Sanctuary Jurisdictions: Magnet for Migrants, Cover for Criminals
House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement
2025-04-09
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Source: Congress.gov
Participants
Transcript
The subcommittee will come to order. I apologize for our late start. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. I want to welcome everyone to today's hearing on sanctuary jurisdictions. Without objection, Mr. Baumgartner will be permitted to participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning the witnesses if a member yields him time for that purpose and to introduce a witness. And I'll now recognize myself for an opening statement. Our subcommittee meets today to address the continuing efforts of Democratic jurisdictions to nullify federal immigration laws and obstruct law enforcement officials in their vital efforts to uphold these laws. They self righteously call themselves sanctuary cities. But the sanctuary they offer is to violent criminals who prey upon not only our own citizens, but on immigrant communities themselves. During the last four years, the Democrats deliberately trafficked into our country more than 8 million unvetted and illegal migrants, including some of the most dangerous, vicious, and violent criminals and cartels in the world. They did nothing when local law enforcement agencies from across this country warned this committee that foreign criminal cartels and gangs were establishing themselves throughout the country. The Sinaloa Cartel, Tren de Aragua, MS-13 prominent among them. When the grieving families of the victims of their policies were introduced on the House floor, the Democrats sat in stony, contemptuous silence. When those same families warned this committee about the devastating effect of these sanctuary policies, Democrats offered platitudes and then implied they were exaggerating the threat. When local and federal law enforcement officials warned that these policies were endangering law enforcement officers and the communities themselves, The Democrats ridiculed them. Well, the American people finally had enough of the Democrats gaslighting and callous disregard for public safety.
For years, the Democrats had told us they were powerless to stop this mass illegal migration without allowing at least 4000 illegal migrants a day into the country and offering amnesty to those already here. Yet on Inauguration Day, President Trump put the lie to all of that. President Trump ordered our laws to actually be enforced. Within weeks, illegal crossings at the southern border plunged 96%. Migrant caravans en route to this country broke up in Mexico and dispersed. Migrants crossing the perilous Darien Gap dropped 99%. By February, monthly illegal border crossings plunged from $37,000 in February of 24 to 408 this past February. ICE has now arrested more than 100,000 illegal migrants, most of them with criminal records. With the Border Patrol refocused, gotaways have fallen from 95 percent from an average of 1,800 a day to 77. Now, the work before us is enormous. The largest illegal mass migration in recorded history must now be followed by the largest mass repatriation in history, and congressional Republicans stand squarely behind the president. There are still an estimated 600,000 on the non-detained docket that were set loose in our country. Right behind them are 1.4 million illegal migrants who have already received a final court order of deportation that they will simply ignore. Now, instead of recognizing and respecting the wish and will of the American people to see their communities made safe again and their borders made secure again. The Democrats continue to obstruct the enforcement of our immigration laws for the first time since antebellum days. The Democrats have returned to their doctrine of nullification that recalcitrant jurisdictions can simply defy and nullify federal law.
Take Adam County, Washington, for example. When a rural county sheriff's office had the audacity to cooperate with federal officials to remove dangerous illegals from their streets, the state's woke Democratic Attorney General sued them. In Chicago, when lifelong residents begged their city government to protect them, Mayor Brandon Johnson did everything he could to silence them. In the Denver suburbs, when struggling families appealed to city officials for help as armed Venezuelan gangs took over their apartment complex, The Democrats called them liars. And before this committee, as mothers recounted the senseless, brutal, and entirely preventable rapes and murders of their daughters at the hands of illegal aliens that the Democrats had deliberately released into their communities, our Democratic colleagues put on their best long faces, offered platitudes, and then advocated for the same policies that created this humanitarian disaster. And they still don't get it. Across the country, Democratic sanctuary jurisdictions are doubling down on these horrific policies. In February, in my home state of California, Governor Gavin Newsom approved $50 million in state funds to be used for, quote, legal defenses against the Trump administration, half of which is for nonprofits to provide legal aid to aliens and removal proceedings. Jurisdictions like San Diego and Los Angeles have hardened their sanctuary policies, to further thwart the enforcement of our immigration laws. San Francisco leads a lawsuit against the Trump administration to try to prevent the administration from withholding federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions that are in open defiance of federal law. In December, the Boston City Council unanimously voted in favor of keeping the city's sanctuary status. Last month, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson defended the city's sanctuary status at a congressional hearing repeating discredited and utterly absurd claims that returning criminals into our communities actually make those communities safer.
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