[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RESTORING ENFORCEMENT OF OUR NATION'S IMMIGRATION LAWS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 28, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-13
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin JERROLD NADLER, New York
LAMAR SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
DARRELL E. ISSA, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
STEVE KING, Iowa HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona Georgia
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
JIM JORDAN, Ohio LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho ERIC SWALWELL, California
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas TED LIEU, California
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland
RON DeSANTIS, Florida PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
KEN BUCK, Colorado BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
MATT GAETZ, Florida
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff and General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
Jim Sensenbrenner, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
Raul R. Labrador, Idaho, Vice-Chairman
LAMAR SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE KING, Iowa LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
JIM JORDAN, Ohio PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
KEN BUCK, Colorado SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
C O N T E N T S
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MARCH 28, 2017
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 1
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, California, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 2
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary...................................................... 14
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., Michigan, Ranking Member,
Committee on the Judiciary..................................... 4
WITNESSES
The Honorable Thomas M. Hodgson, Sheriff. Bristol County,
Massachusetts
Oral Statement............................................... 7
Ms. Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for
Immigration Studies
Oral Statement............................................... 9
Mr. Andrew R. Arthur, Immigration Judge, Retired, Executive
Office for Immigration Review, York Pennsylvania
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Ms. Archi Pyati, Chief of Policy and Programs, Tahirih Justice
Center
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, California,
Committee on the Judiciary. This material is available at the
Committee and can be accessed on the committee repository at:
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20170328/105787/HHRG-
115-JU01-20170328-SD002.pdf
Material submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Washington,
Committee on the Judiciary. This material is available at the
Committee and can be accessed on the committee repository at:
XXXXX
Statement submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Arizona,
Committee on the Judiciary. This material is available at the
Committee and can be accessed on the committee repository at:
XXXXX
RESTORING ENFORCEMENT OF OUR NATION'S IMMIGRATION LAWS
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2017
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim
Sensenbrenner [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Sensenbrenner, Labrador,
Goodlatte, Smith, Buck, Biggs, King, Jordan, Johnson of
Louisiana, Lofgren, Conyers, Jayapal, Cicilline, Gutierrez, and
Jackson Lee.
Staff Present: Joseph Edlow, Counsel; Maunica Sthanki,
Minority Counsel; Tanner Black, Clerk.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The subcommittee will be in order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recesses
of the committee at any time.
We welcome everyone to today's hearing on restoring
enforcement of our Nation's immigration laws. The chair
recognizes himself for an opening statement.
It is fitting that today's hearing is called restoring
enforcement of our Nation's immigration laws. The past 8 years
witness the Obama administration's deliberate undermining of
our immigration laws; the growth of anti-immigration
enforcement policies at every level of government; and the
vilification of Federal, State, local law enforcement officers
who attempt to enforce our Nation's dually enacted immigration
laws.
Our immigration laws are an expression of our Nation's
sovereignty. They are not suggestions, yet, for the past 8
years, they were largely ignored, and the example was set from
the top. The Obama administration abandoned the rule of law
under the guise of prosecutorial discretion, has to have
devastating consequences: the cold-blooded murder of Kate
Steinle, the death by DUI of Sarah Root, terrorist attacks
ranging from the World Trade Center to the massacre at San
Bernardino, the brutal sexual assault against a Rockville
teenager.
The time is long overdue to ensure our immigration laws are
enforced and the rule of law is truly restored.
The Obama administration's policies of catch and release
and of rubber-stamping credible fear claims at the border and
its outright prohibition of ICE officers and prosecutors from
carrying out ICE's critical mission have left this Nation
increasingly at risk. The sky-high credible fear and asylum
grant rates encouraged aliens to make the dangerous, illicit
journey to the United States. Aliens overran our border, and
credible fear and asylum claims increased tenfold.
Simultaneously, ICE removals from the interior dropped from
238,000 in 2009 to only 65,000 in 2016. The Trump
administration inherited a shell of immigration enforcement
that it must now rebuild. I am pleased that we will hear today
from witnesses who can fully explain the benefits of Federal,
State, and local cooperation and the detrimental effects of
obstruction.
The sanctuary communities have decided to make a political
statement out of lawlessness. They declined the detainer
outcome report that ICE will now regularly issue to approve
itself a useful tool in continually identifying these
jurisdictions and the criminals that they let out into our
streets.
The government must discourage, not encourage, sanctuary
policies and practices. Under DHS' November 14, 2014
departmental guidance, ICE was given stringent parameters
regarding these removable aliens that were permitted to
apprehend and seek to remove.
Additional guidance ending the successful Secure
Communities programs further constricted these parameters. This
was sold to the American people as prioritizing ICE's limited
resources to go after only the worst of the worst, yet the
number of the criminal aliens removed from the interior fell
from almost 87,000 in fiscal 2014 to approximately 63,500 the
following two fiscal years.
Under President Obama, it was widely understood that asylum
officers should get to yes on credible fear determinations and
request for asylum by any means necessary. Asylum laws were
written to offer refuge to the truly persecuted, and policies
like this did nothing to advance those goals. Instead, those
Obama administration policies worked to encourage many aliens
to seek asylum with fraudulent, boilerplate stories.
The new administration is taking steps to correct this, and
already, the flow of illegal aliens across the border has
significantly slowed. This problem is endemic, and I look
forward to hearing today from our witnesses on the best
practices to address asylum fraud.
It is now my pleasure to recognize the ranking member of
the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, Ms.
Lofgren of California, for 5 minutes for her opening statement.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The title of today's
hearing, ``Restoring enforcement of our Nation's Immigration
Laws,'' implies that, up until recently, our immigration laws
simply went unenforced. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
The past administration deported more immigrants than any
other previous administration and the President, President
Obama, even earned the infamous nickname, Deporter in Chief.
But this massive increase in deportation never satisfied many
Republicans, who repeatedly kept citing this supposed lack of
enforcement as a reason not to pursue reform.
These alternative facts were used time and again to avoid
solving the real problem: our broken immigration system. Today,
Republicans control all levels of the Federal Government, but
instead of finally tackling the pervasive problems affecting
our immigration system, they are focusing on attacking local
governments with community trust policies. Among other things,
President Trump's executive orders threaten to attempt to shame
and attempt to withhold Federal funds from jurisdictions that
resist, in the administration's opinion, the Federal
Government's request to cooperate with immigration enforcement.
The Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment, protects
states' rights, and it prohibits Federal actions that
commandeer State and local officials. When it comes to
immigrations, these principals somehow seem to be overlooked.
Recently, I was at a meeting with the Mayor of San Jose said,
``You know we do not send out the San Jose Police Department to
enforce a security and exchange laws, the Federal tax laws, the
maritime laws, or the immigration laws, that is the job of the
Federal Government.''
There are well-known constitutional limits on the ability
of the Federal Government to withhold funds to the States.
State and local officials know their communities and know how
to keep them safe better than the Federal Government. The
Constitution's long-standing principle is apparently either
ignored or seen as an impediment by some people.
In the recent executive order on Interior Enforcement,
President Trump abolished the prior administration's
enforcement priorities to go after all 11 million undocumented
immigrants in the United States, just as Candidate Trump
promised he would do. And while this enforcement agenda may
satisfy the most extreme elements in our country, it isn't
smart. It does not make our country safer, and it does not make
our country stronger, and it has created a culture of fear.
There are videos of parents taken from their U.S.-citizen
children by armed ICE officers wearing the word ``Police'' on
their vests. There are stories of mothers, who have lived in
this country for decades, being deported after dutifully
checking in to ICE appointments, and there are threats by the
head of the Department of Homeland Security, the Secretary
himself, to separate mothers from their children for deterrence
purposes.
The fear caused by these acts is pervasive, and it is
paralyzing communities across our country. Now, some may
dismiss the heartbreak of many families across the country, but
we shouldn't dismiss how it is making communities less safe. We
have already seen, for example, reports of domestic violence
and sexual assault drop dramatically among Latinos in Los
Angeles. We also shouldn't dismiss the devastating economic
consequences these policies are sure to have.
It is time to stop the posturing and start thinking about
ways to fix our broken immigration system. I stand ready to
work with my colleagues across the aisle to reform our
immigration laws from top to bottom.
If I could, Mr. Chairman, I would also ask a unanimous
consent to enter into the record statements from the following
individuals and organizations expressing concerns about
President Trump's enforcement policies, and that would be the
National Immigration Justice Center; the Chief of Police of
Marshalltown, Iowa; the retired Chief of Police of Garden City,
Kansas; the Fair Immigration Reform Movement; the National Task
Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence; the Massachusetts
Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition; as well as a letter
from 292 law professors and scholars saying that the
President's executive order is unconstitutional.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Virginia and the
chairman of the full committee, Mr. Goodlatte, is in the
Senate, and I wish him well in whatever he is talking about
there.
Mere House Members will have to ask the voters every 2
years to send this back, dealing with the Senators, and I will
now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Conyers of Michigan, for
his opening statement for 5 minutes.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman, was the unanimous consent
request----
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection, Ms. Lofgren's
unanimous consent request will be granted.
[The information follows:]
This material is available at the Committee and can be
accessed on the committee repository at: http://docs.house.gov/
meetings/JU/JU01/20170328/105787/HHRG-115-JU01-20170328-
SD002.pdf.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. So ordered. The gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations
again on your ascension to the chairmanship of this important
committee.
Members of the committee, I want you all to know that I
welcome all of our witnesses and look forward to their
testimony, and I would just like to remind you, I don't
frequently quote former President Reagan, but he once said,
``Our Nation is a nation of immigrants. More than any other
country, our strength comes from our own immigrant heritage and
our capacity to welcome those from other lands.'' That quote
was uncontroversial among my Republican friends and colleagues,
and it should remain so now.
Affirmation of the morale and social worth of immigrants is
not a partisan position; it is simply American. As we begin
today's hearing, I urge my colleagues to use this forum to
examine sensible, effective measures rooted in fact and
practice for enforcing our laws and keeping our communities
safe.
One fact we must consider is that studies have repeatedly
shown that immigrants in the United States are less likely than
native-born Americans to engage in crime. The vast majority of
immigrants in the United States are peaceful, law-abiding
individuals who support their families and communities.
Another fact is that the southern border is more secure
than ever. Apprehension rates at the southern border have
plummeted since the 1980s, and apprehensions of Mexicans,
specifically, have reached their lowest point in nearly half a
century.
This helps explain why most Americans do not want the Trump
border wall, which would cost upwards of a staggering $20
billion to build and $750 million annually to maintain it is
estimated. Notwithstanding these facts and others, the current
administration continues to vilify immigrants and attack the
communities that have decided not to conscript their law
enforcement into a mass deportation force.
In fact, yesterday, Attorney General Sessions threatened to
withhold Federal funds from such jurisdictions. Let me be
clear: Attorney General Sessions should not substitute his
judgement for that of law enforcement in local jurisdictions,
who know what it is best to keep their community safe.
The Attorney General purports to place a high priority on
fighting crime, but threatens to withhold much-needed Justice
Department funding from the very agencies that are on the front
line in protecting all of us.
Over 600 counties and cities have made the decision to
resist the administration's efforts to conscript their local
officials into a mass deportation force because experience in
data show that local enforcement of Federal immigration law
often makes communities less safe. It breeds profiling,
discrimination, and distrust. Immigrant victims and witnesses
stop reporting crimes to authorities and criminals grow
emboldened. In fact, studies have shown that these sanctuary
cities are actually safer and more prosperous than their non-
sanctuary counterparts.
Finally, under the guise of enforcing the law, we have
already witnessed Donald Trump and his administration follow
through on divisive campaign rhetoric with actions that
threaten our core American values and will do nothing to make
us safer. To cite a few examples, in less than 90 days, this
administration has already threatened an unconstitutional use
of Federal spending authority to strong-arm local jurisdictions
into enforcing Federal immigration law.
Two more points undermined the Fourth Amendment by
pressuring cities into detaining immigrants without probable
cause and has conducted indiscriminate raids on peaceful,
immigrant families in their homes, places of work, and even in
their schools. Such anti-immigrant measures not only raise
serious constitutional concerns, but they are contrary to our
proud history as a Nation of immigrants.
I thank the chairman; welcome, again, the witnesses for
their testimony today; and I yield back.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you.
Without objection, other members opening statements will be
made part of the record.
We have a very distinguished panel today, and I will begin
by swearing in our witness before introducing them.
Please rise. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that
you will give before this committee will be the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Let the record show that all of the witnesses answered in
the affirmative.
I will begin by introducing the witnesses.
Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson was an elected official and the
chief law enforcement officer of Bristol County, Massachusetts.
Sheriff Hodgson, originally appointed in 1997 by Governor
William Weld, has subsequently been reelected to several 6-year
terms. Under his watch, the sheriff's office has established a
Warrant Apprehension Unit, a Drug Task Force Gang Unit, and
works regularly with Federal partners, including ICE. His
department participates in the 287(g) program, and he, along
with other sheriffs, have called for the immigration reform
with the emphases on border security and interior enforcement.
He previously testified before the Massachusetts Great and
General Court regarding sanctuary policies.
Ms. Jessica Vaughn serves as the director of policy studies
with the Center for Immigration Studies. In that role, she
studies numerous facets of immigration policy, including
immigration law enforcement. Prior to this role, she served as
a Foreign Service officer with the State Department and has
testified before this committee on numerous immigration-related
matters, including at a similar hearing in 2015. Ms. Vaughn has
a master's degree from Georgetown University and earned her
bachelor's degree in international studies at Washington
College in Maryland.
Mr. Andrew Arthur is the former staff director for the
Government Reform and Oversight Committee, National Security
Subcommittee. Prior to serving as a staff director, he was an
immigration judge for the United States Department of Justice,
the Executive Office for Immigration Review of York,
Pennsylvania Immigration Court. He is also a fellow colleague
of House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration,
where he served as a counsel for 5 years advising the chairmen,
me, on matters relating to the enforcement of immigration laws
and immigration policy. He has received his B.A. from the
University of Virginia and his law degree from the George
Washington University School of Law.
Ms. Archi Pyati serves as the chief of policy and programs
at the Tahirih Justice Center. She spearheads national and
local policy programmatic initiatives overseeing direct
services to immigrant women and forging and mobilizing diverse
bipartisan coalitions to press for laws, regulations, and
policies to better protect them from violence. Before joining
Tahirih, Ms. Pyati was the deputy director of the Immigration
Intervention Project of the Sanctuary for Families in New York.
She is a graduate of Brown University and received her law
degree from the University of Michigan Law School.
Without objection, each of the witnesses written statements
will be entered into the record in their entirety. I ask that
each witness summarize his or her testimony in 5 minutes or
less, and to help you stay within that time limit, there are
lights in front of you, and you all know what they mean.
So, Sheriff Hodgson, why don't you lead off? Press the
button on your mic.
STATEMENTS OF THOMAS HODGSON, SHERIFF, BRISTOL COUNTY,
MASSACHUSETTS; JESSICA VAUGHN, DIRECTOR OF POLICY STUDIES,
CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES; ANDREW ARTHUR, IMMIGRATION
JUDGE, RETIRED, EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW, YORK,
PENNSYLVANIA; ARCHI PYATI, CHIEF OF POLICY AND PROGRAMS,
TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS HODGSON
Sheriff Hodgson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the
committee, security guards, metal detectors, and scanners
greeted me this morning as I walked into the Rayburn Office
Building. These measures are in place to protect the safety of
everyone inside. Most people are cleared pretty quickly and go
about their business. It is the others who intend to do us
harm, those who have no respect for our laws, that we have to
worry about. It is those who the Capitol Police must deny
entry.
We owe the same level of protection and safety to our legal
residents. We must use all the tools in our toolboxes, share
resources in intelligence to truly restore enforcement of our
Nation's immigration laws for the safety and security of our
citizens. Public safety is my number-one priority. Public
safety is your number-one priority. Public safety is any
government's and any government official's number-one priority.
Public safety is what brings me here today. There is,
arguably, no bigger threat to public safety than illegal
immigration.
Mr. Chairman and esteemed members of this committee, I want
to thank you for inviting me to testify this morning on what
is, perhaps, the most dangerous threat to national security and
the safety of all Americans.
Good, thoughtful immigration law exists, as enacted by
legislators like you, decades ago; however, if a law is not
enforced, it is useless verbiage, protecting no one and
accomplishing nothing.
As a sheriff for 20 years and a police officer for 6 more,
I have spent my career enforcing laws. I have a sworn duty to
uphold the Constitution of the United States and enforce all
laws, whether I agree or disagree with them, just as you took
the oath of office to faithfully discharge the duties of the
office on which you entered.
The law is what you and the courts say it is, but
unfortunately, due to years of liberal policies tailored to
non-enforcement, Congress now has to hold hearings on how to
enforce laws that have been on the books for decades. Most of
my law enforcement colleagues will agree that severe damage has
been done to national security by lackadaisical enforcement,
and the only thing we can do now is move forward and discuss
how we can fix it. The fact is our Nation would be better off,
and our citizens would be safer, if we never stopped enforcing
immigration law and if we never formed, or turned a blind eye
towards, sanctuary cities.
Local county, State, and Federal law enforcement all
working together to keep the public safe, sharing resources and
intelligence as much as possible, working together as one team
with the simple goal of keeping the public safe.
Our law enforcement team has an opposing team that consists
of local officials, elected or appointed, who have created and
advocated sanctuary cities, States, communities, and even
colleges. These officials pledge not to work with, cooperate,
or even communicate with Federal immigration enforcement. As a
result, these safe zones have become magnets for illegal
aliens, some of which have violent criminal records. At best,
sanctuary cities are a direct violation of trust between legal
residents and the elected officials who took an oath to protect
them at all costs.
At the worst, it is careless, illegal, and extremely
dangerous. If these sanctuary cities are going to harbor and
conceal criminal, illegal aliens from ICE, which is in direct
violation of title VIII of the U.S. Code, Federal arrest
warrants should be issued for their elected officials.
At a time when these officials are pledging to not work
with Federal law enforcement, I have doubled down on my
commitment to partner with Federal authorities and boost public
safety by becoming the second organization in New England to
enter into 287(g). If there is one thing our country learned
from 9/11, it is that all branches of law enforcement have to
work together and share resources as much as possible.
Under the 287(g) program, correctional officers in my
department will become, with training, the fact that ICE agents
will perform all immigration-related actions. Our officers will
be able to identify, process, detain, and assist in deportation
of criminal illegal aliens in Bristol County. They also get
access to the ICE database to identify criminal illegal alien
enterprises.
Instead of waiting for an ICE agent to drive hours to our
facility for an immigration screening, at which time the
suspect may be bailed out, our officers can check the
databases, interview the suspect, and electronically
communicate with ICE to keep dangerous criminals, illegal
aliens, off the streets and out of our neighborhoods.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates more than
400,000 immigrants were identified for deportation through
287(g) programs between 2006 and 2015. About 13,000 foreign-
born individuals were processed in our facilities in the past 5
years. If this program can result in just one dangerous
criminal, illegal alien not being able to commit another crime
in the U.S., deportation or detention, then it is a tremendous
tool in our toolbox and a no-brainer in terms of public safety.
I want to just inform the committee of something that was
just reported this morning that I think completely underscores
my point about immigration laws being undermined in the United
States.
We have a State representative in the 10th Plymouth
District in Massachusetts, it was just reported this morning,
who learned that ICE may be coming to the city of Brockton in
Plymouth County, sending all alert message out on Facebook,
telling everyone that ICE is going to be coming, and make sure
you do not answer your doors, and make sure that you stay out
of sight.
This is the most outrageous, outrageous example of what is
going on across the United States that is undermining my job
and every other law enforcement officer in the United States to
keep our community safe, and that elected official, who is
responsible for protecting the welfare of the people of their
communities, needs to understand that they could be protecting
someone who the ICE is looking for that may be, possibly,
connected to terrorism, transnational gangs, or some other
horrific, criminal history that they have had.
Thank you for the time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of
the committee.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you.
Ms. Vaughn.
STATEMENT OF JESSICA VAUGHN
Ms. Vaughn. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity
to testify on this very timely topic, restoring enforcement of
our Nation's immigration laws. President Obama's policies left
immigration enforcement in a state of collapse. This has been
bad news for the country, but the good news is that there is
nowhere to go but up now.
The Obama administration claimed that they achieved record
levels of deportations, but in fact, the total number of
deportations by all enforcement agencies, which is what the DHS
Office of Statistics has always reported, has plummeted.
Actually, deportations were half the level of the Bush and
Clinton administrations. Interior deportations by ICE dropped
by 70 percent since 2011, as illustrated by charts in my
written statement. The Obama administration inflated ICE's
numbers by counting cases of people arrested by the border
patrol that had never been counted before, as former Secretary
of DHS Johnson admitted in testimony before Congress.
The Obama administration claimed that they were doing
smarter and more effective immigration enforcement, but in
fact, they operated a massive catch-and-release program both at
the border and in the interior. About 40 percent of the people
caught by the border patrol trying to cross into the country
illegally in 2014 and 2015 were allowed to enter and were still
here in 2016.
Just this morning, I was on a conference call with an ICE
field office director and some local law enforcement agencies
in her area, and this ICE official said that they have seen an
increase of 20 to 25 percent in their caseload as a result of
new, illegal immigration at the southwest border.
Not only are the illegal border crossers still here, so are
about 950,000 other illegal aliens who have completed their due
process and received a final order of removal, but are still
here in the country. And the smarter, more effective
enforcement in the interior included releasing more than 86,000
convicted, criminal aliens in 3 years. More than 100 of these
individuals were arrested for homicide after their release,
including one man who killed 21-year-old Grant Ronnebeck in
Mesa, Arizona, in 2015 after being released.
The previous administration claimed that they were focused
on felons, not families, but in fact, deportations of criminal
aliens declined by 60 percent since 2011, even as they
implemented the Secure Communities program, allowing ICE to
identify more criminal aliens than ever before. The previous
administration claimed that they were simply exercising what
they called prosecutorial discretion, but in fact, they were
giving out immigration benefits, literally millions of work
permits to illegal aliens and others not otherwise eligible to
stay.
The Obama administration claimed that their vetting of visa
applicants was rigorous, but then released a report saying that
more than 500,000 foreign visitors overstayed in 2015. The
vetting for work permits was no better. Hundreds have been
issued to gang members and other criminals. Just last week, it
was revealed that a man who had been arrested for killing his
15-year-old stepdaughter in Texas had been issued a work
permit. He had arrests on his record for smuggling, assault,
and theft, and ICE was trying to deport him, but instead, he
was issued a work permit under the previous administration's
policies.
I do not dismiss the disappointment of families who have
been allowed to live here illegally for all these years or
gotten away with it, but this lack of enforcement has imposed
enormous costs on American communities. These costs include
lost job opportunities and stagnant wages for native workers,
higher tax bills to cover increased outlays for social services
and benefits, compromised national security, and increased
public safety threats.
The Trump administration has already taken steps to reverse
this state of affairs and already to good effect. They have
ended the catch-and-release policies at the border; they have
discarded the strict prioritization scheme that exempted so
many illegal aliens from deportation; they are taking steps to
rebuild partnerships with local law enforcement agencies,
including expanding the successful 587(g) program.
They are planning to use accelerated forms of due process,
so as not to drag out the deportation process and prevent
clogging up the immigration courts even further. They are
reviving task forces focused on smuggling document fraud,
gangs, and other transnational crime, the entire infrastructure
that supports illegal immigration. This is making difference,
but some things can be done only by Congress.
No matter how many miles of barriers are built, how many
ICE agents are hired, or how much more rigorous our vetting
system becomes, as long as employers think that they can get
away with hiring illegal workers, they will keep doing it, and
as long there is someone who will hire them, people in other
countries will keep trying to come here illegally.
We need Congress to enact a phased-in, universal e-verify
requirement to help turn off the job magnet that motivates so
many. We need the Davis-Oliver Act to shore up the weak spots
and the Immigration and Nationality Act, and we need to address
the problem of sanctuaries, which interfere with ICE efforts to
remove criminals, meaning that they get to stay here and have
the opportunity to reoffend and create new victims.
Finally, Congress must reduce opportunities for executive
abuse of authority on work permits, parole, deferred action,
and other gimmicks that have been used by presidents in the
past to make an end run around the laws crafted by Congress.
Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you.
Mr. Arthur.
THE STATEMENT OF ANDREW ARTHUR
Judge Arthur. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lofgren, and
members of the subcommittee, I thank you, and I thank Chairman
Goodlatte for the opportunity to testify on this important
topic.
I have been involved in immigration for more than 2
decades. When I started, the Simpson-Mazzoli Act was in its 6th
year of implementation. It will turn 31 on November the 6th,
but the premises of this legislation remain sound today: that
immigration is essentially the wellbeing of the country, that
our immigration laws must be enforced to be effective, and that
employment is a magnet that draws immigrants to the United
States.
Unfortunately, the 86th Act has never been fully enforced.
The employer sanctions provisions have never been implemented
effectively, and the document fraud provisions are all but a
dead letter. As a result, the jobs magnet has not been shut
off, and the population of aliens in the United States
illegally today dwarf that which confronted the 99th Congress.
I credit this committee with returning the issue of
immigration enforcement at the beginning of the 115th Congress,
and I am hopeful that your efforts and oversight will result in
an immigration system that both addresses the needs of our
country and protects the wages and working conditions of all
Americans, both citizens and lawful permanent residents.
Much has changed in immigration since November 1986, but
the primary change has been an expansion in the focus of
enforcement on national security. The main reason that I left
the INS, where I had been Acting Chief of the National Security
Law Division in July 2001, to come to this committee was
because I did not believe we were doing enough to address the
terrorist threat from abroad.
I was in this room when the chairman and Ranking Member
Conyers took steps needed to address that threat, and I am
grateful for their leadership. But I believe that more still
needs to be done.
For 8 years, I served as an immigration judge in York,
Pennsylvania. As a judge in a detained court, my docket
consisted of lawfully-admitted aliens, who had committed
removable offenses, and aliens unlawfully present in the United
States, who had been apprehended in the interior along the
border.
I will focus on this latter group today. Much attention has
been placed, recently, on the vetting of refugees. I can speak
to that matter further, but I think that it is important for
the members to also focus on a separate, but similar, group of
aliens: those in expedited removal proceedings, who have
claimed a credible fear.
Unlike refugees, aliens claiming credible fear have not
been screened before coming to the United States and, for
reasons that I detail in my written statement, are generally
not screened effectively after they enter either. A few of
these individuals have actually bypassed the refugee screening
process altogether leaving refugee camps and making their way
to the southern border of the United States, where they are
apprehended or turn themselves in to U.S. Immigration
authorities.
Unlike the orderly system that the United States government
has in place abroad for refugee admission, the system for
screening those entering illegally is overburdened and lacks
the necessary resources to effectively separate those who may
pose a danger to the United States from those in legitimate
need of protection.
Rumors abroad, fueled, in part, by a failure within the
United States to enforce immigration laws, have also encouraged
men, women, and children to trust their lives to smugglers and
traffickers. The sobriquets, coyote and snakehead do not
accurately describe the savage and debased nature of those who
prey on the desperate and who stock and trade in human misery.
Enforcing our immigration laws will quell those rumors and
undercut the ability of smugglers to peddle their trade.
It has been argued that some of those seeking to enter the
United States illegally have been told by smugglers, friends,
or fellow migrants that there is no real cost to entering
illegally. If they avoid apprehension at the border, they will
never be removed. But if they were apprehended at the border,
they can still stay by making fraudulent claims, so it has been
said. This is undoubtedly, in some cases, true. Many asylum
claims do not hold up to scrutiny, are inconsistent with
country conditions, are internally inconsistent, or are
contradicted by the record as a whole.
The ability of government officials, border patrol agents,
asylum officers, ICE attorneys, and immigration judges to
identify fraud in the creditable fear process is crucial to
squelching those rumors and to the prevention of that misery
before it begins. It is also essential, if we are to protect
the American people from the criminals and national security
risks who would take advantage of our humanitarian system to do
harm to our communities.
More resources, better directed, and a better system for
verifying claims are needed to address this problem.
Legal immigration, including the refugee process, visa
issuance, and admissions at the ports of entry is the front
door of America, and it must be secure. It is equally
important, however, that threats to our country, to our
immigration system, are not able to abuse our laws by sneaking
in through the back door.
I thank each of you, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much.
Ms. Pyati.
THE STATEMENT OF ARCHI PYATI
Ms. Pyati. Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee.
The Tahirih Justice Center is a nonpartisan, national
nonprofit that, for over 20 years, has provided legal services
to immigrant survivors of human trafficking, sexual assault,
and domestic violence. As an advocate for victims, I am honored
to be invited to comment today on the importance of protecting
public safety while still enforcing our Federal immigration
laws.
Over the years, I have heard hundreds of women and girls
tell me stories of exploitation and abuse by men who viciously
capitalized on disparities in economic and social status to
establish their power and control over their victims. Among the
most vulnerable to this, immigrant women and girls face a
number of challenges to accessing help, including language
barriers, limited resources, inability to work legally, lack of
access to public benefits, and fear of deportation.
Many abusers use a woman's lack of immigration status as a
potent tool by threatening that their victims could be deported
away from their children. This is an all-too-familiar narrative
for my organization's clients, many of whom have been harmed by
U.S.-citizen men.
Congress recognized this when, in 1994, with robust
bipartisan support, it passed the Violence against Women Act
and created, in 2000, the U and T Visa programs to ``strengthen
the ability of law enforcement agencies to detect, investigate,
and prosecute cases of domestic violence, sexual assault, and
trafficking.'' These laws encourage victims to report and
cooperate with law enforcement to help get violent criminals
off our streets and make all of us safer.
These critical protections and the public policy goals of
community safety they serve are now being significantly
undermined because of misguided immigration enforcement
policies. Secure communities, 287(g) agreements, and the like
rely on a false narrative. There is no data to suggest that
localities with community trust policies have more criminal
activity than others.
On the other hand, there is data to suggest that localities
with community trust policies have actually achieved a
reduction in crime. I heard, just a few weeks ago, a very
compelling story by one police chief who told me that, one
morning, there was a gentleman driving his car with his
domestic partner, his girlfriend, in the car with him. I am
sure, as a victim of domestic violence, she was attempting to
escape the car; he dragged her back in, slammed the door, and
shot her right there at 9:00 a.m. in the morning at broad
daylight.
The gentleman kicked her out of the car and sped away.
There were only two eye witnesses to this crime: two
undocumented men who were day laborers standing outside a store
nearby. When police came to try to investigate the crime and
find the man who murdered this woman, they questioned the
witnesses. The witnesses said they would be happy to cooperate,
but asked for reassurance that they would not be deported. When
the police gave them that reassurance, they were able to
identify the assailant and were able to apprehend him and
prosecute him and bring him to justice.
More than 600 jurisdictions nationwide have enacted
community policing strategies precisely to serve this goal of
enhancing public safety. A recent report concluded that there
are, on average, 35.5 fewer crimes committed per 10,000 people
in so-called sanctuary counties than there are in non-sanctuary
counties. For this reason, major policing groups, including the
Major Cities Chiefs Association, have opposed efforts to defund
so-called sanctuary jurisdictions.
The policies of the January 25th executive order on
interior enforcement are already having a devastating chilling
effect on reporting of criminal activity.
In Denver, City Attorney Kristin Bronson reported that four
domestic violence victims informed her office that they no
longer wished to pursue charges against their abusers out of
fear that doing so would place them at risk for deportation.
In Los Angeles, Police Chief Charlie Beck said that reports
of sexual assault have dropped by 25 percent and domestic
violence by 10 percent among the Latino population since the
beginning of the year.
Less than 3 weeks after the President issued the executive
order, ICE agents arrested an immigrant woman outside a
courthouse in El Paso, Texas where she had gone to seek an
order of protection from her abuser. The result? Fear of
reporting spread like wildfire. Domestic violence shelters in
highly diverse areas reported a large drop in the number of
women coming in for services, indicating that undocumented
victims are not taking the next steps to escape abusers such as
pressing charges or moving into shelters.
One of our clients who, years ago, called the police and
cooperated with law enforcement after being brutally beaten by
her husband while she was pregnant, recently said that, ``I
needed help and at that time, it was not like now. You believed
the police were there to help you, not that they would come and
deport you. Now, I would think they would just come and deport
me because that is what my husband was telling me and that is
what we are hearing everywhere. That is what we are seeing now,
even though I did not commit any crime.''
I applauded this committee for taking so seriously issues
such as trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence. I
hope your concern spreads to all victims including immigrants
and those victimized by United States citizens. I trust you
will direct your outrage towards strengthening laws like VAWA
and pursuing policies that will actually protect our society's
most vulnerable individuals. The difficult truth is that
policies like Secure Communities and 287(g) will not
effectively prevent crime. Instead, they leave perpetrators on
the streets. I urge Congress to avoid crafting policies that
seem like they could enhance safety but that will in fact have
exactly the opposite impact. Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much. I see the chairman
of the full committee, and without objection, I will recognize
him for 10 minutes for his opening statement and his questions.
Without objection, the gentleman from Virginia is recognized
for 10 minutes.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
your forbearance, and I want to thank all the witnesses for
their testimony today.
When the Obama administration sailed off, it left in its
wake a systematically dismantled immigration enforcement
infrastructure. Through so-called priorities, defined by the
President, not Congress, the administration dramatically scaled
back immigration enforcement and allowed millions of unlawful
and criminal aliens to remain in the country free of
consequence.
By terminating successful programs, including Secure
Communities, the administration permitted, if not encouraged,
sanctuary city practices and policies. This left us with an
immigration system more broken, more dysfunctional, and far
friendlier to those that flagrantly disregard our Nation's
immigration laws, especially criminal aliens. The effects of 8
years of not-so-benign neglect of immigration enforcement will
be felt for many years.
Earlier this month, two students at Rockville High School
in Rockville, Maryland brutally raped and attacked a fellow
student. Reports indicate that the perpetrators of this
horrendous crime both entered the country as unaccompanied
alien minors from Central American, likely drawn here by the
Obama administration's policy of releasing such aliens to their
relatives in the United States, often illegally present
themselves. This was a double tragedy because of both its
impact on a young girl's life, and because it could have been
prevented by sensible immigration enforcement.
School districts around the country are facing a gang
epidemic partly fueled by the Obama administration's policies.
As in this case and the countless others demonstrate, illegal
immigration is not a victimless crime. Foolhardy jurisdictions
continue to pass legislation and implement policies aimed at
stymieing immigration and customs enforcement officers from
enforcing the law.
The same week as the tragedy in Rockville, a Baltimore City
Council member introduced a resolution calling on ICE to only
arrest those posing a ``serious risk.'' In discussing this
initiative, the council member likened ICE officers to Nazis
several times.
Such rhetoric is reprehensible, creating a moral
equivalence between genocide and a Nation exercising a
fundamental right and obligation of sovereignty. It is
especially ironic, given that the United States has long had
the most generous immigration system in the world.
In a deeply troubling move, San Francisco even announced
that it would no longer participate in the Joint Terrorism Task
Force because of concerns that the task force's duties may
coincide with immigration enforcement. Sanctuary policies often
focus on ICE detainers: notices issued by ICE to allow it to
take custody of aliens in law enforcement custody in order to
initiate removal proceedings.
These irresponsible sanctuary policies have led to a sharp
drop in ICE's intake of aliens from criminal detention
facilities, which forces ICE agents to engage in the far more
time-consuming and dangerous task of picking them up on the
streets.
The Trump administration is issuing a weekly report of
declined detainers nationwide. During the first week of the
administration, 206 detainers were not honored nationwide,
leading to the release of aliens who were arrested for, or
convicted of, sex assaults, aggravated assaults, arson,
robbery, and many other serious offenses.
The new administration, only 2 months old, has already
started to right the ship. On January 25th, the President
signed two executive orders aimed at securing our Nation's
borders and strengthening interior enforcement of our
immigration laws. These executive orders nudge the rudder of
this massive ship in the right direction.
I am encouraged that the new administration's enforcement
priorities include all aliens who are threats to public safety
and national security and restores the Secure Communities
program. Just yesterday, Attorney General Sessions announced
that sanctuary cities will be ineligible for Justice Department
grants. Progress at the border has been dramatic. The number of
illegal aliens apprehended decreased by over 40 percent in the
first month of the new administration, by over 60 percent in
the second month.
Yet, while this is encouraging, many thousands still make
the dangerous trek across the border in order to turn
themselves in and game our asylum system. It is no secret that
credible fear and asylum claims have been being rubber stamped
with claimants released with work authorization as they await
their hearings, some now scheduled for 2021. I applaud the
President for addressing bogus credit claims in the executive
order.
As much as I am encouraged by what the new administration
is doing within the current statutory framework, it also
desperately needs new statuary tools to enforce the immigration
laws. Over the past two Congresses, this committee has approved
such measures to provide such tools to the administration,
including providing that unaccompanied minors are safely and
expeditiously returned home, that the Federal Government will
work with local jurisdictions that want to provide assistance
and enforce the immigration laws, that sanctuary cities will
lose Federal funds curtailing fraud in the asylum process, and
to allow for the detention of dangerous aliens.
Sheriff Hodgson, welcome. I appreciate your testimony. I
wonder if you could tell us, what value do you see in involving
local law enforcement in immigration enforcement?
Sheriff Hodgson. Thank you, Councilman.
It is imperative that we participate in local law
enforcement. One of the things that President Trump made very
clear in one of his recent speeches to the sheriffs was,
``Look, we recognize that you all have your boots on the
ground. You have the information, the intimate relationships
with the gang activities and the things that are going on.''
The intelligence that we get through the prisons, these are
very important aspects of us working with our Federal partners.
If we didn't learn anything after 9/11 by the fact that we
needed to strengthen our relationships with our Federal
partners to prevent our citizens of our communities from being
victimized, look, we just had a woman, a 19-year-old women
whose father had been deported twice, came over the day before
Father's Day; as she got out of her car, shot and killed her
right there at her home. These things are happening all over
the country.
Chairman Goodlatte. Let me interrupt because I have a
limited amount of time, and the chairman has been very
generous.
Do you consider State and local enforcement to be competent
to assist in the enforcement of immigration laws?
Sheriff Hodgson. Absolutely, and I think the Davis-Oliver
Bill should be passed in giving us the authority to be able to
add more tools to our toolbox.
Chairman Goodlatte. Let me turn to Ms. Vaughn. Last week,
the Department of Homeland Security released its Final Declined
Detainer Outcome Report. The report demonstrated that, in a 1-
week period, January 28 through February 3, there were 206
instances of detainers not honored. What does this report say
about concerns for public safety in these jurisdictions, and
other than releasing a weekly report, what else can either the
administration or Congress do to discourage sanctuary policies?
Ms. Vaughn. Well, I think that report validates the
concerns that people have had about sanctuary policies and that
the beneficiaries of sanctuary policies are the criminal aliens
who get sent back to our community. And I hope that the public
will hold their leaders accountable for those policies now that
they have that information.
In addition to denying funding, I think that, in some
cases, there are going to be die-hard sanctuary jurisdictions
that want to keep their policies anyway, despite the lack of
funding; they want to be martyrs over it. I think that, for the
sake of public safety, the Department of Justice is going to
have to take legal action against those jurisdictions,
potentially seeking an injunction. There may be cases where it
would be appropriate to even prosecute local officials who
deliberately and knowingly harbor an illegal alien from
detection and from deportation.
Chairman Goodlatte. Mr. Arthur, your written testimony
discusses a regulation governing confidentiality of asylum
information and dramatically limiting third-party disclosure.
Does this limitation extend to investigators looking into fraud
or national security concerns, and what can either the
administration or Congress do to aid ICE or another government
agency in its attempt to verify pertinent information with a
home government?
Judge Arthur. It does. It prevents any disclosure of
information that is provided in an asylum application to anyone
outside the government; there are very strict limits. But one
of the main things that it does is that it prevents the
information that is provided in the asylum application from
being verified with the home country.
Probably the best thing to do would be to amend the
regulation to make it clear that the biographical information
and allegations with respect to arrests, can be verified with
the home country, but the fact that the individual has actually
applied for asylum cannot. So, that would be the best way to
deal with it.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you, and Ms. Pyati, in your
testimony, I noticed that you referred to localities that have
community trust policies. Would you say that Montgomery County,
Maryland, where Rockville High School is located and is a
sanctuary jurisdiction, whether that county's community trust
policy protected that 14-year-old girl?
Ms. Pyati. First, I want to start by saying that, of
course, what happened to the 14-year-old girl was a tragedy.
None of us would have ever expected that to happen and feel
horribly sorry for her and for what she experienced.
Chairman Goodlatte. Wouldn't it have been better if those
two boys had never have arrived in Montgomery County, Maryland?
Ms. Pyati. Well, I think they are two different questions,
if I may. Your first question was whether community trust
policies were a part of it at all, and the answer was no. The
boys had no criminal record whatsoever before, had never been
picked up by law enforcement, and therefore, a community trust
policy had nothing to do with what happened that day in that
school.
Secondarily, whether they could have been----
Chairman Goodlatte. I am sorry, but it is a violation of
the law to cross our border, so were not they illegally present
in the United States?
Ms. Pyati. They did violate the law by crossing our border.
Chairman Goodlatte. Were not they turned over by the
previous administration to, in one case, to a parent and, in
another case, an uncle? I know the father of the one boy was
also illegally present in the United States.
Ms. Pyati. What happened at the border when they entered is
very different than what happened in Rockville, Maryland. Your
question to me was, in Rockville, Maryland, could a defunded
sanctuary policy, for example, have prevented the rape, and the
answer is no to that.
I think what happened there was completely----
Chairman Goodlatte. I think the enforcement of our laws
would have prevented the rape; would it not?
Ms. Pyati. When they came to the border, at the southern
border----
Chairman Goodlatte. My time has expired. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much. The chair
recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
Let me begin by making a statement. You know the whole
issue of sanctuary cities is something that is very disturbing
because it is an attempt by those jurisdictions to nullify
Federal law and to say that Federal law does not apply in the
sanctuary city.
Now, this country suffered probably the worst trauma in its
history when certain States, over 150 years ago, decided that
they had the power to nullify Federal law. And there were over
a half million people who were killed during the Civil War, and
I think that the horror of that has been forgotten.
Secondly, I am very disturbed by saying there are certain
types of Federal laws that State and local law enforcement do
not enforce. I guess I can say that robbing a bank is a Federal
offense, and I do not think that State and local law
enforcement wait for the FBI to come to respond to the bank and
try to catch the people who are committing a Federal felony in
the process of trying to clean out the bank's till.
Now, having said that statement, let me ask you, Ms.
Vaughn, under current immigration law, drunk driving is
typically not a removable offense and neither is most gang
activities. Would you favor a change to make those offenses
removable, so it is very clear that gang activity and being
convicted of a DUI would be a removable offense?
Ms. Vaughn. Absolutely. Of course, anyone who is in the
country illegally is potentially subject to deportation,
whether they have been driving drunk or not, but I do think
that immigration officers and agents need better tolls within
the INA to make it easier to accelerate the removal of those
individuals and to protect the communities.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I know that, in my district, there has
been at least one real, major tragedy where a van of family
going to church ended up being hit by a drunk driver and some,
but not all, of them were killed, which was a family tragedy
that could have been prevented.
How about gang activity? We have a lot of people who have
been claiming that they are fleeing groups like MS-13 as they
arrive at the border. Do any of the witnesses know if there are
any people who have made such a claim for asylum who have ended
up rejoining MS-13 once they get across the border?
Ms. Vaughn. From what I understand and have been told from
some local law enforcement agencies, there have been instances,
from what they have learn from gang members who are now
incarcerated, that, of course not all of the youths who have
been crossing illegally from Central America are involved with
gangs, but the gangs here know that the policy is so lenient
that, if someone who is a minor makes it to our border, that
they will be allowed to resettle in the country with very few
questions asked. So, they have deliberately taken advantage of
that policy and used it in order to boost their ranks of clicks
here in the United States in order to benefit the gang as a
whole, so that is definitely happening.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you. My time is running out.
Ms. Pyati, in your written testimony, page 1, you say that
your center advocates for laws and policies that help immigrant
survivors of violence include sexual and domestic violence. Do
you advocate for victims such as the Rockville teen?
Ms. Pyati. Absolutely, I do.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay, that is good to know. How do you
do that?
Ms. Pyati. How do we do that? So we do have offices in a
number of cities around the country, four different cities; we
are opening a fifth. Our work is to meet with victims,
understand their situation, hear their stories, know if they
are eligible for any form of immigration remedy in this
country, interview them extensively to find out, in fact, if
they have a credible claim and one that might survive under the
law, and if so, then offer them free legal assistance in order
to enter their claim into the adjudication system.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay, so you do not do any of the type
of counseling that is needed by anyone who is a victim of a
sexual assault? You turn that over to somebody else?
Ms. Pyati. We do. Our center offers holistic services, so
we have both social workers and lawyers on our staff and we
would definitely offer that type of counsel to somebody who
came to us.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay, so you are not proactive in
seeking out and offering those types of services? The victim
and the victim's family have to come to you rather than you
going to them?
Ms. Pyati. We conduct outreach in the community to be sure
that individuals know that we are there; you know where our
offices are, what kind of services we provide, and to make sure
that folks know they can come to us. The majority of people who
seek our services have heard about us by word of mouth, as well
as through our outreach efforts.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman
from California, Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of
observations. I think it is a mistake to use the tragedy on 9/
11, where 19 Saudis during the Bush administrations entered,
legally, to the United States with visas, and then brutally
attacked and killed Americans, with reason to deport nannies
and farm workers in 2017. The two do not compute.
Just in terms of the sanctuary city issue, there is no
definition, really, of what a so-called sanctuary city is, but
8 U.S.C. 1373, which really originated out of this committee
before it became law, does not require localities to hold
peoples, who are otherwise to be released, to detain them, nor
does it require States and localities to collect information.
That would be beyond the authority of the Federal Government to
commandeer States and localities to do that.
I am wondering, Ms. Pyati, the detainers that were outlined
in the Detainer Outcome Report, in jurisdictions where the
controlling Federal court rulings, such as the four circuit has
set compliance with those detainers is unconstitutional
violation of the Fourth Amendment, what exposure would a
locality have if they did what the Attorney General said in a
jurisdiction where the circuit is said that violates the Fourth
Amendment.
Ms. Pyati. Thank you for your question, Congresswomen.
Certainly, the local jurisdictions complete exposure. The
Federal courts have ruled that detainers that hold individuals
after they have been released or could be released by the
criminal system for civil law infractions such as immigration
law infractions, is a seizure that goes well beyond the 48
hours often and that constitutes a violation under the Fourth
Amendment, and that is the local jurisdiction that is on the
hook for that and so they absolutely would have full and
complete exposure there.
Ms. Lofgren. Just a couple of other observations and then
maybe a question. Clearly, the police chiefs and the police
officers that I know in the district that I represent are
against criminals, I mean that is why they are in police work,
that is why they are called to do that.
In Santa Cruz, recently, there was an effort. The sheriff
actually sent his officers out with ICE agents because they
were going to do an anti-gang activity, and what he found out,
at least what the law enforcement officials said was, he will
never deal with ICE again because, instead of doing an anti-
gang activity, they did just general immigration enforcement.
Now, they cannot get immigrants to call in to report
crimes; they cannot get people to be witnesses. So, I do think
the distinction between Federal and State obligations is an
important one, even though, for example, DUI was an enforcement
priority under the Obama administration; if you had a DUI, you
would be deported under the Obama administration.
So, I guess the question is, what is that distinction? I
have had complaints out of California that ICE agents are
putting the word ``Police'' on their jackets, even though they
are not police, and the police are greatly concerned about this
because it muddies up who is doing what. Do you think, when we
talk to the Secretary of Homeland Security about this issue and
explained that the sheriff in Los Angeles and the police
departments all over California--I mean that, because that is
where I am from, are complaining about this.
He just said, well, he did not care. What are your thoughts
on that, Ms. Pyati? Do we have an opportunity, do you think, to
remedy this? Would this be a problem with ICE agents, having
``Police'' on their jackets when it comes to domestic violence
and sexual assault cases?
Ms. Pyati. I appreciate your question, Congresswoman.
Certainly, I think any time we comingle local law enforcement
with immigration enforcement, we are in a very dangerous game.
There are definitely officers wearing vests that say
``Police,'' and it does not make clear that we are talking
about immigration police wandering around in the streets. We
saw this, at times, in the Obama administration, and we are
seeing it now in this administration.
What we see is, when people are in the community, let us
say in a home and afraid, I am not going to pick up the phone
and call 911 if I am not sure who is going to show up at my
door. What I need to be sure of is that, if my child is
watching me be hurt, when I call 911, my child and I are going
to find safety, and we are going to find protection. And the
gentlemen who is hurting me, whether he is my husband or family
member, could be armed, could be dangerous, could be
intoxicated, could be a danger to others in the community, and
that person is actually going to meet justice.
If I am too scared to call 911 because I am worried that,
because of who I am, where I am from, what my national status
is, or the color of my skin, I am not going to get fair
treatment, safety, and protection from my local police, then
all of us are less safe.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired and I yield
back.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, many
members of Congress, and as far as that goes, many members of
the media, often say that immigrants are no more likely to
commit crime than other individuals, but that, in my view, is a
misleading statement because they do not distinguish between
illegal immigrants and legal immigrants.
When you look at the crimes committed by illegal
immigrants, you find out that, for example, 35 percent of the
individuals who are sentenced for Federal crimes are illegal
immigrants. Thirty-five percent. Well, illegal immigrants are
3.5 percent of the population, so that means they are 10 times
to more likely to be sentenced for a Federal crime than other
legal residents, 10 times.
That is why we say, rightfully, that illegal immigrants are
disproportionately dangerous to innocent Americans and
dangerous to our communities and dangerous to our
neighborhoods.
Sheriff Hodgson, let me address my first question to you,
and thank you for your strong testimony on sanctuary cities.
Another figure that I know you are familiar with is that
about one-third, 30 percent or more, of those who are released,
the criminal immigrants who are released back into our
communities, are rearrested for another crime. And the fact
that we have law enforcement officials sworn to uphold the law
intentionally releasing these individuals into our communities
really makes me think that they are an accessory to the crimes
that these illegal immigrants go on and additionally commit. It
is just inexcusable.
My question is this, and you have had so many good years of
experience: what should the Federal Government do about the
sanctuary jurisdictions that intentionally release these
dangerous individuals back into our communities?
Sheriff Hodgson. Thank you, Congressman. What I believe
they should do is, in those instances, we cannot say that
elected officials who taken the same oath that we have can
decide which laws they are going to follow or not. They should
be held to the same standards of accountability that we are. In
those instances, where they are intentionally harboring and
concealing people they know to be in the country illegally,
they should have Federal warrants, arrest warrants, issued for
them. No ifs, ands, or buts.
Mr. Smith. Okay, thank you, Sheriff. And Mr. Arthur,
welcome back.
Judge Arthur. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Smith. A question for you: What programs are most
abused by illegal immigrants to try to wrongfully stay in the
United States?
Judge Arthur. Anecdotally, it would appear that asylum is
probably the number-one source of fraud in the system. Part of
the problem, Mr. Smith, is the fact that there are no hard-and-
fast studies on fraud in the system. GAO did an analysis back
in 2002 in which they found that nobody could really estimate
how much fraud there was.
Don Crocetti, who had been the head of FDNS, the Fraud
Detection and National Security Directorate, at CIS testified
before this committee back in the 113th Congress, I think it
was, and indicated that a study had been undertaken that had
found a fairly significantly amount of fraud, but had never
been completed for various reasons within CIS.
There is marriage fraud. There are other forms of fraud,
but just based on the number of credibility determinations or
adverse credibility determinations in the application, it would
be asylum.
Mr. Smith. Do you think it is a major problem or a minor
problem, the degree of fraud?
Judge Arthur. I would always do a credibility determination
in every case that I did, in every asylum decision that I
issued, whether I granted or denied. And I would probably guess
that, in probably a fairly large number of those cases, I made
adverse credibility determinations that were sustained by the
Board of Immigration Appeals in the Third Circuit where I sat.
Mr. Smith. Okay, thank you. Last question.
Ms. Vaughn, what are the three policies that you feel would
be most effective in keeping criminal immigrants off of our
streets and out of our neighborhoods?
Ms. Vaughn. I think the most effective policy would be,
first of all, for ICE to make better use of the accelerated
forms of due process. ICE agents and officers need to be
empowered to use detention as the law allows. And I think that
we need to take action against the sanctuaries because they
have been releasing 1,000 criminal aliens a month for years now
and we know that they go on to reoffend and it is a significant
public safety problem.
Mr. Smith. Like I said, over 30 percent are rearrested for
additional crimes.
Ms. Vaughn. I have heard even higher over long periods of
time, that they are comparable to the re-offense rates of all
criminals.
Mr. Smith. Okay, thank you, Ms. Vaughn. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the
witnesses.
Let me turn to the chief of policy and programs at the
Tahirih Justice Center. Ms. Pyati, many of the witnesses on
this panel have argued that community trust policies encourage
lawlessness and create an environment where undocumented
immigrants are allowed to commit acts of crime, violence, and
terror. What is your response to such a claim as that?
Ms. Pyati. Thank you, Congressman. My response is quite
simply that when we talk about so-called sanctuary cities and
those communities, we have to be very clear that the more than
600 jurisdictions that have adopted these types of policies
have adopted a very wide range, and so it would be really
impossible to say that they all are engaging in one type of
practice or another.
Some of the jurisdictions are 100 percent cooperating, but
they also offer protections for those who might call 911 or
come into an emergency room seeking lifesaving emergency
services. And so, the range of policies is really quite
dramatic. It would be very difficult for us to try to make any
generalizations about what could be happening on a level with
crime in all of these jurisdictions and make some sort of
statements that it is making us all less safe.
I think that that is an unfair characterization and one
that, in fact, will leave more criminals on our streets if we
are not very careful.
Mr. Conyers. Now, with your experience, do you think that
immigrants are more likely to commit crimes in areas with
community trust policies?
Ms. Pyati. I don't know, Congressman, honestly, that anyone
has measured whether there is a likelihood of committing crime
in a certain area or not. I do think that our likelihood of
catching criminals and actually keeping communities safe,
especially preventing crime, is much higher in a community that
has a community trust policy.
Local law enforcement officers know what they are doing,
and they know that when they are trying to keep a community
safe, making sure that when they walk around town, when they go
to community events, when they patrol apartment buildings, when
they are speaking with members of their town that they are
getting real information. When they say, ``Who is likely to be
committing an offense? Who is a criminal in your
neighborhood?'' they need that information from the community
in order to be able to make arrests, and watch for crime, and
protect citizens and noncitizens in the community. If there is
a barrier put up between local law enforcement and the
community, there is no way for them to do their job
effectively.
I do not think we can effectively measure, in fact, if I
may, Congressman, how much crime has honestly been prevented by
these community trust policies. It would be hard to say
thousands of crimes, for example, did not happen because people
called the police and trusted the police. It is much easier to
pick out the one or two crimes we have seen across America, and
really shine the light on those, than it is to really weigh the
benefit of these community trust policies. We can only take our
law enforcement officers' word for it.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
Ms. Pyati. Thank you.
Mr. Conyers. My last question is my infamous three-in-one
question, three questions in one. Have you worked with law
enforcement agencies on strategies to combat domestic violence;
what specific challenges have these agencies shared as it
relates to criminal arrests and prosecution within the
immigrant community; and finally, how do you think the Trump
administration's approach to withhold Federal funds will impact
on these local law enforcement efforts? And I will be happy to
repeat any of them if necessary. I do not think you need that.
Ms. Pyati. I did take notes, Congressman. Thank you.
Our organization does definitely work with local law
enforcement agencies across the country, and I know many other
organizations like ours do as well. What we do is we
communicate with local law enforcement. We provide training on
immigration law and how to recognize victims in the community.
We also work with them to identify different cultural barriers
that might exist between local law enforcement officers and
members of a community, so that they might break down those
barriers and find ways to actually get critical, vital
information from those in the community.
Some of the specific challenges we have learned involve a
number of those that I cited earlier as challenges that the
victims face. It is a two-way street, whether it be language
barriers, cultural barriers. You know, many undocumented
immigrants come from environments in other countries where
trusting law enforcement is not smart, where when you talk to a
police officer as a rape victim, for example, you might
yourself be revictimized. And so, to say to a woman, as I have
had to, ``Honestly, these armed and uniformed police officers
are here to help you,'' takes a lot of courage. Not on my part;
it takes a lot of courage for the victim to look at me and
believe me and trust me and want to work with local law
enforcement. Those are the challenges we have heard from law
enforcement officers.
We have also heard about those who prey on immigrant
communities. We have heard about, from local law enforcement
officers, about notarios. We have heard about people who hold
themselves out to be either legal representatives or members of
the government.
Since the Trump administration has come into power, the
executive orders have actually led to a sense of mistrust and
fear in the community, but it has also led to a number of
people standing outside apartment buildings, for example, in
one community. I have heard this; I have heard this from
several, actually, saying, ``We are with the immigration, and
we are here to ask you questions; we would like to see your
papers.'' Then, all of a sudden, you have people kind of trying
to steal identity and trying to take information from law-
abiding members of the community.
So, specific challenges law enforcement faces involve
really policing in a cooperative way in communities that
historically have not felt included in law enforcement efforts.
And the Trump administration, honestly, the actual executive
orders that came in January coupled with rhetoric, honestly,
from the campaign trail together have led to a sense of fear
among community members, also, a sense of confusion. ``What are
our rights? Where can we go for help? Who can we call?''
Advocates have been calling us from around the country,
thousands, actually, asking us, ``So, if a victim tells me she
has been raped several times by her husband, and he is actively
beating her, do I tell her to call the police or not?'' We
don't know. These are strategies we have, for decades now, been
so lucky to have in this country, the opportunity to tell
victims, ``Look, America understands that violence is something
we need to prevent. We have laws for that. Call your police
officer; he or she will help you.'' We do not know what to say
anymore.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs.
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for convening this committee hearing today. It is
important.
I appreciate all the panelists for being here. One of our
panelists recently indicated that we should not focus on one or
two crimes that we have seen across America, and yet in one
recent 15-month period in Maricopa County, the largest county
in Arizona, more than 3,600 criminally violent, illegal aliens
were released back onto the streets of the State's largest
county.
There are two things to point out about that. We know they
were criminally violent because they had been in the system,
charged, and convicted of crimes, and yet they were released
without being deported. So, I appreciate, particularly, Ms.
Vaughn mentioning the Grant Ronnebeck case where Grant, an
unfortunate 21-year-old convenience store clerk, had been
brutally shot and killed for failing to deliver a pack of
cigarettes to a criminally violent, illegal alien who had been
convicted, and yet was on the streets of Maricopa County, and
that is why I introduced Grant's Law here in Congress, which
should pass. It is a no-brainer, and it requires the very
accelerated due process requirements that Ms. Vaughn has
mentioned to deport these criminally violent, illegal aliens
from our country within 90 days.
I wanted to talk specifically with regard to you, Ms.
Vaughn, with regard to the apprehension rates reported. If we
were to look at the apprehension rates, historically, we would
see that there are consistently over a million people,
sometimes than 1.5 million people, actually apprehended at the
border, and that began to slow down in 2006. 2007 was the first
time reported apprehensions actually began declining below 1
million. But all experts talk about border apprehensions, and
this is the southern border, versus the multiplier effect of
people who actually cross and remain in the country.
The lowest number I have ever seen reported was opined by
several U.S. senators to be about four times the actual
apprehension rate. Last year, 415,000 illegal aliens were
apprehended at the southern border; more than half were other
than Mexican nationals coming into this country. I guess my
question for you is if you would please comment on the
multiplying effect and whether the numbers were accurate for
than 10-year period under the Obama administration when we saw
the actual apprehension rate dip as low as 330,000 in 2015,
whether that was accurate in the reporting, please.
Ms. Vaughn. Well, unfortunately, the Border Patrol does not
have full situational awareness to know that important number
of who was not apprehended. There was a very credible study
that was commissioned by DHS that found that in 2015, the
estimated apprehension rate of people trying to cross illegally
was only 54 percent. So, you know, that suggests there is at
least one person succeeding for every one who is caught. And
there is also a low apprehension rate of people trying to enter
illegally at the legal ports of entry, people getting through
in car trunks or as imposters or whatever.
Most concerning, there is the high rate of people who are
caught by the Border Patrol, but who are allowed to enter
anyway, either, you know, because of policies or because of the
prioritization policy imposed on the Border Patrol in November
2014 where they were told, you know, to let people go if they
claimed to have been here before January 2014. The head of the
National Border Patrol Council has said that at that time, he
estimated the Border Patrol agents were letting as many as 80
percent of the people that they encountered stay in the
country.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Sheriff Hodgson, thank you for being
here as well. We previously talked about drunk driving and gang
membership being disqualifiers for remaining in this country. I
just wanted to relate the story of Brandon Mendoza, a police
officer who was driving in March of 2014, almost exactly 2
years ago, when an illegal alien who had been apprehended at
least three times, once committing crimes in Colorado, had a
blood alcohol limit over three times the legal limit in Arizona
and had driven on a freeway the wrong way for 33 miles when he
hit Officer Mendoza's car and killed him tragically.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Will he ask his question?
Mr. Biggs. Yes, thank you. My question is, do you think
enforcement of immigration laws by local agencies has a
chilling effect on community participation or reporting of
crimes?
Sheriff Hodgson. Congressman, I do not think so. I believe
that the crimes that are happening in our communities, illegals
are not going to report those crimes. It is no different than
what happens in America with criminals, people who have done
something wrong.
I do not understand why people have a problem with people
feeling afraid that they have done something wrong in this
country. If you have done something wrong, you should feel
afraid and you should be concerned if you violated the laws.
And so, I do not think any more than anyone else in our
country. If you have done something wrong, there are going to
people who will not come forward; there are going to be others
who will. But the realities are that these things are happening
in every community throughout the United States.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman
from Washington, Ms. Jayapal.
Mr. Gutierrez. Mr. Chairman, I am here.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I call on people in the order in which
they appear for the committee. Ms. Jayapal appeared before you.
Mr. Gutierrez. I was here when everybody started.
Ms. Jayapal. I am happy to yield.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay.
Mr. Gutierrez. I know you do not want to hear from me, but
I was here when they all started.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Oh, I am always happy to hear from you,
Mr. Gutierrez.
Mr. Gutierrez. Well, then you should follow regular order.
I was here, present. I listened to all four of the witnesses. I
was here for all of their testimony.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay. Well, I just got a list from the
staff on who appeared in what order. They must have made a
mistake.
Mr. Gutierrez. They made a mistake.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Illinois is
recognized for 5 minutes. Would you please reset the clock?
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. So, you get it all.
Mr. Gutierrez. Want to make sure. We could talk about the
Sensenbrenner bill to start. I mean, maybe we should start
right there. It was so popular. You do not even want to talk
about it. But let's go on to some other stuff.
Number one, here we go again. Does not change. Ms. Vaughn,
she is always here. She is a regular. She would be out of a job
if we fixed this problem, and we can fix this problem, but she
would be out of a job.
Sheriff, they kind of rotate the sheriffs to come and kind
of say what you say all the time.
Judge, you are a new experience here. Thank you for the
advocacy for our immigrant community.
It all kind of changes here, but it really does not. We are
not here to solve a problem. We are here to say that immigrants
are drunk drivers, murderers, rapists, and gang members,
because it does not change. But that should not surprise us,
since we have a President that said that all Mexicans are
murderers, rapists, and drug dealers, and got away with that.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Illinois will comply
with the rules in referring to the President.
Mr. Gutierrez. I will say Donald Trump. Is that okay?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. No, it is what you said, whether it is
President or Donald Trump.
Mr. Gutierrez. But he did say it.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman will comply with the rules
and not cast dispersions on the President because those are
rules of the House----
Mr. Gutierrez. Okay, let me just repeat that.
Mr. Sensenbrenner [continuing]. And the gentleman from
Illinois knows that.
Mr. Gutierrez. Let me just repeat that. We have a President
of the United States that said, and I can bring the YouTube
video, that Mexicans are murderers, rapists, and drug dealers.
Fact? Good. Let's move on.
So, it does not really surprise me, the conversation we are
having here. It is not looking for a solution; it is looking
for a demonization of a community of people to score political
points and not to resolve it, because we could resolve it. We
can resolve this problem, but we do not want to resolve this
problem, just like we do not want to resolve the healthcare
issue in this country. We do not want to resolve it. We want to
make a political point about the healthcare issue in this
country because, if we wanted to resolve it, we could do it.
See, what we have here is people that say, ``How do we
expect to restore Western Civilization with other people's
babies?'' That is what we have members of Congress saying, and
that is part of what goes on here.
It is a demonization. It is other people's babies. It is
this constant, which, I have to say, the President is playing
one big role in all of it because, you see, today there are
millions, at least 5 million American-citizen children who live
in fear of their Federal Government, live in fear of their
Federal Government, because people go around calling their moms
and dads murderers, rapists, killers, drug dealers, and drunk
drivers. Millions of American citizen children. Shame on us for
not responding.
You know what those murderers and rapists do every weekend
now under this administration? They go see lawyers so that they
can prepare in the eventuality that they are deported and
separated from their American-citizen children. That is what
they are doing: filling out guardianship papers, filling out
who is going to get the car. How do you deal with the house?
How do you deal with the contingency? What family member is
going to be there? Shame on us for not resolving this problem
and leaving a legacy of abuse against those 5 million.
Since everybody wants to talk about the undocumented, which
you call illegal, right? I want to talk a minute about those
who are here legally in this country, those American-citizen
children, and that is what we do. So, we sit by smugly, and we
talk about 9/11, but we have a Muslim ban, and they did not
even include Saudi Arabia in the Muslim ban, yet last time I
checked, every last person that attacked this country was from
Saudi Arabia.
You know what it is? It is politics because, also, they
want to make us afraid of who? Of the Muslims. So, they have a
Muslim ban. They call Mexicans one thing, Muslims another
thing, and then they said, ``Oh, we are going to leave the gay
people alone,'' until they decided the transgender children and
the transgender community would be one that we are going to
attack. That is what happens here, and so we do not resolve the
problem.
We could resolve this problem because I happen to know for
a fact that there are over 60 members of the Republican caucus
who, today, would vote for a comprehensive immigration reform
bill. Today, but we are not allowed to vote for that bill.
And you know what evidence I have? Check last week. Why?
Because you have radicals on that side of the aisle who say,
``We will not allow there to be a vote on an issue,'' so they
withdrew their own immigration bill. That is why we cannot deal
with this.
We can deal with it in the Senate. We had 68 senators come
together in the summer of 2013 to help solve this problem. And
how could we do it? It is quite easy we could do it, because,
see, what we all know, Sheriff, here is what we all know. The
resources do not exist of the Federal Government to pick up,
jail, and deport 11 million people.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Gutierrez. You know what they can do? Insist on
bringing fear to those people.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Gutierrez. Shame on all of us.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
He can see the clock up there like all the rest of us.
Mr. Gutierrez. Mr. Chairman, you took at least 15, 20
seconds admonishing me for something.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. No, no. If you were listening to me, Mr.
Gentleman from Illinois, I asked that the clock be reset.
Mr. Gutierrez. No, no, no. You reset it one time, but not
during the second intervention. There is a video of this.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay, well----
Mr. Gutierrez. Okay what?
Mr. Sensenbrenner [continuing]. Now, you know why we have
difficulty reaching----
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous----
Mr. Sensenbrenner. If the gentleman----
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. If the gentleman----
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman----
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I will----
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cicilline. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Gutierrez
be given an additional minute.
Mr. King. I object, and I ask----
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The objection is heard.
Mr. King [continuing]. For the regular order.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gutierrez. Shame on all of us.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would note that I was
watching that clock, and you did reset it out of courtesy. And
I would point out, also, that there was a complete and utter
rebuttal, I will call it a pre-buttal, of Mr. Gutierrez's
statement on November 8th.
The American people went to the polls and said, ``We want
the law enforced, and we want our streets safe.'' And so, I
want to first turn to Sheriff Hodgson and point out, in your
testimony, on your introduction, it says, ``The human cost and
emotional impact of crimes committed by illegals is beyond
measure.'' Could you speak to that? I know that it is a
thoughtful statement.
Sheriff Hodgson. Congressman, I can tell you in one
community in Milford, Massachusetts, there were three people
killed by illegals, in the small community of Milford. We are
seeing these situations happening all over the country and
there is nothing wrong with us enforcing the laws that are on
the books, and you cannot ask law enforcement--look, if there
are members of the legislature that want to change the laws in
Massachusetts or wherever, come here and lobby Congress, but do
not tell us that we have to violate our oath and allow our
citizens we are protecting to be exposed to greater risks. That
is what is going on, Congressman.
Mr. King. Thank you, Sheriff. And you pointed out also the
Facebook post that gave a heads-up that ICE agents were coming
into the community. I opened the Federal code here, 8 U.S.C.
1324, and I want to read this into the record and I want to ask
you and others what you think about prosecuting under this that
individual or any individual.
This is 8 U.S.C. 1324, ``Any person who''--and I am going
to cut out the irrelevant language, ``Any person who conceals,
harbors, or shields from detection or attempts to conceal,
harbor, or shield from detection, or any person who encourages
or induces an alien to come to and enter/reside in the United
States, knowing that such coming to or entry or residence is or
will be in violation of the law, or who engages in any
conspiracy to commit to any kind of the preceding acts, or who
aids and abets the commission of any of the preceding acts is
guilty of the violation of this statute.'' And if they did it
for a financial gain, facing a 10-year penalty; if it was not
for a financial gain, a 5-year penalty. Sheriff, you looked at
that section, I know.
Sheriff Hodgson. Congressman, I have been repeating that
section every chance I get because the truth is the law is the
law. It is up to 5 years per illegal alien in that case, and I
have called for, actually, in the case where the Boston mayor
and the mayor of Summerville, Massachusetts, came out and said,
``I will use City Hall if I have to, to violate Federal law and
protect these people,'' as well as in Summerville, where the
mayor said, ``I will open my home.'' My answer to that was act
on title VIII, section 1324; issue arrest warrants, and we will
figure out really fast how popular sanctuary cities will be in
this country.
Mr. King. I absolutely agree with you, Sheriff, and I turn
to Ms. Vaughn.
You made a statement, ``There may be cases where we need to
prosecute local officials.'' Did you have this section in mind
when you made that statement?
Ms. Vaughn. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.
Mr. King. Do you concur with Sheriff Hodgson?
Ms. Vaughn. Yes, I do. When a judge takes an illegal alien
out the side door of a courthouse to avoid ICE, when a jail
does not permit ICE access to the jail to interview inmates,
when a law enforcement agency receives a detainer that gives
probable cause to hold a criminal alien and they have
information on that individual's crimes, all of those are
shielding illegal aliens from ICE knowingly.
Mr. King. When a judge facilitates that kind of escape from
their chambers, you are suggesting specifically 8 U.S.C. 1324
as a means to enforce?
Ms. Vaughn. Yes, and there are penalties there, especially
when that individual who was shielded goes on to cause further
harm in the community and potentially creates new victims or
does in fact after their release, as we know has happened.
These are not isolated cases.
Mr. King. And there is a means where this Congress can act
on their own without a Presidential signature. What I am
thinking of is the impeachment of such judge. What is your
advice to us on that?
Ms. Vaughn. Well, I do not know the law with respect to the
standards for judge impeachment, so I would have to----
Mr. King. We set the standards according to the
Constitution. So, under those terms?
Ms. Vaughn. I think that would be an effective deterrent to
try to nip this problem.
Mr. King. Mr. Arthur.
Judge Arthur. I am not aware of any case law that does
that, but one thing that would advise that, I do not know of
any that would not, but one thing that I would say, Mr. King,
is that the job that we ask our ICE officers to do is a
difficult one, and when it is subverted by individuals
deliberately, I am not familiar with the specific case, it just
makes that job more difficult.
And here is really the crucial part of that: if it is a
public place and the officer has the opportunity to make an
arrest, generally it is a controlled situation. If the officers
have to go to the home of that individual, it is not a
controlled situation anymore.
My uncle and my aunt were both law enforcement officers in
the city of Baltimore for many years. The worst thing that any
police family can ever hear is that their loved one is not
coming home, and if you put an agent in harm's way, I do not
understand that.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Arthur. I am going to yield back.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentlewoman from Washington, Ms. Jayapal, is now
recognized.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
panel for being here.
I must say that I have had a challenge listening to our
majority witnesses today. I have worked on immigration issues
for the last 20 years of my life; I have been on a domestic
violence agency board for many years, and I appreciate the
testimony of Ms. Pyati in really trying to set the record
straight about exactly why we have a division between Federal
law enforcement and local law enforcement.
There is a very specific reason why there are 600
jurisdictions across the country who have actually said the
role of local law enforcement is to enforce public safety, not
to get involved in Federal immigration laws enforcement. And
some people do not realize this, but I think it is worth saying
again for anybody who might be watching this hearing and
perhaps some of you on the panel, but our Federal immigration
system is a civil system. It is not a criminal system. It is a
civil system. So, when somebody violates immigration laws
simply for being here without documented presence, that is a
civil offense. It is not a criminal offense.
And I would like to set the record straight for, I believe
it was, Mr. Smith who was talking about Federal sentencing
rates. I just want to be clear about something. Federal
sentencing rates are not a reliable indicator of criminal
offenses because more than half of Federal prosecutions, 52
percent in 2016, are for immigration-related offenses that
include illegal entry, which is a misdemeanor, or illegal
reentry, which is considered a felony.
That has happened over the years as we have criminalized
undocumented presence in this country instead of passing
comprehensive immigration reform.
Now, there is one thing that Ms. Vaughn said that I agree
with, which is, ``Some things can only be done by Congress.''
Yes, comprehensive immigration reform is one of the things that
can only be done by Congress. And, in fact, we had bipartisan
agreement for that comprehensive immigration reform in 2013
where 68 senators agreed that we should pass an immigration
reform bill because they understand the hypocrisy of a country
that utilizes the labor of immigrants.
If you eat fruits or vegetables, you utilize the labor of
immigrants; if you stay in hotel rooms, you utilize the labor
of immigrants. There are numerous places across this country
where you simply cannot wake up in the morning without
utilizing the labor of undocumented immigrants that have been
building this country. So, that would be a solution that we
should really move towards.
Now, I want to talk quickly about immigration detainers and
then ask Ms. Pyati a question about domestic violence and
victims of crime. The overwhelming number of sanctuary
jurisdictions are not violating the law. Let us be very clear
about this. The vast majority of sanctuary policies, if you
look at the Constitution in U.S.C. 1373, do not prevent
citizenship and immigration status information from being
shared.
In fact, when we worked on these sanctuary policies in my
home State of Washington, my prosecutor, Dan Satterberg, who I
will quote from in a second, as well as our local police
chiefs, have been terrific about understanding that their
mission is to promote community trust, and that they can only
do that if they pass policies that ensure that people
understand they are not enforcing immigration law; they are
trying to protect public safety.
I wanted to read to you what our association, the Major
Cities Chiefs Association, stated, ``Immigration laws are very
complex and the training required to understand them
significantly detracts from the core mission of local police to
create safe communities.''
Recently, our county prosecutor published an op-ed in the
Seattle Times where he said, ``From my position as King County
prosecutor,'' this is a prosecutor, ``I can tell you that these
actions have the opposite effect for crime victims.'' He is
talking specifically about all of the immigration executive
orders that this President has signed. And here is what he
said, ``When victims of crime are afraid to trust police and
the courts, the only winners are violent people because our top
mission is public safety. This `crackdown' is an immediate and
serious concern to those of us who work to protect our
residents.''
So, Ms. Pyati, could you tell me, in your opinion, is local
law enforcement qualified to act as immigration enforcement
agents?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Ms. Pyati, why don't you answer her question?
Ms. Pyati. I will answer quickly, Chairman. Thank you.
I do not believe they are. Thank you, Congresswoman, for
asking the question. The immigration code is huge. Some compare
it to the tax code in its complexity and diversity of issues it
tackles. Just like I would not ask my doctor to fill out my
taxes, I do not want the person who is in charge of my safety
to be also spending his time worrying about the immigration
law. Immigration law should be enforced by the Federal
Government, not by our local police.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Ms. Pyati. And Mr. Chairman, if
there is no opposition, I would like to introduce for the
record the statement from our Supreme Court Justice on this
issue in particular, just that statement.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
each of the witnesses for being here today. Since being elected
to Congress in 2010, I have consistently advocated for some
form of immigration reform, and I have consistently advocated
for achieving immigration reform by addressing each aspect of
our immigration system separately and in order. That makes
sense to the American people.
I believe that before we can address those who are
currently here illegally or how to best modernize our visa
programs, we must act to ensure that our immigration laws are
being properly enforced. That must come first. This requires
Congress acting to provide those who enforce our immigration
laws with the tools and support they need to accomplish their
mission.
Mr. Arthur, I just want to ask you a quick question,
because I hear this again and again and again. As a former
immigration judge, is entry into the United States without
documentation a crime or not?
Judge Arthur. It is a misdemeanor.
Mr. Labrador. It is a misdemeanor. So, I just get tired of
hearing it is not a crime. It is a crime whether you want to
enforce that law. We can have that discussion here in Congress,
but it is a misdemeanor to come into the United States
illegally. Ms. Vaughn, why have interior removals declined so
much in the past several years?
Ms. Vaughn. Because of deliberate policies that were put
into place by the Obama administration to greatly restrict the
types of cases that ICE officers could pursue for deportation,
and that exempted, according to one former ICE official, 99
percent of illegal aliens who were here.
Mr. Labrador. So, what message does this decline send to
those who would enter our country illegally or who have entered
illegally?
Ms. Vaughn. It sends the message that if you can get here,
in all likelihood, you will not be subject to deportation.
Mr. Labrador. So, have we seen a difference in the last few
months over the messaging and the results at the border?
Ms. Vaughn. There are some signs, according to the
statistics that have been released by CBP, that apprehensions
as a measure of attempts have dramatically declined over the
last 2 months, and that the smuggling prices have risen, which
is taken as an indicator that it is much harder to do now.
Mr. Labrador. Mr. Arthur, you testified about the impact
that President Obama's executive actions had on ICE's ability
to carry out its mission.
Recently, President Trump has tried to reverse the damage
done by President Obama's actions. While I applaud these
actions, I believe that Congress needs to act to ensure that we
will not continue to have dramatic shifts in enforcement
policies. I do not want one President to do one thing and
another President to do something else.
What can Congress do to ensure that future Presidents are
not able to unilaterally halt or dramatically change interior
enforcement activities?
Judge Arthur. Any amendment to the Immigration and
Nationality Act would limit the ability, would have language in
it, mandatory language, that would limit the ability of any
future President to do something other than what it is. ``With
respect to inadmissibility, the Secretary of Homeland Security
shall take into custody and shall remove any individual,'' for
example. You could put mandatory language in 237 and in 212 of
the Immigration and Nationality Act, and you could put in
detainer language as well.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you. Ms. Vaughn, I am very concerned
about the number of visa overstays that are occurring each
year. We need to have a system to track individuals who come
here on a visa and ensure that they leave when their visa
expires. What roadblocks have you seen to implementing a
functioning tracking system?
Ms. Vaughn. The lack of will on the part of the Federal
Government to move forward with it. We got the entry part at
airports and seaports done very effectively, but there simply
has not been enough interest in completing the system.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you. Sheriff, in your testimony, you
discussed your participation as Section 287(g) program. Was the
training your department received sufficient to be able to
effectively assist ICE?
Sheriff Hodgson. We are in the process, Congressman. They
will be going within a couple of months, but I built an
immigration detention facility at my complex in Dartmouth, so I
have been housing illegals for over 8 years.
Mr. Labrador. Okay. Do you have suggestions, though, on how
the training could be improved? Do you have anything as you
have gone through the system?
Sheriff Hodgson. Well, I think the training is critically
important. The Federal Government does cover the cost, and that
is the biggest part for any jurisdiction, is making sure that
the costs are covered because we do have in our State some
legislators who are attempting to prevent us by legislation
from even participating in 287(g), suggesting that our staff
work for the State, and therefore, we should not be doing that,
which would be contrary.
And I think the committee needs to know this, that if we
are going to suggest we cannot work with ICE, then what happens
to our Federal task forces? I have people full time on the FBI
task force, DEA. We have people that need to be out there every
day, sharing the information, and making sure we put our best
foot forward to get these criminals off the street.
Mr. Labrador. Are those task forces making your communities
more safe or less safe?
Sheriff Hodgson. More safe.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Cicilline.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Sheriff Hodgson
said, public safety is our most fundamental responsibility, and
it is precisely because of that that community-oriented
policing policies must be protected, as they are vital to
public safety because law enforcement rely on trust and
cooperation from all their community members, including
immigrants, to help prevent, solve, and prosecute crimes.
Local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to
decide which community trust policies work best for the
individual localities, and that is why many cities have adopted
policies that allow immigrants to come forward and seek the
assistance of the police without fear. As my former chief said,
and many chiefs across the country have said, the single most
powerful tool the local police department has is the trust and
confidence of the community.
President Trump's immigration crackdown, which is strong-
arming local government, has created a climate of fear and
uncertainty that has already begun to undermine public safety.
The administration's large immigration enforcement operations
and attempts to force local police to do the work of ICE are
making immigrants, both documented and undocumented, afraid to
leave their homes, go to the grocery store, and send their
children to school, as well as to help local law enforcement in
fighting crime. There are also reports that domestic violence
and sexual assault crimes, victims are afraid to report these
crimes for fear of being apprehended themselves.
Many of the witnesses in today's hearing have suggested
that the immigrant community is disproportionately responsible
for crimes, so I would ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, to
include in the record two reports, one from the Sentencing
Project that found foreign-born residents of the United States
commit crime less often that native-born citizens and another
study by the Cato Institute comparing incarceration rates by
migratory status that comes to the same conclusion. And despite
the suggestion of----
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection, the material will be
included in the record.
[The information follows:]
COMMITTEE INSERT
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And despite the
suggestion of Mr. Smith that this does not distinguish between
illegal and legal immigrants, the report says, ``A few studies
using other data sources to differentiate the legal status have
supported the conclusion that immigrants, regardless of legal
status, do not have higher crime rates than native-born
citizens,'' and there are three studies to support that. So, I
want to set the record straight that that underlying claim is
simply not true.
I would also ask unanimous consent to introduce into the
record a letter from February 28, 2017, signed by a number of
law enforcement leaders across the country, criticizing the
shifting of the burden of Federal immigration law onto local
law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection, that will be included
as well.
[The information follows:]
[COMMITTEE INSERT]
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. And Ms. Pyati, I would ask you,
hundreds of law enforcement agencies throughout the United
States have adopted community trust policies. These agencies,
everywhere from Michigan to California to Ohio, report that
such policies, far from increasing crime, actually reduce it,
and recent comprehensive studies have supported these claims
statistically, showing that community trust jurisdictions are
demonstrably safer than their counterparts. Why is that? Can
you help us understand why communities where these trust
jurisdictions are actually protecting our constituents and
providing safer communities, less crime, why is that happening?
Ms. Pyati. Thank you very much, Congressman. I think you
actually said it yourself. You said that the former chief in
your jurisdiction indicated it is really that trust between the
community and the police officers that allows for thorough
reporting by victims; it allows for cooperation as witnesses;
it allows for investigations into community, you know, knocking
on doors and finding those witnesses who want to respond and
offer what they have seen, what they have heard. There is
really no way to prosecute and investigate crime committed by
anyone, whether it is a citizen or a legal immigrant or an
undocumented immigrant; there is really no way to prosecute
crime without participation of residents in the community. And
so, that trust is the number one thing we are looking for.
Mr. Cicilline. You made some reference to an example of a
case in which there had been someone who was murdered who
without the presence of two witnesses--are there other
instances that you are aware of around the country where
individuals have either been unwilling or unable to come
forward because of their immigration status, and how do you
think the Trump policy or the Trump administration's policies
are making that either more likely or less likely to happen,
and what is the impact on the safety of our communities as a
result?
Ms. Pyati. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, I am aware of a
number of cases around the country that really resonate with
what I was sharing earlier. I would say that one of the things
that happens is that when a person is afraid to come forward
and report crime or share information as a witness, our hands
are tied behind our back in terms of investigating. We also do
not then have a lot of media reports, for example, about those
individuals because, as stated, they are too afraid to come
forward, and so we do not get the splash that we might get
otherwise in these situations.
I do know that in El Paso, when there was an ICE pick-up of
a woman while she was receiving her protection order, a message
was sent, loud and clear, across the country, especially to
survivors of violence: ``if you use the criminal justice system
to report the crime committed against you by an abuser, if you
pursue what our system is here to offer, which is a protection
order, safety for you and your family, you could be a victim of
an arrest by ICE in that moment and possibly deported.''
And so, that had a very significant, chilling effect that
our national hotlines, our national advocates, and coalitions
across the country that work on domestic violence have been
reporting in the last month and a half or so, a very
significant drop-off.
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman, I would just say that----
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks,
all of you, for being here. I know it has been a long day. We
are almost done.
Sheriff, my first question is for you. Last year, I was a
legislator in Louisiana State Legislature, and in 2016, I
coauthored a bill to prohibit local governments and State
agencies from adopting sanctuary policies in our State. We were
going to penalize them by taking away their ability to borrow
money from certain projects from our State Bond Commission
unless they complied with the Federal law.
Ultimately, what happened down there was quite a saga. Our
Democrat governor, with the assistance of a few local law
enforcement officials in the New Orleans area, killed our
legislation. They argued that our efforts were political
pandering and that this was something that should remain solely
a Federal effort. I just was curious, from your perspective, as
a law enforcement official on the ground, as it were, you are
the top law enforcement official in your county. I know that
your state does not have such a ban, but if such a statute was
presented in Massachusetts, or in other States, for that
matter, do you think that is something that would be helpful, a
State law to ban sanctuary cities?
Sheriff Hodgson. State law banning, Congressman, sanctuary
cities? Yes, absolutely. I mean, look, I commend you for filing
that down in Louisiana. The reality is that we are basically
suggesting that there are certain laws that we can enforce and
certain laws that we cannot. Law enforcement cannot be put in
that position. And I think it is important to point out our
frontier has changed since 1993, when the first Trade Center
was hit, in regards to how we police our communities.
We are seeing a lot more gang activities through illegal
immigration and I know that these police chiefs, and I think it
is important for this committee to know--I am not going to say
all police chiefs, but I think it is important to be mindful of
the fact that police chiefs are appointed by mayors; sheriffs
are not. We are elected by the people, as you are, so we are
not beholden and our jobs are not relying and supporting our
families based on the political appointments that we get. I
think it is important for the committee to keep that in mind
when it comes to measuring what, unfortunately, many of the
chiefs' positions that they have and have been put into.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I appreciate you saying that, and
I wish I had had your testimony in Louisiana when I was
battling that last year.
Sheriff Hodgson. Any time you want me to come down.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. All right. As John Adams famously
said, he was distinguishing our republic from the monarchy in
Great Britain, what we were fleeing from, he famously said,
``We are a Nation of laws, not of men.'' And we have to follow
those laws and it is important to do that on a local and
regional level just as it is on a Federal level, or it
undermines that foundation of our republic.
Another question. Do you believe there is adequate
collaboration currently between Federal and local law
enforcement agencies on addressing illegal immigration? More
specifically, is there anything that maybe we could do to
improve the sharing of intelligence?
Sheriff Hodgson. Well, Congressman, I think that there is
always more we can do. I think there is some cyber things that
we can do through the internet and so forth that could help in
addition to the acceleration of the 287(g) program. That
becomes critically important because within our prisons across
this country we really are the central intelligence base. The
President pointed that out in a recent speech to the sheriffs
and I think most law enforcement people would agree with me
that that is critically important to have that information
shared back and forth on an ongoing basis. The extension of
287(g) and the acceleration of it would be great.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. That same theme of technology,
Judge Arthur, this is for you. Can you expand on why it is more
difficult for the court when asylum and Border Patrol agent
interviews are not electronic?
Judge Arthur. Absolutely, and it is a very good question.
Often, what will happen is asylum officers will present what
purports to be the statement of the alien. Sometimes it is
simply a summarization of what the alien said. If, in court,
the alien is confronted by the ICE attorney with a contrary
statement to one that is contained in the asylum application,
often they will say, ``I did not say that. That does not
accurately reflect it.'' I do not have the asylum officer in
front of me and unfortunately, ICE never provides them. So, to
have an actual electronic statement would allow me to look at
that and better identify any true inconsistencies which would
greatly aid in the decision.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. I think I have got 30
seconds left.
Ms. Vaughn, this one is for you. In your testimony, you
briefly mentioned how our local law enforcement agencies have
been affected by incarcerating illegal aliens on local charges
without the cooperation of ICE officers. I am just wondering if
you can expand on the State criminal alien assistance program
and what changes to the reimbursement program might need to be
made.
Ms. Vaughn. Well, I think it would be a good idea and more
effective to have that reimbursement funding tied to specific
cooperation, and that is honoring ICE detainers. In other
words, if a jurisdiction is not honoring ICE detainers, then
they become ineligible for SCAAP funding. I think that would be
a simple fix to the program that would be more directly
relevant to the situation today.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you all.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, will bat
clean-up.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the chairman and ranking
member for a very important hearing. Let me ask just a
straightforward question that deals with fixing the immigration
laws and allowing individuals to come from out of the shadows
and distinguishing individuals who are here as opposed to
criminals and others who happen to be unstatused. Mr. Hodgson,
would you support comprehensive immigrant reform, yes, or no?
Sheriff Hodgson. Congresswoman, I have been working on that
for 20 years, going back to the days of Henry Hyde and Barney
Frank. I worked on the first bill that made it through the
House.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I was probably around at the
time, sir. Good to see you. Ms. Vaughn, would you support
comprehensive immigration reform?
Ms. Vaughn. No, I think it makes much more sense. We learn
from----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Let me go on to Mr. Arthur.
Judge Arthur. I would probably recommend enforcement of the
immigration laws we have.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Would you support comprehensive
immigration reform? It takes into account enforcement. If you
look at the concept of the Gang of Eight, it takes into
enforcement. Would you support it?
Judge Arthur. I would have to look at the particulars of
any legislation.
Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. Let me----
Ms. Pyati. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes. Would you support----
Ms. Pyati. Yes, Congresswoman, I would support it.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much. Let me quickly
move forward on my questioning. All of us were appalled at the
killing of Kate Steinle and others who have suffered, but if we
are to correlate that tragedy to high crime work with non-
status people, as Republicans have tried to do, San Francisco
then would have a high murder rate and, as of 2015, there was
no rise in San Francisco's murder rate in the 26 years it has
had ``a sanctuary city.'' In fact, the city's murder rate has
fallen to its lowest level in decades, which I think is a very
important point.
The other point is that I would ask a yes or no question.
Do you think, in the context of unstatused, that we are trying
to deport the bad hombres that President Trump said? Is that,
Sheriff, what your focus would be, the bad hombres? Yes or no?
Sheriff Hodgson. That is exactly what the priority is.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Ms. Vaughn.
Ms. Vaughn. According to the Department of Homeland
Security----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes or no?
Ms. Vaughn [continuing]. There are about 2 million criminal
aliens in the country, and we should make them the top of the
priority for deportation. Of course, you know, others are
appropriate to deport as well.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Mr. Arthur? I am so sorry.
Judge Arthur. In my court, Ms. Jackson Lee, I would see
many individuals for a long period of time. I would see
individuals who had committed serious domestic violence
offenses.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So, you would think that the bad elements
should be the top priority, the bad hombres?
Judge Arthur. Unfortunately, I saw those people disappear
from my court. I do not know why. So, yes, I think that we
should definitely remove individuals who commit serial drunk
driving offenses like the chairman spoke about----
Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. Thank you very much.
Judge Arthur [continuing]. Horrible, domestic violence
offense.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Pyati, your view of that?
Ms. Pyati. Yes, thank you, Congresswoman. I certainly----
Ms. Jackson Lee. And I am only rushing because I want to
ask you a lengthier question, so it is just a yes or a no. Do
you think it should be focused on the bad hombres that should
be deported?
Ms. Pyati. I think we should be focusing on those with
serious criminal violations, yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
Ms. Pyati. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I would like to offer into the record this
comment: ``Trump supporter thought President would only deport
bad hombres; instead, her husband is being deported. Months
later, after she voted, Roberto Beristain, her husband, a
successful businessman, respected member of his Indiana town,
and father of three American-born children, languishes in a
detention facility with hardened criminals as he awaits his
deportation back to Mexico, the country he left in 1998 when he
entered the United States illegally.'' I ask unanimous consent
for that to be put into the record.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[COMMITTEE INSERT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I also ask unanimous consent to
be put into the record the statement of the Travis County
Sheriff's Office policy on cooperation with the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement to negate any suggestion
that the so-called sanctuary city label is that cities are not
cooperating with ICE. I ask unanimous consent to put that into
the record.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[COMMITTEE INSERT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. And I also ask to put into the record this
statement from the constitutional lawyers that this is
unconstitutional, the order by Sessions and the President of
the United States to penalize cities and deny them their money.
I hope one of them will sue. I ask unanimous consent.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Well, reserving the right to object, who
are these constitutional lawyers?
Ms. Jackson Lee. I am losing my time. I will pull that
back.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I would like to reserve the right to----
Ms. Jackson Lee. May I ask a question of Ms. Pyati?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Reserving the right to object, I would
like to find out----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Are you going to give me extra time? I
have a question for Ms. Pyati, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Just answer my question. You have been
asking----
Ms. Jackson Lee. There is a long list of, how many is it,
staff? How much?
No, there are more than that. They said they are
representing 292, 292, and they are from U.C. Irvine,
University of San Francisco, Denver, and SMU Dedman School of
Law, Southern Methodist. And there are 292. I can get those
names; they are not attached to the letter right now.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The ranking member says she has already
put that in the record.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. And may I ask my question?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Will you withdraw your unanimous consent
request?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay, thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. May I ask Ms. Pyati the question, please?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I ask unanimous consent the gentlewoman
from Texas be given an additional minute.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Pyati, I am
very familiar with the center. I think you know Marty down in
Texas, and we have been very close working on it. I think it is
very important to reemphasize how lives can be saved when we
give the opportunity for individuals who are unstatused to feel
free to report threats that not only can jeopardize the lives
of the significant other, the spouse, the girlfriend, but the
children in that home or in that context. Would you explain the
impact that you have seen that the women that you have helped,
of the children that have been involved, and how important is
it for there to be freedom for that----
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Ms.
Pyati, you may answer the question.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
Ms. Pyati. Thank you very much. Congresswoman, hello from
our Texas office at Tahirih Justice Center, where you know we
work hand in hand with Houston Police to help them to identify
and investigate trafficking in the area. Our work there, I
think, has been pioneering in attempting to bring trafficking
as a crime under some kind of control.
Right now, you have asked me to share with you something
about a client. We do have a client who spoke at a briefing
just a few weeks ago here in the House who shared that as a
woman who met her husband, a U.S. citizen, military husband,
overseas; he brought her here to the United States, and they
had a child together. Their son was autistic, and the son was
witnessing physical and emotional abuse in their home and was
struggling significantly.
She was afraid to contact law enforcement because her
husband continued to say to her, ``I am a citizen, and you do
not have status, and if you call the police, you will be
deported, and then our child will be with me, and you are out
of luck.'' And so, very desperately and very nervously, she
contacted us for help and worked to build up her courage and
eventually was able to cooperate with law enforcement, and her
husband was removed from the home, allowing the child then to
really flourish, and his autism has now significantly improved.
So, we can see not just sort of emotional impact
immediately, but certainly even cognitive and behavioral
changes when abusers are removed from the home and women are
able to care for their children in safety.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the chairman, and I thank the
witness.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentlewoman from California.
Ms. Lofgren. I would like to ask unanimous consent to put
in the record a letter from the Chief Justice of the California
State Supreme Court, appointed by a Republican, I might add, to
the Department of Homeland Security, asking that enforcement in
courtrooms in California cease.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chairman.
[The information follows:]
[COMMITTEE INSERT]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentlewoman from Washington.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous
consent to enter into the record the op-ed that I referred to
from our King County prosecutor, also a Republican.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[COMMITTEE INSERT]
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I guess this shows that we Republicans
are not like the Rockettes.
Ms. Jayapal. That is right.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. This concludes today's hearings. Thanks
to all of our witnesses for attending.
Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days
to submit additional written questions to the witnesses or
additional materials for the record, and without objection, the
hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]