Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Deporting Critically Ill Kids 20240713

Thank you all for swrojoining u today. The subcommittee will come to order. The chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. The decision to deport children with critical illnesses, a decision that was recently reversed following public outrage and pressure from the subcommittee. I will now recognize myself for five minutes to give an Opening Statement then turn to the Ranking Member. We are here to get to the bottom of the administrations mysterious campaign to deport critically ill children and their families. It appears that this policy has thankfully been reversed. They rose up in an outcry at the cold humanity on display. Im going to treat this hearing not only as an honor to Elijah Cummings, but as a hearing in direct pursuit of a policy objective that was close to his heart. The threatened deportation of Sick Children was such an outrage the to chairman cummings that his last official act before his death was to issue subpoenas to hold the administration to his account. On wednesday in the waning hours of his life through all his pain and difficulty, chairman cummings recognized the indelible stain that this policy would leave on our nation and he made holding the government accountable his final official act and we now have a sacred obligation to follow through on his subpoenas to make sure we defend some of the most Vulnerable People on the planet. Sick children who has come as strangers to our land to seek medical assistance. So to our witnesses today, i want to be clear, this subcommittee intended to follow through on chairman cummings promise to unearth the truth behind this policy and his desire to ensure the policy is reversed and that our government treats people in this category with the dignity they zverev. Not only do we owe that to our late beloved chairman, but we owe it to maria, to jonathan sanchez, to serena and all of the immigrants whose health and lives were threatened by the policy implemented by uscis. Uscis must first explain the current policy on deferred action. It cant keep the process shrouded in secrecy while these kids wait to hear their fate. If we could go to the slide. On september 18th, the deputy of Homeland Security ordered the acting director, mr. Kuch nelly, whos with us here today, to quote ensure that effective immediately, uscis resumes its consideration of nondeferred requests on a case by case basis. It is unclear whether they have actually granted relief the anyone since reversing course. He further ordered them to quote ensure that the procedure for considering and responding to deferred action requests is consistent and that discretionary deferred action is granted only based on compelling facts and circumstances. What does this mean . What is the problem that uscis is try iing to fix . What changings are being considered . Will outside stake holders be consulted . We want to have maximum transparency to ensure that ucsis is not imposing unreasonable requirements on immigrants who deserve our attention and mercy. In the meantime, they should explain what will happen to people whose prior deferrals have expired while their renewals are still under review. Weve heard from the family of a 12yearold boy with an incurable condition that could cause him to bleed to death if not treated correctly. Both of his parents applied in march to renew their deferrals, but have been waiting for months without any decision at all. His fathers deterribferral expn august. His mothers in january. Without a deferral, neither parent would be authorized to stay or work in the United States threatening their able thety to work and care for their sick son. So what do they do while agency is trying to decide how to reinstate deferred action . How many more people are stuck in this kind of limbo and what will we do to protect them . We want basic answers to these questions and we come here not in any kind of gotcha spirit, we just want to deal with a serious problem that was brought to our committee. The on yoing confusion regarding deferred action reflects the same kind of chaos that apparently produced this policy in the first place and that prompted our last hear iing. And for which the administration i hope today will provide us answers. What little weve been able to learn about how u this policy came to to be indicates it was undertaken in haste without effort to ascertain what its health and life threatening affects would be on the people affected. At our hearing in september, we heard the compelling stories of people who were directly harmed by the policy. Isabel, a 24yearold woman suffering from a rare disease, testified that deportation would be quote a death sentence for me. She told us, i want to live. Im a human being with hopes and dreams in my life. Jonathan sanchez, a 16yearold suffering from Cystic Fibrosis, a disease that affects people in my family. Jonathan sanchez told us that upon learning he was facing deportation, he broke down in tears pleading quote, i do not want to die. I dont want to die. If i go back to honduras now, i will die. In his words, quote, its incredibly unfair to kick out sick kids who were in the hospital or at home taking treatments and who are just trying to have better tu opportunities to live. The its obvious from the testimony they did not realize what the real world implications of its policy would be or it knew and decided to go ahead. Either reality i think would be damning but the effects on maria and jonathan would be foreseeable if they sought Public Feedback before institute ing new policy. According to uscis, it failed to consult a single external stake hold er before jeopardizing these families. Making mattersers worse, they did not issue any public announcement about the policy or provide any guidance to people in maria and jonathans situation or any of the critically ill children and their families about what would come next. Why not . Is it their practice to implement policy shifts like this without providing Public Notice . Sadly, the threatened deportation of sick kids is just one example of this administrations mistreatment of immigrant children. It is not the only one. Uscic has engaged in a pattern of developing policies that endanger children. Since you took office, uscis has eliminated automatic citizenship for children of u. S. Soldiers introduced new barriers for immigrant kids fleeing Domestic Abuse in their home countries and rolled out a rule that has scared many families from health and nutrition services. Each of these acts an affront to chairman cummings philosophy that children are the living message that we send forward to a future we will never see. The last hearing he attended was our september 11th on this issue. Treating children with dignity was so important to him that he made a point to come down from baltimore despite his advanced d failing health. At that hearing, elijah said quote, i really do think we are in a moral situation. People are striving to live. They are trying to breathe the air of our country. Theyre trying to be better. Theyre trying to be healthy. Chairman cummings, who was striving to live at that moment, trying to be healthy. Wanted these children to have the same access to medical treatment thhe did. We will honor the chairmans memory and the humanity of all of those seeking deferred action by conducting rigorous oversight and working to guarantee that this Administration Treats Immigrants with the dignity they zver deserve. I welcome todays witnesses. Were delighted that you came today. But we want to make sure that we see no further bureaucratic stone walling and confusion on these matters. We want clarity. Were hear for answers and we will not stop until we get them. We thank you for coming and now im delighted to recognize the distinguished Ranking Member of our committee, mr. Roy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for coming up here and visiting with us today. I will reiterate what i said in the hearing last week that obviously our continued prayers are with the family of chairman cummings and with his staff. We obviously had a great event here in the capitol last week and honored to participate in that and we will continue to move forward in this committee. Carrying forward the chairmans legacy and wanting to do whats right. And to be better. Right . I want to say one thing and it will not surprise the chairman that i raise this issue, that currently, there are two depositions going on and theres depositions are, or at least two are scheduled today. One i think is going on now. In another part of the capitol and its imb possible for me possible for me to be in two places at once so im sitting here and i want to carry out my duties to do that and im unable to go hear that and im unable to easily see crytranscripts. Its not easy to catch up on what im doing. I dont think thats the way to carry out things. Theres going to be a vote tomorrow on this process sh, but i would suggest this is part of the problem b in real time. So anybody watching this, this is the problem with this current broken process. Here im sitting, there are few members here, at least on our side. I would note my prayers and wishes to mr. Heist whose father pennsylvanassed away yesterday, dont think this is the way we should be conducting those kinds of inquiries. Today, we have a hearing titled the administrations decision to deport critically ill children and their families. I would take issue with that title. I dont believe thats what the administration was seeking to do. I think that were talking about a process change and that we tugt get ought to get to that. This is a topic that involves deferred action requests for people not lawfully present seeking to stay for sympathetic reasons. Its not the first. Weve had the hearing on 9 11, but to be clear, deferred action is not a policeman. Deferred action is a decision, right . A decision and a judgment call reserved for those with prosecutorial powers and we ought to treat it that way then have a discussion about policy changes if there are any to be had for anybody whos here and overstayed a visa and is in a situation that the chairman described. Were just tedealing with polic change that would have taken uscis and has no Real Authority to carry out if i understand it correctly then use Decision Making to those that have that power. They announced they would evaluate pending claims subject to policy change. They sent a letter to the committee a day before the hearing noting that individuals who sent requests after august 7th were not under imminent threat of removal. To my understanding, none of the deferred individuals have been targeted for deportation and on a letter September September 19th, its returning to the deferred action process in place on august 6th. So nobodys being treated any better or worse than they were on august 6 th. Its how to have the right policy. We have sympathy for anyone whos sick, but we need real solutions. No one here or in the administration wants anyone to not be able to get treatment or be treated unfairly or live in uncertainty, but we have deal with the real world where we have people here who lose status and we have to figure out what to do with that. Perpetuating a stay here over your visa sand beg for intermittent deferrals that are not rooted in law and seek action and leave them in additional limbo, thats not a good policy. Yet thats the existing policy. If Congress Wants a different visa class or otherwise to solve the problem, it should act. This is something i beat the drum on many issues. Congress wants to solve problems, sh they should act. They have the problem the to power policies. We should all seek a system rooted in sound policy. I remind my democratic colleagues this was at the root of the decision regarding the daca class and current debate on the class with respect to approving status for people who overstay their existing visas, we have deferred action which is prosecutori prosecutorial discretion. We cant give a status to a group of people to a name of diskrex. This hearing involves a situation that affects roughly 900 people and its at the status joe an ante. But Border Patrol agents along the southern border encountered a Million People trying to enter the country illegally. A million. Today, were talk iing about 90. But that number, the specific number is 977,509. With plus inadmissibles, there were 1. 148 Enforcement Actions by cvp. Were talking about 900 versus 851,000 that were talking about here in apprehensions. Were not talking about the 224 pounds of fentanyl seized crossing our southern border this last fiscal year. In one little sugar packet of fentanyl would kill everyone in this room. Were not having a hearing about the weapons intercepted. Up from last year. The fact that they apprehended 12 different gang members. There are 576,000 immigrant fugitives. 576,000. Over half a Million People who have been given a final order of removal by a judge and theyre still wandering around the United States. According to i. C. E. , theyve seen a double digit drop due personnel and resources theyve had to deploy to the border. This is where we have real problems. Our border is porous and vulnerable to crimes by cartels and traffickers who are taking advantage of migrants. They abuse children as problem bs for asylum. There were 473,000 family units this year. The highest on record. We could discus 5,400 cases of fraud from the family units and children who were being exploited to come to the United States. Lets talk about those migrants being abused today on the journey through mexico. We have 50,000 apprehensions in september. 50,000. Were talk iing about the numbe being down. Why . Because they were down from over 100,000 in may. Yet the reality whats happening right now on the board rer today but were not having hearings on that. Were having a hearing on something that has no discernible difference from where it was on august 6th. I understand the skrn of the chairman about the questions about the policies, but were talk iing about something that been largely addressed with respect to the concern the majority has and if we want to have a conversation about a policy, sit around a round table and figure out what we can do to have legislation that might have concerns, but lets talk about the other things we can do. Fixing asylum. Catch and release flores. Tvpra. We could fix these on one piece of paper in one day if we had the will to do it i. We could fund the i. C. E. And Border Patrol properly. The level that president obama asked for. Upwards of a billion dollars that he asked for to deal with the unaccompanied alien children in 2014 in 2015 yet we only got 250 billion for i. C. E. And that was constrained and not been able to use. This issue affects 900 people for whom we have great sympathy, but on an average day this year, that is three times less than the total number crossing during one Border Patrol shift. Think about that. One Border Patrol shift. Todays cvp apprehends roughly a day. In may, it was 5,000. If the chairman wants address the facts these defeshl rs not programs and prosecutorial discretion, lets discuss that and figure out a system that will work and that we can Work Together to try to figure that out but in the context of our very, very broken system and Border Security. Thank you. Thank you for your thoughtful remarks and as always, im very eager to work with you and all of our colleagues on comprehensive immigration reform, but you correctly del delineate what the object of todays hearing is which is to focus on this question and were going to do it and i think im hopeful well get the answers we need and we can move on to work on other stuff. There are several memberses of the committee who have come today both out of their interest in the subject, but also in a tribute to chairman cummings so without objection, i would wave them on. Mr. Ruda, cooper and desona are are members of the broader committee joining us on the subcommittee including miss kelly and mr. Gomez who have arooufed over here and also thank you mr. White for telling us about mr. Heiss father. I was not aware of that. Our prayers and thoughts go out to them. It seems like were just going to too many funerals these days. Were sending him the strength and encouragement. With that, toipt welcome our witnesses today. Ken, the acting director of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at Homeland Security. Welcome. And matthew, the acting director of the u. S. Immigration and customs. If the witnesses would kindly rise and raid their right hands, i will swear you in. Do you swear the testimony youre about to give is the truth so help you god . Then let the record show the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. You may be seated. Please speak directly into the microphone. Any written statements you brought or decide to provide will be made. Youre recognized to give an oral presentation of your testimony. Good morning. I want to express my condolences on the passing of chairman couple uings and i appreciate his dedication to representing the people of marylands seventh district for 23 years. Im the acting director of United States citizenship and Immigration Services. Uscis administers the u. Nited states lawful immigration system. The mission is to safeguard the system by fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while americans, securing the homeland and honoring our values. I can see, i can tell you im extremely proud of the work and frofsalism i see every day by the employees and service to america. In 2019, just ended, uscis achief chiefed many of President Trumps xwoels to make our system work better. Weve tirelessly worked with our fell le dhs components to address President Trumps call to address the crisis at our southern border. Weve taken significant steps to mitigate the loopholes in our asylum system particularly in the absence of congressional action. Combatting frivolous claims and strengthening the protections we have in place the to preserve humanitarian assistance for those truly eligible for r it. The workload we face is staggering. In 2019 k, we adjudicating 7. 5 million requests for imgrant benefits. A 14 increase over the Previous Year with only a 2 increase in fee income. Demonstrating improved cost effectiveness even as we face many challenges. This represents the full spectrum of immigration benefits that our laws provide to those seeking to come to the United States. Temperatu temporarily or permanently and those who seek to become sciti n citize citizens. Last year, we naturalized the most in more than a decade. Deferred action is the exercise of discretion to defer Removal Action on a case by case basis against an alien for a certain period of time. Deferred action is not an immigration benefit. Or specific form of relief. Does not provide lawful immigration status and does not excuse any past or future periods of unlawful presence. Importantly, deferred action can be terminated at any time at the agencys discretion. Historically, uscis does not receive many nonmilitar nonmilitarynonmilitary, nonmilitary, nondaca requests. Uscis has received 1,000 such requests annually. Some are for Family Support or medical issues. This has frequently been incorrectly reported or by the media and some in congress as a medical deferred action program. To be clear, dhs does not and has never administered a medical deferred action program. Only congress can provide permanent immigration relief to an entire class of aliens. Deferred action is a practice in which the secretary exercises Enforcement Discretion to notify an alien of the agencys decision to fore bear from seek l the aliens removal for a designated period of time. However, they do not enforce orders of removal thus to better align u srscis with its mission administering the nations lawful immigration system. On august 7th, uscis determined its field offices would no longer accept military requests for action. This redetection of resources did not affect daca, which remains in effect according to the nationwide injunction while cases go through the court system. It also did not affect other deferred action requests that Service Centers under statutes or policies or regulations or court orders. On september 2nd, they announce ed the agency would reopen previously pending nonmilitary deferred action requests. Further on september 18th, acting secretary directed uscis to resume consideration of requests on a discretionary case by case basis except as oth otherwise required by an Applicable Court order. He further directed uscis to consider the responding is consistent throughout and that discretionary case by case deferred action is granted only based on compelling facts and circumstances. Call cases denied around august 7th have been reopen and are pursuant to the acting secretarys september 18th directive. That concludes by statement. Thank you. Welcome. I also want to express my condolences on the passing of chairman coupummings. On september 11th, 2019, i testified on this matter before this committee. At the time of that hearing, the i. C. E. Witness, the acting executive associate director for removal operations, tim robins, stated he was not aware of anyone at i. C. E. Being aware in the decision to end the program. He explained that i. C. E. Lacks program or mechanics to consider an action request, but described a variety of ways that i. C. E. Utilizes discretion on a case by case basis. Contrary to claims made by this committee and the media about the willingness to answer questions, the only questions are witness declined to answer regarding possible future actions being considered by the acting secretary of Homeland Security and requests related to internal issues of which he had no knowledge. And as a committee is aware within a few days of the hearing, acting secretary directs uscis resumed on a diskrecreche nation case by cas basis. In addition to our previous testimony, i. C. E. Provides several responses to several questions to the committee in a letter on september 24th, 2019 and letter dates october 15th, 2019, dhs further clarified that i. C. E. Had no part in the previous decision. So even though i. C. E. s abilities are not here today and theyve resumed consideration of these requests, a process in which i. C. E. Is not involved, im here today and prepare d to answer questions you may have in regarding i. C. E. s role or lack there of in this matter. However, i want to state i believe this continued repetition does a tremendous disservice to the dedicated men and women of i. C. E. And just as important ly, does a disservice to the American Public who deserve transparency and facts regarding the operation of their government. In a day and age individuals are committing violent acts and making threats on officers, employees and their families, to continue to suggest that i. C. E. Had some role in this process is not only inaccurate as confirm bid the information already provided to this committee, but also irresponsible. So im here today to defepd the men and women of i. C. E. And set the record straight. I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your testimony, both of you. And at this point, having permitted several members to join on the dice who wants to be with us today. Well move to the five minute questioning portion. Threatening to deport sick kids was an appalling thing and it was public revulsion at this prospect which assembled us in our first hearing on it and we were very glad that the administration reversed course and decided to not to pursue that policy. But i want to ask you what exactly is the policy in place for processing these requests now . I understand this compelling facts and circumstances standard thats been enunciated. Are you considering being in the country for purposes of receiving necessary medical treatment to be a compelling fact and circumstance . Mr. Chairman, the acting secretary returned to us the process we were in before august 7th and i would note that there is no program, thats part of the challenge here. This is about withholing action a, not undertaking a formal process. Its about withholding action, in fact. You saw what the acting secretary wrote with his phrase granted compelling facts and circumstances, that is the only substantive commentary that has been distribute d to our o workforce in terms of reopening these cases and how to process them. Otherwise, everything has continued as it was before. Okay, so as i understand it, there were at least 424 families whose deferred action requests were pending on august 7th. They were denied and told if they didnt leave the country, they should report for possible deportation, but then they were automatically reopened after the reversal of the policy. Can you tell me how many of those requests of those 424 families have been approved at this point . I cant relate to the specific 424. Those were ones given notice around august 7th. Over 700 cases pending at that time. But weve completed as of earlier this week and since the reopening, 41 cases was the last number i haed at the beginning of the week, but i have 41 cases where people were granted. Thats where i was going. I was no idea whether those 41, how they relate to the 424 who got, who were among those who got notices on august 7th. I got to say this is an occasion for some frustration because we requested a lot of documents on this and i think we received one document. Which was basically the statement that you had received about compelling facts and circumstances. So we dont know whats going on, but there was a formal reversal of the policy. I once theres no formal program, but there was a policy of allowing people in this situation to stay in the country. Then it appeared there w eed th reversal and we were going to sulliv summon these people for proceedings. Then there was outrage of a bipartisan character. That policy was reversed. But we want to make sure that what was going to take place on a sweeping and category cal level is not taking place at a less visible ad hoc level. We want to make sure that the prior policy really is reinstituted and so is that your sense of whats going to happen with these 424 people . I mean do we have to have a hearing on each of these cases i guess thats what im asking you. We dont testify about individual cases. And but the, i understand that youd like to see more written material, but we gave you in response to one of the letters the entire universe of what is written on this topic and i wt t didnt even cover one side of one page because this is a pure process question in terms of f ou uscis handles this internally. For other things, standards are laid out. Theyre discussed, but we dont have a law here, we dont have a regulation. This isnt taking action, its withholding action. And so beyond the secretarys statement about grants only on compelling facts and circumstances, which i cant even compare to anything before august 7th because no equivalent existed before august 7th, thats the only, thats the only item that has been added to the, to the materials or information that an adjudicating officer might reference. The way i would treat that is that the policy before was that cases of people being in the country receiving medical treatment established a comp compelling reason to be here and these are all compelling facts and circumstances. Thats certainly the way that i would understand it. Its the way that im interpreting it. I think i speak for a lot of my colleagues in saying that we would not want this to be the occasion for tkreegs of a new bureaucratic narrow iing of the possibilities for people to be in the country to continue the medical treatment that they were here to get. My time is up and im going to go ahead and recognize miss maloney. Well come back around because we have more details that we want to get out of this situation thank you and youre recognized for five minutes. I will recognize mr. Roy. Well pass it down. Thank you, mr. Chairman and gentlemen for being here today. It is certainly a sensitive issue when were talking about individuals that have medical problems. We always want to make sure we handle things properly. I want to make sure we handle things straight. Were talking about deferred action. Were deferring taking action against people that may or may not be in the country overstay ing a visa. Is that correct . Well, they are here illegally. The request for the deferred action. Okay. So its a request for deferred action and the rules currently under the law, you are just enforce iing the law thats currently on the books . Correct. Sxwl youre not making, youre not making law or anything else, just enforcing whats on the books. Thats correct. So when people received letters that said if youre not in the country legally, you need to show up or you may, did the letter say may be, action may be taken . Thats right. So the word may was in there. It is. So it wasnt saying this is actually going to ham. It said this may happen. Correct. At the end of the time period and they were form letters adopted from other usage in the agency. Is pretty standard language and at the end of that time period, adjudicating officers would then revisit the case about issuing an nta or not. So in other words, if i was a person who got one of those letters, i could have shown up and made my case and wouldnt necessarily have been forced to leave the country. Well, it could be the case of the nta has not issued, but you know, we, of course, we never really reached that point in this process. With the, with the initial august 7th shutdown of the this process because it was reopened less than a month later. Again, i dont think it was any persons intent to make people leave that had a medical problem. Just making sure that the people here actually had a decision made to let them stay by the u. S. Government. Well it would have taken uscis out of the decision. It would not have replaced it with anything else. It would have been considered a normal course following on those letters. So in other words, what really needs to happen is we as congress should set up some kind of law, i keep Hearing Program and everything else. Its not really a program, its just the fact that were not taking action on something that we should be. Thats absolutely correct. And there is an e equivalanquiv the state department. People can come visit temporarily for medical purposes. They have a whole process set up for that. It is temporary. Thats established pursuant to law passed by congress. What were talk iing about toda is not based on law r or regular nation. It is much u like the execive law by deciding how to use deferred action, an inherent Prosecutorial Authority to achieve a goal and if theres a goal in which Congress Agrees should be achieved and they pass a law to it, i promise you, well implement that law. Okay then. And i think thats important distinction that youre not trying to do anything other than enforce the laws of our nation and if we as congress think that that law needs to be changed, and we make the changes, you will abide by the changes. Absolutely. Okay. And again when were doing a discretionary case by case scenario, i think that doesnt lead to any certainty for the people trying to enforce our law. Or for the people that need to come here and get treatment. Well, even deferred action isnt durable. It can be revoked at any time and it isnt an immigration status. So it is, because it doesnt have a legal foundation, tit isa very uncertain course for people to be on. I mean deferred action, we can defer many things. It doesnt necessarily make them legal. I guess the point i want to say. We could decide we want to not enforce irs law and not collect taxes from a certain amount of people and defer their taxes. Doesnt mean theyre following the the law and i guess the point i would say for this Committee Rather than replowing the ground that weve already plowed, the decision has been changed, i would suggest we give the administration and individuals trying to enforce our laws, tools they need and congress act on this rather than wasting time ton other things and i yield back. Thank you. Zpl. Thank you, mr. Keller, now miss kelly from illinois for her five minutes of questioning. Uscis didnt notify the public about this disastrous decision may made in august. To add to the confusion, once the public found out through media reports, uscis claimed that i. C. E. Would be handling medical deferred requests Going Forward. At the time, i said it was never ooempb informed of this handoff. According to the reports, i. C. E. Was quote blindfolded and quote scram babling to response. Was that true . There were some discussions over the years with regard to this process but the ultimate decision and with that decision was made by cis. When and how did you fipd out u about the decision . I want to say my chief of staff or Public Affairs brought it to my attention. When was that . I dont have the exact date. It would have been the day we put out that statement. I think maybe the 25th of 27th of august but im not exactly sure. So that was the first time you learned that uscis was telling the press that ice would be taking over, deferring action requests. I believe so, yes. We know the agency has been discussing ending deferred action since october 2017. In those same responses when asked about collaboration with i. C. E. , uscis wrote we can confirm that discussions didnt take place prior to august 7th, 2019. So which is it . Was ice blind sided by this or had they been involved in planning this for months or year sns without getting too far into the process, there were discussions held under prior leadership of both agencies with regard to this process. But that there had nothing been settled or agreements with regard to how that would go forward or be implemented and those largely fell off the map until this reappeared when cis moved forward on their own. So you were aware prior discussions, was anyone at i. C. E. Aware of the exact discussions . Again, we discusseded lots of issues. These were not discussions or decisions that we were involved with and as i mentioned, it kind of just fell off the map. There was nothing recent with regard to those type of discussions. Okay. Do you want i. C. E. To assume responsibility for deferred action from uscis . I think the secretarys already spoken to that, but the our comment and as our witness testified a few weeks ago, i. C. E. Does not have a process or mechanism to affirmatively adjudicate or provide any sort of deferred action. They exercise pros cue u tor yal discretion with regard to who to arrest, detain and then ultim e ultimately, if a judge orders somebody removed, who gets removed so we have a process on the back end of that where someone could file for a stay of removal. If so, well divide immigration judge, but thats where our zis cessi discretion lies and rightly so. Have you discussed this with the acting secretary following uscis . Ive spoken b with the acting director, certainly, after the fact. What are your recommendations . That it remainses with the agency better able to adjudicate applications. At any time, have similar to the one where an immigrant can proactively seek relief before entering deportation proceedings . Not a proactive program. We will utilize deferred action in certain instances, for example, if theres a witness that we needed a criminal investigation, somebody thats cooperating with a criminal investigation were work or another Law Enforcement agency has requested us to, but again, its only in conjunction with our Law Enforcement mission. Is i. C. E. Play iing any rolen the review and update with this policy . No. No, maam. Do you agree with the decision to order critically ill children to leave the country within three days or face der poration . Okay, i dont think thats what the letter said. It required them the to respond and i deferred it. But the letter required them to respond within 33 day ts to make a determination as to whether or not a notice to appear would be filed. Notice to appear is only the beginning part of that process. That begins the Immigration Court process. Ultimately, nobody can be removed from this country absent an approval from an immigration judge. Thats where i. C. E. Steps in. Were somebody to be evaluated on a case by case bases if somebody files a stay, but if they have a significant humanitarian concern, medical issue, thats when i. C. E. Can exercise prosecutorial discretion and grant that state. I know im passed by time, but heres a letter that says within 33 days of the date. So not what youre saying. No, no, it says 33 days for the date, report as to whether a note will be issued. Its what starts Immigration Court process. Again, ultimately, only an immigration judge except in certain circumstances that would not be relevant here have the ability to issue a ruling. Thank you. The gentle ladys time has expired, but i want to read that sentence. This was sent to in this case, marie, but it was the exact same letter that went out to hundreds of people. This is what caused the controversy in the first place. If you are not authorized to remain in the United States. If you fail to depart the United States within 33 days of the date of this letter, ucsis may issue a letter and commence proceedings against you with Immigration Court. This may result in your being removed from the United States and found ineligible for a future visa or other benefits. Thats what was sent to critically ill children. Thats what caused the crisis. Again, were delighted there was a decision to reverse this new policy. And there was no program in place, but there was a policy of not pursuing these. I think for the reason it was implicit in something that our colleague mr. Royce said which this is a very tiny number of people compare d to the whole universe of people who are actual immigrants to the country and most of them are here precisely to get medical treatment, so im going to, mr. Roy is past this round and im going to recognize miss maloney for her five minutes. Id like to ask director about the standards to be applied to deferred action programs. And i want to make sure that he understands that to many families, this is literally a life and death issue. Many have indicated theyre not here legally, but many are and they are under deferred action, yet theyre being threatened with deportation. Sitting in the front row behind you is Nicholas Espinoza and he traveled here today to try to save his daughters life. She is 7 years old and her name is julia and there she is. Julia, fighting for her life. She is in a special Treatment Program at seattles Childrens Hospital because shes had most of her lower intestine removed and needs a full team of doctors to keep her alive. Julia is a u. S. Citizen but her parents are not. Her mother is her nurse. Deferred action has allowed julias mom to stay in this country, but her deferral expired in september. Her father helps support her, too. His defesrral expired three day ago and they have both applied for renewal this june. But still have not heard about their cases. It has not been decided and jul julias doctors say that if she leaves this country and goes back to her home country, she will die. This gives her parents three options. Id say she only has three. Stay in the United States with their daughter even though their deferrals have expired. Leave the country and leave their daughter behind without any family to take care of her. Or take their daughter home at which point her doctors say she would surely die. So i want to plolitely and respectfully ask you to look at mr. Espinoza. He is right behind you. Mr. Espinoza, raise your hand so he can see you. And look him straight in the eye and as a professional, ask him which of those options he should choose. Madame chairman, dan was representing uscis at the last hearing and one of the things he said that i think humanizes the agency and i dont mean my, i mean the employees of the agencys position in many cases is that the hardest cases we have to deal with are the ones were hearing about today. They are cases where it is possible that the law calls for a very sympathetic person or family reclaiming my time because i dont have much time. And we had many people here in our hearings that were brought to this country by american scientists because they wanted to study their disease so we could possibly save their lives and have medical research that could save the live of many other people. And i feel its a very human decision but i think its wrong to deport someone whos come here legally, in this case, she is here legally, but i would like to ask you, what would you decide if it was your child if youre talking about humanizing the situation . Any parent does whatever they can to care for the children. Well then get iting back to e specifics, can you say here today that julias parents will not be penalized for staying in the u. S. While they fight for the renewal of their request to stay here, which is pending and in other words, if you put a human face on it, this policy has a devastate iing effect on people. And if this administration claims that it has been reversed, they need to tell people clearly in writing to all the professionals in the government and to the people that are here exactly what this means in real time and what their real possibilities are. I find this language discretiona discretionary, case by case basis. What does this mean . Can you get back in writing to me how does uscis define it . My time is up, but id like to see in writing how you define this exactly for the purpose of reviewing we do not, thats the answer. And i know you all dont like that answer. This is not an action, a program or policy. It is the withholding of action. Madame chairman, you just described what might make an excellent individual standard in a piece of legislation. People coming here and doing scientific studies and getting medical care sounds to me like it would make an excellent piece of legislation. Simply put, one last question. We dont have that. Would we be applying the same standard to deferred action Going Forward as the agency used in the past . Yes or no. We did not explain, we did not pose any standards other than the case by case decision, which then goes up, functionally, to four Regional Directors who are career employees, and they talk to one another primarily to make sure that they are implementing this process consistently across the country. But there are no standards weve given them other than what you see here from the acting secretary of the language of compelling facts and circumstances because we dont have a legal basis to do so. We would welcome that from you all u. Have you written the gentlemen have you amr. Ed to training . Thank you for your answer to that. There was a question embedded in the gentle ladys thoughtful line of questions which was what would your recommendation be to people in this situation . I heard you just say that parents will do, all parents legitimately will do whatever they can with their kids and i take that to mean they should continue to stay and have their children treated. Well of course all of you know i can either give them legal advice nor will we sit here at a table in front of you and decide individual cases in accepting full well how sympathetic the case is, which is exactly why we use the kind of compelling facts and circumstances language that the secretary did. But if youre looking for me to decide a case here, i cannot do that. And i believe you all know i cannot do that. Thank you. I am now pleased to recognize our distinguished colleague from massachusetts for her five minutes of questioning. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. This hearing has been a long time coming. And there was some commentary from my colleague across the aisle saying we have Better Things to work on and should not be wasting our time. I never want us to lose sight of the impact on real peoples lives when we are talking about policy and that is in fact why the American People sent us here so we are not wasting our time. Gentlemen, it is disappointing that it took the threats of subpoenas to bring you before our committee today. In a moment, ill turn r more to your action, but first, i want to center is families that have been impacted by this agree jous policy shift. Families like the sanchez family and serena and her mom conchita. I told them when i met them that i would fight for their children as if they were my own. And i intend to honor that. 16yearold jonathan came before this committee and shared his story. He spoke of how Cystic Fibrosis has ravaged his ravaged his bod tragic death of his younger sister in hon dduras that suffed similarly. Your agency that has put lifepreserving for 83 days, mr. Chairman, nearly three months, we have been demanding answers out of this administration. Mr. Cuccinelli, you understand we want more paperwork but you dont have it. None of us were in government. We dont want more paperwork. What we do want are real answers and justice for these families and a piece of mind. They deserve that. And their children deserve that. So for nearly three months we have been demanding answers out of this administration for its horrendous and calloused efforts to deport our critically ill immigrant neighbors and their families. While im relieved the policy has been reversed, these American Families deserve answers. They deserve the certainty they will be able to remain in this country. I would like to thank these brave families who face imminent deportation and having to fight a lifethreatening illness spoke up to shine a light on this injustice as well as the attorneys and advocacy organizations. Id like to request unanimous consent to accept statements for the records for lawyers civil rights in boston as well as american immigrant Lawyers Association. Without objection theyll be entered into the record. Thank you. Now, gentlemen, your agencies have still failed to turn over a single document in response to our letter. And even in response to the subpoenas that are forever chairman, may he rest in power, Elijah Cummings signed in his last official act before his transition, its shameful but consistent. I hope you can answer the questions that i have. Ucsic and i. C. E. Have continued to refuse to identify who made the decision to end consideration of deferred action at uscis. I can only assume its because no one wants to put their name on such a disastrous, cruel and unamerican policy. And the government officials who made that decision ought to be held to account. Mr. Kcuccinelli that youre undr oath today. Who made the decision that the u. S. Would stop processing deferred action requests on august 7th . That was my decision as the acting director. Very good. And you stand behind that decision . That decisions been reversed. The reversal, yes. But today those families have received no notification confirming the reversal of that. Can you tell me why that is . I think they have. We are a paper agency when it comes to matters like this, so when cases are closed, literally a physical file is wrapped up and mailed to a storage facility. When we reopen the cases im sorry. Im running out of time. I apologize. Just trying to answer the question. I apologize, sir. I have reclaim my time. Would it be fair to say you were not aware of the most consequential policies coming out of your agency since initially you said you did not know it was coming . I did not say that today. Earlier today in your testimony. Okay. Yes or no, did anyone at the white house play a role in this decision . This was an Agency Decision solely. And other than discussion within the department of Homeland Security so im sorry. Did Stephen Miller play a role in this or not . Im not going to to get into specific commentary back and forth. I made this decision. The only discussions had im sorry. For the record yes, this is for the record. As you noted, im under oath, so i want to be completely truthful. Yes, you are under oath. I cant do that if i cant be yes or no im not just going to answer the way you want me to answer. Im going to give an honest and accurate answer. Answer yes or no. Was the president involved in this decision . We cannot, as you well know, talk about content of decision of discussions with the white house. Im sorry. You said you made the decision. Yes. So was the president involved, yes or no . That should be simple. I made this decision. Alone. The sdwrejts ladys time has expired. Thank you very much. Well go now to miss miller. Thank you, chairman. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you. We have a crisis on our border. This year to date we have had over 850,000 total apprehensions on our southern border. I commend and thank President Trump for stepping up and taking action while my colleagues across the aisle have refused to appropriately and adequately address this crisis. During our last hearing on this topic i posed a question to mr. Hoeman regarding all of the rhetoric surrounding the crisis at our southern border. And now i want to propose it pose it to you. Direct director cuccinelli and director albence, has this helped solve the issue on our nations border of the larger immigration issues . Madame congresswoman, i cannot say thats the case. Certainly there is extraordinary Public Interest in this subject. So, you expect a certain amount of rhetoric back and forth. But when it gets in the way of constructive discussions, and, in fact, it has to some degree in the very subject were here talking about, deferred action, which we have focused on in the case in medical cases, but i keep hearing reference to medical deferred action, which does not exist. By way of example of inaccuracy and that doesnt help the public discussion. And the hotter the rhetoric gets, the harder it is for people to step back and have a constructive discussion, even about our disagreements, and how to implement our agruments. So, you know, the thrust of your question is hard to argue with. And i think all of us own some piece of that. But yet at uscis, we just keep pressing forward to do the best job we can, whatever that environment is. Thank you. Mr. Albence . You are right in stating that we do have a Border Security crisis both in terms of illegal aliens but also in terms of opioids and other contraband that is being smuggled into and out of this country. I. C. E. And dhs has made clear for many weeks now that i. C. E. Was not involved in this process, yet here i sit while we have tremendous crisis at the border, tremendous opioid crisis. Last year we seized mr. Roy, you mentioned several hundred pounds. We received 11,700 pounds of fentanyl. We have communities that are suffering greatly from the scourge of this drug. I have probably testified in front of congress more than anybody from i. C. E. , willing to come and speak about anything my agency does and im proud to do so. But when im dragged into an issue that has nothing to do with what my agency does, it does take away resources, as im sure you understand, preparation for a hearing and paperwork and time, and i will also say that we did provide our documentation with regard to the subpoenas to dhs prior to the deadline established by this committee. Well, as you may know, my district is ground zero with the opioid crisis. So, its very important to me. How has the strategy proposed by our president helped curb the flow of the illicit drugs . So, we have worked diligently both domestically and internationally with regard to trying to address the opioid crisis. As i mentioned, we seized more than 12,000 pounds last year. Thats a significant increase over the prior year. We initiated more cases into narcotics smuggling organizations. We expanded our border enforcement security teams to 69, focusing on the International Mail facilities because we know a lot of the prekirss and material is coming from overseas, often from china. We have dedicated the resources where we think will have the most impact. Obviously, if Congress Gives us more resources, he can with certainly do more. Just as an aside, i even noticed a year or so ago in my neighborhood all of a sudden there were all of these personnel surrounding a house, waiting on a mail delivery. So, it happens everywhere. In your Opening Statement you also mentioned threats and Violent Attacks on i. C. E. Officers, personnel and their families. Can you shed some light on that . Its unfortunate. And i think a lot of the danger that is being unnecessarily placed onto our personnel stems from misinformation or vilification or disgusting terms used to describe sworn federal Law Enforcement agencies and other federal civil servants. We have seen instances over the past several months with officers being assaulted. We had thankfully nobody was hurt but we had an individual shoot into one of our buildings at night where our command center was, where we had officers work on getting criminal aliens out of the community. And this heightened rhetoric. I testified in front of congress before about, this needs if congress does not like or those in congress dont like the laws we enforce, they have every ability to change them. We are not in a position to pick and choose what laws to enforce. I wouldnt think congress would want them to override the laws they pass. The gentle ladys time has expired. Thank you for your questioning. By the way, mr. Albence, i appreciate very much your answer to miss miller. I. C. E. Is here because of answers provided on december 24th by uscis which said i. C. E. Participated in discussions leading up to the original decision. Were still trying to get to the bottom of the decision and thats why were here. We want to make sure we have clarity as to what the policy is and we can figure out how this took place. With that i go to mr. Gomez for questioning for five minutes. Mr. Chairman had, thank you so much. Thank you for clarifying that. I was about to do that, but you beat me to it. Mr. Albence, i think democrats would agree we want you to focus on preventing Illegal Drugs from entering this country or making sure that people that shouldnt be here are here. People who are and illegal guns. Thats why were having this discussion because all of a sudden, instead of focusing on that, were focusing there was a focus on kids who were terminally ill. These chronic illnesses that needed to be here. Thats why we do want you to focus on the other stuff. You mentioned there was a discussion and you couldnt get into how you couldnt get into who was in the discussion, involved in the discussion regarding deferred action. Could you tell me how far back the discussion at least started . It would have been i dont have the exact dates, obviously, i wasnt party to it, but it would be have been three i. C. E. Directors ago and one csa director ago. Its hard to keep track how many directors this administration has gone through. But how many months . Pushing a year and a half, two years ago. Administration 2018 i would say probably 2018. 2017, okay. 18, not 17. 18, okay. Thank you. I just wanted to get clarification on that. I want to go quickly into the questions. Mr. Cuccinelli, you apparently sent an email to the American Immigration Lawyers Association saying, quote, uscis field offices are informing the public of the change in person and on an individual basis, end quote. This seems to be the approach that has led to panic and confusion. I believe it was not acceptable. Mr. Cuccinelli, you personally decided it was not necessary to notify the public. Is that true . Congressman, it is our typical practice when we change a process that doesnt have that isnt based in regulation or law to not do public notification. So, thats so, thats the rationale for having done it on a casebycase basis. Why didnt you think it was necessary . Because it was just a process, thats it, thats the way you did it . Even though it was dealing with peoples lives . Well, sir, everything we do deals with peoples lives. And, you know, in various ways. As i said, typically, when were changing a process and not changing legal standards or Something Else of that nature, guidance to adjudicators, for instance, then we do not have public announcements. Your agency september 24th response to the subcommittee, you said you did not notify the public because this was merely a, quote, operational change, which is kind of what youre saying again. Do you think telling critically ill children and their families they have 33 days to leave the country or face deportation is merely an operational change . Youre referencing the form letters that got sent out. The reality is dont tell me that it wasnt im asking for do you want me to answer the question . I have is it right here. I know you do. What does it say . It says you may get an nta. It says you are not authorized to remain in the country if you fail to depart the u. S. In 33 days, issue date may 30th. Its pretty scary. What happens if the irs sent you a letter that said, if you dont report to the irs, we might begin to audit you, would you be concerned to that . I would certainly Pay Attention to it, yes, i would. Perhaps it would help if you all knew when anyone presents to uscis seeks a benefit and does not obtain some status that has them at least not here illegally im going to reclaim my time because i have a few more questions we give them a similar letter. Let me ask you a few more questions. Did you approve this policy without even bothering to figure out how you would implement it . No. No, you did not. So, what was your plan to notify people requesting deferred action, the general public, if they knew that uscis would stop considering deferred action requests . As you noted earlier, our plan was to notify them one at a time. Individually and directly. That was the plan. So, you had no plan but you did . That was the plan. Just to notify them. Yes. But then you also stated that the function would be transferred over to no, no, no, no i. C. E. That is a dramatic mischaracterization and i think thats how i. C. E. Got dragged into this in the first place. There was never any suggestion anywhere by anyone that we were going to transfer some affirmative application process over to i. C. E. That has never, ever been the case. Mr. Albence just testified that he was first notified by a Public Affairs officer that learned about it through the press. That was not correct . But it is not transferring this to i. C. E. I. C. E. Has their own Discretionary Authority which mr. Albence described. We were, to put it in simple terms, ceasing use of this Discretionary Authority. Which dates back to ins. So, when you decided to reverse the policy, why didnt you choose to issue a new like a news alert, public release, something that said that was being reversed . The gentlemans time has expired. You may answer. If youre referring to the secretarys reversal, we did do that. Regarding september hes referring to the initial policy. Well, hes i thought i heard reversal. Your full policy reversal on september 18th . Yes, sir, that was publicly announced. Okay. I dont have that. Okay. Gentlemans time has expired. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well come to mr. Roy for five minutes of questioning. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Albence, it falls under ice for removal proceedings, is that correct . Correct. Mr. Cuccinelli, has they no. That congress has made clear and put into law . No. My colleagues mentioned a compelling reason to be here as a standard of some sort. Is that a visa category . No, and its very difficult to talk about at a policy level about how it would affect any particular case because by definition its case by case. Is it a status . No. Is it as a human being, as a christian or someone of faith or looking at someone through the eyes of a human being, something thats concerning . A compelling reason to be here . Sure. Someone thats sick . Absolutely. Is anything in the letter that was sent on august, whatever it was, 7th, factually untrue . No. Was it legally correct . Yes. Might people quibble over tone, but it was factually correct . Sure. Sure. Now, you said you made a decision to change procedures. Yes. My perception of the procedures so i can try to figure out the policy, which is what congress should be in the job im doing, if one overstays your visa or comes here illegally and you face a health issue and youre getting care in the process that you were here, you had status, you were here i will lelly or you were you had status, you were getting care, now youre overstaying your visa and the process is essentially to go to uscis and to beg for some sort of intermittent twoyear deefrl for an entity, uscis on without it being really rooted in any law that congress has put forward and to seek deferred action from, in essence, i. C. E. By way of a uscis letter when uscis doesnt actually prosecute and, therefore, youre effectively leaving these individuals in limbo . Do i have roughly the characterization correct . Yes. The reason i said this goes back to ins days, back in ins the same person as a regional director had the Prosecutorial Authority that i. C. E. Now manages and the uscis authority at the same time. That was all one person. When ins was broken up in the initial distribution of authorities, this was just given to the three agencies and i dont think with much consideration of whats the difference between cbp, i. C. E. And uscis as it relates to Something Like were talking about. In trigs to clarify the procedures, can you clarify why you were trying to clarify these procedures . So, several years ago the president indicated publicly that he wanted us to stop utilizing essentially stop expanding the law to provide benefits that arent provided by congress or by regulation and thats been an ongoing process at uscis. There are lots of Little Things that have already taken place, all publicly known. This is along those lines which is why i understand, francis, then the director, back in 2017 had in conversations with field leadership determined that this was one of those types of just descriptively, authorities. And to start working to back out of utilizing that authority because it wasnt appropriate for usciss mission. And isnt this at the core of the question here, right . On so many levels i get frustrated that congress doesnt act. I get frustrated that congress doesnt act with authorization of military force. We have men and women enlisting into the military who werent alive when we passed that authorization of force. I introduced article 1 act that would have emergency declarations expire after a year. I have a feeling that regardless of who is in the White House Congress should reclaim their authority. Congress should act. Congress should do what were supposed to do, pass laws and hold you accountable for carrying out those laws. It strikes me that part of the problem we have here in this case, but also with things like daca. So in terms of whoever is in the white house, doesnt matter to me, lets have clarity in the law but lets not expect bureaucratic, respectfully, those in the agencies make laws on the margins of the law congress passes. If we have in the case of dapa and daca, when i was the First Assistant attorney general of texas we litigated and went to the United States Supreme Court. The question was whether or not conferring status and benefits to a class of individuals is something you could plausibly say is actually prosecutorial discretion. Its ridiculous for congress to be building a policy on the back of asking bureaucrats to make those decisions when we hold the pen and we could decide what laws we want to put in place. Would you agree with that . Yes, youre not building a policy. Youre telling us to implement a policy. Youre not giving us standards. Youre asking us for standards. That dont exist in law. As i said earlier, pass a law, i promise you, we will implement it. All right. And then the gentlemans time expired. I want to thank mr. Roy for his thoughtful comments. I do want to say i concur with a lot of your sentiments about article 1 and the exercise of congressional power on the daca question. The house of representatives has passed the dream act and it is over in the senate so were waiting for senate action. It takes two to tango here in the United States congress. Its not just the house side. Its the senate as well in order to have effective article inaction. I will recognize miss Wasserman Schultz for her five minutes of questioning. Thank you. Under your leadership uscis has actually bragged about systematically legal regulation. I think its important for us to be clear about what you have been aiming to accomplish. My constituents, americans across the country arent fooled by this countrys attempts to distinguish between documented and undocumented. You dont want anyone who looks differently than caucasian americans. Thats false. Please, dont i would like the time back. Thats defamatory. The gentle lady controls the time and the witness will get a chance to respond. Thank you. You want to block all immigration and make life harder for immigrants and you have made clear you will pursue this white ideology at all costs even if it makes critically ill children your Collateral Damage in the process. In goes to a comprehensive pattern of harm at uscis under your leadership. In august you announced the administrations new public charge rule, for example, which would deny legal status to immigrants who use social services. Mr. Cuccinelli, has uscis done any analysis of how many children may stop receiving Critical Services due to fear of losing legal status under this rule . Id like you to answer that question, please. After declaring that im not a white supremacist, as you alluded. You have nor is the president. Okay. And facts matter. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. Which is why im stating them here. No, youre certainly not. Please answer the question. Youre cloaked in legislative privilege which means you can get away from not telling the truth. How many children may stop receiving Critical Services due to fear of losing legal status under this rule . Yanksing social services a public charge . Thats right. I dont have that information in front of me. Does anyone behind you have the information . We came to talk about deferred action today. Im able to ask any question id like in your jurisdiction. Thats fine. I came prepared youre the head mr. Cuccinelli, reclaiming my time. You are the head of uscis and youre going to tell me that you established a policy on the public charge rule and you dont know how many children off the top of your head it affected . Did you not think it through before you insisted that was the policy . That rule is 1,000 pages long, maam. Its a pretty so, you know, when youre talking about affecting children, one would think that someone in your position if you were going to establish such a heinous policy with far reach and potentially harm thousands of children, that you would not know how many children it would affect. You dont know . What you refer to as heinous policy is im not asking for commentary on the policy. Wildly bipartisan basis. But you have have implemented a policy that yanks social services and denies the it denies nothing. Legal status to immigrate here if they are going to use social services. Advocates have reported immigrant families are terrified and that some have already dropped children from essential programs like medicaid and temporary assistance for needy families. When you announced this rule you asked if it was consistent with the poem under the statue of liberty which reads, give me your tired, your poor, huddled masses and in response you said the poem was only referring to people coming from europe. And people coming from europe would not be a public charge. Do you think i did not say that. That is what you said. I did not that is the implication thats what you would like to broadcast. That is absolutely no, no, i heard you say it. I heard you defend it. I want to know if you think our immigration policy should treat immigrants from europe different from immigrants from other parts of the world . No. You dont think so. Im not sure why you made that statement i didnt. You did. You said the poem. Your own piece to the end of it. You said the poem was only referring to people from europe. No doubt about that. You added to the end of the statement. And the quotation was that people from europe would not likely be a public charge. No, it was not. Were you attempts to shut down the American Dream for immigrants who may not be rich or white with this policy . No. Obviously. Were the wealthiest country on earth. Surely we can live up to the spirit of lady liberty and open our arms to immigrant families who want to make a better life for their children and not yank the rug out from under them with the heinous policy and the intimidation tactics you have used to make sure people understand theyre not welcome here if theyre brown or if they need help. Thank you very much. I yield back the balance of high time. Thats false. It is not time. The time is not yours. Thank you. I yield back the the lady has yielded the witness does not have the floor. I will now recognize mr. Clay, the gentleman from missouri, for his five minutes of questioning. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you for conducting this hearing. And the American Academy of pediatrics, aap, represents over 67,000 pediatricians across the country. After uscis decided to deport critically ill children, aap wrote a letter to you acting director cuccinelli and to acting dhs secretary kevin ma mcaleenan. Aap wrote and i quote, we implore you to reverse this decision so that countless children and their families can continue to apply for deferred action. For some children, this is a matter of life and death. Mr. Cuccinelli, have you read that letter . This subcommittee received 15 more letters from state chapters of the American Academy of pediatrics in advance of our hearing in september. These letters include truly heartbreaking stories of children and families thrown into fear for their lives because of this situation. Doctors in massachusetts reported that the family of a 10yearold who has had been blinded by eye cancer had been ordered to leave the country along with the family of a 7yearold suffering from severe epilepsy. Mr. Cuccinelli, did you know about either of those these cases when uscis decided to end deferred action . Congressman, we dont read individual cases when making a procedural decision like that, so the answer to your question is no. Did you think about maybe these kids needed some lifesaving medical attention that they could only get here in this country . Congressman, we knew that as a practical matter, they had come to us seeking deferred action affirmatively. They werent in removal proceedings. None of the cases we talked about before uscis were in removal proceedings. Nonwere threatened with deportation. I heard i. C. E. Say none of these people would be on any targeted list. So, when we withdrew from the exercise of deferred action in these circumstances, we knew that deferred action continued to be available to every single one of these sympathetic families. Listen to this. Pediatricians in indiana reported that parents of at least two infants in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit received letters from uscis telling them to leave the country within 33 days. Imagine that. You have just had a child that is so sick, she is in nicu. At the moment your Childs Health should be the only thing you have to worry about the u. S. Government orders you to pack up and leave the country. Mr. Cuccinelli, did you know about these cases before uscis decided to end deferred action . My answer is the same as the earlier examples. Which is . We do not look at particular cases when making processes. You dont care . No, you asked me no, im asking. You bet i care. Do you care that you bet i care. That somebodys in you bet i do. And it would be great. We could intensive care unit about to die . If you cared enough to pass a law, wed enforce it. Let me ask you this. What would you recommend those parents do when they receive that letter . Well, what most what should they do . What we expected most of them to do was very little, candidly. We send a lot of those letters out, not in circumstances what do you expect them to do . You want them to leave the country, pack up their stuff, take their sick child and go . Either that or make their case in the immigration process where its appropriate to do so, to stay, to stay. All in the middle of them being there, trying hoping and praying they save their childs life . Which is why deferred action how cruel how cruel really . Really . I dont believe this. I yield back. Thank you. The gentlemans time has expired. Thank you for your thank you for your questioning, mr. Clay. Mr. Grothman has joined us and would like to wave onto the committee. Without objection we will wave him onto the committee or subcommittee for purposes of questioning. Mr. Grothman, you are recognized for five minutes. First of all, i would like to thank you for all the work you do. Ive been down on the border myself. I know some of the challenges you guys are dealing with with the illegal immigrant population. I think its very underappreciated. Given some of the stories ive heard, while i respect Law Enforcement in general, there are a few people who have to deal with as much as you folks do. Mr. Albence, in your Opening Statement you mentioned Violent Attacks and threats on i. C. E. Offices and personnel and their families. Could you elaborate on that a little bit . Certainly. We had an individual, unfortunately, have yet to be caught, that fired a weapon into one of our facilities where we had officers working. Weve had protest groups lay our buildings under siege, threatening individuals that work there, aggressive actions against them. Many of whom many of the people that work for us are not Law Enforcement officers. We have attorneys, Mission Support specialists, many who served their country and government 30, 40, 50 years and have done nothing but honorable work that entire time. And i think reckless language used to denigrate them as individuals and the services, only serves to heighten and stir into action some people who might not be of right mind. How is this committees insistence on continuing hearings on this issue impacting you . As i mentioned, previously, as dhs has made clear, this was not anything that was involved in the decision on this process. It was ciss, they made the decision, mr. Cuccinelli himself spoke that this is his decision. As you can understand with an agency 20,000 strong, enforcing more than 400 criminal laws, things that serve as distractions, you know, are very difficult for us to try to keep focus on the very important tasks we have, whether its aliens out of our community, in regards to the opioid and fentanyl epidemic, child predators and sexual exploitation. Even with all of this, the dedicated men and women of i. C. E. Show up every day and do the best they can for this country and uphold the oath they took. Im sure the majority of people from my district respect what youre trying to do. I feel its tragic when other people go after you. Ill give you another question. Youve been in the news a lot lately talking about sanctuary cities, the harm they cause American Families, both citizens and immigrants. I think the issue would be better explored by the oversight committee. By the House Oversight committee overall. Would you agree . I would welcome help from anyone in congress that would like to give it to us. Can you speak to the harm sanctuary cities cause to us, cause to american citizens in general . Certainly. We had testified in front of the Senate Judiciary a few weeks ago. There are every day, as we speak, convicted criminal aliens walking out the front doors of jails because we have jurisdictions that will not cooperate with us. Unfortunately, many of these individuals will go out and commit further crimes. Those are preventable crimes. Those are preventable victims. And, unfortunately, we have more jurisdictions that are choosing not to cooperate with us, choo choosing to put policy in publics way. Rather than remembering why were here as Law Enforcement officers and that is to keep every Community Safe and every person within that community. Just horrible. I sometimes think of it as sometimes these people who dont like putting criminals in jail, they dont live where the criminals live. Ist all fine and its hard for me to understand sometimes where you have a jurisdiction which just arrested this exact same individual for a criminal violation, enforcing the laws they were sworn to uphold. When we come to take enforcement action against that exact same individual, sometimes hours later to enforce the laws that we are sworn to uphold, we are prevented from doing so. I think my guess is part of the answer the people who prevent you from doing so live in the nicer parts of the communities where they dont have to worry about the crimes being committed. But at a Senate Judiciary hearing last week, one of our colleagues seemed confused about detainers in sanctuary cities and that i. C. E. Was looking for local Law Enforcement to detain innocent people. Could you set the record straight or maybe kind of educate some of these congressmen on whats going on . So, just like any other Law Enforcement agency, when we lodge a detainer we do so based on probable cause. Most of the individuals against whom we lodge lee takeners are criminals. 0 of the people we arrest came out of state jails and prisons. 90 of the people we arrest, and this has been consistent for the better part of the last decade, are a convicted criminal, have a pending criminal charge and then two smaller buckets within that, 90 are individuals who have been deported previously and illegally reenter. We prosecute 7,000 times in 2018. They have gone through the entire Court Process and now have avoided complying with that order. We have more than 576,000 immigration fugitives. A number that grows every day. Thank you, mr. Albence. The gentlemens time has expired. I recognize vice chair miss ocasiocortez for her five minutes of questioning. Thank you. Mr. Cuccinelli, i wanted to confirm something i heard earlier with my colleague from massachusetts. Did i hear correctly that it is your testimony today you are the individual who made the decision to end deferred action . Im the acting director when we implemented this and im responsible for that. So, that time its my decision. So it was your decision . Yes, maam. Thank you. I greatly appreciate that because weve been trying to get to the bottom of that question for quite some time. And im sure it will help us in future examinations of this issue. Mr. Cuccinelli, in your state in your agencys september 24th response to this committee, you stated uscis did not engage external stakeholders to solicit feedback on the anticipated consequences of your policy change. Why didnt you do that . For Something Like this where were changing a process and were not operating off a legal or regulatory foundation, it is not a common practice. Im not aware of any other instances where we would seek that kind of input. You did not consider the impact your decision would have on critically ill children . We understood even with uscis backing out of the role of affirmatively granting deferred action in a limited number of cases, that that opportunity still existed within the entire dhs system. I see. Mr. Cuccinelli, in august you told fox news that you, quote, see uscis as a vetting agency not a benefits agency. But congress created uscis separate from i. C. E. And cbp to serve immigrants. Its usciss own policy manual that explains congress created the agency to, quote, focusing exclusively on the administration of benefit applications. So, mr. Cuccinelli, uscis is a benefits agency. Why do you consider it not to be one . So, perhaps the best way to put that is that i would characterize us as a vetting agency first, but also a bene t benefits agency. Because you all in congress have laid out a whole lot of different benefits that we adjudicate for immigrants and potential immigrants to this country. So, that is a part of our business and mission. And my phrasing is to emphasize the role we also play as an element of department of Homeland Security in ensuring the safety and security and integrity of both the country and that immigration system. So, mr. Cuccinelli, i think whats tough here is and while i respect that congress hasnt done its job in many respects in defining immigration policy, its been a failure for a very long time for congress to be able to define a lot of policies correctly, but we still have created a mission for uscis through which the agency can interpret the spirit of this law. And it says right here on usciss website, the agencys core values are defined as integrity, respect, innovation and vigilance. Theres a reason uscis is separate from i. C. E. And cbp. I dont understand how deporting critically ill kids is consistent with any of these values. Mr. Cuccinelli, do you believe you treated children with cancer, Cystic Fibrosis and other diseases with the dignity and courtesy of the mission of this agency when you decided in secret to end consideration of deferred action and ordered them to leave the country within 33 days or face deportation . Yeah, there was nothing secret about what we did. Because it was a process change, we made individual notifications, but you yourself just referred to the ability to view the mission and the spirit and its one chain after another. Theres no law or regulation in any of that. So, we do the best we can fulfilling our role and limiting ourselves to our role, particularly when there is continuing avenue recourse for these folks. Right. But you have discretion in your role. So heres the thing i cant figure out. You have thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cases if not millions. Millions. Millions of cases in this country. Ask you decided to prioritize the deportation of critically ill kids. Im trying to figure out why. So, we did not do that. We have gone through out of all but you did. Out reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. But you asked a question with respect with respect. Ill give you a moment. With respect. When you make this decision at a time at a specific time, youre making this decision with at the cost of other decisions. So why did you make this decision to deport critically ill kids before almost all the other decisions you had to make as an agency . The gentle ladys time has expired. You can go ahead and answer the question. We didnt decide to deport anyone. We made the decision after a long road that predates me coming into my current position and discussions across dhs, but it was made on august 7th. I was the director. So at that point it is my decision. One of the things dan renault testified to from uscis at the last hearing is that, to your point, there are trade offs, as you note, quite correctly. And handling 1,000 of these cases absorbs resources, which, by the way, were not paid for, that would otherwise deal with approximately 2,000 naturalization cases. Now, we did more naturalizations last year than the whole decade. Nonetheless, there are still more pending. I hear from many of you all, legitimately, about concerns about backlogs in some areas. We have improved in many areas. But we have limited resources. And this is an undertaking by uscis that was and is going on that has never been assigned by congress, that has never been part of a regulation and the authority to grant the same relief continues to exist even had uscis not continued to participate in it in the way that we now do again. Thank you, mr. Cuccinelli. Gentle ladys time has expired. The gentle lady from the district of columbia, miss norton, is recognized for questioning. I want to thank chairman raskin for this necessary painfully necessary hearing. Of course, todays hearing had not wanted the hearing before because they said the they were in the midst of ongoing discussions with dhs to resolve it. Now, of course, they are resolved so when in the world should we come to congress for, apparently, not understanding the role of congress and making sure that a matter does not reappear of this kind. Mr. Cuccinelli, you sent a letter to chairman raskin. The date was september 19th. Informing him that dhs secretary mcaleenan had, and here im quoting, directed uscis to open consideration of nonmilitary deferred requests, Sick Children of the kind under investigation today. On a discretionary casebycase basis. Now, dhs has provided the committee with a september 18th memo from the acting secretary to you providing the same directive. Why was the decision made to reverse the policy on deferred action to deferred action on a casebycase basis when it came to these Sick Children . That was not a change, congresswoman norton. It was always case by case. Deferred action by definition is a case by case consideration. But there was a category. No, maam. And there was no medical deferred action. Youve sort of implied in your comment that this was just about people seeking medical concerns. Sick children. Sick children. Were interested in the Sick Children. They are among those. We also get adhd filings and we have filings for people who are getting older and thats their basis so you so you dont there was no directive whatsoever to reverse the policy to case by case and we did not understand the policy to be anything to be case by case before. So, youre telling us its always been case by case, thats your testimony . Yes. Obviously you have to look at every case, but were looking at the category of Sick Children. I want to im asking you because of a decision that directly conflicts with the recommendation your agency reportedly prepared for acting for the acting secretary just ten days prior to reversal. Im referring to a memo that was apparently prepared by your policy and strategy chief for a september 9th meeting with secretary mcaleenan. You were selected to lead that meeting. Are you familiar with that memo . I dont have it memorized but im familiar with what youre referring to the uscis has not produced that memo for us. But the press reports indicated that the memo recommended that the secretary revoke uscis authority to grant requests for deferred action. Reportedly it said in here, is the quote from the memo, runs counter to the president s agenda to enforce our existing laws and potentially contrary to his goal of making sure aliens are selfsufficient, selfsufficient, end quote. Mr. Cuccinelli, did you direct your policy and strategy chief to send that memo that i just quoted from . Well, we certainly did send a memo are recommendations to the secretary before he made his ultimate decision. It included six or seven, as i recall, different alternatives. Did you agree with that recommendation that the authority of u. S. Scis to grant deferred action requests should be revoked, particularly im interested, even as to these Sick Children . It was a broader comment that the with the breakup of ins, this authority was appropriate for the prosecutorial arms of the department of Homeland Security. So, you did not even with respect to Sick Children . And not appropriate for uscis. It wasnt just related to this category. And, of course, you mentioned Sick Children, which i and im sure everyone else at uscis are sympathetic to, but that is a category. That is exactly the kind of thing we would look for in legislation, is a category we do not have the power or authority to create a categorical grant of a benefit. Mr. Chairman, i just want to indicate that, of course, there is Administrative Authority to create categories, but if they need legislation, maybe we need to tell them what they already know. I thank you very much, mr. Chairman. The gentle lady yields back. Perhaps you could pursue this with miss norton. She knows Administrative Law and policy very with well. Its an interesting conversation. Lets see. We come now to mr. De saulnier. Hes recognized for five minutes of questioning. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Cuccinelli, its a little difficult for me to sit here and listen to you say its congresss responsibility when this administration and the president has publicly said the second article of the constitution tells gives them the authority to do whatever he wants. And the amount of discretion that you have tried to the administration, should say, in this field have been challenged in court, the courts have so far upheld things like funding of the border wall, separation of children, so your attornre an. I assume you believe in precedence. Deferred action was started in the nixon administration. There are been iterations all along, allowing for Administrative Discretion and now suddenly you say that Congress Needs to act. I would like, as i said at the last hearing, the Historical Perspective at least in the last five sessions nature bill 744, the socalled gang of eight b l bill, four republicans, four democrats, passed out by bipartisan support. Then it got over here and were told now through articles in the press and interviews by mr. Bannon that he and others went to elements of the Republican Caucus and, im not privy to this, but argued that bill should never come up because it was a good wedge issue for politics. So it never came up. Recently in the last session, will hurd, very well respected member, and pete aguilar, introduced another bill. Again, speaker never brought it up. So any member is free to put a piece of legislation in, let the public to see what it is and i would encourage my colleagues on the other side to do that and id be happy to work with them. But this context that its everyones fault defies what weve been told in the press about the dynamics in the other caucus. Having said that, i want to turn my attention specifically to one case. Youve talked about process and youve been very dispassionate about it. Mr. Renault, who was here last time in the case of isabella, who has the families have become dear friends, they came here legally, by the way. They were here legally under a tourist visa. They were invited to the United States under a federal program to be part of a medical trial thats kept her alive. She was 7 years old when she came from guatemala. Shes now 24. Her doctor, very well respected doctor at the university of california San Francisco childrens facility in oakland says if she goes back to guatemala, she will die because she cant get the weekly treatments she gets. So, you said all of these people were here legally. In this case at least, thats truth. Maybe we can argue some of the parameters of that. But i want to read the letter she got, as i understand it, your direction from the Field Office Director in San Francisco. Thank you for your requests for deferred action for u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office no longer considered deferred action requests except those made according to the u. S. Department of Homeland Security offices for certain military members. The evidence of record shows that when you submitted your request, you were lawfully present in the United States. So, even your department recognized, contrary to your earlier comments that she was here legally. Your period of authorized stay has expired. You are not authorized to remain in the United States. If you fail to depart the United States within 33 days of the date of this letter, uscis may issue a notice to appear in commensurate in Immigration Court. She was asked at the last meeting, how did she take this when she received the letter . She was at the hospital receiving treatment. Her mom gave her the letter and she told us that she vomited. That she was so upset. They had to take so, how can you as disz passionately describe that. Mr. Renault said im not finished and theres a process here, and its congresss process. He said, mr. Grothman, he wouldnt answer my questions, but in questions to mr. Grothman he said there would have been a file. We would have pulled the file and that should have gone up the chain of command. Did you ever hear about isabel before you made this direction . Before this was decided, no, sir. Did you ever think of the consequences for people like her . Did you ever think that, with all the other things you have to do, and i respect that, and i also respect the fact that Congress Needs to come together, but you still have consequences and as the record shows, multiple administrations, and she was she, in her case, was approved for deferred action by your administration so all of a sudden things change. Shes here. Shes under a program. Shes saving peoples lives, americans lives and others, under a much respected American Program and she gets this letter. Youre responsible for that. Do you care to respond . Whether we withdrew on august 7th from granding affirmative requests for deferred action, we knew that that authority continued to exist and any anyone who would have received such a letter could have or would have been in the process where they could also get it from a more appropriate source other than us. As mr. Renault, who you reempbsreempb referenced, also said that day, the adjudicator who was dealing with a particular case, i believe is what mr. Renault was referring to, would have known about it. That doesnt mean however many hundred cases are all known at any given time by a regional director or the head of Field Operations or myself at any given time. And usually only a small portion of them are ever learned about. So should the gentlemans time has expired. And im going to recognize mr. Cloud now for five minutes. Hes arrived. Thank you, chairman. I apologize for my tardiness. Ive been in the skiff. I would like to yield time to mr. Roy. I think my friend from texas. I would have been in the skiff, but weve had competing circumstances here. So i would just ask a couple quick questions. Mr. Cuccinelli, we heard i heard a few of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, particularly my colleague from new york, talk about benefits. Can you clarify for the record here whether or not there is or is not a benefit being conferred or are we talking about, in essence, a discretion, a prosecutorial discretion choice, as to how we handle these cases. Well, it is deferred action is a prosecutorial discretion. Right. And we are not a prosecuting agency. The closest thing to that is simply issuing an nta that starts a process. That puts you into the prosecutorial process. We do not participate in that. Thats where deferred action is historically historically exist and been most appropriate, and frankly, it is inherent in the authority, and it is not inherent in our authority at e uscis. Yes, and you said that the cost of the daca applications and not just these case, but the deferred action case, and the cost of adjudicating those, and what it means from diverting those from the naturalization applications and you reiterated that before, and can you tell us that in the world of applications . Well, i did not mean to suggest that the people doing this would spend 100 of time on the naturalizations, and i was trying to give you a point of reference. The congressman alluded to the fact that there are tradeoffs, and if we were doing this, we are not doing Something Else. And we, like any other agency struggled to keep up with the workload, bun lit unlike most oe agencies in the government, we are feefunded by part of the immigrant community that we serve, and we have to operate on what is a balanced budget function yeartoyear, and so we dont have the opportunity to come financially flex to absorb more work that has not been funded by congress or elsewhere. I wanted to touch back on one of my colleagues from texas referencing people who were here legally getting wrapped into this. I wanted to clarify for the record that, that is not the case, correct . We are going back to the letter in question in august and all that was done or attempting to be done was noticing the folks who were here and who did not have status, and then congress has not produced a status for you to give, and that this is a letter clarifying the status . That is right. And just understand that you can have a situation where someone is coming back for a repeat deferred action request and think do it within the twoyear time period that is traditionally and though there is no requirement that it is two years granted, and it can also be the duration of the treatment if we have that, and at that point in time, we will at least be by the then existing deferred action grant, and so, you know, however youd like to phrase that. I will yield to my colleague from texas. And we have about a minute left, and could you tell me what law authorize s uscis to authorize granting being here legally . There is no law. This is derived from the secretary to be used in case by case circumstances that came when ins was broked up, and so so to be clear the uscis does not have a medical Deferred Program . Never has and it has never existed in the department of Homeland Security or in the department of the unis either. Can you tell us how it would be treated if it were . A lot of the discussion assumes that a program that a lot of people are using the medical deferred action title for, and i, you know, there are other reasons that people request deferred action other than medical. They are perfectly good human and sympathetic reasons that we are talking about the medical, but other requests are made as well. And how many requests for medical deferments do you receive each year . If you count not just the reque requester, but 500 to 700 range. Do you have the resources to appropriately deal . Well, question do the work and then we are not doing the work that is legally signed. And that is the tradeoff. Thank you, chair. Thank you, very much, mr. Cloud. We want to do one other round to clean up the questions that are lingering, and to do a few more. I wanted to start with the gentleman from massachusetts and miss pressley from massachusetts. Thank you. And our forever chairman Elijah Cummings reminded us that the charge of the committee is to be efficient and effective pursuit of the truth, and so i am encouraged that we have made some progress in that regard. I wanted to thank you for your testimony under oath mr. Cuccinelli for taking responsibility for that decision to reverse the policy. I wanted to ask you that you previously mentioned on the record that your agency had done an analysis to ascertain the impact of such an abrupt policy change. Do you believe that your agency did enough analysis to assess that impact . I am sorry if i was unclear earlier. We didnt do any separate studies for instance like we might when preparing a regulation or something. It was internal discussion not what i would characterize as a study. Well, given that it was an abrupt policy that stood to impact quite literally the lyes of critically ill children, i mean n hi mean, in hindsight, do you believe that you should have done some analysis . Well, i do think that if i had it to do over again category, i would not have applied it to people then pending. If for no other reason than to surprise them and a change of status. And so, it is reported that the office of Legal Counsel at the doj said that you were not to serve as the acting member under the homeland vacancies act, and the office of the homeland securities act. And also, it is said that the personnel at the white house has accepted this decision and breached the president accordingly. Do you accept the doj and the Personnel Office that you are ineligible to serve as acting secretary . I am not privy to anything that you have described, and soy cannot answer that question. Well, it is public record, could you give me your visceral response . As you may know that my last government post was Virginia State government. I am no expert, and i know areas of the law very well, but i dont know them very well, and one i dont know very well is federal Employment Law including things like the vacancies act and so forth, and i have not studied it or looked at it. But, again, the department of justice and the president ial Personnel Office have ruled that you are ineligible to serve as acting secretary, so if asked to serve contrary to the law, would you decline . I would not do anything contrary to the law. If i understood it contrary to the law, i would not do it. All right. Very good. If President Trump chooses either of you to replace acting secretary mcaleenan, would you keep deferred actions in place at the uscis, and this is for both mr. Cuccinelli and mr. Albence. I dont think it is appropriate to comment forward like that. I told you just here what i would characterize as,ly call it a mistake, because it was, to apply this retroactively in particular, and i think that the underlying philosophy is correct, and i understand that the deferred action that remains available, and had the uscis policy gone forward, but i cannot tell you Going Forward what i would advise the secretary to do. Well, that is the point that i understand, maam. Well, mr. Cuccinelli, you have accepted responsibility for making this egregious policy reversal. You have also expressed regret and just now you used the word mistake. And so, i am not sure why it is challenging for you the just offer if you are the acting secretary, would you keep the deferred sections in place at the uscis . I do not see any change regardless of who the secretary is is. Mr. Albence . I dont think that there is any reason to speculate about that. Would you keep the policy in place, sir, yes or no . I support the decision that acting secretary mcaleenan made. Reclaiming my time. I remind my colleagues to dday that there are critically ill children whose lives are on the line and this is not about process, but life, and we should remember that. With that i yield. The gentleman from texas is recognized. You started to get into what you were legally mandated to do. Wow, i could use a lot more than five minutes on that, congressman. I would characterize more than half of the backlog is asylum cases. And i am claiming affirmative asylum cases and there is also negative asylum cases, and so we have about 340,000, and from as soon as i arrived we began a plan to execute and the hiring campaign for asylum officers to start attacking that backlog more effectively. The main problem in attacking that backlog effectively is the crisis of the border. We broke records again for credible fear again, and as well as the amp program, and those same people are working and none of what i have described to you, congressman, is paid for. None of it. So our fees, we have to build into those things that we do charge for the costs of the things that we dont charge for and in particular humanitarian work for a variety of forms. and so this is what i was talking about with the benefits of the congresswoman earlier, and with the division of the ins, those authorities were divided, but, it appears looking back, and i would not call it a solution, but the almost kneejerk reaction was to assign the same authority to all three agencies, even though we dont have prosecutorial responsibilities. All right. Since uscis is using your deferred action, and can you speak about the deferred i am sorry, what was that . Some of the common medical illnesses that you will see that are granted. So, i have to say that my information is anecdotal and obviously, we have been talking about this as you all have over the course of the last several month, and soy use some tof the selection of cases, and just to review at random to see what the cases looked like. And so to get an idea of what adjudicators workload was associated with these and what they had to do and contend with, and it runs the gamut, and i mean, it runs from the kind of cancer and Cystic Fibrosis that we have heard about today and obviously the most sympathetic situations that you can imagine to things that look to me even though i dont decide these cases rather patently abusive and i use the adhd example. Really, just not in the same league. People claiming getting older. And i also mentioned earlier that some of these, a good number of them are not medical. There are other claims as to reasons that they want to stay and candidly the cases that we talked about here even though we cannot decide a case sitting at this table are the ones that you would think are most likely to be found by a career employee, and that is who decides these, as to use the secretarys language compelling facts and circumstances. But i cant sit here and prejudge them even favorably even though i am sympathetic to them them. You mentioned when it comes down to this that it is our job to give them resources and can you describe what is the best thing to do when it is your job to talk about the limited resources to do these things . The gentlemans time has expired and answer the question. Dont make us guess. You know, congresswoman norton referenced category of Sick Children and she said category. If it is a category, you all should be assigning it to us. Of course, the Supreme Court is going to take up daca on november 12th, and it follows the pattern of the case that Ranking Member roy mentioned and can the executive branch use these inherent authorities that congress has not given any direction on to create categorical grants of benefits. It is the position of this administration that we cannot do that. We will use the authorities that we do have that are discretionary on the casebycase basis and none the less on the beginning of the process on august 7th, it is understood that the authority to grant the relief would continue to exist at a different point in the process, and i know that people dont necessarily, and they would rather go to uscis than i. C. E. , but the fact of the matter is that, that is the appropriate and historically appropriate place outside of the government for prosecutorial discretion, and that is with a prosecutorial agency. Thank you very much. I will recognize mr. Desaulnier for questioning. You have mentioned waiting for legislative action and even though you have the discretion or the precedent is there for discretion, so what i would suggest to you and i would like a response that i have a private bill for isabel in judiciary and looking for support and comments from legal experts, and if ever there was a need for a private bill, this is it. So, i would ask in the interim for the specific case that as she is going through and i am told by her attorney that some of the questions are different than the last four times that she went through this that you would work with us, because i assume that you dont want to be back in the position where she is in the cover of the National Magazine and in the New York Times as an example even though she may be a little bit different. So that is one. And miss pressley and i are working with the committee and looking for the republicans to work with us to tailor a bill for this group of people that would help them. In a normal functionings relationship between both parties in congress and administration, we would be trying to work on something knowing that there would be give and take, and so i hope that in that context i would like some response from you that you have the discretion to at least work with us to see if we can provide legislative remedy for this group and specifically the person. I dont agree with your initial comment of precedent of authority, and we will absolutely work with you. And to be clear, we dont have to agree with what you are doing to do it correctly and craft it correctly, and we will do that and bring subject experts tom come to come to you and help you. It sounds a little bit of patronizing and i will take it. It is the nature of the discussi discussion, you know, people can have the opposite impression, and it is not patronizing at all, but to point out that it is a function that we have accepted accepted. That is my irish sense of humor. So in the process of how all of this developed, you issued what came to the letter and you can eliminate the deferred actions, and this big public response, and what i thought was a big bipartisan hearing here, and then discussion within the administration of what you should do about it. There is a memo that the presses got a hold of that was given to you by your policy director suggesting that you should not backtra backtrack, and that you should keep it as you were originally going to do. Is that true . Do you have did you have an opinion at this time and clearly at that time, it was after the hearing that you knew about isabelle in some of the cases, so did you support the acting secretarys decision to change the policy on deferred action . Yes, i thought that it was particularly critical to get the question decided. As i view our role when advising Something Like that, we gave him a wide variety of options presented those to him. With respect to the earlier comments, both to congresswoman pressley where i did note that it is a mistake to implement this on a retroactive basis and i freely concede that. But philosophically, it is ap pro propriate or more appropriate for this department to rest with the Prosecutorial Authority of t the department that is not uscis, and allow people to avail themselves of that. And for both of you, they are in a limbo, a bureaucratic limbo, and the dad keeps working and no public charge here, and they paid for the insurance to be part of the program, and they are taxpayers, and they are beneficial to the economy and the community, and isabelle went and got a degree with honors from cal state east bay, and so how do we work to help them through the process until we get to the point where either she can get her deferred action, and in this bureaucratic limbo . Well, we have, as you know, reopened these cases, and i cant speak to time lines for particular cases, but i do know that we have commenced deciding them. We are getting through some of the work. We have seen an uptick in the filings i would note for you since this public discussion began, and which that is behind the fact that they are already in the pipeline, and so i cannot speak to exactly how long it would take for each of, each of those cases to be decided. I can check it separately when we leave here. In the idea of working together and i would be willing to help you in this regard andp in a practical situation that they would have due process as you currently outlined and if there is a gap in there we will work through it for the decisionmake, and then if we could work on legislation to permanently correct it for this group of people or for her, that is what i would like to hear. Yes, we can do each of those things. I appreciate it. The gentleman from kentucky mr. Massie is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for having this important topic. I thank the witnesses for coming out to talk about the false narratives that we have been hearing for the last weeks and months in the press. Before i yield time to the Ranking Member here, i want to lament that the full committee, this committee is right now simultaneously conducting a bogus impeachment process three stories underground underneath the capitols Visitor Center and you have to go through three doors to get there, and a lot of the colleagues that would like to be down here are on the democratic and the republican side, and so i wanted to say that it is a shame that it is simultaneously happening, and not just that it is happening out of the view and sight and sound of the American Public, but that it is happening at the same time as this important hearing. With that i would yield the balance of my time to the Ranking Member chip roy. I thank my friend from kentucky. I have made the similar point before you were able to join. I will make it again. I agree with you. We should not have these things concurrently, because it is too important. This is happening on a regular basis and last week i was not able to participate in the depositions going on in this important matter because in a way that i will reiterate, it is difficult to get the transcripts and even for those of us on the committee, and trying to go get information for a thing that is occurring right now, they can n that i cannot be physically present for and i cant do it in an easy fashion, and any of any colleagues who are not on the committee cant do it, and again, some of it is remedied tomorrow, and not sure, but i happen to believe that the house rules indicate that the records of this body are the possession of the each and every member, and we are supposed to have access to the records and have an open process to go see this information, and i think that it is critically important for the American People to know that this is what has been going on, and we cant have the full debate that we should be having. And so i want to come back at a risk of a little bit of repetition, because it is important. I appreciate the comments from my friend from california that maybe we could work with yall in trying to figure out how to solve any of issues from the policy perspective as a legislative body act as congress to solve this issue. And in carrying tout action from mr. Cuccinelli carried out, and you can jump in here, because i dont want to speak for you, but i will characterize it in this way that one could say that letter was written a different way or we could have car ied it out a different way, and this is what has been discussed and mr. Cuccinelli hoped it had been done differently, but it is highlighting a issue that has been lingering for a while and my colleague called limbo, but even with the letter from uscis, you are in limbo. There is no status given, right . Am i correct about that, mr. Cuccinelli . So uscis gives a letter and here, you have a letter, and hey, we uscis, who have no authority to say whether or not i. C. E. Is going to exercise their prosecutorial discretion, and we are going to give you a letter that says that you might be okay for a couple of years. Is that roughly correct . Roughly, yes. Can you clean up the rough snns. Roughness . Yes, that can be revoekd at a revoke at any time. And if someone is in removal proceedings and i. C. E. And uscis talk, and they are rare, but they do happen, and we coordinate the effort. Again, going back to the beginning, was anybody being targeted, any one of the families targeted for removal after said letter went out . So putting aside no, absolutely not. And so acknowledging the concerns that the families have received the letters and everyone is acknowledging the concern of how it is received and we are all guilty of doing stuff in a fastpaced environment to executing, and maybe we could have executed that better, but the question becomes that the letters are going out as a process matter, and nobody, and none of the families were being targeted for removal to the best of your knowledge . Not to the best of my knowledge, no. And to the best of your knowledge, mr. Albence . No, we wouldnt have known it existed, because it wouldnt have come to our attention, so we dont know that the people exist. Would the gentleman yield, i appreciate the tone, and the caveat is precedent. And there is a long evolution of deferred action, and in this case, the family has been approved four times before, and including by this administration, so i am agreeing by you, but the precedent is what it was. Yes. And may i please defer, and now understanding what you meant by precedent better, congressman, it is important to realize that each review is a fresh review, and particularly in the medical circumstances, those evolve of course. And those would be reviewed anew each time. And so perhaps i misunderstood you. And maybe we just disagree on the perspective. From their perspective previously the attorneys said that you do this, and this is the likely outcome, so you have to go through the process, but what changed is the unilateral decision to get rid of all tof the okay. Understood. I understand now better. And i wont try to take any additional time, mr. Massie. It is just please do, mr. Roy. It would be to say that the precedent that we are talking about in my view is a flawed precedent. It is a patched together circumstance to teal wideal wit population that is inherently in limbo, and it is not affirmatively set out. So i will get a little bit of frustrated with your tone, and this has been great, and some nameless they may be come here to bluster about the evils of what is being transpired here and to try to impute to mr. K h cuccinelli or anybody else a desire to create harm to people as opposed to having a system where the rule of law means something. May i suggest a rhetorical question for the thought exercise, but an obvious way to this think about this is not case by case, but it is asking the question for each person, where do you draw the line, and how do you do that . I thank you, mr. Cuccinelli, because that is going to my closing line, and i want to start by thanking all of the members of the committee for a productive conversation, and participating in what has been a constructive process. I wanted to thank you personally, mr. Cuccinelli for expressing regret about the mistake that was made in what you said was the Retroactive Application of a shift in the presumption i think. And i thank you for that. I do want to pose a question about that though. And the obviously that it caused great anguish among the families that were affected, and i assume that moved you. I know you have to be a man with a heart, and so you were moved by what you saw, and you know, this may have looked like easy pickings in terms of going over a whole series of administrative policies where, you know, one could just tighten the leash in some way, and suddenly, it caused a major furor, because of the anguish and the pain that was affected for the families, but what does that mean about Going Forward given, you know, the compelling facts and circumstances standard that you are operating under . You said that there were certain things that were clear, and we apparently all have consensus of the cancer, and the Cystic Fibrosis, and the leukemia and other disease coming forward, but you said that it is humorous aging that somebody was granted oh, no, i did not say that they were granted, but i said that we see those applications. And is that your intention, because i am looking at the authority where it comes from, and it is not totally made up authority, but in the june 23 delegation to the bureau of citizenship and Immigration Services from the secretary of Homeland Department that he was going to grant voluntary departure, and deferred actions, so you have a delegation of authority and presumably, you could operate it on a kind more of the arbitrary case by case, and everybody make up a new rule standard or what it seems like you are trending towards now which is to develop certain categories that would strike everybody as commonsensical medical compelling need versus, you know, the people want to be here to age in place, you know, in the United States. Is that your thinking that you would try to develop some directives for the people who are making these decisions . Okay. So a couple of points, mr. Chairman. First of all, the authority that you are citing there in the Homeland Security act is how you trace this back statutorily which is going to secretary, but the purpose of the deferred action is that it is inherently a prosecutorial discretion, and thus my descriptions here today. So, what you point to in the statute does not provide other than casebycase consideration doesnt provide guidance or categories. Can i pause you there, and maybe it is a question for mr. Albence, would you pursue deportation of the people who have been granted deferred action for a medical purpose. Do you know of any cases where that has happened and any intention in the future . I am not aware of any cases in which that is going to happen. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. So, excuse me. There is no case where that has not been happened, and i am not saying that somebody who is involved in a medical i understand that somebody could commit a crime while they are on medical deferred action, i understand. But is it your thought, mr. Cuccinelli that you would specify some of the circumstances are . No, sir. To be clear, from the acting secretary, secretary mcaleenan, it is the continuing as a case by case, and what we do internally is to try and i heard some comments a little bit different from this is to maintain the consistency, and the way we do that is that the four people who are Regional Directors sort of at the top of the decisionchains in the field talk together about the cases periodically as they feel the need, and it is not conversations that i am participating in about cases to make sure that similarly situated people end up with similar outcomes, whether it is grants or denials. That is just for consistency, and it does not introduce standards or the measuring stick if you will to provide the guidance of how these may come out, and we dont have any basis to do that. All right. We might have a difference of opinion about that, whether yours would include that, and the only point that i would make and i appreciate what you just said about trying to develop the consistency, and the point that i would make is when you say a case by case method of decisionmaking, each of the facts is treated on their own presentation, but there still needs to be rules and plans to decide for the Decision Maker how that decision is to be made. That is the nub. Okay. Well, let me shift to another question, and my role as chair of the subcommittee, is that we have to get on top of the committee here that we should be able to complete in a relative short order, and again, we feel strongly about this in general, because congress has the authority to receive any information that we want in order to make the laws that we want to make, and you have probably chided us for not having comprehensively overhauled the immigration law, and we can only do it if we get the information about everything that we need. I can provide you an update on that. If you could, thatd be great, and specifically with respect to a couple of things with the memo written on september 9th from kathy kuvarick which is announced to us, but we haven never seen it, so that is one thing that we would like to get and one of the things that chairman cummings funded a subpoena for, and another thing is that you have received from mr. Mcaleenan on november 8th, the directives with respect to the matter, and he asked you for a memo 30 days of the date, and that has passed a couple of weeks ago and discussing the directives to be implemented. It is a simple update. If we could have that, that would be terrific, because we dont have a update of anything that has happened at that point. So to be clear, the document request, and we are still in litigation. The plaintiffs have not dropped the cases, and so our of course, but it has nothing to do with congress, and the Supreme Court is concerned about that. And please let me finish. What it does is that we have to review the materials to know our own position, and so we are n not we are doing all of the gathering of documents in review now. All we can provide, we certainly will. And this is one area of the law that i know very well. That anyones requirement to comply with a subpoena for request for information is not stated in any way by virtue of the Legal Proceedings or litigation, and we can get you all of the Case Authority on that. And so in other words, we cant wait for cases to be decided, appealed, removed and so on. I did not mean to suggest that. It complicates our own review of materials as we gather them. Okay. Let me, again, let me restate that we would like at least a answer from you today if you can tell us when you will be able to comply with the subpoena that chairman cummings signed on the day that he died, dated several hours before he lost his life, and so i feel strongly about this. And do you know when you will be able to comply . I know that we are working to comply, but i cannot tell you sitting here now, and i did not revisit this before i came, but i would have to revisit with the review team back in the office. Okay. Can you tell me when you will be able to tell me when you can comply . Well, we can at least give you an estimate by the end of today. Okay. By the end of the day, and we can get a timetable, and we want and need that information, and mr. Albence, can you also comply with that timetable to let us know by the end of the day . I cannot answer that, because we have provided the material to the department on october 20th, and at this point, it is outside of i. C. E. s hand, and it is much more limited from what mr. Cuccinelli has, and they are reviewing for limited and privileged information and when they are done with the review, they will release it. All right. Good. All right. Actually, are there people with you today to tell us when that is going to be . No, it is with the department of general counsel, and these are all i. C. E. People. That is the entity to answer that question. I can ask them when they believe it will be cleared, but. Okay. If you could get that. I asked them yesterday and they had no answer. Okay. Some letters for record that i want to admit without objection. Lets see, we have letters from several disability organizations, the interfaith immigration coalition, and the Legal Assistance group discussing the consequences of these policy changes for children who benefit from deferred action. I ask for unanimous consent for the letters to be entered into the record and without objection, they will. And finally, mr. Cuccinelli, i am seated in mr. Cummings chair, and so i am mindful of his extraordinary career and the fact that he always told us that we are here to help people and i have an opportunity here to ask you about one other case that i have been unable to get help from the department about, and i wonder if you would indulge me by listening to this. It is the regarding of the case of an Afghan National named muhammad and he escaped afghanistan by threat of the taliban and unable to seek entry into the u. S. With special immigration, and so he sought under humanitarian patrol, and he was denied as a matter of discretion, and to our knowledge he served the country faithfully and admirably as an interpreter for the u. S. Military operators who have writtenletters in his support and defense and after fleeing to pakistan where he has been in hiding, he has been beaten up by the pakistani police, and we have reports that he has been tortured, although he has been released, but he was subjected to torture while he was being held. So as the result of the bipartisan advocacy, we have members of both sides of the aisle working for him, and the humanitarian case was reopened, but by august 1, we were informed by you that he was denied with the discretionary basis of the lack of credibility, and no explanation of what that meant. We have been denied the ability to have a classified briefing on the matter. I am very concerned that mr. Khanr nashgs is khanran is going to be killed or disappear and the same fate may await him and his young daughters as happened to others, and i would like to know if you have clarification of the denial, and if there are real facts there to show that he and his Young Children are a security risk, by all means, let us know, because we dont want the security risks entering, but this is a guy who served the country with everything that he had and putting his life at risk. We have republican and democratic members asking you to take a look at it. Will you clarify the case and provide a briefing on the status of the special immigrant visa program as it refers to wait times in the process of dropoffs which is radical of the acceptance of the former interpreters who have served with us in combat zones and to see that there is justice there. So with respect to the individual case. I would have to i presume that there is no privacy waiver from the individual, so id have to find out what i am allowed to share. You know, we operate within Privacy Restrictions ourselves. But, i am happy to go to determine that and turn back around and recontact you. Please do. His advocates are asking us to do whatever we can to save his life from their perspective. He is someone who served with the Afghan Government and with our country faithfully and honorably, and the people over there working with him are asking us to take a look at the case. We know that there is a dramatic drop in the numbers of the interpreters who have been admitted into the country, and if that is the part of the general tightening of the people to get in, it is not fair, and if there is some reason that he shouldnt be admitted, then by all means, show us the evidence, but if you would be willing to meet with us or have someone from the staff meet with us, i think that we would be doing a little bit of fairness in the spirit of chairman cummings. Let me see how much detail i am permitted to share, and whatever the answer is for that, we can work back and share in terms of what we can. I appreciate that. Anything else, mr. Roy . I thank the chairman for the last 10 or 15 minutes and 20 minutes in particular of the back and forth and the give and take with the colleagues from california about how the move forward. I appreciate that. I appreciate the participation, and as always as the Ranking Member, i understand from the staff that he has signed a privacy waiver release, and this gentleman has, and so it is presumably something that we can meet about, and you can check with the people. That is significant. I want to thank all of the witnesses about the testimony, and you have important business to attend to, and so we thank you and without objective, all members have five legislative days to present written questions, and i ask you to respond as quickly as possible. Thank you, mr. Desaulnier, for your insurance. This me for your endurance. This meeting is now adjourned. Today, idaho senator james risch talks about chinas economy and the political influence. Watch live at 3 00 p. M. On cspan3 and online at cspan. Org or listen free on the cspan radio app. Watch the cspan Networks Live this week as the House Intelligence Committee is holding the first public impeachment hearings. The hearings will be led by chairman adam schiff to hear from three state departments starting 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan, and also top diplomat james taylor and george kent will testify. Friday, at 11 00 a. M. On cspan 2 the former ambassador the ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will appear at the hearings. Follow the house impeachment inquiry and the administrations response on cspan, unfiltered coverage live on tv, radio app and online. Watch the primetime reairs on cspan or stream any time on demand at cspan. Org impeachment. The interamerican dialogue held its annual conference in washington, d. C. , about latin