007 alone, more than 310,000 illegal aliens passed
through our custody and approximately 280,000 of these were
removed from the United States.
At no time did ICE knowingly or willfully place a U.S.
citizen in detention or remove them from the United States.
ICE immediately releases individuals who are U.S. citizens
or who may have a legitimate claim to derive U.S. citizenship.
However, it should be noted that some people falsely assert
U.S. citizenship in order to evade deportation.
It is common for ICE's law enforcement personnel to
encounter individuals who make false claims about their
immigration status or citizenship. For example, in 2007, ICE
investigators made more than 1,530 criminal arrests in cases
involving document or benefit fraud.
Upon arrival in the United States, all applicants for
admission, including aliens and U.S. citizens, must present
themselves for examination at a designated port of entry and
provide proof of citizenship and their right to enter the
United States.
Away from the ports of entry, ICE bears the burden of
proving that the individual is not a U.S. citizen when he or
she is questioned by an immigration officer. ICE may engage in
consensual encounters like any law enforcement officer.
Once an individual provides a credible response that he or
she is a U.S. citizen, questioning regarding alienage must
stop. If the individual gives an unsatisfactory response or
admits that he or she is an alien, the individual may be asked
to produce evidence that he or she is lawfully present in the
United States.
For cases involving detainees in ICE custody who are
pending removal from the United States, ICE works actively to
ensure any claims of U.S. citizenship are timely and properly
adjudicated.
If a detainee makes a credible claim of U.S. citizenship,
ICE officers will ask the detainee whether he or she can
produce supporting evidence. In addition, the officer will
review the detainee's files and query all relevant databases to
support the detainee's claims.
In addition to the many safeguards that are already in
place that I can discuss further, with the exception of Mexico
and Canada, all people removed from the United States must
obtain a travel document from the country in which they are
being removed to.
Those countries often engage in consular interviews and
conduct their own detailed review to determine that the person
being removed is, in fact, a citizen of the country that they
are going to.
Even though ICE has never knowingly or intentionally
detained or removed a U.S. citizen, ICE is currently reviewing
its policies and procedures to determine if even greater
safeguards can be put in place to prevent the rare instance
when this event might potentially occur.
ICE anticipates having this review completed within the
next 60 days and would welcome any suggestions from the
Committee.
I want to thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the
Subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of
the men and women of DRO and ICE. And I look forward to
answering any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mead follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gary E. Mead
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. Mr. Mead.
I am sure we do have questions. I will begin first by
asking you if ICE has any jurisdiction over United States
citizens.
Mr. Mead. No, ma'am. We have no jurisdiction.
Ms. Lofgren. The Code of Federal Regulations specifies that
if an immigration officer ``has a reasonable suspicion based on
specific articuable facts that a person being questioned is in
the U.S. legally, then the officer may briefly detain the
person for questioning.''
What constitutes a brief period of detention?
Mr. Mead. Well, I think that is fact-dependent. During the
interview of an individual, ICE officers are trained to ask
questions to determine whether or not the person is in the
country; whether or not the person is a citizen to begin with.
Once in the interior, our officers are obligated to
determine the threshold question of whether or not this is a
U.S. citizen.
If they satisfy themselves with reasonable suspicion that
the person is not a citizen, then they can move on to
additional questions to determine whether or not the alien is
here legally or whether they are not here legally.
Ms. Lofgren. We have, and I am sure you had available, the
testimony of Mr. Mike Graves in the second panel, who testifies
that he and hundreds of his co-workers in the Swift Plant in
Marshalltown, Iowa were essentially held prisoner for 8 hours
without food or water or contact with their families.
Would you consider 8 hours a brief period of time?
Mr. Mead. Well, I think it would depend on the
circumstances, Congresswoman.
At a worksite operation, we only enter the facilities
pursuant to either a civil or a criminal arrest warrant. In
rare occasions, we have the consent of the manager or the owner
to enter.
Once in the facility, we ask the manager or owner to gather
the employees in a safe place. And at that point, we begin our
due diligence of identifying who is a U.S. citizen or a legal
permanent resident and identifying who may be an illegal alien.
Depending upon the number of people there, that can take
some time. But as soon as people are identified as U.S.
citizens, they are allowed to leave. Depending upon what their
bosses say, they either go home or they go back to work.
Ms. Lofgren. Based on your knowledge of ICE's policy
interpreting this regulation, what would you say was the
reasonable suspicion based on specific articuable facts that
would lead an ICE agent to handcuff a U.S. citizen like Mr.
Graves and search his locker and question him about how he was
from Iowa?
Mr. Mead. I don't know the specific circumstances of what
did or didn't happen to Mr. Graves. But during these worksite
operations, as I said, our initial emphasis is on separating
the citizens from the non-citizens who may not have a right to
be here.
Those people who are identified as potentially illegal
aliens are taken to a process location, a processing center,
where a much more thorough examination of their situation is
conducted, including giving them the right to contact their
attorneys if they have them, contact free legal services,
contact consular officials.
And so it is during that process that even more attention
is paid to making sure that anyone who is ultimately placed in
detention is, in fact, a potentially removable alien.
Ms. Lofgren. The Code of Federal Regulations states that
when ICE arrests an individual, it must either grant voluntary
departure or determine whether the person will remain in
custody and/or be placed in removal proceedings within 48 hours
of the arrest, except in the event of an emergency or
extraordinary circumstances.
Can you tell me how many times ICE has failed to make this
determination within 48 hours and how many times, if that has
ever happened, that has been due to emergency or extraordinary
circumstances?
And give some example of what would be extraordinary or an
emergency.
Mr. Mead. Off the top of my head, Congresswoman, I don't
know how many times that happened. We certainly do everything
possible to serve NTA's on people within the required 48 hours.
And it would take a truly extraordinary circumstance--off
the top of my head, I can't think of one--where we would not be
able to do that. But if we have such information, I would be
happy to----
Ms. Lofgren. Well, I have a very large number of questions.
My time is almost up. But I will be sending the agency my
questions. And I would hope that I would have an answer to them
promptly; certainly, within the next 2 weeks.
I would just, finally, like to clarify. A McClatchy
newspaper article describes the plight of--an American with a
southern accent, I might add, for some reason, ICE thought was
a Russian.
And the spokesman for ICE was quoted in the paper--I don't
know if he was quoted directly--that the burden of proof is on
the individual to show that they are legally entitled to be in
the United States.
Is this the agency's position? And, if so, how would you
reconcile that with the INS Widbey case which the Supreme Court
has gifted us with?
Mr. Mead. I don't know the context within which that
question was asked.
I think I was saying that I don't recall or I don't know
the context of which the ICE spokesman was answering that
question. But as I said in my opening remarks, once we are away
from the port of entry, ICE has the authority to consensually
speak with people about whether or not----
Ms. Lofgren. But that is not the question. The question is:
Who has the burden of proof?
Mr. Mead. Well, I was about to tell you that.
We have the burden of proof to determine if someone is a
citizen. We do that through questioning----
Ms. Lofgren. Okay. Thank you. Then the state will just be..
Mr. Mead. Okay.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
I turn now to our Ranking Member, Mr. King, for his
segment.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Mead, for your testimony.
The numbers of--I think it was in your testimony--the
numbers of personnel that are handled by ICE in a year, could
you refresh me as to that number?
Mr. Mead. Yes. Over the past 4 years, approximately a
million people have passed through our detention facilities.
And last year alone, we had over 310,000 pass through
detention. And of that number, approximately 280,000 were
actually removed from the country.
Mr. King. And can you tell me, out of that universe of
either last year's number of 310,000 or the aggregate of the
last 4 years and the million, about how many U.S. citizens were
deported out of that list of people?
Mr. Mead. To the best of our knowledge, only one U.S.
citizen was removed during that period of time.
Mr. King. Was that in your original testimony?
Mr. Mead. My original testimony?
Mr. King. The testimony that you gave here today?
Mr. Mead. No. I did not cover that.
Mr. King. Could I ask you why you would not have included
that?
Mr. Mead. For the sake of time. It is in our written
testimony, I believe.
Mr. King. Okay. And the individual would be the individual
with the southern accent who said he was Russian?
Mr. Mead. No. It was Mr. Guzman that the Chairwoman
mentioned.
Mr. King. Okay. That just strikes me as an exceptionally
high statistical average. If you are an American citizen and
you are encountered by ICE, the case that we are talking about
here would be an extreme exception rather than any kind of a--
is there any way that there could be a pattern here that I am
missing?
We are trying to fix a policy or put a solution to
something that there is an anomaly that exists?
Mr. Mead. We don't think so, Congressman.
There are numerous safeguards in place to prevent the
removal of a U.S. citizen. And as I said at the end of my
statement, not the least of which is, other than Canada and
Mexico, every other foreign country has to issue travel
documents allowing the person to be returned.
And they often do consular interviews, and they do a
complete record check in their own countries to determine that
this is, in fact, a citizen of their country.
Mr. King. Okay. We have an unpublished report that is part
of the dialogue here that shows that, perhaps, 125 people were
identified for deportation that were actually U.S. citizens.
Are you aware of that unpublished report?
Mr. Mead. Yes. We spoke with a representative of the Vera
Institute, and they claim that there is no unpublished report.
The Vera Institute is under contract with the Executive Office
for Immigration Review.
Mr. King. And did the Vera Institute ever maintain any data
on those 125 people? Could they be analyzed to see why it was
that they alleged they were----
Mr. Mead. Well, what they said was that of the 124 people
in question, they said that they planned to seek a claim to
U.S. citizenship. The Vera Institute----
Mr. King. Is there any evidence that they actually did seek
a claim of U.S. citizenship?
Mr. Mead. No.
Mr. King. No breakdown of that number of 124 or 125?
Mr. Mead. No. They did not keep any biographical data so
there is no----
Mr. King. No way to go back and see if it was anything
other than a fabrication?
Mr. Mead. No. But they clearly stated that these were not--
they did not say that these were U.S. citizens. They just said
that they planned to pursue a claim of U.S. citizenship.
Mr. King. That seems to be the basis of our discussion
here, a single incident, and then a study that is now being
reported that can't be verified.
But I want to ask you about your practices when you go in
and conduct a raid on a, say, on a food processing plant, which
I am quite interested in. How do you deal with people who are
clearly unlawfully present in the United States who have duties
to take care of infant children? Say, a nursing mother, for
example. How do you deal with a case like that?
Mr. Mead. We deal with it twice. We deal with it at the
worksite. If anyone makes that claim, assuming that they are
not a criminal or someone who we would otherwise want to
detain, we release them immediately on an order of supervision.
We make sure that when we get people to the processing
site, we ask them these questions again. We go to the, I think,
the extra step of making sure that these people are
interviewed, not by law enforcement officers, but by officers
of the public health service.
And, again, if they have a sole caregiver or humanitarian
issue, barring a criminal record, we would release them.
Mr. King. A sole caregiver, a humanitarian issue, or a
nursing mother illegally present in the United States--
unlawfully present in the United States and, perhaps,
unlawfully working is still released back into society by ICE?
Mr. Mead. That is correct.
Mr. King. It doesn't sound very hardhearted to me, Mr.
Mead. And hopefully the U.S. citizens are treated with the
minimum standards that you are treating illegals with.
And I thank you for your testimony, and I yield back the
balance of my time.
[Whereupon the Committee proceeded to other business.]
[Whereupon the hearing resumed.]
Ms. Lofgren. And now we will return to our hearing.
We now turn to Mr. Gutierrez, in order of arrival at the
hearing, for any questions he may have for ICE.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you very much.
Well, number one, I like the precedent that we are setting
on the private bill. And I find it so ironic that some of the
most anti-immigrant Members of the House, that is Stan
Lipinski, who votes against immigrants all time, gets this
private bill up.
Vote for a good cause. I am going to vote for it.
But I always wonder where the rest of the private bills are
at from those of us that actually support immigrants day in and
day out. Just a comment on that.
Interesting point about who you detain. Now, in Chicago,
you detained, at a working, operating mall, did you not detain
a hundred people at this mall in Chicago in midday?
Mr. Mead. I am sorry. I didn't hear the question.
Mr. Gutierrez. Oh, I am sorry.
Did you not--did not ICE take an enforcement action at 2
o'clock in the afternoon at a mall on 26th and Pulaski in the
city of Chicago?
Mr. Mead. I am not familiar with that action.
Mr. Gutierrez. You are not familiar with that action. Well,
you know, you should be up-to-date if you are going to come
because you are real familiar--when the Ranking Member from the
Republican side asks you questions. You guys have a real, you
know--catcher attitude. But when we ask you questions, you
don't remember.
That is okay. I would have a faint memory if I were you,
too, about this situation.
But the fact is that is it not true that ICE will go in to
a public area and specifically target people of a certain
nationality?
Mr. Mead. No, sir. That is not true.
Mr. Gutierrez. That is not true?
Mr. Mead. No, sir.
Mr. Gutierrez. Oh. Then you don't know anything about
Chicago? See, because in Chicago, your ICE official went with
the U.S. Attorney standing next to her and said we were
determined to walk into this mall and detain every Hispanic
male between the age of 18 and 45--we have Hispanic males--they
asked us--did you detain every Hispanic male between the age of
18 and 45, and she said, yes, we did. And we subsequently,
after that, determined whether or not they were the people we
were looking for.
You are telling me you don't take those kinds of actions?
Mr. Mead. No, sir. I am not familiar with that operation.
Mr. Gutierrez. And why wouldn't you take such an action?
Mr. Mead. As I said, it is not our policy to target people
on the basis of nationality.
Mr. Gutierrez. So enlighten me. What should I do as a
Member of Congress at this particular point so that we could
not have this happen again?
Mr. Mead. Well, sir----
Mr. Gutierrez. Because I already informed your boss. We
called right away, and he said it was fine. So you have a
little problem with Chertoff, just so that you understand.
He said it was fine, the actions of the ICE agents in terms
of determining a specific ethnic group with a specific age and
walk into an area and just arrest them.
Because I asked him, I said, ``So what if they were looking
for someone that was White, male, between the age of 25 and 40?
Would you go into Lord and Taylor? Would you go into Macy's and
shut the store down and then stop every White male between the
age of 25 and 40 and simply stop them and ask them to prove
that they were not the person you were after?''
And he said, no, we never had such an incident.
And I know you never had such an incident because those
kinds of things don't happen in America.
But they do happen in specific geographical communities
such as mine. So you are saying that it is against the policy
of ICE to do that?
Mr. Mead. I said it is not our policy to target people
based on nationality.
Mr. Gutierrez. Is it against your policy?
Mr. Mead. It is against our policy.
Mr. Gutierrez. It is against it. So in other words, what
you are testifying here is what the ICE official did in the
city Chicago, blessed by the U.S. Attorney's office of the city
of Chicago, was not sanctioned by ICE?
Mr. Mead. As I said, I don't--I am not familiar with the
incident.
Mr. Gutierrez. I know. You know, maybe if I sat over there
for a while on the Republican side, you would know all the
answers, and I would have given you all the questions ahead of
time.
Unfortunately, this is an adversarial relationship that we
have here with ICE because you wouldn't be doing that in the
community of people that I serve.
Thank you very much for not knowing any of the answers and
any of the information about a very well, highly-publicized
case in the city of Chicago in which Secretary Chertoff has
been fully briefed and informed.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Lofgren. I am advised that Mr. Gallegly does not have a
question----
Mr. Gallegly. Perhaps, I would like to pursue, maybe----
Ms. Lofgren. Then I recognize Mr. Gallegly for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you.
Mr. Gutierrez was going--because I am not familiar with it,
but just because I am not familiar with it doesn't mean that it
didn't happen anymore than our witness. But Mr.Gutierrez, can
you give us some other information?
You say that you had--how many people, to your knowledge,
were detained? You said ``arrested.'' Actually handcuffed and
carried away?
Mr. Gutierrez. Actually, they were detained. They were
handcuffed, taken to the back----
Mr. Gallegly. But they were not arrested?
Mr. Gutierrez. Well, okay. You want to get--they were
detained.
Mr. Gallegly. Okay. So they were----
Mr. Gutierrez. They were detained by ICE. They were
handcuffed.
Mr. Gallegly. Were any of----
Mr. Gutierrez. If you put handcuffs on me, I think a
reasonable American citizen will say once the police or a
government agency handcuffs you, detains you, stops you, you
are kind of arrested in Chicago. We have that standard.
Mr. Gallegly. Anyway, that is--maybe we are getting hung up
on semantics. But as a result of that, of all these folks that
were detained or temporarily arrested or held, as you would
say, perhaps, without cause, were any of them, subsequent to
that, taken into custody or were they all released?
Mr. Gutierrez. They were all released.
Mr. Gallegly. So there wasn't one person there that they
deemed to have committed a crime?
Mr. Gutierrez. No. They were executing arrest warrants for
four individuals who were allegedly fabricating false documents
at this public mall. And so they had the four people. They had
their pictures, their addresses----
Mr. Gallegly. So they weren't just looking for illegal
immigrants; they were looking----
Mr. Gutierrez. They were looking for a criminal--leaders of
a criminal enterprise of false documents at a public--at a
mall. That is why I gave the example what if I were a credit
card person, scammer, and I was doing this at a big store like
Lord and Taylor or Marshall Field or Macy's----
Mr. Gallegly. Did they have----
Mr. Gutierrez [continuing]. Would they arrest--and let us
say I was White, between the age of 25 and 40. Would we detain
every White male in order to find the four people we were----
Mr. Gallegly. Did they have a specific description of who
they were looking for?
Mr. Gutierrez. They did. They did. They knew and they had
pictures because the next day, the U.S. Attorney put the
pictures--and they did arrest the people, subsequently, at
their home. That is usually the way they do things.
If you know where a person lives, you go to their home and
arrest them at their home. But this was a place of business,
and we agreed that we should stamp out all of the illegal
enterprise----
Mr. Gallegly. Was this a specific place of business? See, I
didn't go to law school.
Mr. Gutierrez. It is a mall.
Mr. Gallegly. I didn't go to law school, so I don't have
the good sense of not asking a question I don't know the answer
to.
I legitimately don't know the answer, and I am asking. And
you, obviously----
Mr. Gutierrez. I would have gone to law school, but I
couldn't afford to.
Mr. Gallegly. Okay. Well, I couldn't either.
But in any event, sometimes it isn't such a bad idea to
have folks that ask questions that legitimately don't know the
answer to them.
So in any event, in this situation, I would like to know
the real specifics of the environment. Was this where it was
known to be a place of business for these four alleged
counterfeiters?
Mr. Gutierrez. Apparently so.
Mr. Gallegly. Okay. And when you say a mall, was it a
specific place in the mall?
Mr. Gutierrez. A mall. It is an open area where you walk
in. It is a huge building.
Mr. Gallegly. So you would--so there is, like, thousands of
people that were there?
Mr. Gutierrez. Well, there were hundreds of people there at
this particular point.
Mr. Gallegly. But how many were actually arrested?
Mr. Gutierrez. Detained?
Mr. Gallegly. By your definition, detained?
Mr. Gutierrez. Detained? Nearly a hundred.
Mr. Gallegly. Almost a hundred?
Mr. Gutierrez. Yes.
Mr. Gallegly. Okay. I am just--Madam Chairman, I yield
back.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
Next in order of their appearance to the Committee, we
would recognize Mr. Ellison for any comments or questions he
may have.
Mr. Ellison. Mr. Mead, how many ICE raids have been
conducted since the last 12 months?
Mr. Mead. I would have to get back to you with a specific
number on that.
Mr. Ellison. Can you give me a range of----
Mr. Mead. My best guess would be maybe a dozen in the past
12 months. You are talking about worksite----
Mr. Ellison. Yes.
Mr. Mead [continuing]. Enforcement? I am guessing. I would
say maybe a dozen. I can get you a specific answer very
quickly.
Mr. Ellison. What criteria do you use before an ICE raid is
determined to be executed?
Mr. Mead. Well, it usually takes months of planning,
involves U.S. Attorney. It involves, sometimes, undercover
agents, informants to determine whether or not there is a
criminal activity involving immigration; you know, fraudulent
documents.
Mr. Ellison. You have already indicated to Congressman
Gutierrez that race is not a factor in determining whether to
execute a warrant or take an action at a worksite. Is that
right?
Mr. Mead. Right. They are not predicated on race.
Mr. Ellison. Okay. But let me ask you this: What is the
race of the people of the last 12 months? Is there any
predominant racial class that has been a target of the last ICE
raids over the last 12 months?
Mr. Mead. Well, the targets have been the businesses.
Mr. Ellison. Yes. Well, the employees, too, right?
Mr. Mead. The employees have been predominantly Hispanic.
Mr. Ellison. Okay. Predominantly Hispanic. What percentage
Hispanic? What percentage not?
Mr. Mead. I don't have that off the top of my head.
Mr. Ellison. More than 60 percent Hispanic?
Mr. Mead. I don't have that percentage.
Mr. Ellison. I know. But you must have some idea. I mean,
you are a trained professional. You have been doing your job
for many years. There is no way you would come to a
Congressional hearing without some facts.
So my question is: What approximate percentage are we
talking about is Hispanic? Because, of course, you are a
trained professional and you know your job. So I know that you
know something.
Mr. Mead. Well, you asked me what was the predominant----
Mr. Ellison. Yes. You answered that question, and I thank
you for that answer. And I thank you for that answer. And now I
want to know what percentage of the people were Hispanic.
Mr. Mead. I don't have a specific percentage.
Mr. Ellison. About 50 percent? Okay. Predominant would be
above 50.
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ellison. 75 percent?
Mr. Mead. I don't have a specific----
Mr. Ellison. So you don't know between 55 and 99; it could
be anywhere in there. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Mead. I said predominantly Hispanic. That is my best
answer without getting back to you.
Mr. Ellison. Okay. So will you get back with the Committee
on what the racial categorization the individuals who have been
arrested in the ICE-related raids was in the last 12 months?
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ellison. That is a statistic we can count on you to
receive?
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ellison. Okay. Now, why predominantly Hispanic? I mean,
there are a lot of people in this country who may be here
without proper documentation coming from every area of the
globe. Why Hispanics?
Mr. Mead. I think you would have to ask the employers why.
That is the population they are employing. I don't have a
better answer than that.
Mr. Ellison. Well, you would agree with me that Hispanic
people are just one of the many groups in America where there
may be some immigration violations going on.
I mean, if employers illegally employ people from Russia or
other parts of the world, that would be as equally violative of
the law. Wouldn't you agree?
Mr. Mead. Absolutely.
Mr. Ellison. So tell me about those folks. I mean, why do
we have this predominant Hispanic bias?
Mr. Mead. I am not suggesting we have a Hispanic bias. You
asked me a question, and I answered it.
Mr. Ellison. Yes. But I want to know why we haven't seen
other ethic groups targeted.
Mr. Mead. Again, we did not target any ethic groups. The
cases revolve around the business and those that the business
employs. We are not targeting the employees.
Mr. Ellison. How did it happen to be such a nationality?
How did it happen that these businesses happen to have a
predominant number of Hispanic employees? Why aren't there
other ethnic groups that are in the mix?
Mr. Mead. I can't answer that. Again, you would have to
talk to the business owners as to their hiring practices.
Mr. Ellison. When an ICE raid is conducted and an
individual is detained, what happens to that individual's
children?
Mr. Mead. As we were saying earlier, if there is a sole
caregiver issue, we would release that individual to care for
their child assuming there was no other criminal issues in
their background.
In cases where that exists, we work with them to arrange a
relative or other person to care for their child.
Mr. Ellison. Now, you know, we have a case in Minnesota,
the Swift Meat Packing Plant. Are you familiar with that case?
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ellison. How many people were detained in that case?
Mr. Mead. I don't have the exact number. I am sorry.
Mr. Ellison. If I said 500, would you disagree with that
number?
Mr. Mead. That is possible.
Mr. Ellison. Yes.
Mr. Mead. As I said, I don't have the exact number.
Mr. Ellison. Right. But would you agree that about 500 was
the approximate--let me ask you this one last question.
There was an American person, born in America, but was of
Latino background. He was a radio host. And he said, I went to
the meat packing plant to see what was happening, but the ICE
officials demanded that I show them my papers because I was
Latino.
Are we sweeping up Latino-Americans in these raids, as
these raids are being conducted, and presuming that they have
to show papers on a presumptive basis based on their ethnicity?
Mr. Mead. We do not sweep up any group of people. We
conduct the necessary interviews to determine who may be here
illegally, and those people are detained.
Mr. Ellison. Well, that would surprise the people detained
at the Swift Plant because they were all picked up in a summary
fashion. It was all corralled in----
Ms. Lofgren. Gentlemen, your time is expired.
Mr. Ellison. Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren. I would recognize, now, the gentlelady from
California, Miss Waters.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
First, I would like to thank you for the time and attention
you have given this subject. A lot of complications and a lot
to learn.
I would just like to ask our guest today more about
training. It appears to me that you have a responsibility here
to not only understand what undocumented--where they are, where
they are working, whether or not we have employers who are
exploiting and are violating the law.
But, you know, this is a very complicated subject, and I
have several individual personnel who are specialized in
dealing with immigration problems.
And as I review these papers with them, I am always amazed
at how complicated they can get.
Tell me about the training that your officers have in doing
this work.
Mr. Mead. Our officers go through a very long basic
training program.
Ms. Waters. How long?
Mr. Mead. It is over 18 weeks. They spend a great deal of
time learning the Immigration and Naturalization Act. They
spend a significant amount of time learning interviewing
skills. They also spend time learning, you know, big law
enforcement.
Ms. Waters. Does the arresting officer have the
responsibility of doing the interview, or are there special
officers who do interviews once the undocumenteds have been
detained?
Mr. Mead. It really depends on the circumstance. In the
case of worksite--for example, we were talking about earlier,
there are initial interviews done at the place of business.
Those people who are believed to be here illegally are taken to
a process site where other officers might, you know, complete
the interview and, as appropriate, booking process.
So it really is case-specific. But all our officers are
trained to do these interviews.
Ms. Waters. All the officers are trained to do the
interviews and understand the law and can make independent
decisions about whether or not this individual should be
deported?
Mr. Mead. Well, the ultimate decision can be made by an
immigration judge if the individual has a right and pursues
that right to immigration hearing. So there are additional
steps beyond the initial determination by the ICE officer.
And when the immigration proceeding begins, the burden
shifts back to the government to prove the removability of that
individual.
Ms. Waters. I see. Tell me about the sites where we hold
these detainees. For example, they are located in every city,
every state, every region? Where do you take--do they go to
regular facilities? Local police stations? How does this work?
Mr. Mead. There is a combination of facilities,
approximately 400 in total. They are not in every city, but
they are spread throughout the United States.
There are some that, a small number, eight, that ICE
actually owns and operates themselves.
There is a small number that are privately-owned and
operated on behalf of ICE.
Ms. Waters. Privately-owned?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Ms. Waters. How do you own a private detention center?
Mr. Mead. There are many private detention--not only
detention, but correctional facilities--in the United States.
There are many private jails, a number of private prisons, that
state and local governments contract with as well as the
Federal Government.
Ms. Waters. Now, I suppose you are right. There has been
the privatization of our prisons. I didn't know about the
detainee centers.
Give me an example of one of our contractors. What do you
have in California?
Mr. Mead. There is a facility in San Diego that has
operated, I believe, it is owned by the County of San Diego,
but it is operated by the Correctional Corporation of America.
That would be one example off the top of my head.
Ms. Waters. Correctional Corporation of America is a
private entity?
Mr. Mead. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Waters. And they use a local facility?
Mr. Mead. I believe it is owned by the county and leased to
them. There is some arrangement between the two.
Ms. Waters. So you could have a raid some miles from that
facility. How do you get the detainees? Do you just transport
them to the nearest facility? Or how does that work?
Mr. Mead. Yes, ma'am. Wherever the site is, we try and move
them to the closest detention facility.
Ms. Waters. And then they are held there until the official
proceeding takes place?
Mr. Mead. If they are going--yes, if they are going to an
immigration proceeding, yes.
Ms. Waters. And you could have someone there who is
illegal, undocumented, maybe been in the country for 35 years,
and they could be immediately deported?
Mr. Mead. It just depends on the circumstance. Everybody's
case is different. The average length of stay in detention for
us is approximately 40 days.
Ms. Waters. Just for example, if someone was picked up at a
worksite, determined by the officers probably to be illegal,
taken to the center, detained for 20 or 30 days, is there a
process by which their families are contacted or they have the
ability to connect with their families and let them know what
is going on?
In all of that, do you have a host system that works that
way?
Mr. Mead. Yes. Particularly in the worksite, when they are
taken to the initial processing prior to going to a detention
facility, we provide them free phones. We provide them the
opportunity to call relatives. If they have an attorney, they
can call them. If they don't have an attorney, we provide them
the names of free legal services. They can call their
consulate. And that is all done before they ever go to
detention.
Once they get to detention, they have the same access to
free telephones there. And, again, we provide them access to
the numbers of law firms that provide free legal services, to
consular officials. We provide them the phone number of the
Inspector General if they feel----
Ms. Waters. Thank you. I think my time is up. Could you
tell me about how many people we have in this country who are
being detained at this period, right now?
Mr. Mead. We have approximately 30,000 people in custody
today.
Ms. Waters. 30,000?
Mr. Mead. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Waters. In various facilities?
Mr. Mead. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Waters. Some up to 40 days?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Ms. Waters. We feed and clothe and give medical care to
them?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady from Texas, Miss Jackson Lee,
is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson.
And let me also thank the witness and, frankly, thank your
service for its service.
And certainly, I believe you understand the oversight
responsibilities of Congress. And to do that, we must be
pointed and provocative and probative on how our government is
working.
Now, part of the fault lies in the lack of a comprehensive
immigration system. And the genesis, I believe, of a lot of the
work that you are now doing has come in a misguided way, not by
way of, necessarily, your actions of following orders, but the
whole surge or onslaught of the necessity of being oppressive
and being aggressive as it relates to enforcement when we have
no balanced comprehensive system that will go along with it.
Because we have always acknowledged that we are a Nation of
law, but we are also a Nation of immigrants. And so when the
debate began, I remember very distinctly, it was a cry-out for
internal enforcement, which, when it trickled down to officers
on the ground, I know there is an extensive burden of the
numbers, of the cases, of the number of arrests. That generated
into these raids that occurred in places such as the Carolinas,
North and South Carolina, that occurred with the Swift Meat
Packing entity.
Though they may have been law enforcement necessities or
orders, I, frankly, put it squarely at the feet of the previous
Congress and the dilatory actions of this Administration in
failing to put forward a comprehensive immigration reform
package.
For that reason, you now have a series of incidents that
show that the enforcement has now come down heavy on citizens,
legitimate, hard-working citizens. And so I raise these
questions, and we will be hearing from a number of individuals.
And I would like to understand.
Do you recall the Swift, if you will, raid, and can you
tell me why in the Swift Meat Packing raid, you put--or someone
has given me the information that you asked or your officers
asked all the brown people to stand on one side and all the
other people to stand on another side? Is that accurate? Or do
you have a report on that?
Mr. Mead. I am not aware of a report on that. I am sorry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Can you investigate that one particular
question that I have just asked you?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I would like to know how your ICE officers
went in. Did they ask for all the brown people on one side and
all the other people on the other side?
The other question I want to know is do you have training
to explain to officers that immigrants come in all racial
backgrounds or country backgrounds?
Mr. Mead. Yes. We do provide training on cultural
differences, cultural awareness, yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Do they understand that there are European
undocumented individuals that may not be brown in the United
States?
Mr. Mead. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Are they trained enough to be able to
determine that person's status, or are they looking only for
color?
Mr. Mead. We deport people based on their legal status and
their right to be here, not their color.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So you wouldn't go into a meat packing or
a Home Depot store--forgive me, Home Depot. I am just using
various examples. But in any event, to go into a store and
round up all the brown people?
Mr. Mead. No, ma'am. We do not----
Ms. Jackson Lee. What about all the people with turbans?
Mr. Mead. We----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Headgear on their head?
Mr. Mead. We do not racially profile.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Okay. I would like to get a direct
response back in writing on the training that you do as it
relates to people of different ethnic backgrounds.
Let me, quickly, just say you have given increased funding.
I would like to know why you are turning your attention to U.S.
citizens, and how do you explain detaining U.S. citizens?
And lastly, what remedy do you use to provide a remedy to
wrongly detained U.S. citizens?
And I want to bring to your attention--we will hear from
them shortly--Justine Mancha, Michael Graves, and Pedro Guzman,
who have their own stories to tell about being detained
unfairly.
Mr. Mead. The short answer is we do not knowingly or
willfully detain or remove U.S. citizens. And since the
inception of ICE, we can only find one case where a U.S.
citizen was removed from the country, and that is Mr. Guzman.
And of the more than 1 million people that passed through
our custody in the past 4 years, he is the only we can find
that was a U.S. citizen that was removed. And we believe that
the circumstances there explain that it was definitely not
willful or intentional on our part.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, quickly, you went into Miss Mancha's
house, and this young lady is a U.S. citizen. Her mother was
not home. You didn't have a warrant, and you started
questioning that individual who is a U.S. citizen.
Was there any reason for busting into a U.S. citizen's
house and questioning a minor?
Mr. Mead. I wish I could talk to you about that case, but
it is under litigation, and I can't talk to you about it.
Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. Well, I think these examples
are disturbing, and I just want to make sure that if I didn't
hear it correctly--please give me, in writing, the remedy that
you are providing those wrongly-detained U.S. citizens. And I
would appreciate that.
And I believe my time is expired.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired.
We have been called for a series of votes. What I would
like to do, Mr. Mead, is to thank you for your testimony.
Note that without objection, Members of the Subcommittee
will have 5 legislative days to submit questions to you which
we will forward. And we ask that you answer these questions as
promptly as you can, and we will actually suggest a deadline
for the answers as we forward them to you.
We will now excuse you, and I would like to introduce the
panel that will be next. And then we will go, if the Ranking
Member agrees, and vote and come back.
I will call over to the staff so that they can give an
announcement and an estimate of time so people are not
prisoners here in this hearing room.
There is a cafeteria downstairs. You can get a cup of
coffee because I think it is several votes.
If you could vacate your spot, Mr. Mead, we will ask the
other panel to come forward to be introduced.
First, I am pleased to welcome James J. Brosnahan, one of
the Nation's most respected and recognized trial lawyers with
expertise in both civil and criminal trial work. He was
inducted into the State Bar of California's ``Trial Lawyers
Hall of Fame'' in April 1996 and was awarded the ``Samuel E.
Gates Award'' by the American College of Trial Lawyers in
October 2000.
Mr. Brosnahan has served as special counsel to the
California Legislature's Joint Subcommittee on Crude Oil
Pricing, the lawyers' representative to the Ninth Circuit
Judicial Conference and Chairman of the Delegation, and
president of the Bar Association of San Francisco.
Next, I would like to introduce Marie Justine Mancha.
Justine is a junior and an honor roll student at Tattnall
County High School in Reidsville, Georgia. Justine was born in
Texas and is the first-named plaintiff in the lawsuit Mancha v.
ICE.
In her spare time, she enjoys participating in the Future
Farmers of America. And her mom, Tina, is here with her today.
We welcome her mom.
Our next witness is Michael Graves, born and raised in
Waterloo, Iowa. Michael Graves works for Swift Company Plant in
Marshalltown, Iowa for 22 years in production on the kill
floor. He is a member of Local 1149 of the United Food and
Commercial Workers International Union and is currently a
business agent for the Union.
He is the proud father of three children; two sons and a
daughter. On December 12, 2006, he, along with thousand of
other Swift workers, was detained during the ICE raid on six
Swift plants.
Next on our witness panel, we have Kara Hartzler. Kara
Hartzler is an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee
Rights Project in Florence, Arizona. She first became involved
in immigration issues at an Asylum Clinic on the U.S.-Mexican
border in 1994 and has, since then, worked with migrant farm
workers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,
indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico, and the Human Rights
Delegation to Iraq and El Salvador.
Miss Hartzler currently works as a criminal immigration
consultant, advising state and Federal defense attorneys on the
immigration consequences of criminal convictions.
Our next witness is Rachel E. Rosenbloom. Rachel Rosenbloom
is a human rights fellow at the Center for Human Rights and
International Justice at Boston College and supervising
attorney at the Center's Post-deportation Human Rights Project.
She is a graduate of New York University School of Law
where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar. She
holds a bachelors degree in history from Columbia University
and a masters in history from the University of California
Berkeley where she was a Regent Scholar and Human Rights
Fellow.
And our final witness is Dan Stein. Dan Stein is the
executive director of the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, otherwise known as FAIR, a Washington-based nonprofit
organization founded in 1979.
He has over 15 years experience in the field of immigration
law and law reform including a prior position as executive
director of the Immigration Reform Law Institute. Mr. Stein is
an attorney licensed in Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
He has a degree in economics from Indiana University and a
law degree from the Columbus School of Law. He is a native of
Washington, DC and has previously appeared before Congress on
behalf of FAIR.
Now, at this point, we are going to recess our hearing so
that we can go cast our votes on the floor of the House. And we
will call over to the staff and will give you a little
announcement and an estimate of when we will be able to
reconvene as soon as we find that out.
So this hearing is in recess.
[Recess.]
Ms. Lofgren. The Subcommittee is back in session. As I
mentioned to the witnesses when I walked in, welcome to
Congress' world. These disruptions do occur when we have votes
on the floor. But we are eager to hear your testimony.
This hearing is being webcast, so it is not just the people
in this room who will be seeing the testimony.
Your full statements will be made part of the official
record of this hearing, and we do ask that your testimony be
summarized in about 5 minutes to that we can have time for
questions.
We are starting with Mr. Brosnahan and working that way--is
that correct, staff? All right.
Mr. Brosnahan, if you would begin. Your microphone needs to
be on. Thank you very much.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES J. BROSNAHAN, SENIOR PARTNER, MORRISON &
FOERSTER, LLP
Mr. Brosnahan. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman Lofgren
and Ranking Member King.
I appreciate very much the opportunity to tell you what
happened to Peter Guzman today, who I represent with the
Southern California ACLU.
Very simply, on May 11, 2007, he, being a U.S. citizen born
in the United States, living in Lancaster with his fairly-large
family, having gone to lower California schools, having worked
as a cement finisher, and having developed, over the years,
only to the level of about a second grade reading ability.
He is a person of limited mental capacity. He was arrested
in connection with a sort of odd trespass, and he was given 120
days under the sheriff's aegis and a very low-level clerk as
part of a program which is instituted by ICE.
They interviewed him and asked him if he was a citizen, and
he said he was. And she said, But your parents were born in
Mexico, you can't be a citizen, and sent him back to a holding
cell and then brought him back again.
Now, that happened, and it happened as part of a program
that I understand is in 400 local police jurisdictions.
On May 11, 2007, he was sent to ICE, who had in their
records, knowledge that he was a U.S. citizen. The sheriff's
office knew he was a U.S. citizen. This they took his driver's
license when he was arrested.
They had it in their record. They had it in their
computers, but they didn't look, evidently, so they say, I
guess.
And they put him on a bus with $3. They took him to
Tijuana. They opened the door, and they put him out. No family,
no job, no place to go, nobody to support him, nothing, zero.
And he was a U.S. citizen.
Now, I heard Mr. Mead, if I may, come here today, and I
heard that he has a degree in management. And I asked myself as
a person, Madam Chairwoman, that doesn't come back here very
often, where is it in America that he could manage anything and
he would be allowed to do it.
Where is it that the boss would be the Chairperson and the
Ranking Member would tolerate answers about notorious newspaper
events that he knows nothing about? It is not in corporate
America, which I do represent; not in educational institutions.
It is not anywhere.
So, yes, Peter was put out there. And what happened to him?
For 3 months, he tried to get back into his country where he
was born and where he was allowed and entitled to come.
He had to eat out of garbage cans. He had to wash himself
in the Tijuana River. And his mother, who we also represent,
went to the morgues of Tijuana.
Sometimes, I think it must be hard, and I mean this
sincerely, to sit here and talk about policy and not visualize
a woman, a mother, in the morgues of Tijuana, looking for her
son because the government has put him off a bus.
Did they call their house in Lancaster? They did not.
Did they check their records? They did not.
Did they ask themselves any questions? They did not because
they have the power.
And those who have given them the power have oversight, and
that is this Committee. What should you do based on my view?
I am a layperson here. My grandfather was in the
Immigration Service. And I have had cases involving them, and I
know what they do well, and I know what they do wrong.
They separate families. That is wrong.
I don't know what district any congressperson can go and
say, We have got a policy; we are going to go and separate
families. I don't know where you can go and do that.
But here is what I think is the issue.
First of all, if there is any question about it, there
should be a right to a lawyer. I heard Mr. Mead say that they
supply that and they suggest it and all that.
That is news to an awful lot of Americans. That is big
news.
Yes. They should have a lawyer, certainly. The 400 local
jurisdictions--I didn't hear a word today--I didn't even hear a
question about are they trained. Are they trained in the
sheriff's office in Los Angeles to do this work?
It is not fun work. The head sheriff is not going to do it.
It is low-level stuff. And mistakes are being made; you are
going to hear about them today. And it was made in this case.
So the oversight has to demand answers to these questions.
And I would suggest that the idea of using the local law
enforcement is not a good idea. If you are going to have
quality education, it would have to be with the ICE to do that.
So I applaud the increased oversight by this Committee. It
is much-needed, and I think decent people in the United States
want you to do it and hope that you do do it.
Thank you so much for allowing me to speak.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brosnahan follows:]
Prepared Statement of James J. Brosnahan and Mark D. Rosenbaum
The government--whether it be federal or local--lacks any
discretion to deport citizens of the Unites States. Citizenship is the
constitutional birthright of every individual born within our national
borders, and surely the first obligation of government is to preserve
at any cost the liberty and security of its citizens to remain within
their homeland.
On May 11, 2007, immigration officials and agents of the Los
Angeles District of the United States Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (``ICE'') Division, under the Department of Homeland
Security, in concert with officials of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department, unlawfully deported Peter Guzman, a 30-year-old United
States Citizen born and raised in Los Angeles County, to Tijuana,
Mexico, a city with which he was utterly unfamiliar, having been there
only once, at the age of 14, on a brief trip with his mother. Peter
Guzman knew no one in Mexico and had not been there for over a decade.
At the time of his deportation, Mr. Guzman had no resources by which he
could purchase food or shelter, and only the clothes he was wearing
when ICE officials placed him on the bus to Tijuana. His family in
nearby Lancaster, California was not notified of his deportation,
although officers of the Sheriff's Department had within just weeks
prior to the deportation contacted his brothers on a number of
occasions to discuss arrangements for his imminent release from the
County Jail system. Mr. Guzman did not have a cell phone or other means
to contact his family to bring him back from Mexico.
As result of his illegal deportation, Mr. Guzman spent nearly three
months wandering on foot in Mexico between Tijuana and Calexico. He
frequently ate out of garbage cans and for the most part slept outside
without adequate shelter or warmth, bathing in rivers. Mr. Guzman lived
in constant fear. That he survived is a matter only of his will to live
and fortuity. His suffering from this nightmarish ordeal continues to
this day.
Mr. Guzman is cognitively impaired and is unable to read at more
than a second grade level. At the time of the deportation, he was under
the care and supervision of his mother. He is unable to remember his
home telephone number or that of anyone else in his life.
The illegal deportation of Peter Guzman was not an innocent mistake
by ICE officials or agents, but rather the predictable consequence of
policies, practices and procedures which rely upon racial and ethnic
stereotypes to presuppose undocumented status and lack even rudimentary
safeguards against erroneous determinations. Mr. Guzman told personnel
processing him for deportation that he was a United States citizen, and
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department records, compiled at the time
of his arrest and booking, and from an earlier incarceration, and
readily available to ICE, confirmed his assertion. ICE processed Mr.
Guzman for voluntary departure, although official law enforcement
records also available to ICE made clear that he would not have been
eligible whether or not he had been illegally present within the United
States. In addition, medical records of treatment of Mr. Guzman while
incarcerated at the Men's Central Jail ought to have immediately
alerted ICE personnel that Mr. Guzman should not have been subjected to
administrative processing without at minimum the presence of family
members or counsel. These records unquestionably demonstrated that Mr.
Guzman was not capable of exercising a voluntary, knowing and
intelligent waiver of his rights at the time of his deportation, or,
indeed, at any time thereafter.
The circumstances that resulted in Mr. Guzman's illegal deportation
originated in a January 25, 2005 Memorandum of Understanding (``MOU'')
between the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors creating a pilot project by which Sheriff's
Department personnel interview and process presumed or suspected
foreign-born inmates confined within the Los Angeles County jail system
to determine the inmates' immigration status and whether, in their
judgment, the inmates are deportable. The personnel within the
Sheriff's Department assigned this responsibility are not deputies, but
are described as custody assistants (``CA's''). These CA's have
received only brief training by ICE, are not versed in immigration law
and yet pursuant to the MOU, have been granted federal authority to
obtain consents to voluntary departures and to make referrals to ICE
for deportations. For all intents and purposes, ICE exercises no
meaningful supervision or monitoring of immigration processing by local
CA's within Los Angeles County.
background
Peter Guzman was born on September 25, 1977 in Los Angeles,
California. He is the second of seven children. Mr. Guzman grew up in
Lancaster, California. He attended elementary, middle and high schools
in Lancaster.
On March 31, 2007, Mr. Guzman was arrested for the misdemeanor
offense of Trespassing upon Land Under Cultivation in violation of
California Penal Code Sec. 602. He pled guilty to misdemeanor vandalism
and was sentenced on April 19, 2007. The judge suspended imposition of
the sentence and placed Mr. Guzman on three years probation with a
condition that he serve 120 days in County Jail, of which he received
credit for 30 days of combined good time and time served.
Some time after his sentencing, Mr. Guzman was transferred to the
Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles and was processed thereto at
the Inmate Reception Center. In response to a question relating to his
citizenship, he stated that he was born in California. Department
personnel recorded his response in official records relating to his
arrest and detention.
During the course of the next weeks, Sheriff's Department personnel
contacted Mr. Guzman's family on at least two occasions, at one point
seeking to verify information for purposes of arranging an early
release to his residence. At no point did these personnel or ICE agents
question whether Mr. Guzman was a United States citizen or attempt to
verify citizenship.
Other law enforcement records available also recorded that Mr.
Guzman was a United States citizen. By reason of an earlier conviction
and incarceration, there ought to have existed serious question as to
whether Mr. Guzman would have been eligible for voluntary departure
even if he had been illegally within the United States.
County medical records relating to Mr. Guzman disclose that on
April 7, 2007, just one week after his arrest, he was prescribed 5mg of
Zyprexa to be taken daily. Their documents state:
He has been in jail for more than one week. He was at LCMC for
AMS and he is sent back with Zyprexa 5mg daily for voices. He
told the ER doctor at LCMC that he hears voices of and on,
telling him `bad things' but there is no other specifics of
`voices' documented or asked. Further voices increased when he
came to jail.
deportation and disappearance
On or about May 10, 2007, a Custody Assistant processed Mr. Guzman
and obtained a signature waiving his legal rights and agreeing to be
voluntarily deported to Mexico. ICE personnel did not undertake any
reasonable inquiry into the circumstances of the processing or as to
why Mr. Guzman was then questioned about citizenship. Nor did ICE
inquire as to Mr. Guzman's eligibility for voluntary departure or as to
why law enforcement records consistently stated that he had been born
in California.
As result, Mr. Guzman was placed on a bus to Tijuana and illegally
deported to Mexico.
On May 11, 2007, Mr. Guzman, utilizing a borrowed cell phone and a
slip of paper with his brother's telephone number, called the residence
of his brother and spoke to his sister-in-law, Victoria Chabes. The
call lasted no more than a minute and the slip of paper was lost
shortly thereafter. Mr. Guzman stated that he had been placed on a bus
at the jail and that he did not have money or clothes with him.
Ms. Chabes called at once Mr. Guzman's mother, Maria Carbajal, and
relayed the conversation. Fearing for her son's safety and well being,
Ms. Carbajal returned to her home, obtained Mr. Guzman's birth
certificate and drove with one of her sons to Tijuana to begin to
search for him.
Over the next three months, Ms. Carbajal, Mr. Guzman's brothers,
his sister-in-law, and other family members searched in Tijuana and
adjoining cities for Mr. Guzman. Ms. Carbajal often walked through the
city. She and family members regularly searched morgues, hospitals,
jails, shelters and along rivers and alleys. Ms. Carbajal arranged to
temporarily leave her job as a cook at Jack in the Box to devote
virtually all of her time to the efforts to find her son. Because the
family had very limited resources, Ms. Carbajal stayed at times in a
room no larger than a closet in a banana warehouse where she slept on
the floor. She cooked in exchange for the room.
A usual day would begin at 6:00 a.m. and not finish until late at
night. Ms. Carbajal and family members circulated hundreds of flyers
with a picture of Mr. Guzman and information about him.
Mr. Guzman wandered on foot over hundreds of miles for eighty-nine
days between Tijuana and Calexico. He physically survived by begging
and picking food from garbage. He bathed in the Tijuana River and
typically slept outside.
Until a habeas action was filed in federal court, and worldwide
attention was brought to the case, the United States government offered
no assistance to Ms. Carbajal and her family despite repeated pleas for
help. When prior to the filing of the habeas, counsel for the family
informed a Los Angeles ICE official of the circumstances of the
deportation, and faxed a copy of the birth certificate, the official
stated that upon proof of the validity of the certificate, ICE would
amend its records to correctly reflect Mr. Guzman's United States
citizenship, but would take no additional steps to find and return him
to the United States.
Upon his return to the United States, Mr. Guzman was unable to
speak and physically incapable of stopping from shivering. He is
currently receiving psychological treatment as result of the illegal
deportation. Ms. Carbajal stated shortly after his return that ``he
left complete but they took half my son.''
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, Mr. Brosnahan.
Now, we have our honor student, Marie Justine Mancha.
Justine, if you would give your testimony now, we are eager
to hear it.
TESTIMONY OF MARIE JUSTEEN MANCHA, STUDENT,
TATTNAL COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL
Ms. Mancha. Hi. My name is Marie Justine Mancha. I go by
Justine. I am 17 years old, and I am a junior at Tattnall
County High School in Reidsville, Georgia.
I am originally from Texas where I was born, but moved to
Reidsville with my family when I was about 7. So I consider
Reidsville my hometown.
I have grown up in Reidsville, gone to school, and hanging
out with my friends. Everyone in my family was born in the
United States. We are all known as Mexican-Americans.
Never did I expect my family or me to go through this
terrible experience we all went through in September of 2006.
It all started because I was running late and Mom went
uptown to run an errand while I got dressed for school.
I was home alone. I was in my bedroom when I first heard
the noises outside. It sounded like car doors slamming. So I
looked outside my window but didn't see anyone.
So then I went to the living room, made sure the door was
unlocked for Mom but also made sure it was closed because, if
not, Mom would pitch a fit.
So I walked back in my room and started watching TV while I
waited. Not too long after that, I heard male voices coming
from inside of my house. I was so scared. I had no idea what
was going on.
I got up and started walking down the hallway toward the
living room and I started to hear the words ``police''
``illegal.'' It seems as if those words still ring in my head
today giving me that fear of them busting in my home.
I walked around the corner from the hallway and saw a tall
man reach toward his gun and look straight at me. I saw a group
of agents standing in the living room blocking the front door.
My heart just dropped.
I didn't know what was about to happen. It just about
brings tears to my eyes to think what if my little sister was
there. What if she had seen this or felt what I felt? I didn't
know what to do.
When the tall man reached for his gun, I just stood there
feeling so scared. I could have busted out into tears, but I
had to be strong and hold it in. I looked around, and there
were about four or five men in my house and more coming up the
stairs.
They began asking questions. I started to feel closed in
like I couldn't say no or not answer them because they were
blocking the front door. They were asking me if there was
anyone else in the house, and if my mom had worked at Cotter,
and why she had quit.
Also, they asked if my mom was a Mexican and if she had her
papers or a green card. I felt so awful and low that they were
asking me all these question because I am Mexican.
At the time, I didn't want to be Mexican because of what we
go through and how people look at us different and treat us and
assume we are all illegal.
But just going through all this made me see how strong
Mexicans can be, and I wouldn't change that for anything. I am
proud to be Mexican.
I answered all their questions, telling them my mom didn't
need a green card because she was born in Florida. Finally, I
got the courage to ask them why they were in my home.
One of the agents just said they were looking for illegals.
They began to walk outside and I heard them telling each other
they should all go to the gas station because they would find a
lot of Mexicans there.
I asked if they were leaving, and they said they would be
in the area looking for the rest of them. I walked outside and
they were everywhere. Luckily, they all got in their cars and
started to drive off.
About that time, Momma pulled in, and I ran to her and
started crying telling her what had just happened. I was so
scared. I still am. I carry that fear with me every day
wondering when they will come back.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mancha follows:]
Prepared Statement of Marie Justeen Mancha
Hi, my name is Marie Justeen Mancha, but I go by Justeen. I'm 17
years old and am a Junior at Tattnall County High school in Reidsville,
Georgia. I'm originally from Texas where I was born, but moved to
Reidsville with my family when I was about seven years old. So, I
consider Reidsville my hometown. I've grown up in Reidsville going to
school and hanging out with my friends. Everyone in my family was born
in the United States. We're known as ``Mexican-Americans.'' Never did I
expect my family or me to go through the terrible experience we all
went through in September of 2006.
It all started because I was running late, and Momma went up town
to run an errand while I got dressed for school. I was home alone. I
was in my bedroom when I first heard the noises outside. It sounded
like car door slamming, so I looked outside my window but didn't see
anyone. So then I went to the living room and made sure the door was
unlocked for momma, but also made sure it was closed because if not
Momma would pitch a fit. So I walked back in my room and started to
watch T.V. while I waited. Not too long after that I heard male voices
coming from inside my house. I was so scared. I had no idea what was
going on.
I got up and started walking down the hallway towards the living
room and I started to hear the words, ``Police! Illegals!'' It seems as
if those words still ring in my head today giving me that fear of them
busting into my home. I walked around the corner from the hallway and
saw a tall man reach toward his gun and look straight at me. I saw a
group of law enforcement agents standing in the living room blocking
the front door. My heart just dropped. I didn't know what was about to
happen. It just about brings tears to my eyes to think, ``what if my
little sister was there?'' ``What if she had seen this, or felt what I
felt?'' I didn't know what to do. When the tall man reached for his gun
I just stood there feeling so scared. I could've busted out in tears,
but I had to be strong and hold it in. I looked around and there were
about four or five men in my house and more coming up the stairs.
They began to ask me questions. I started to feel closed in, like I
couldn't say no or not answer them because they were blocking the front
door. They were asking me if there was anyone else in the house and if
my momma had worked at Crider Poultry and why she had quit. Also, they
asked me if my mom was a Mexican and if she had her papers or a green
card. I felt so awful and low that they were asking me all these
questions because I'm Mexican. At times, I didn't want to be Mexican
because of what we go through and how people look at us different and
treat us and assume we're all illegal. But, just going through all this
made me see how strong Mexicans can be and I wouldn't change that for
anything. I'm proud to be Mexican.
I answered all their questions--telling them my momma didn't need a
green card--that she was born in Florida. Finally, I got the courage to
ask them why they were in my home. One of the agents just said that
they were looking for illegals. They began to walk outside and I heard
them telling each other that they should all go to the gas station
because they'd find a lot of Mexicans there. I asked if they were
leaving and they said they'd be in the area looking for the rest of
``them.'' I walked outside and they were everywhere. Luckily, they all
got in their cars and started to drive off.
About that time momma pulled in and I ran to her and started
crying--telling her what just happened. I was so scared. I still am. I
carry that fear with me everyday--wondering when they'll come back.
I have also attached a copy of the complaint in the lawsuit in
which I am a plaintiff, which I would like to be considered as part of
the record before this Subcommittee.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much. You did a wonderful job
of testifying.
Mr. Graves?
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL GRAVES, MEMBER UNITED FOOD AND COMMERICAL
WORKERS UNION LOCAL 1149
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you, Members
of the Subcommittee for holding this important hearing.
I am here today representing 1.3 million members of the
UFCW Local 1149 and thousands of other Americans who have been
treated and abused by our government, outraged by the
institutional immigration sweep at worksites across the
country.
I will never forget on December 12th when heavily-armed ICE
agents surrounded the Swift Meat Packing Plant at the Swift
Company in Marshalltown. The plant where I worked----
Ms. Lofgren. Could you move the microphone a little bit
closer to you so we can hear all of your--thank you.
Mr. Graves. On that day, my civil rights was violated and
my faith in this country was taken.
At 6 o'clock that morning, our supervisor came to our
floor. I was on the kill floor. He came around and told
everybody that they have to report to the cafeteria.
They didn't give us a reason why we had to report to the
cafeteria, just that we had to report to the cafeteria.
So we proceeded to go out to the cafeteria to the main
floor. Me and two other Hispanics, co-workers, started going to
the cafeteria at our normal route.
We met up with ICE agents. He came to us and asked us where
we was going. We said we was reporting to the cafeteria as we
were supposed to. He came to us and said, Well, you are not
going the right direction. I said, ``This is our normal
route.''
So anyway, he came to us and asked did we have any weapons
on us--we wear white t-shirts, white pants, no long sleeves or
nothing; no weapons on us. He still searched us and told us to
get up against the wall.
He asked us if we kept them in our locker. He put us
against the wall and handcuffed us. He took us to our locker in
the men's locker room and--the two down. My locker was down
there on the other side of the aisle.
So one of the ICE agents took me to my locker, still in
handcuffs, and asked me about where I was living. And I told
him I lived in Waterloo, Iowa. He asked me again where I lived.
We are here in Waterloo, Iowa because it is a good place to
work, and I have been here for 21 years--so many years. So I
didn't want to change my job.
So he asked me for my combination. He asked me to open my
locker. He opened up my locker and asked me if I had any
weapons inside. I said, no we don't carry weapons to work. So
he searched my locker anyway.
He asked for my ID. He got my identification, looked at it,
and asked me questions about my identification and asked me
about my parents. And I said they lived in Mississippi.
He asked me do I know my route to Mississippi. And I said,
well yeah, but I don't know the exact route in detail.
So he kind of looked at me and told me to sit down. So he
took my identification to another agent that was down from the
aisle where I was sitting and told me to sit down. And he
looked at my identification and the other agent did, too. They
looked at it, said something to each other, and started
laughing.
So they took my identification with them, and I was still
sitting there waiting for them to come back. When they did come
back, he told me to go to the cafeteria where everybody was
still sitting there waiting.
The cafeteria holds about 50 people, but they crammed about
150 people in the cafeteria. So they blocked off all the food
supply, all the water in the cafeteria. They unhandcuffed me at
the entrance of the cafeteria and told me to go in there and
wait----
We was in there for about, at least, 3 or 4 hours in the
cafeteria with no food, no water, no means of telephone to call
our lawyers or--they did not give us a chance to get our union
rep there to talk to us about the situation either.
So we was there with no food, no water, nothing.
When they came, they got us by tens of people and then they
took us to go to another area to process. After that, we were
processed. We went to another area outside the plant and walked
about 400 yards to another building where 400 people were in
there where they still cut off all our food supplies, no water,
no phones, no nothing.
We were there for about 8 hours with no means of getting
outside contact, no food or water till the whole process was
over and done with.
Myself, you know, it is just horrible how they treated us.
They herded us like animals going to the other building--agents
denied them to call their loved ones and let them know what was
going on.
I am not just the only one. I am here with a friend of
mine, another friend from Brent Island. He is one of the
persons that was violated at his plant, also. So I mean, it is
not me at my plant; it is another plant that they had
victimized, also.
At that time, I felt that the raid was unjust. It didn't do
the proper procedure when they did. I mean, they checked who I
was. They found out who was illegal and who wasn't illegal, but
they still detained us there for 8 hours with no food and
water.
And after that, after 8 hours, they sent us home. After
that, everything was over and done with.
Again, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Graves follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Graves
Thank you Chairwoman Lofgren, Ranking Member King, and Members of
the Subcommittee for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to
testify. I am here today representing the 1.3 million members of the
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), my Local
1149 in Marshalltown, Iowa, as well as the tens of thousands of
American citizens who have been abused by our government's outrageous
and unconstitutional immigration sweeps at worksites and homes across
this country. It is indeed a privilege to be here in Washington to
testify today and to tell my story.
My name is Mike Graves, and I am from Waterloo, Iowa. For the last
21 years, I have worked at the Swift and Company plant located in
Marshalltown, Iowa. During those years, I have worked on the kill floor
of the plant. I am also active in the union.
In all 21 years on the job, there is one day I will never forget.
On December 12, 2006, hundreds of heavily armed ICE agents stormed six
meat packing plants across America's heartland. The Marshalltown plant
where I work was one of those targeted and attacked.
And it did feel like an attack. I will never forget that day.
Because it was on that cold December day, that I had my civil rights
violated and my faith in my country shaken.
I was working on the kill floor doing my usual job when the line
was stopped and my supervisor told me and my coworkers to go
immediately to the cafeteria. As we walked to the cafeteria, using the
regular route, a man in full SWAT uniform with a gun stopped us. His
uniform had no nametag to identify him as a government agent. He asked
me why I was running away. I politely told him I was not running away
from anything or anybody, but that I, along with my colleagues, had
been instructed to go to the cafeteria. He asked for identification,
which I told him was in my locker. You see, when you work on the kill
floor, you do not carry identification to the floor because you can be
splattered with blood. He told me we had to go to the locker room.
Once there, the agent told me to get against the wall and he
handcuffed me. He then began to interrogate me about where I was born,
where I now lived, where my parents live, and whether I was a U.S.
citizen. I told him I was born in Waterloo, Iowa, and that was where I
still live. I answered each question honestly and politely although I
was uncomfortable in the handcuffs and not sure why I was being
interrogated in this way.
He asked me why I live in Waterloo and drive all the way to
Marshalltown for work. It's more than an hour drive each way, but my
Swift job is a good job and it helps me provide for my family. The
agent then asked where my parents were from. I told him Mississippi. He
asked me how to drive from Waterloo to Mississippi. To be honest, I
didn't know the exact route, why should I? Do you each know the precise
route to your parents' house? When I didn't answer the questions to his
satisfaction, he continued to aggressively interrogate me. Was I
scared? Yes, wouldn't you be?
He asked me for my locker combination and if I had any weapons. By
now, I was getting angry. I am a U.S. citizen. I am the son of U.S.
citizens. I am a father of U.S. citizens. I live in the same state in
which I was born. I have worked in the Swift plant for more than two
decades. It is not easy work, so with all due respect to the
Subcommittee, I found his questioning insulting and offensive. And,
quite frankly, regardless of my status, his interrogation, the
handcuffs, the guns, and the agents in SWAT uniforms were all
incredibly unnecessary and intimidating--and, I had done nothing wrong.
Why would he ask and suggest that I have a weapon? Why would I
bring one to work? Because I'm black? Because I work in a packing
plant? It just wasn't right. I have worked at this plant for more than
20 years and I was not only being asked if I had a weapon but for my
locker number. I couldn't even open my own locker because of the
handcuffs.
The ICE agent opened my locker and checked my ID. He showed it to
another agent. They started laughing. I was then escorted outside,
still in the binding handcuffs, to the cafeteria. It is about a 400
yard walk. It was December in Iowa. It was cold and snowing and I had
no coat or gloves. There were armed agents everywhere guarding the
perimeter of the Swift building.
By the time I got into the cafeteria, I had been in the handcuffs
for an hour. The agents finally removed the cuffs and I was forced to
sit in the cafeteria for the next seven hours with hundreds of my
coworkers. We had no food and no water. We weren't allowed to use the
restrooms by ourselves. We couldn't use the phone to contact our
families, union representatives or lawyers. ICE held me there for eight
long hours. There was no legitimate reason. There was no probable
cause. Our plant--our workplace--had been transformed into a prison or
detention center. We were turned into prisoners because we went to work
that day.
Again, for the record, I am a U.S. citizen. I was born and raised
in this country--in the same state I work and have never been overseas
in my life. But on that December day, I and all my coworkers, were
treated by our government like criminals. All we did was wake up and go
to work. It was a day that was nothing out of the ordinary. We just
went to work to help provide the food for this country and the support
for our families. But it wasn't a normal day after all. What happened
to us that day was simply wrong. No one in this country, regardless of
their status, should be treated the way we were treated at the
Marshalltown Swift plant or any of the Swift plants. Working is not a
crime, and workers do not leave their constitutional rights at the
plant gate.
Imagine the outrage if this happened at one of these fancy downtown
Washington office buildings. Imagine if thousands of innocent people
were detained for more than eight hours just because the government
suspected a handful of undocumented workers in the building? It would
not matter who was in the building at the time, everyone would be
detained. This would cause a huge uproar and outcry. You think it
wouldn't happen in Washington but we thought it wouldn't happen in Iowa
either. We thought it couldn't happen in America's heartland, but it
did. Innocent workers were handcuffed and detained by our government.
It would be wrong in Washington, DC and it was wrong in Marshalltown,
Iowa.
What happened to me--and to thousands of others of U.S. citizens
and legal residents on that December day--was a complete violation of
our rights. And, it did not end there. It can happen at any workplace--
at any time--in this country if we do not do something now to change
the way these immigration raids are conducted.
My story is not unique. I wish you could hear all of the stories
from that day. Perhaps then you would understand the fear that people
were subjected too. You would hear first hand how we were mistreated
and how we were treated like a herd of animals. You would hear from
people whose children were left stranded at schools and daycares, who
had no idea where their parents were. You would hear from women who
were frisked by male agents because no female agents were available.
You would hear from handcuffed women, who were escorted into bathroom
stalls by agents when they needed to use the facilities. You would hear
from the woman who was at a local hospital having a miscarriage, but
ICE would not allow her to contact her husband in the Swift plant
because he was detained.
You would also hear from Darryl Harrington, a Korean War veteran,
who was detained and compared the experience to his time at war. You
would hear from Walter Molina, another U.S. citizen, who was taken from
his plant to a detention area more than 6 hours from his home and was
later released only to have to find his own way home.
You would hear the story of Delphina Arias, a U.S. citizen. She has
a son in Iraq and a daughter in ROTC. Delphina was also detained by ICE
agents. What is happening in this country that we are detaining a
mother, a mother who is a U.S. citizen, while her son is putting his
life on the line right now in Iraq? On that day, Delphina thought the
ICE agents dressed in black who invaded her plant were terrorists
intent on killing us. She actually thought about pretending she was
dead if they opened fire on her and her co-workers.
You would also hear the story of Pasqual Talamantes, who is here
with me today. Pasqual is a U.S. citizen. But the ICE agents didn't
believe his story because he does not speak English very well. Pasqual
was educated in Mexico. He was at the Swift plant in Grand Island the
day of the Swift raids. He showed his driver's license to the agents
but although it is current, it is old and he is thinner than his
picture. The agents did not believe it was his license and yelled
racial slurs at him. Pasqual insisted that he was a U.S. citizen and
that he had a U.S. passport at home. He pleaded to be released so he, a
single parent, could go home to his children. ICE detained him for six
horrific hours. Could there be a more concrete example of racial
profiling and to what end? Was any of this necessary?
These are just a few of the stories you would hear from Swift
workers who were abused, traumatized, and mistreated in the guise of
immigration reform by the U.S. government. Members of this
Subcommittee, something has to be done so that this never happens to
anyone in this country again. It was horrible to watch how we were
treated that day. It was hurtful to see the fear in my co-workers eyes
and to understand the trauma we all experienced. Again, all we did was
go to work that day. The raids hurt our community. It hurt our company.
And it is hurting our country still.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and tell you
my story and my co-workers' stories. I urge you to use the power of
your offices to correct this injustice and to fight to end these
discriminatory, un-American practices by ICE. Again, thank you for your
time and I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, Mr. Graves.
Miss Hartzler?
TESTIMONY OF KARA HARTZLER, ATTORNEY, FLORRENCE IMMIGRANT AND
REFUGEE RIGHTS PROJECT
Ms. Hartzler. Madam Chairwoman and Ranking Member King and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting us here
today.
My name is Kara Hartzler, and I am an attorney at the
Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona.
The Florence Project is a nonprofit organization providing
free legal services to persons in Arizona who are detained by
ICE.
We do this by conducting legal orientation presentations to
detainees before their first deportation hearing and by
providing individual follow-up services to those who do not
have lawyers but maybe eligible to remain in the United States.
In the course of my work with the Florence Project, I have
talked to thousands of people who are in the process of being
deported. And I would like to tell you a few of those stories
today.
About a month ago, I spoke with a man named Thomas Wozniak
in Florence, Arizona on the morning of his deportation hearing.
When I asked Mr. Wozniak where he was born, he replied,
``Minnesota.''
He told me he was raised in the south and that he had never
left the United States in his life. When I asked if he knew why
the U.S. was trying to deport him, he said that someone had
told him he had a foreign-sounding name.
Because he was detained, he did not have access to his
birth certificate nor did he have any family or friends who
could obtain a copy.
He had heard it cost $30 to order a copy of his birth
certificate, so he was working in the prison kitchen for a
dollar a day until he had the money to order one. So far, he
had $8 and he hoped to earn the remaining $22 before his next
court date in several weeks.
In my experience, stories like that of Mr. Wozniak are not
rare. Under immigration law, a person is a citizen of the
United States by birth, naturalization, or because the person
automatically acquired or derived citizenship through a parent.
On average, our organization is currently seeing 40 to 50
cases per month in which individuals with potentially valid
claims to U.S. citizenship are being detained and deported.
Why aren't we hearing about these cases? Because as is
often the situation, it is happening to the most vulnerable in
our society; to racial and ethnic minorities, the mentally ill,
people who cannot afford to hire a lawyer, people who are
homeless and have no access to documents, people with no family
to help them.
In immigration court, unlike criminal proceedings, the
government does not provide a lawyer to those who can't afford
one.
One of our clients named Anna, who suffers from psychosis
and schizophrenia, represented herself before the immigration
judge.
Anna consistently maintained three things: That she was
born in France; that former President John F. Kennedy was her
father; and that the Pope was also her father.
Despite the obvious unreliability of the latter two
statements, ICE used the former statement to argue that she
could be deported to France. ICE presented no evidence, apart
from her statement, that she was born outside the United
States, and the French consulate denied that she is a citizen
of that country.
Anna has been detained for 5 months in Eloy, Arizona.
Sometimes, persons who are born at home for religious or
other reasons were never issued a birth certificate and are
subsequently detained and deported.
Javier was born at home in El Paso, Texas and never
obtained a birth certificate. After completing probation for a
misdemeanor, his probation officer informed him that she would
have to report him to ICE.
When Javier told her that he was born in Texas, she
replied, ``I know, I am sorry. But I have to cover my ass.''
In some cases, the detention and deportation of U.S.
citizens is the result of inexcusable error. About a year ago,
I met a man named Joseph who was detained in Eloy, Arizona.
Joseph was born in the Sudan and had automatically derived
U.S. citizenship from his parents because he had turned 18
after they naturalized. To prove this, Joseph submitted a copy
of his original birth certificate in Arabic and a translation
of it to the judge that showed that he was born on October 2,
1985.
However, ICE submitted a competing translation that
incorrectly interpreted the date on the certificate as February
10, 1985, based on the assumption that the first number in the
date represented the month rather than the day, which is not
the practice in the Sudan where the birth certificate was
issued.
The judge, nevertheless, accepted ICE's translation,
rejected Joseph's, and ordered him deported.
When I talked to Joseph, he was disgusted and wanted to
give up. I convinced him to let me try and reopen his case. And
with a new translation from an Arabic expert, the judge finally
acknowledged that Joseph was, indeed, a citizen.
Even after the judge's ruling, Joseph was not released for
another 40 days, a full year and a half after he was first
detained.
Following my conversation with Mr. Wozniak, the man born in
Minnesota, I contacted a reporter who was able to find a record
of his birth within several hours. After being incarcerated for
over a month, Mr. Wozniak was finally released.
Ironically, he is one of the lucky ones.
Another man I am assisting with a valid claim to
citizenship has been detained for over 4 years. It is my
observation that these cases are surprisingly, painfully
common; that U.S. citizens are being detained and deported from
the United States not monthly or weekly, but on a daily basis.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hartzler follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kara Hartzler
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
Miss Rosenbloom?
TESTIMONY OF RACHEL E. ROSENBLOOM, HUMAN RIGHTS FELLOW, CENTER
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AT BOSTON COLLEGE
Ms. Rosenbloom. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member King,
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for holding this hearing
and for inviting me to appear here today.
My name is Rachel Rosenbloom. I am here on behalf of the
Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston
College.
The main point that I wish to emphasize today is that these
cases that you have heard, the deportation of U.S. citizens,
are not isolated incidents.
The Center for Human Rights and International Justice at
Boston College has documented at least eight cases in recent
years in which U.S. citizens have been removed.
We believe, based on anecdotal evidence, that there are
additional cases that have not been publicly reported, and we
are currently researching those.
Rather than describe these cases, I want to focus on the
systemic problems that allow such egregious errors to occur.
Over the past decade, our deportation system has increasingly
come to rely on fast-track removal processes that bypass our
immigration ports entirely.
A case such as Mr. Guzman's makes visible to the public
something that is obvious every day of the year to people
facing removal; that entrusting high-stakes decisions to low-
level officers with little or no review creates conditions that
are ripe for error and even sometimes coercion.
One such process is expedited removal introduced in 1996
which allows immigration officers to summarily exclude foreign
nationals who lack proper documentation.
Those subject to expedited removal have no right to counsel
and no right to a hearing before an immigration judge.
Initially, it was used only at ports of entry, but it is
now increasingly being use in the interior. And although a
person is supposed to be referred to an immigration judge if
they make a citizenship claim, the Center is aware of at least
two cases in which U.S. citizens have been removed through this
process without ever being referred to immigration court and
others who have been threatened with jail time and detained for
weeks on end through this process.
Another fast-track removal process is administrative
removal, introduced in 1994, which applies to noncitizens who
are not permanent residents and have been convicted of certain
types of crimes.
Again, this is done by an immigration officer, not an
immigration judge. There is no right to a hearing, and if you
make a citizenship claim, you are supposed to be referred to a
judge.
But, again, we are aware of cases in which this hasn't
happened; where people have been removed through this process,
citizens like Linda Smith Wilmore, a 71-year-old, partially
blind, lifelong resident of New York State who was born in
Albany, New York in 1931 and had a birth certificate on file
there.
The third fast-track removal process involves immigration
officers and, increasingly, law enforcement officers who obtain
the consent of U.S. citizens for their removal. This may occur
through a stipulated order of removal or by the person
accepting pre-hearing voluntary departure.
The people sign away all of their rights inherent in their
citizenship without ever consulting with an attorney and
without an immigration judge ever determining that such an
admission is voluntary, knowing, and intelligent or that
deportation is warranted.
So when considering how these processes affect U.S.
citizens, consider the following statistics. Seven percent of
U.S. citizens do not have ready access to proof of their
citizenship such as a U.S. Passport, naturalization papers, or
a birth certificate.
Among U.S. citizens who earn less than $25,000 person year,
12 percent lack ready access to such proof of citizenship.
So for a person who is on the margins of our society due to
a disability, a drug addiction, or even just due to poverty,
getting picked up at an ICE raid or getting turned over to ICE
after a minor brush with the law can mean entry into a system
that can truly be called----
I just want to--in closing, I want to highlight three
factors that really magnifies these problems associated with
this system. The first is lack of access to counsel.
Ninety percent of detainees lack legal representation, and
it can be crucial in citizenship cases. Sometimes,
particularly, if you derive citizenship from a parent, it can
take sophisticated legal analysis necessary to prove that.
The second factor is mandatory detention which brings
people all over the country far from their friends and family
who might be able to help them with their case, far from free
or low-cost legal services.
And the third factor is the lack of accommodation for
individuals with disabilities as I think has become evident
from many of the stories that have been told today.
And finally, although my principle focus is on the
deportation of U.S. citizens, I want to say that these systemic
problems lay out in a much wider arena. The Center is aware of
a large number of cases in which long-time legal residents,
green card holders, have been removed on the basis of criminal
conviction that do not actually trigger removal or convictions
that don't bar discretionary relief.
Faced with the prospect of lengthy detention and lacking
the financial ability to hire an attorney, many simply concede
removability.
The costs of this system are borne not only by those
supported by their loved ones who are left behind, including
many U.S. citizens' children who have been senselessly deprived
of the presence and support of a parent. And there is also a
great cost to all of us and to the system itself, to our legal
system, when the rule of law just fails within these
situations.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rosenbloom follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rachael E. Rosenbloom
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
Mr. Stein?
TESTIMONY OF DAN STEIN, PRESIDENT, FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN
IMMIGRATION REFORM
Mr. Stein. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
My name is Dan Stein. I am president of the Federation for
American Immigration Reform.
I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here today to
talk about the subject of the hearing.
I, first, would like to say that I think everyone can
agree, and I am sure that we all agree that the inadvertent
deportation of U.S. citizens ought to be an extremely rare
occurrence, nothing that we would ever want to tolerate.
And, certainly, FAIR has been, I believe, as supportive as
anyone else in the efforts to try to improve detention and
removal proceedings over the years to try to ensure that these
sorts of things don't happen.
Certainly, all of us feel compassion and concern for
someone who, in the case of Mr. Guzman, lacking, I guess, the
mental capacity, to assert his citizenship, wasn't able to
assert his rights effectively.
And changes should be made to try to improve those
procedures.
At the same time, in my testimony, I talk a good deal about
the recent increases in detention, deportation; how these
increases, while these amount to several billion dollars a year
more, nevertheless, are necessitated by a rapid increase in
illegal immigration.
And there still have been, nevertheless, declines in
enforcement personnel in--states which declined by 3 to 6
percent between 2002 and 2004.
The public is demanding dramatic increases in interior
enforcement in response to unprecedented levels of illegal
immigration. FAIR supports that very strongly. We have been one
of the major forces pushing for an increase in interior
enforcement.
A couple of things I want to point out during my brief
statement is--and I have been working on this now for 26 years.
Been here a long time at this.
I can remember how many Committee meetings focused on the
problem of false claims to citizenship. False claims to
citizenship are a very difficult problem in ICE enforcement
procedures.
Let us be honest about it, we are asking the government to
do an impossible job.
The main reason is, of course, that there is no easy way to
verify citizenship. It is not simply that many Americans do not
have ready access to proving their citizenship. In fact, I
think the numbers are dramatically higher than what we heard
earlier.
But that there have been persistent efforts over the years
by many of the organizations which are concerned about,
apparently, the deportation of U.S. citizens; many of those
same organizations that stand in the way of much-needed
improvements in developing things like machine-readable
driver's licenses to verify birth records and/or naturalization
records to enable U.S. citizens to quickly and easily prove
citizenship.
I have no privacy interest in the fact that I am a U.S.
citizen. And yet sitting here today, I can't verify it easily.
I would have an easier time verifying my shopping record or my
Internet browsing history than I would the fact that I am a
U.S. citizen.
So in the end, we, as a Nation, have created an impossible
situation. Surely, no one can say that we are devoting too many
resources to interior enforcement given the fact that ICE
deported approximately 135,000 people in formal removal
proceedings last year, but there are an estimated 12, 13
million illegal aliens in the United States. Arguably, if
anything, our enforcement procedures remain far too laxed.
And I believe that in the average point of view of today's
American voter could concur that, in fact, we are not enforcing
the law anywhere near the shape or form of what we ought to be
in this country.
We believe that Congress ought to concern itself with
asking the question: Why is it that we are not able to enforce
the law more effectively in the interior? Why have we allowed
this Byzantine document structure and the failure, including
state and local enforcement force multipliers, to be
established to enable worksite enforcement to happen more
routinely and smoothly rather than this once every 20-year
event that we see going on?
So I would suggest that we very strongly believe that we
should look at these problems more as an opportunity to look at
what kind of resources are needed over time. We have allowed
our interior enforcement apparatus to atrophy for many, many
years.
It has happened as a result of aggressive lobbying by
private special interests in the United States who seek to use
immigration to control labor costs. We should enforce these
laws in the interior because they benefit U.S. citizens by
improving bargaining leverage which leads to an increase in
wages and working conditions.
We believe it is time to change direction. Vigorously
enforcing our immigration laws fairly, certainly humanely, but
at the same time effectively, is clearly going to have a
negative impact on people who have broken our law.
At the same time, however, we believe the basic principles
of fairness and justice require that we not provide special
benefits to those who have chosen to jump the line and break
the law in front of millions of people who wait patiently and
respect our system.
Thank you very much. And I would be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dan Stein
Madame Chair, members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for
the opportunity to testify here today on behalf of the Federation For
American Immigration Reform (FAIR). I have included information on FAIR
at the end of my statement.
FAIR strongly supports the principle that U.S. immigration law is
just as important as any other law in the United States Code, and that
the enforcement of these laws is vital to maintenance of a sense of
fairness and justice to all Americans who work hard to respect all the
laws of this nation. Basic principles of fundamental fairness and
respect for law are the cornerstones of citizenship in this highly
diverse society. There many who argue that violating an immigration law
lacks any negative moral connotation. We disagree. One reason why many
immigrants want to come to the United States is because here ``the
system works.''
Congress has passed laws and the Executive Branch maintains a
series of procedures governing the arrest, detention and removal of
aliens illegally inside the United States. They are under constant
review. We support the effective and humane administration of these
laws and procedures, consistent with the process that is due at all
points of apprehension, detention and removal.
In the administration of these complex laws and procedures,
mistakes will occasionally be made. This is especially true given the
scope and complexity of these procedures, the demands of limited
resources and the fact that human beings are fallible. The effective
and judicious administration of all phases of these procedures will
require a continued and growing infusion of resources: the management
of immigration process is an extremely expensive proposition if it is
to be done right.
But when mistakes are made by ICE in the administration of these
laws, it is a serious matter. Our nation's commitment to fairness and
the rule of law dictate that all instances of misconduct be
investigated thoroughly and, where criminal conduct is proved, a full
prosecution should invariably follow. Where rules and procedures are
not followed, such as in the inappropriate administration of sedation
drugs, the willful failure to identify sole caregivers in the course of
an interior enforcement operation and similar events, an investigation
should follow from the Inspector General to ascertain why procedures
were not followed.
Madame Chair, we understand at FAIR that immigration policy
involves sensitive and emotional issues--the very real impacts on real
people are factors that must be considered in the establishment of any
enforcement policy. We must be true to our principles as a people and
work to ensure that immigration enforcement--vigorous and effective--
nevertheless respects basic human rights and the dignity of all
involved.
At present, the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and
Customs Enforcement Program (ICE) program for detaining and removing
illegal aliens is undergoing rapid expansion. The Bush Administration's
most recent budget request seeks an additional $3 billion for internal
enforcement, including work-site raids conducted by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officials. The President will ask for $1.8 billion
more to expand ICE's capacity to detain illegal immigrants by providing
1,000 more detention beds.
This rapid funding increase is necessitated by a rapid increase in
illegal immigration, by declines in enforcement personnel and funded
bed space (which declined by 3 percent and 6 percent, respectively
between 2002 and 2004), and by public demands that interior immigration
enforcement be dramatically expanded. Despite an increase in overall
resources, bed space and personnel levels have failed to keep pace with
the growing number of alien apprehensions.
According to a 2006 audit report issued by the Department of
Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, ``of the 774,112
illegal aliens apprehended during the past three years, 280,987 (36
percent) were released and largely due to a lack of personnel, bed
space, and funding needed to detain illegal aliens while their
immigration status is being adjudicated.'' Further, an astounding 62
percent of the aliens released ``will eventually be issued final orders
of removal by the...Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) and
later fail to surrender or abscond.'' We now have over 600,000 alien
fugitives in the United States.
According to DHS, three major problems facing the Detention and
Removal Office (DRO) are ``(1) the propensity of illegal aliens to
disobey orders to appear immigration court; (2) the penchant of
released illegal aliens with final orders to abscond; (3) the practice
of some countries to block or inhibit the repatriation of its citizens;
and (4) two recent U.S. Supreme court decisions which mandate the
release of criminal and other high-risk aliens 180 days after the
issuance of the final removal order except in `Special Circumstances.'
'' DRO says major problems carrying out large-scale removal include
lack of ``sufficient resources,'' a lack of ``political will, and the
[lack of] operation of foreign governments.'' Department of Homeland
Security Office of Inspector General, Detention and Removal of Illegal
Aliens, OIG-06-33 (April 2006).
FAIR calls on Congress and the national political leadership of
this nation to demonstrate the political will to dramatically increase
the enforcement of US immigration laws in a manner consistent with
credible deterrence. We would also like some broader recognition of the
tremendous hidden processing and enforcement costs associated with the
administration of laws associated with the use of so-called
``inexpensive'' foreign labor.
At present, specific problems with individual enforcement
operations are properly subject to internal investigations by DHS.
Every one of these allegations is worthy of serious consideration, all
the while keeping in mind that many of the underlying facts are omitted
from news reports. Further, we would suggest that overall policy
changes not be made on the basis of one or two isolated instances of
agent misconduct. Rather, we should be looking at the entire set of
objectives in the aggregate and work to fashion an enforcement strategy
that will operate to serve the nation as a whole.
Furthermore, we are concerned that these isolated incidents are
being used to try to build political support by those who oppose
immigration enforcement generally. The reaction to the recent increases
in interior enforcement--welcomed by the overwhelming majority of the
American people--has been negative among those organizations
traditionally opposed to robust enforcement strategies.
With an estimated population of illegal aliens ranging from 12 to
13 million, one can hardly argue that this nation is too aggressive in
its enforcement of immigration law. In 2005, DHS's Immigration
Enforcement Actions report 135,610 formal removals--perhaps 1% of the
illegal immigrant population in the United States. Clearly, the
government has only begun to initiate which promises to be a multiyear
effort.
Commonly we hear the red herring, ``What you want, mass
deportations?'' To which I respond that 135,000+ formal removals is
already a form of mass deportation. Moreover, the sort of large-scale
interior enforcement operations contemplated by the term ``mass
deportations'' are unnecessary. This problem was not created overnight.
It will not be solved overnight. Stepped up interior enforcement, when
combined with the aggressive enforcement of employer sanctions,
dramatically increased detention space, and streamlined removal
proceedings will achieve the deterrence that will encourage most
illegal aliens to return home.
Madame Chair, we believe it is possible to enforce our immigration
laws in a manner that is both effective and consistent with our values.
We see the effects of state-based policy changes now: deterrence sets
in quickly once it becomes clear that remaining unlawfully in the
United States is not a viable option.
Our immigration law enforcement is notoriously lax. While we
understand that there are organizations and interests that seek to
abolish nearly all forms of immigration enforcement, we believe that is
a minority view. Even under today's relaxed standards, the United
States deports well over 100,000 aliens from the interior of the
country each year. While it will be costly to dramatically increase
detention and bed space to bring about true deterrence, such costs can
be reduced through expedited removal and similar streamlining
techniques. The United States utilized expedited removal to repatriate
over 70,000 aliens in 2005, and last year the Administration started
using expedited removal for non-Mexicans apprehended near the border.
The administration has more authority to use expedited removal than
it has exercised to date. Current law allows the administration to
utilize expedited removal for any alien who entered illegally and has
been in the United States for less than two years. FAIR has previously
supported provisions of the House-passed version of the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which require the use of
expedited removal for all aliens who enter the US illegally and have
been here for less than five years. This is the sort of creative and
innovative thinking we would like to see expanded.
Madame Chair, this nation has allowed its interior enforcement
apparatus to atrophy for years. It has happened as a result of the
aggressive lobbying of private, special interests in United States who
seek to use immigration to control labor costs. We believe it is time
to change direction. The simple truth is that vigorously enforcing our
immigration laws will have a negative impact on illegal aliens.
However, we believe that the basic principles of fairness and justice
require that we not provide specific benefits to those who have chosen
to jump the line and break the law.
______
About FAIR
FAIR is the nation's oldest and largest national public interest
organization working to reform U.S. immigration laws. Bound by a common
purpose and broad sense of mission, we seek to advance forward-thinking
immigration policies that serve the wide array of U.S. domestic
priorities that, in our view, are fundamentally inconsistent with
today's mass and poorly-regulated immigration system.
FAIR seeks to end illegal immigration through improved enforcement
strategies, and we seek to reduce overall immigration levels to those
more consistent with 400 years of history--to reduce levels from well
over one million a year today to around 300,000 a year over a sustained
period of time.
FAIR has a wide base of support that includes nearly 50 private
foundations and nearly 200,000 individuals. Unaligned with any major
party or financial interest, FAIR is noteworthy on two counts:
1) We are bipartisan. Our Board of Directors, Advisors and
members include Democrats, Republicans and Independents. We
also have a broad constituency that includes members of all
ethnic and racial communities in the United States. We have
members, activists and affiliated organizations that include
strong representation from the African American and Latino
communities.
2) We have always sought to ensure that immigration policies
never discriminate for or against persons on the basis of race,
religion, gender or other invidious basis.
Over the years, FAIR has played a major role in virtually all major
immigration policy changes. As champion of an enlarged and long-range
national interest, FAIR seeks to advance America's understanding of the
role of immigration to the U.S. in the 21st Century. We fought for
policy improvements in the landmark 1986 Immigration Reform and Control
Act, in asylum laws in the Refugee Act of 1980 as well as in legal
reforms in 1990 and 1996. From 1993 onward, FAIR was intimately
involved in examining, exposing and closing loopholes that might be
exploited by international terrorists. After the 9/11 terror attacks,
FAIR was instrumental in fashioning important legislative and policy
changes that have helped advance U.S. national security in major ways.
Perhaps most importantly, FAIR has always sought to fashion a
workable immigration system that considers the downstream impacts of
today's policies on tomorrow's generations. Looking ahead fifty years,
FAIR has been one of the few voices in the nation to ask: What will it
mean to move from a crowded society of 300 million today to nearly one
billion by the end of this century? FAIR--unattached by party loyalties
and special interest affiliations--simply seeks to help Americans
consider the full dimensions of how immigration policies affect, and
will affect, the nation's welfare over time.
Long considered the most credible voice on U.S. immigration policy
in America today, FAIR has been asked by Congress to testify on a wide
range of issues--well over 100 times--and is a routine voice on
national television. FAIR and its law firm affiliate the Immigration
Reform Law Institute routinely submit both popular and scholarly
articles for publication and our research division puts out some of the
best fact-based immigration analysis in the country.
Madame Chair, thank you very much for the opportunity to offer the
views of FAIR.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Stein.
Thank you to all of the witnesses. Now is the time when we
have an opportunity to ask questions, and I would like to
invite the Ranking Member to ask his questions.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate all the witnesses' testimony, and I have a
series of places to start here.
But maybe I would go to the statement made by Mr.
Brosnahan. The mother who went for days in Mexico searching
from morgue to morgue.
Mr. Brosnahan. Yes.
Mr. King. And I am going to make a statement here. I am not
sure I will have a question, Mr. Brosnahan, on that.
Mr. Brosnahan. Surely.
Mr. King. I would point out that there are mothers,
fathers, brothers, and sisters that go to morgues every day in
America because of failure to enforce immigration law; and that
27 percent of the inmates in our Federal penitentiaries are
criminal aliens.
There are numbers that support that being a representative,
also, in state in local prisons.
If even a fourth of the murders in the United States are
committed by those individuals that fit that category, that is
over 4,000 a year. That means there hasn't been a single day go
by in this country that there hasn't been a mother, father,
brother, or sister going to a morgue in the states, too.
Mr. Brosnahan. But are you saying----
Mr. King. My point----
Mr. Brosnahan [continuing]. It is, therefore, justified?
Mr. King. My point is, Mr. Brosnahan----
Mr. Brosnahan. Yes, sir.
Mr. King [continuing]. Is that if we--we have one single
case here that we know about. There are others that have been
gathered in the testimony of Miss Hartzler which I intend to
ask her a question in regard to that.
But if there is a factor involved in this kind of hearing
that says we should never have a single exception out of maybe
even one out of a million is one of the numbers that was
produced by Mr. Mead, it may end up being more American lives
in the process.
So I would just ask you if you could quickly answer, do you
expect it to be without exception? Can we be a hundred percent
right? And I think there were points that were made here about
some lack of respect and strong-arm tactics. I think they are
valid.
So I hope you don't address that.
But are you asking that this be without exception even in
spite of the risks that I have pointed out?
Mr. Brosnahan. Here is what I know that might be helpful,
and it is a point of view.
As a Federal prosecutor for 5 years and a defense lawyer
for too many years, any police agency--and this agency that you
supervise is a police agency in large part. They do other
things, too; administrative things. But they are a police
agency. It requires total discipline. That is true of the FBI,
all those agencies.
And if they don't----
Mr. King. [OFF MIKE]
Mr. Brosnahan. But please; you asked me. Did you want an
answer?
Mr. King. And I said----
Mr. Brosnahan. Do you want an answer?
Mr. King. Do you expect this to be without exception?
Mr. Brosnahan. Yes.
Mr. King. That was my question.
Mr. Brosnahan. Yes. Put me in charge of the ICE.
Mr. King. Okay.
Mr. Brosnahan. There would be new administration, and there
will not be U.S. citizens--you won't have this problem. And you
can get much better people than that if you want to exercise
the oversight with which you----
Mr. King. Thank you. I do have your answer, and my time is
limited. So I appreciate----
Mr. Brosnahan. Okay.
Mr. King [continuing]. Your testimony.
I would turn to Mr. Graves at this point, and I want to
make sure I welcome him as a fellow Iowan and I appreciate your
testimony in coming here today as well as all of you.
And that is not a case that I am unfamiliar with. My
question first is what is the temperature on the kill floor?
Mr. Graves. Excuse me?
Mr. King. What is the temperature on the kill floor?
Mr. Graves. On the kill floor, it is about a hundred
degrees, maybe 95 degrees on the kill floor.
Mr. King. Even in December when this case took place?
Mr. Graves. Yes.
Mr. King. So that is why you are in there in t-shirts. I
just had to clarify that. I haven't been on the kill floor in a
while.
Mr. Graves. Yeah.
Mr. King. And when you walk out of there into 20-degree
temperature, it is a long walk.
Mr. Graves. Yes.
Mr. King. The individuals that were with you when you
walked over to the cafeteria, they had two individuals with
you? Your testimony said other Hispanics, but I presume--how
were they processed?
Did they come back to work with you?
Mr. Graves. I never seen just that day it happened. But----
Mr. King. Were they deported then, Mr. Graves?
Mr. Graves. I don't know. I don't know if they quit or
whatever, but after that day, they never came back. When they
took me to my locker; that was the last I saw of them.
Mr. King. They were either deported or intimidated out of a
job, most likely?
Mr. Graves. Exactly.
Mr. King. Are you aware of a couple that, an African-
American couple, that drove up from Dallas when they heard this
in the news, American citizens, to apply for jobs and went to
work there as a man and a woman that had been looking for jobs
in Dallas that were attracted to come to Marshalltown?
Mr. Graves. No. Never heard about that one.
Mr. King. I picked that up from a local legislator that was
working a soup line at the church, and I thought that was the
happy story about this; that any time Americans can go to work,
people that are lawfully present in the United States, legal to
work in the United States, to fill those slots, I thought that
was a good story.
Mr. Graves. Yes.
Mr. King. And I wanted to pass that along. So, again, I
appreciate your testimony, but I wanted to turn to Miss
Hartzler in the limited time that I have.
And you talked about--let us see--the language that you
used was U.S. citizens are being deported or detained on a
regular basis, not monthly or weekly, but daily.
And that deported or detained is two different categories.
And it would be detentions of American citizens for a lot of
different reasons, and ICE can probably, despite Mr.--position
on this, can probably avoid detaining American citizens in the
process of doing their job.
So can you break that down for me and give me the number
that you think are those that were being deported on a regular
basis? And I would ask you if you can produce the names of
those people so that we could do a more comprehensive analysis
of that because I am working with one name right now.
Ms. Hartzler. I think there are a lot of categories of
people within the montrose of a U.S. citizen who are being
detained or deported.
First of all, they are native-born citizens, and we have
heard the story of Pedro Guzman. However, there is along a
very, very large group of people who were not necessarily born
in the United States, but have acquired or derived citizenship
even those that were born outside the United States.
Those are the cases that I most often see being deported.
And a lot of times, they are being deported because the process
of them being able to prove their citizenship before an
immigration judge is so difficult, particularly without family
support, that it can often take weeks, months, years.
So when I see people who are citizens who are deported, it
is often because they are so frustrated over the length of time
they have to spend incarcerated that they essentially give up
and they allow themselves to be deported even though they have
a valid claim to U.S. citizenship.
And the ones who don't give up, who stay, will often be
detained for years at a time.
Mr. King. Do you actually have a case for them, and when a
judge has heard your assertions, now, these cases, have they
been before the judge?
Ms. Hartzler. Yes. And I would also--I would clarify that
because of large numbers, our organization generally doesn't
represent people in court. We are helping assist people to
represent themselves before an immigration judge.
Mr. King. Okay. So you wouldn't be talking about cases that
have been adjudicated and the court has denied their claim to
citizenship?
Ms. Hartzler. There are some of those, but there are also
quite a few cases where the judge has actually said, Yes, this
person is a citizen; and ICE will appeal. And that appeal will
last 6 to 8 months.
Mr. King. What do we do, then, when the individual alleges
and may well have been born in the United States, not in the
hospital without a birth certificate, maybe near the border,
who may or may not have been raised in the United States; how
do we resolve an issue when it is the family making an
allegation and there are no other witnesses that can testify or
verify that particular case?
I just----
Ms. Hartzler. Well, I think it is a very difficult
situation. But I would point to the law that says that it is
ICE's burden to prove born birth. And ICE, first of all, has to
say, We have some sort of information showing that this person
was born outside of the United States.
If ICE does not meet that burden, or if ICE does meet that
burden, then, indeed, the burden shifts to the person who is
claiming citizenship to prove.
Mr. King. Has ICE ever proved foreign birth? Other than--
has ICE ever proved a foreign birth that wasn't supported by a
birth certificate document in a foreign country? How would they
prove--how would they prove that an individual was born in a
foreign country?
Ms. Hartzler. They will often use the person's statement.
And, as my testimony highlighted, if you have a person with
mental illness, they will often say that they were, sometimes,
born outside of the United States.
So those statements are, in my opinion, are inherently
unreliable in terms of proving alienage. And yet they are used
by ICE. So that is one of the situations.
I think it is a very difficult situation, but in my
experience, ICE has shown less interest in objectively
determining citizenship than in disproving and rebutting claims
to citizenship.
Mr. King. Just one brief question.
Ms. Lofgren. Certainly.
Mr. King. I think my clock ran out a while ago. But I
just--I am curious about how you would view this, revealing
with this huge haystack of humanity. And ICE has a big mission,
and national security is wrapped up in it. That is why they are
part of the Department of Homeland Security.
The level that has been charged here for them, this hundred
percent, never fail, never-cross-the-line level that Mr.
Brosnahan has laid out--and I know he has conviction in that.
And there is probably some validity in his viewpoint.
Do you think that could ever be reached practically? Or are
we going to have exceptions no matter what we do?
Ms. Hartzler. I am sorry. Could you--I know we are getting
out of time, but could you restate that question?
Mr. King. Yes. The standard of not making mistakes and not
being abusive, which I will certainly hold them to that
standard as well--but do you think that that level of
efficiency at ICE could ever be reached?
Do you think that no matter who is running the operation
and what kind of personnel we have that we wouldn't be back
here in 5 or 10 years with at least one or a few cases like
have been brought forward today?
Ms. Hartzler. No. I think that it is very, very difficult
to ensure that no citizen is ever deported. But I think the
point of my testimony would be that our current procedural
safeguards are so lacking in the numbers that I personally am
seeing border on routine deportation and detention of U.S.
citizens.
Mr. King. I get your point, and I appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
Let me ask Justine--I want to go through and make sure I
understand how events unfolded in your house.
Now, you were in your room when you heard the voices of the
Federal agents in your home; is that right?
Ms. Mancha. Yes.
Mr. King. Yes. Is that correct?
Ms. Mancha. I had heard car doors slamming. I looked out
the window and didn't see anything. So then I start--I was in
my room and then I started hearing police.
Mr. King. Did they knock?
Ms. Mancha. They were already in my house when I walked to
the living room.
Mr. King. And they didn't ask if they could enter?
Ms. Mancha. Uh-uh.
Mr. King. Did they show you a warrant?
Ms. Mancha. No, ma'am.
Mr. King. Once they saw you, did they ask you if it was
okay that they were in your house?
Ms. Mancha. They just started asking me questions.
Mr. King. Now, they came in and asked you specifically
about your mother; is that right?
Ms. Mancha. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. King. But your mother was born in Florida?
Ms. Mancha. Yes.
Mr. King. She wasn't even a nationalized citizen. Did they
offer any why they thought you or your family were
undocumented?
Ms. Mancha. They just started asking me questions about my
mom and if she had a green card or not. I said she doesn't need
a green card. She was born in Florida.
Mr. King. Yes. Mr. Graves, you gave compelling testimony
and actually painted a pretty vivid picture of what that day
was like. I wanted to ask you about Walter Molino, one of the
U.S. citizens who was caught up in the ICE raid.
As I understand it, even though he was a United States
citizen, he was detained and then driven to a detention center
6 hours away, and then simply released when ICE realized he was
a U.S. citizen.
Did they take him back to where they picked him up, or did
they offer to give him a ride back? Or did they just dump him?
Mr. Graves. From what I understood, somebody had to come
pick him up from there.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Brosnahan, you have spoken with tremendous
passion about Mr. Guzman's situation. And as I understand your
testimony, all the information was available had they had just
bothered to check on----
Mr. Brosnahan. All of it was right there in the records in
the sheriff's office and in ICE. All they had to do was look at
the booking sheet, which I have read. I have read all the
documents. That is all they had to do.
And the problem in terms of your going forward with it is
the question that should be asked today is what is going on in
the 400 local police agencies that have been deputized by ICE
people to do these kinds of interrogations.
Is that being done well? Is that to your satisfaction,
Members of the Committee? Or is it as I believe, logically, a
terrible delegation of an enormous power to very low-level--I
don't mean to demean them, but very low-level----
Ms. Lofgren. But they are not a judge.
Mr. Brosnahan. They are not at all trained to do it. And
immigration is very difficult. If they were trained in some
other area of sheriff's activities, maybe that would be
different.
But immigration is--you have heard today how very
complicated it is. And that has happened to Peter, and that is
what is happening to other people.
Ms. Lofgren. There are a number of issues that have been
presented here today. I voted against the deputization of local
police agencies as well as the expedited removal procedures.
I remember saying in the Homeland Security Committee, we
are going to end up deporting Americans here because there is
not anybody with the skill set to make the important judgment.
So there is the training issue. There is also, you know,
the delegation issue. I have a personal belief that many
lawsuits are being filed. And L.A. County has to pay, I think
it may chill their passion for participation in this particular
program.
The estimates are that between 25 and 40 percent of the
inmates held in county jails have a mental health problem in
this country.
And if that is the case, there desperately needs to be
special protocols for individuals who are impaired.
And I guess the question would be either for Miss Hartzler
or Miss Rosenbloom, who specialize in this, are those protocols
in place. And if not, you know, I am going to be following up
with ICE on this, but don't you think that that would be a
pretty obvious thing to do?
Ms. Rosenbloom. It is absolutely essential. In the Guzman
case and many of the other cases that we have documented show
just how easy it is for someone to admit to being--to not being
from this country and not having any legal status. It is
completely untrue.
And if either of the--or it is something that they think
their questioner wants to hear, and for, you know, a mental
disability patient to simply go along with that.
And we absolutely need to--they are required under the
Americans with Disabilities Act. And there is just simply no
oversight.
I think if someone like Mr. Guzman had gone before a
neutral adjudicator like an immigration judge who had really
questioned him, if he understood the weight of what he was
admitting to right there, I think we would have--I don't think
that his mother would have been wandering through the morgues
of Tijuana for 3 months looking for him.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, I know my time is up, but I would like
to--as Ranking Member, I am going to take a little bit more
time.
But on the Guzman case, in a way, it is the poster child
for this situation. I saw an article in the newspaper was how I
first found out. And I was just stunned to think that this
young man who has an impairment in terms of I.Q. would be
basically just dumped in a foreign country.
This is a Federal court's order, the Border Patrol, to be
on the lookout for him?
Mr. Brosnahan. Yes. And ICE, in this one case that I do
know about, up to that point, was of no help. It is not their
department to try to rectify it nor today.
I mean, when you heard this gentleman come here, and I
understand he has got a job to do, there is no note of apology.
There is no note that the rest of us have to do. We didn't do
well yesterday. We have got to do a better job. I am awfully
sorry, Oversight Committee. We are going to really do----
Here is the plan. Here is the plan. You heard no plan.
So, yeah. They did nothing. There is a deep-seated--I have
observed this before in my litigations. There is a deep-seated
psychological resistance to the kind of management that you
need in this agency.
And I am just ecstatic, delighted, that this Committee
thinks that you need to do this. You really need to do it.
And you are going to have to send your questions, get your
answers, and all of that. But they were no help at all.
Very compelling case, a Federal judge got into it and
started issuing orders.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, my time actually has expired. So I am
going to turn to Mr. Ellison for questions that he may have.
Mr. Ellison. Thank you, Madam Chair. And also let me thank
you for having a hearing.
One of the great things about having the authority and
power to call a hearing is that you can really bring to light
issues that desperately need greater scrutiny.
Mr. Graves, I am from Minnesota. And when the Swift raids
hit, it sent a shock wave throughout the state. And it wasn't
just our Latino community members who were upset, it was really
everybody. And you know that because you were there.
Let me ask you this: I mean, were people who were Latino in
their background or appearance, even though they were American
citizens, impacted by the officers who conducted this raid?
Mr. Graves. I mean, you know, we work by them every day.
And we don't know if they are legal or illegal. So we can't
tell by the way they dress or how they talk. So, I mean, it is
all up to--they know we don't know anything about them.
Mr. Ellison. Yes. And so it really was just this was a
group of Latinos; we will sort them out later. That is the way
it seemed to me.
Mr. Graves. Well, at first, ICE did come there with a list
of names that they knew who they were coming for.
Mr. Ellison. Yes.
Mr. Graves. They could have went to HR and told them to
come down one by one in that way. But they shut the whole plant
down and--everybody, no matter who they were or what status
they were.
They shut the whole plant down.
They did get the people that they were looking for, but
they still had us detained until they processed everybody to
see if they were still U.S. citizens or not. But, you know, the
ones that was U.S. citizens, we were still stuck there until
everything was all over and done with.
Mr. Ellison. Well, that is an important point to make here.
I mean, you know, I was, you know, sort of trying to get at
that issue when I was speaking to Mr. Mead and didn't seem to
really get very far.
Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Brosnahan, is there a racially different impact with
the ICE raids? I mean, it seems to me that----
Mr. Brosnahan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ellison [continuing]. Mr. Mead said there wasn't one
and it is all about the employers.
Mr. Brosnahan. Well, I think--being of Irish extraction
going back to the old days, I think when they set out after a
group and the group thinks that there is an impact, then the
government has to slow down.
Listening today, that is the great tragedy of this. Our
fellow citizens who are Hispanic, who contribute so much to
this country, to say nothing of the undocumented Hispanics who
contribute, you know, the 9,500 members of the Arizona Farm
Workers who pick those lemons that go into the drinks in
Washington--I don't know what is going to happen there.
There is a reality out there in the world, and we are out
in it, and yes, there is a war going on, and it is aimed at,
certainly, the Hispanic community in a way that they feel it.
And if they feel it, that should be enough for the government
to say we have to figure out different ways than just taking
over a factory, or whatever it might be, or a processing plant.
We have to do something about this.
You may have noticed recently, there are an awful lot of
Hispanics in this country. And they have to be respected. And
you get the idea from ICE that there is not that level of
respect in what they are doing for the community.
They think it is okay to hold people for 4 hours or
whatever it is. That is what they think. Yes. I think there is
a problem there.
Mr. Ellison. Miss Mancha, could you describe for us just
how you felt when you saw these strange men walking in your
house? I mean, you are a young lady.
I mean, what were some of the things that you were thinking
as you saw these guys tramping in your house without a warrant?
Invading your home?
Ms. Mancha. I was really scared. I thought that they were
going to take me. I didn't know what was going to happen. I was
really scared.
Mr. Ellison. Does it change the way you see strangers when
they knock on your door? I mean, is it something that sort of
still bothers you?
Ms. Mancha. I am not--my mom is the same way, too, now. She
keeps the doors locked at all times and everything. It not only
hurt me, but it hurt my family a lot, too.
Mr. Ellison. And Miss Mancha, you know, I am sure you were
brought up to respect police and respect law enforcement and be
cooperative and work with them. But it seems like this
experience sort of made that a little harder for you; is that
true?
Ms. Mancha. It hurt me that they were supposed to, like,
protect me, but they kind of hurt me.
Mr. Ellison. Yes.
Ms. Mancha. Like, busting in my house like that.
Mr. Ellison. Yes. That wasn't right. That wasn't right. And
I want you to know that even though I didn't have nothing to do
with that, I am sorry they did that.
Ms. Mancha. Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much. The Ranking Member has a
request.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have a couple of documents that reference the incident in
Chicago that our witness, I believe, should have been familiar
with. I would ask unanimous consent to introduce them into the
record.
Ms. Lofgren. Without objections, those documents will be
entered into the record.
At this point, our hearing will be coming to an end. I
would just like to say a few things in closing.
First, for Miss Rosenbloom and Miss Hartzler, you are doing
ongoing work here. And I am wondering if we could ask, as you
are continuing your studies, would you keep us posted on what
you are finding? I think that you are in a unique position to
give us very valuable information that is comprehensive and
very helpful?
And for the rest of the witnesses, a lot of people don't
realize that the witnesses before Committees are volunteers.
They come here to help inform us so that we can make better
public policy for our country.
I do thank you, Mr. Graves and Miss Mancha, for your
testimony, sharing what was really a very dreadful personal
experience. And as Mr. Ellison has mentioned, we didn't do it,
but I would like to offer an apology on the part of our
government.
What happened to you wasn't right, and certainly, you will
have an opportunity in another forum, I think, to be heard.
Mr. Brosnahan, thank you for coming all the way out from
San Francisco.
Mr. Stein, it is always good to see you.
I would just note that I have about five pages of questions
for ICE that I did not have an opportunity to ask today, but I
will not only post them to ICE, but I will post them on the Web
site so that others can see what we want to discover.
Finally, I would just say that I think, clearly, no one can
disagree with the need to enforce our laws, but the government
must also comply with our laws as we enforce them.
I have some very serious concerns in that latter regard
based on the testimony we have had today. If the estimates of
12 million undocumented individuals in the U.S. is correct, we
don't know for sure, at the current rate of deportation, they
would all be deported in 88 years.
So I don't think the current program is really effective
nor is it creating the kind of climate for Americans to feel
that their rights under the Constitution are being respected
and they are being treated with fairness.
So this is an important hearing for us and for the
Congress. I appreciate your willingness to be here. We will
have 5 legislative days for each Member of the Committee to
pose additional questions. If we have them, we will forward
them to you, and we ask that you answer as promptly as you are
able to do.
Thank you very much.
This hearing is concluded.
[Whereupon, at 5:59 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International
Law
Six months ago I first heard about a U.S. citizen deported from
United States--Pedro Guzman who had to get himself caught by the Border
Patrol in order to get back into his own country.
At that time, I had hoped this case was one isolated incident. I
asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for answers on his
case and specifically for procedures to help prevent another
deportation of a U.S. citizen. Instead, I received a perfunctory
response more than a month later, with no answers, and, at best, an
apathetic attitude towards protecting U.S. citizens from deportation.
Without objection, I would like to enter my letter and the ICE response
into the record.
There is never a justification for the deportation of a U.S.
citizen, let alone the negligent attitude towards helping to locate and
return a U.S. citizen when he or she is erroneously deported.
Six months ago I feared this nation might be entering another era
that would become one more blight in our nation's history. Based upon
the witness testimony I have read for today and a long list of other
individual cases, I fear we have arrived at that era where an
overzealous government is interrogating, detaining, and deporting its
own citizens while treating non-citizens even worse.
It is true that ICE's enforcement capacity has grown exponentially
in the last several years. But, based upon today's testimony, it
appears training and oversight at ICE has lagged far behind. I am
hopeful that this hearing will not only show us where the problems lie,
but also lead us to solutions.
I have many questions, beginning with the long list I asked in my
June 26, 2007 letter to ICE that were essentially ignored. I would like
to know specifically what procedures are in place to train and oversee
ICE agents during detention, interrogation, and removal processes. I
would like to know exactly how ICE ensures it is not interrogating,
detaining, or deporting U.S. citizens. And I would like ICE to explain
how it is that its policies, procedures, and management allowed for
each of the situations described today by our U.S. citizen witnesses or
their representatives.
I respectfully request that our first witness, Mr. Gary Mead, the
Assistant Director for Detention and Removal at ICE, remain after his
testimony and questioning is completed on the first panel. It is
imperative to hear first hand the stories of U.S. citizens caught up by
ICE and the questions by Members of this subcommittee so that you may
appropriately address these very serious concerns in writing after the
hearing. Thank you.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative
in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary
I'm disturbed by the reports I'm hearing that Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) is deporting Americans. ICE can't go on
deporting American citizens.
There's no excuse to deport Americans. It's never right. It's
always wrong.
Over the past couple of years, ICE has grown dramatically in size
and its activities have accelerated. ICE's Fugitive Enforcement Teams
have dramatically increased from just 15 teams in 2005, to 50 teams in
2006, to 75 teams in 2007, with funding for 104 in 2008.
Based on reports I'm hearing, it seems ICE has been unable to keep
up with the necessary training and oversight of its agents.
I've heard disturbing accounts of ICE agents acting in an
inappropriate and possibly illegal manner throughout the United States
during its raids and enforcement activities. ICE agents have entered
houses without warrants or even an announcement; have interrogated
children without their parents present; and have searched the private
property of U.S. citizens without probable cause.
ICE also appears to be detaining U.S. citizens, and in some cases,
deporting them.
If ICE is intruding into the homes of Americans without warrants,
if they are interrogating U.S. citizens without cause, and if they are
going so far as to deport American citizens, what does that mean ICE is
doing to non-U.S. citizens?
In its zeal to rid America of the cooks, house cleaners, yard
workers and construction workers who make up our shadow economy, ICE
has taken an ``OK-at-any-cost-approach'' that is inimical to America's
values. Caught in the crossfire are the innocent, many of whom are
unable to protect themselves.
That's inexcusable.
I look forward to getting answers today. I am anxious to hear what
ICE is and should be doing to adhere to the rule of law, to the very
principles that make America the light of freedom and liberty to which
others look as an example.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security,
and International Law
Madam Chair, thank you for your leadership in convening today's
important hearing on the problems with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) interrogation, detention, and removal procedures as
applied to U.S. citizens. I would also like to thank the ranking
member, the Honorable Steve King, and welcome our distinguished group
of witnesses, which include: Mr. Gary Mead, the Assistant Director for
Detention & Removal with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement;
Mr. James J. Brosnahan and Mark D. Rosenbaum of Morrison & Foerster,
Counsel for Mr. Peter Guzman; Ms. Marie Justeen Mancha, a student at
Tattnall County High School; Mr. Michael Graves from the United Food
and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 1149; Mr. Kara
Hartzler with the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project; Ms.
Rachel E. Rosenbloom of the Center for Human Rights and International
Justice at Boston College; and Mr. Dan Stein, President of the
Federation for American. To each of you, welcome.
Madam Chairwoman, how a government treats its citizens is a
critical test that measures its civility and maturity. How we treat
immigration detainees, especially the most vulnerable among them -
minors, mentally-disabled, or those with medical conditions, is an
important measure of how humane our entire immigration system really
is. When our immigration system targets legal American citizens and
interrogates, detains, and forcibly removes them from the United
States, it is a clear indication that our immigration system is
fundamentally flawed and has gone awry.
Madam Chairwoman, one would think that a person born in the United
States and a U.S. citizen, or a naturalized U.S. citizen, would have
virtually no dealings with the U.S. immigration system. Recent events
have come to show that this assumption is wrong. Indeed, recent reports
demonstrate that U.S. citizens have been illegally detained,
interrogated, and removed from the U.S. under the pretext that these
citizens are illegal aliens. Citizens subjected to this treatment have
included some of the most marginzalized and victimized members of our
society--youths and the mentally ill. This is atrocious and inexcusable
behavior by a civilized government.
Madam Chairwoman, this behavior is being exhibited by the main
executive agency with jurisdiction over immigration detainees, DHS'
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of the primary functions of
DHS is to protect the United States and to ensure the safety and
wellbeing of U.S. citizens.
In today's hearing, the witnesses will testify that ICE is not
living up to its mandate. The witnesses will provide testimony
demonstrating that our immigration system is flawed and needs to be
reformed.
Madam Chairwoman, as one of the principal and long-standing
supporters of comprehensive immigration reform in the US Congress and
an author of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, the SAVE AMERICA
Act, I do hope that today's hearing will serve as a catalyst for closer
scrutiny of our immigration detention system and the immigration
enforcement functions of DHS.
There are approximately 30,000 immigrants in detention on any given
day and nearly 300,000 each year. These individuals are scattered
across the country in hundreds of county jails as well as a handful of
facilities run by DHS or by private prison companies. Some of these
individuals have been detained. Others have been deported. The common
denominator among all of these individuals is that they are U.S.
citizens.
Recent articles in USA Today, Washington Post, and New York Times
have unveiled shameful and inexcusable inadequacies regarding the
treatment of U.S. citizens by ICE. The USA Today and Washington Post
articles detail the wrongful deportation of a mentally-ill U.S.
citizen, Mr. Peter Guzman, who is also represented today on this panel.
The New York Times article details extreme failures in ICE
enforcement where ICE officials raided a home with guns drawn on a
mother and her children in a raid that was part of a series of antigang
sweeps in Long Island, New York. The raids, which resulted in 186
immigrant arrests, were denounced by officials in Nassau County as
``riddled with mistakes and marked by misconduct.''
Perhaps the most inexcusable, is that the mother had been a U.S.
citizen since 1990. The article details other accounts of raids and
detention of U.S. citizens. Some of these illegal raids resulted in
lawsuits against DHS and ICE.
Madam Chairwoman, both ICE and its Office of Inspector General are
not in a position to fix these problems. Instead, Congress must step in
to help set this agency back on track. ICE cannot fix itself without
our intervention.
The DHS Office of Inspector General recently issued a report of an
audit done on five ICE facilities and noted that ICE frequently fails
to inspect even its own facilities sufficiently. This finding was
further supported by a report released by GAO in July of 2007. adam
Chair, we cannot turn a blind eye to ICE's enforcement measures and sit
and hope that ICE corrects itself. Given the findings in DHS's own
report, it is unlikely that ICE will correct its wrong enforcement.
Congress has a responsibility to investigate these issues and call
for reforms to ensure that dignity and respect for all human beings in
our immigration detention system is preserved.
Madam Chair, I cannot stress enough that detention and deportation
are major enforcement issues and ICE enforcement needs to be reformed.
Even where ICE attempted to do the right thing - a failure resulted.
Take, for example, the detention facility at the T. Don Hutto
Correctional Center in Williamson County, Texas. Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA) operates the 512-bed facility under a
contract with Williamson County. The facility was opened in May 2006 to
accommodate immigrant families in ICE custody. As history has shown us,
even the best of intentions can go astray, which is what happened at
the Hutto Detention Center.
Due to the increased use of detention, and particularly in light of
the fact that children are now being housed in detention facilities,
many concerns have been raised about the humanitarian, health, and
safety conditions at these facilities. In a 72-page report, ``Locking
Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families,'' recently
released by two refugee advocacy organizations, the Women's Commission
for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service concluded that the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center and
another family detention center, the Berks Family Shelter Care
Facility, were modeled on the criminal justice system ``where residents
are deprived of the right to live as a family unit, denied adequate
medical and mental health care, and face overly harsh disciplinary
tactics.''
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against
ICE in March 2007 on behalf of several juvenile plaintiffs that were
housed in the facility at the time claiming that the standards by which
they were housed was not in compliance with the government's detention
standards for this population. The claims were, amongst other things,
improper educational opportunities, not enough privacy, and substandard
health care. The relief being sought was the release of the plaintiffs.
In August 2007, the ACLU reached a landmark settlement with the ICE
that greatly improves conditions for immigrant children and their
families in the Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas.
Since the original lawsuits were filed, all 26 children represented
by the ACLU have been released. The last six children were released
days before the settlement was finalized and are now living with family
members who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents while
pursuing their asylum claims. Conditions at Hutto have gradually and
significantly improved as a result of litigation. Children are no
longer required to wear prison uniforms and are allowed much more time
outdoors. Educational programming has expanded and guards have been
instructed not to discipline children by threatening to separate them
from their parents. Despite the tremendous improvements at Hutto, the
facility still has a way to go.
Chairwoman, I hope that it will not take very many lawsuits and
settlement agreements like we had in Williamson County Texas for ICE to
cease interrogating, detaining, and deporting our own U.S. citizens. I
look forward to hearing the insightful testimony and each of the
witnesses' responses. Again, thank you, Madam Chairwoman for holding
this hearing.
I yield the balance of my time.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Hilda L. Solis, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California
I would like to applaud the Subcommittee, under the leadership of
Chairwoman Lofgren, for holding today's hearing about Immigration and
Customs Enforcement's (ICE) interrogation, detention, and removal
procedures. I am hopeful that this important hearing will highlight the
urgency for a legislative solution to the immigration workplace raids
that are separating families and instilling fear in our children.
Immigration is one of the toughest challenges our nation faces.
Recent workforce operation raids conducted by ICE have been conducted
in such a way that resulted in children being left without adult care,
unnecessarily risking their safety and well-being and risking health
and welfare during detention and processing of persons involved.
Estimates suggest that there are approximately five million children in
the United States who have one or more undocumented parents. Two-thirds
of these children--more than three million--are U.S.-born citizens.
Separating families puts children at risk of economic hardship and
psychological trauma.
While it is important that our nation's immigration laws be
enforced, enforcement must be done in a way that is both humane and
protects the children involved. That is why I joined Senator John Kerry
to introduce the Families First Immigration Enforcement Act (H.R.
3980). This legislation would protect immigrant detainees and their
families from mistreatment and unnecessary separation from their minor
children.
Among other things, H.R. 3980 would require ICE to afford access to
state social services to screen and interview detainees and arrange for
representatives who speak the detainees' first language. Since many
detainees are primary caregivers, this bill would also ensure that when
possible, those who have been detained are within the jurisdiction of
the local ICE field office. In the aftermath of a raid, families are
left afraid especially when they do not have contact with their loved
ones. This legislation would also require ICE to provide a toll free
number for families to use after a raid and to inquire about the status
of their family member.
H.R. 3980 is supported by more than 20 organizations such as
Catholic Charities USA, National Council of La Raza (NCLR), American
Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), Mexican American Legal Defense
Education Fund (MALDEF), and Women's Commission for Refugee Women and
Children.
We cannot turn a blind eye to the injustices that are plaguing the
immigrant community. Enforcement only solutions are striking fear in
immigrant families across the country. I respect the difficult task
which lies ahead and urge my colleagues to move forward with a solution
that respects human dignity and protects children involved.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]