Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s Opening Statement at Subcommittee Hearing on Immigration Enforcement

uh immigration to the United States has played an important role over the centuries in making America a vibrant prosperous and successful country but it is broadly agreed that our current immigration system is broken we need to make necessary reforms and then vigorously enforce the law we need to provide the resources necessary to secure the border and provide that only those who are permitted entry to the United States are in fact so ad um the resources should include adequate Personnel technology and other tools to allow for the orderly entry of only those who secured the proper permission for entry uh but we also need to change the law to reform the law and when we look to the administration I think sometimes we should look in the mirror because the necessary reform of immigration law is a failure of Congress uh we have tried over the years to improve the law and in every case have failed with our immigration system broken and no longer F uh functioning as it was once intended change is necessary now I would include that from families separated due to overly punitive laws to a disfunctional employment-based system mired in unworkable backlogs to a lengthy and overly complex uh Asylum process that has been exploited by transnational criminal organizations praying upon the desperate the immigration and nationality act screams for reform the failure to do that I believe as the chairman has indicated did lead uh to an election of someone who promised to engage in Mass deportations which I don't believe is necessarily the answer to the challenge that we Face uh without reform of the law the executive is now uh trying to use a section of the law 212f in a way that it was probably never intended and in the in the past the courts have disallowed uh the frustration with our immigration uh border uh problem has also led the president uh to to engage in a direct attack on the Constitution uh the 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside that's pretty clear and there's uh going back to uh the adoption of this amendment there's never been a question uh about if you're born here you're an American but there's a direct assault on that and the idea that this is being done in the in the uh effort to preserve Public Safety I think is bellied by the other executive action taken by the president just yesterday where the president Trump uh pardoned hundreds of felons who violently attacked police officers on January 6th decision to release violent criminals into our community makes America less safe more than 1500 criminals were pardoned including and I'll just mention three Steve capucho who uh ripped off officer Daniel hodges's gas mask and beat him in the face while he was stuck in a door and the attack was so violent that capucho held his phone in his M so he could beat officer Hobbs with both hands DJ Rodriguez who joined a mob attacking officer Michael fenon and repeatedly shocked him in the neck with a taser causing him to lose Consciousness and suffer a heart attack and David Dempsey who climbed over other riers to get officers where he stomped on at least one officer's head beat officers with a flag pole a crutch and a broken piece of furniture and sprayed officers faces with pepper spray don't tell me that the motivation uh for immigration Crackdown is Public Safety when we release these violent criminals back into our communities uh Mr chairman as you know I used to teach immigration law uh and I well understand the need for reform uh but I do hope that we will require executive actions to comply with existing law and turn our attention to the necessary reforms that is really our Province here in the United States Congress and with that I yield back your's now