CQ reported that: Republicans unloaded on a top Immigration official Wednesday, charging that the Obama administration's policies were rewriting the country's deportation policy without congressional approval.
At a time when Capitol Hill gridlock dooms any Immigration bill, the hearing allowed lawmakers to expound on familiar themes such as border security and the Obama administration's perceived attempts to bypass Congress. Immigration also has become an issue in this year's Republican presidential primary campaign.
For the past two months, Republican lawmakers have criticized Department of Homeland Security memos instructing officials to target for deportation only illegal immigrants who have been convicted of felonies or who pose a national security threat. Immigration agents would not pursue young people brought to the country illegally as children or people with family ties in the United States under the new policy. Officials have said the changes reflect the need for the government to prioritize its cases in a time of limited resources.
Republicans have derided the policy as "administrative amnesty" and assailed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton -- one of the architects of the policy -- at a hearing of the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. The changes "are in defiance of both the constitutional separation of powers and the will of the American public," said subcommittee Chairman Elton Gallegly, R-Calif.
Republican Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the full committee, said the policy could lead to 300,000 pending cases being thrown out.
"The administration is sending an open invitation to millions of illegal immigrants," he said. "They know that if they come here illegally, they will be able to stay because Immigration laws are not enforced."
Even though congressional appropriations for Immigration enforcement are the highest they have ever been, funding still allows the agency the resources to deport only about 400,000 illegal immigrants a year, well short of the estimated 11 million in the country.
"In a given year, we can remove about 400,000 people, and the question it comes down to is: 'Who are those 400,000 going to be?' " Morton said. "You could have an approach that says it's the first 400,000 you encounter on the street. We have taken a different approach, which is in a world where there are far more than 400,000 people than we could remove, we want to focus those limited resources on the ones that make the most sense."
More than half the people deported in fiscal year 2011 had criminal records, Morton said.
But Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said he worried that the administration's approach represented a "politicization of the criminal justice system."
In June, Morton wrote a memo allowing ICE officials to use their "prosecutorial discretion" to decide whether to pursue deportation cases, something that agency heads had exercised in the past. Morton said agents could consider an immigrant's length of stay in the country, family ties, military service, age or criminal history. It also said officials should give "particular consideration" to young people who have graduated from high school and who are pursuing a college education.
That provision pleased supporters of a long-running legislative attempt to grant legal status to young people who enroll in college or join the military, a bill (HR 1842) known as the DREAM Act.
In August, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano followed up on Morton's memo and outlined a new policy that would call on officials to re-examine every pending case and convene a special group tasked with writing guidance to agents.
Immigration» hard-liners called it a backdoor attempt to allow undocumented people to stay in the country permanently.
"What the president is doing is unfair to the 26 million American workers who are unemployed or underemployed," Gallegly said. "Amnesty is also unfair to those who are waiting to legally immigrate to the United States."
Smith has introduced legislation (HR 2497) that would prohibit the administration from using its discretion in deciding which Immigration cases to pursue. The bill would expire at the end of President Obama's first term, a provision that Democrats say proves it is nothing more than a partisan gimmick.
At a time when Capitol Hill gridlock dooms any Immigration bill, the hearing allowed lawmakers to expound on familiar themes such as border security and the Obama administration's perceived attempts to bypass Congress. Immigration also has become an issue in this year's Republican presidential primary campaign.
For the past two months, Republican lawmakers have criticized Department of Homeland Security memos instructing officials to target for deportation only illegal immigrants who have been convicted of felonies or who pose a national security threat. Immigration agents would not pursue young people brought to the country illegally as children or people with family ties in the United States under the new policy. Officials have said the changes reflect the need for the government to prioritize its cases in a time of limited resources.
Republicans have derided the policy as "administrative amnesty" and assailed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton -- one of the architects of the policy -- at a hearing of the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. The changes "are in defiance of both the constitutional separation of powers and the will of the American public," said subcommittee Chairman Elton Gallegly, R-Calif.
Republican Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the full committee, said the policy could lead to 300,000 pending cases being thrown out.
"The administration is sending an open invitation to millions of illegal immigrants," he said. "They know that if they come here illegally, they will be able to stay because Immigration laws are not enforced."
Even though congressional appropriations for Immigration enforcement are the highest they have ever been, funding still allows the agency the resources to deport only about 400,000 illegal immigrants a year, well short of the estimated 11 million in the country.
"In a given year, we can remove about 400,000 people, and the question it comes down to is: 'Who are those 400,000 going to be?' " Morton said. "You could have an approach that says it's the first 400,000 you encounter on the street. We have taken a different approach, which is in a world where there are far more than 400,000 people than we could remove, we want to focus those limited resources on the ones that make the most sense."
More than half the people deported in fiscal year 2011 had criminal records, Morton said.
But Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said he worried that the administration's approach represented a "politicization of the criminal justice system."
In June, Morton wrote a memo allowing ICE officials to use their "prosecutorial discretion" to decide whether to pursue deportation cases, something that agency heads had exercised in the past. Morton said agents could consider an immigrant's length of stay in the country, family ties, military service, age or criminal history. It also said officials should give "particular consideration" to young people who have graduated from high school and who are pursuing a college education.
That provision pleased supporters of a long-running legislative attempt to grant legal status to young people who enroll in college or join the military, a bill (HR 1842) known as the DREAM Act.
In August, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano followed up on Morton's memo and outlined a new policy that would call on officials to re-examine every pending case and convene a special group tasked with writing guidance to agents.
Immigration» hard-liners called it a backdoor attempt to allow undocumented people to stay in the country permanently.
"What the president is doing is unfair to the 26 million American workers who are unemployed or underemployed," Gallegly said. "Amnesty is also unfair to those who are waiting to legally immigrate to the United States."
Smith has introduced legislation (HR 2497) that would prohibit the administration from using its discretion in deciding which Immigration cases to pursue. The bill would expire at the end of President Obama's first term, a provision that Democrats say proves it is nothing more than a partisan gimmick.
No comments:
Post a Comment