Ranking Member Jamie Raskin's Opening Statement at Subcommittee Hearing on Immigration Enforcement

chairman began by saying the point here is to restore the rule of law restore the rule of law can you even pretend to do that if you stand by and support Donald Trump who on day one as the chairman of the committee just said day one of his presidency pardon 1,500 insurrectionists including hundreds of people who violently assaulted and attacked American police officers let's just take one person who is free today Julian Kar who had been convicted after having having every due process protection the right to counsel the right to cross-examine Witnesses the right to introduce evidence uh but they add him completely they knew exactly what happened most of this was videotaped so the whole world could see it well Julian Kar repeatedly violently assaulted our officer protecting us in Congress officer Brian snik who then proceeded to have several strokes and died on January the 7th 2021 the next day the family of officers snik is absolutely devastated and demolished by what's just happened I invite any of my colleagues including the members new to this committee who maybe weren't here on January 6 and didn't experience the trauma of that violent insurrection when we saw a mob marauding through here yelling hang Mike Pence hang Mike Pence and looking to assassinate Nancy Pelosi and now you have the tarity to come forward and say this is about Public Safety how much safer are we now with these 1500 criminals at large in Washington DC and going out into the country are you vouching that these are not these people are not going to be attacking any other police officers are you vouching that they're no longer a threat to Public Safety what an outrage what a scandal well the hearing has been called not on trying to deal with the public safety crisis created by the president on day one of his presidency but on immigration now time and again Democrats have reached across the aisle to fix our immigration system by finding common ground through compromise we did it in 1986 with a democratic Le house and a republic Le Senate when we passed the immigration reform signed into law by President Reagan four decades ago 2013 under President Obama Democrats work the Senate Republicans on a sweeping Immigration Reform Bill only to have House Republicans kill it because it threatens Speaker Boehner's grip on power last year under President Biden Democrats worked with Republican senator Langford to produce a tough border security deal with increased border Patrol with increased border technology with increased Asylum judges at the border but president Trump and House of Republicans openly and aggressively tanked the deal they sank the ship openly rejecting a bipartisan border agreement hiled by the most conservative Republicans in the Senate because they preferred to have a security crisis to run on than an actual border solution and yet as Democrats We Stand ready again again to work with our colleagues to fix the broken immigration system today unlawful Crossings at the border are much lower than they were when President Trump left office we made progress now is the time for us to T to tackle the daunting task of finding compromise and pragmatic solutions to fix the system that has not been updated in decades A system that relegates millions of people to the shadows and leaves other people in limbo let's secure the Border let's make it a lot lot harder to get into America illegally and a lot easier to get into America lawfully that's what America wants to see let's not use immigration to destroy our constitution unbelievable that a lot of my friends on the other side of the aisle are sitting by idly while Donald Trump proposes by executive order to destroy section one of the 14th Amendment which establishes that everybody born in the United States is a citizen of the United States and yet they just let that go all of these originalists and textualists who claim to care about what the Constitution stands for that was the whole purpose and meaning of the 14th Amendment and now they want to destroy Birthright citizenship in America moving to a citizenship based on race instead of a citizenship based on place which was the whole purpose of the 14th Amendment to overturn The Dread Scott Decision well we're obviously going to have some differences moving forward because they don't want real solutions they just want to demagogue the immigration issue that doesn't move America forward it's just like they demagogued the issue of inflation they said they were going to bring down prices in rent in utilities energy costs they said they were going to bring down the price of groceries not a single peep from them about that on day one no it's just about releasing all the violent insurrectionist the proud boys and the oathkeepers who are out there today saying that they want revenge that's the real program for America but let's hear what their specific proposals are about immigration if they make sense then we will get behind them but if it's just more demagogy Mr chairman I'm afraid we're going to have to let it pass thank you and I yield back