If anyone doubts that the Obama Administration has consistently undermined and sabotaged immigration law enforcement, the revelations of a recent hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest should lay those doubts to rest.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the chairman of the subcommittee, wanted to find out why deportations of illegal aliens from the interior declined from 236,000 in 2009 to 72,000 in 2015, a drop-off of 70 percent. Also, he wanted to know how this could have happened when the funding given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) increased from $2.75 billion in 2012 to $3.4 billion in 2015.
So during the hearing he raised these issues with Thomas Homan, executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations at ICE. Inquired Sessions, “Can you explain, Mr. Homan, how the numbers have dropped so significantly when you have a 25 increase percent in your budget?” Homan replied that sanctuary jurisdictions, cities, counties and states which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities are a major source of the problem. But Sen. Sessions disagreed, noting that sanctuary policies in many places were in effect before Obama.
Then he asked Homan, “Isn’t it true that ICE officers get calls every day from ... departments all over America, not the sanctuary cities, and you’re not responding to them because they don’t meet the guidelines or the priorities established by the president?”
Homan replied, “That is true.” Sessions pressed on, asking, “So it’s not true then that the reason your numbers are down is because you don’t have people to deport. You have people to deport, but you have policies that tell you not to deport whole categories of people that are here unlawfully; isn’t that correct?” The ICE official conceded, “That’s a factor, yes sir.”
Interior enforcement aside, the administration claims that it has made strides in securing the Mexican border. But Brandon Judd, head of the union representing Border Patrol agents, had a very different message for the subcommittee. He testified that the administration has instituted a “catch and release” policy which lets as many as 80 percent of apprehended illegal aliens go free.
Said Judd, “If you are an unaccompanied minor we will not only release you, but will escort you to your final destination. If you are a family unit, we will release you. If you claim credible fear [of persecution] we will release you. If you are a single male, and we do not physically see you cross the border, and you claim that you have been in the country since 2014, we will release you.”
Another witness was Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “The Obama Administration,” he explained, “has embraced a radical new approach to immigration law. It has, without the consent of Congress, transformed violation of immigration law into a ‘secondary offense.’ That is to say, the goal is to ensure that an alien faces consequences of breaking immigration law only if he breaks some other ‘real’ law involving, say, violence or drug dealing.”
Are immigration laws “secondary” and essentially insignificant? This is only the case if one believes that we the American people – who authorized those laws through our elected representatives – should have no say-so as to what kind of country we want to have. Our immigration laws express our preferences in terms of population size, which has a direct bearing on conservation of natural resources and environmental protection. They also express our preferences for social harmony and economic opportunity for our citizens.
Nonenforcement of immigration law sends the message to those outside of our country and foreign governments that their wishes and preferences will determine what we will be. That our government is allowing this to happen is nothing short of treason.
If you haven’t yet joined the CAPS team, please join with us today and help us fight for reasonable immigration policy and enforcement of immigration laws.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the chairman of the subcommittee, wanted to find out why deportations of illegal aliens from the interior declined from 236,000 in 2009 to 72,000 in 2015, a drop-off of 70 percent. Also, he wanted to know how this could have happened when the funding given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) increased from $2.75 billion in 2012 to $3.4 billion in 2015.
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| Thomas Homan, ICE official. |
So during the hearing he raised these issues with Thomas Homan, executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations at ICE. Inquired Sessions, “Can you explain, Mr. Homan, how the numbers have dropped so significantly when you have a 25 increase percent in your budget?” Homan replied that sanctuary jurisdictions, cities, counties and states which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities are a major source of the problem. But Sen. Sessions disagreed, noting that sanctuary policies in many places were in effect before Obama.
Then he asked Homan, “Isn’t it true that ICE officers get calls every day from ... departments all over America, not the sanctuary cities, and you’re not responding to them because they don’t meet the guidelines or the priorities established by the president?”
Homan replied, “That is true.” Sessions pressed on, asking, “So it’s not true then that the reason your numbers are down is because you don’t have people to deport. You have people to deport, but you have policies that tell you not to deport whole categories of people that are here unlawfully; isn’t that correct?” The ICE official conceded, “That’s a factor, yes sir.”
Interior enforcement aside, the administration claims that it has made strides in securing the Mexican border. But Brandon Judd, head of the union representing Border Patrol agents, had a very different message for the subcommittee. He testified that the administration has instituted a “catch and release” policy which lets as many as 80 percent of apprehended illegal aliens go free.
Said Judd, “If you are an unaccompanied minor we will not only release you, but will escort you to your final destination. If you are a family unit, we will release you. If you claim credible fear [of persecution] we will release you. If you are a single male, and we do not physically see you cross the border, and you claim that you have been in the country since 2014, we will release you.”
Another witness was Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “The Obama Administration,” he explained, “has embraced a radical new approach to immigration law. It has, without the consent of Congress, transformed violation of immigration law into a ‘secondary offense.’ That is to say, the goal is to ensure that an alien faces consequences of breaking immigration law only if he breaks some other ‘real’ law involving, say, violence or drug dealing.”
Are immigration laws “secondary” and essentially insignificant? This is only the case if one believes that we the American people – who authorized those laws through our elected representatives – should have no say-so as to what kind of country we want to have. Our immigration laws express our preferences in terms of population size, which has a direct bearing on conservation of natural resources and environmental protection. They also express our preferences for social harmony and economic opportunity for our citizens.
Nonenforcement of immigration law sends the message to those outside of our country and foreign governments that their wishes and preferences will determine what we will be. That our government is allowing this to happen is nothing short of treason.
If you haven’t yet joined the CAPS team, please join with us today and help us fight for reasonable immigration policy and enforcement of immigration laws.
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