Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150113

More independent, impartial judiciary. You know, they are largely a historical vestige of their time. Tracy . I just agree largely what people have to say. Every selection method impacts judges decisions. Elections were adopted, as matt noted, to try to check the perceived abuse of the appointment process. I dont think it was merely perceived, the evidence is pretty strong on that. But in terms of the specific question of why dont voters then change the method of selection, whats interesting is the florida case since thats the case before us is they did change the med of selection the method of selection more appellate judges right . But not with trial judges, not with the judges that they think of as the judges in their lives. And i think thats pretty entering, to try to understand pretty interesting, to try to understand if voters feel that this tension between accountability and impartiality is one that they would like to resolve when the judges are closer to where they are. Whats disappointing, of course, is that judicial races are low salience races. Individual voters know very little theyre least likely to vote in judicial races, so i think in terms of answering the question why do we retain judicial elections i think its because of the ideal of accountability and the challenge is that, of course we dont really have that in the races generally. But i certainly agree that theres no perfect or system and no perfect judges even if we had a perfect system. Anything you want to yes, sir. Give us a sec. [laughter] hi my name is [inaudible] im with Transparency International usa. I had a comment and a question. I began my legal career as a state Court Prosecutor in miami florida, and i think it sort of goes to what andrew said earlier. My experience was i dont really feel it makes a huge difference whether or not the judge directly asks or whether or not theres a Campaign Committee. The practice at least in miami which is the largest, most populace jurisdiction in florida, is that the Legal Community is still fairly small, and Campaign Committees would organize, you know fundraisers, often times at bar, and all of us prosecutors who made 30 or 40,000 a year would come for the free beer and the Defense Attorneys would come to contribute. I think on the criminal side of things where i was practicing, and this is my question for tracey, you had mentioned that you see particularly closer to elections judges sort of become more law and order focused. And yet the prosecutors are not the ones donating the money. And so i sort of have a question as to how that actually works, because we dont have any money to contribute. Its the defense bar that has a fair amount of money. So i can see sort of on the civil side where, certainly, money may play a larger role. But on the criminal side i sort of have a hard time seeing how those studies would actually validate the suggestion that the Campaign Contributions do have an impact. But, you know, as a more general matter, it would seem to me that theres very little actual distinction, especially sort of at county levels where everyone knows everyone and a judge can look at the list of whos contributed, and it doesnt really matter whether or not its the Campaign Committee or the judge that asks the judge is going to know at the end of the day who his friends are and who are not his friends. So im curious begun sort of why, you know again sort of why, you know, there has not been a move florida says we passed these laws to solve this problem, but it doesnt really seem like this particular law solves the problem. And i think especially when you think about the massey case i think there was a trip to south of france involved in that one too. The issue seems to be not so much the direct solicitation, but the Campaign Contributions. The criminal defense or the criminal case findings are not as direct an effect as the effect in cases involving law firms and say, tort suits, mass litigation businesses and business disputes between individuals or businesses as defendants in tort cases. In those cases the hypothesis is and what theyre testing is a direct effect. A business gives, a law firm gives, it does better in court subsequently, or similar businesses do better in court subsequently. The theory behind the effect of criminal rights is instead that if a business wants to oppose you or a law firm wants to oppose your reelection, typically the best argument to the public is not especially if youre a plaintiff lawyer favors plaintiffs lawyers. The much better argument is youre not law and order. So the funding, especially in the postcitizens united world the funding behind campaigns to unseat judges is funding from entities typically indifferent to criminal cases but they recognize that the best ad is about a criminal case. And so thats the theory behind it because youre certainly right. Prosecutors are not substantial donors to judges and many states are not allowed to donate, in fact, to judicial campaigns. I just want to add something. One of my colleagues at the Marshall Project christy thompson, just did a long piece last month on this very issue judicial elections and the campaign ads that rise up against them. And, you know, youre dealing with one of the most cynical components of campaigns and especially judicial campaigns. And the idea that these business interests who care about tort reform or who care about, you know jurisdiction or who care about liability and other issues arent going to come to consumers of news and television and papers and say, you know, lets band together and, you know reduce the liability. Theyre going to come and say you know, this judge is soft on child sex offenders. And, you know, we those ads are more and more pervasive even as there is this countermovement in this country, i think, to be a little bit more sensible about crime and the dramatization of crime. I think thats going in one direction, these ads are going in the other direction and obviously, theyre effective because theyre pervasive in all of these states. And if they werent working, you know, they wouldnt be happening. As to why states are barring only solicitation by the candidate rather than by these committees, correct me if im wrong, but i think this is the aba code proposal, and i think it reflects an understanding of the to First Amendment concerns would be far more severe if they were that broad a ban. Yes sir. Were making it increasingly difficult for mr. Microphone man to pretty soon its going to be at the ceiling. [laughter] thank you bill [inaudible] from the aba. Im drawing this question from memory rather than recent review, so i might be totally off base but if i recall judge litman in new york on a recusal issue put in a threshold for recusal. Has that gone into effect and have any of you looked at it . And how is that working . Yes. Its slightly different. Its not actually recusal, it is it takes place through the assignment system. So if a judge has received more than 2500 contribution, and the amount differs slightly based on the level of judges. We elect our trial judges and our intermediate grade appellate judges intermediate appellate judges. A high court or judge is appointed. The Administrative Offices of the court automatically assigns the case to a different judge, and the judge never even knows they were potentially getting that case. We are in the process of doing some research on various recusal regimes and trying to assess their effectiveness, but i think its a very interesting system. It completely removes the discretionary element from the challenged judge. It takes away any sort of, you know appearance that a judge is a judge this their own case in their own case, and we hi its a very interesting system. [inaudible] to contribute heavily to judges you dont want on your cases. [laughter] one of the issues with any recusal practice is there is the potential for gamesmanship and its one of the reasons why it is so effective to design an effective regime. It gives the option by keeps the cases out, so thats an option as well. I have an easy one for you. Thanks so much for putting this event together. My names michael im a reporter at the center for republic integrity here in washington, d. C. And in terms of the notion of candidates doing the direct solicitation versus their campaigns, judicial races are not something im quite as familiar at as, say federal candidates running for office. So i was curious how professional are, you know weve got these 39 states that have different things, you know . In all of these cases, are we assuming that there is a judge, theres a campaign manager, theres a treasurer . Or are in some cases some of these races really just sort of one person operations and whats the practical difference versus the Campaign Making a solicitation versus the judge making this ask . While you guys are thinking of a response to that go online and look at some of the web sites. I mean, for example some of the justices in texas some of the web sites that they have up are as professional as theyre not oneperson shows. I havent done any empirical studies, but from what ive seen not just in texas, but elsewhere theyre often very sophisticated operations because theres more money available. I mean, its an investment right . If youre a judge and you want to stay a judge or if youre a judicial candidate and you want to become a judge, its part of the price of doing business. Which is, ironically, exactly what the donors are saying, right . They want to get something for what they pay for and they expect to get something for what they pay for. So my sense is just from writing about it a couple years ago and last year its a very sophisticated operation at this point in most cases. And id say there is a big difference between states and between races. Weve documented many state Supreme Court races are just multimillion dollar affairs. They are huge, sophisticated, wellfunded, expensive operations. Going down to, say the case were discussing today you might have a much smaller affair where not much money is raised and spent in a case and perhaps you could have a very small Campaign Committee of only a couple people. One thing i would say is it doesnt seem especially onerous to require as pyring judge to aspiring judge to read the rules and follow them. If they are unable to do that i think we should question their fitness to sit the bench. We stumped you . No more questions . Well great. Well we appreciate you being here this morning and listening to us and hopefully, you guys have taken something out of this, and well be around after to answer any questions. [applause] [inaudible conversations] wednesday british Prime Minister David Cameron takes questions from members of parliament during question time in the british house of commons. Thats live every wednesday at seven a. M. Eastern here on cspan2. And this thursday and friday Prime Minister cameron is in the United States for meetings at the white house with president obama. Well bring you coverage of any press briefings with the two leaders on the cspan networks. Dr. Anthony fauci our guest this sunday on q a, is on the front line battling against Infectious Diseases. We have drugs right now that, when given to people who are hiv infected if someone comes in and i could show you the dichotomy in the early 80s if someone came into my clinic with aids the median survival would be 68 months which means they would be, half of them would be dead this eight months. Now if tomorrow when i go back to rounds on friday and someone comes into a clinic whos 20plus years old, whos relatively recently infected and i put them on the combination of three drugs, the cocktail of highly antiretroviral therapy we could do mathematical model ing to say if you take your medicine, you could live an additional 50, 50, years. So to go from knowing 50 of people are going to die in eight months to if you take the medicines you could live just a few years less than a normal life span thats a huge advance. Director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases dr. Anthony fauci sunday night at 8 eastern and pacific on q a. The House Rules Committee met monday. This portion of the hearing is an hour and 45 minutes. Debate on the Homeland Security spending bill begins when members return at noon eastern. The meeting will come back to order, and thank you very much. We were trying to wait for several other members, but it looks like that here we go there. As i was reminded theres a Football Game tonight that also is on our schedule. And so as we bang the gavel down, its my hope that our other members on both sides will want to appear. And i want us to know that were now having the second Panel Related to h. R. 240 department of Homeland Security appropriations act for 2015. Previous to this just a few minutes ago we had nita lowey who appeared on behalf of the Appropriations Committee, we had the gentleman, john carter the subcommittee chairman, who spoke about the bill and now we are reconvening here at the rules committee tonight to hear about the amendment process. And i recognize that we now have mr. Attar holt, mr. Barletta, mr. Gutierrez, mr. Castro concern i did not have you on the list, but im delighted that youre here and ms. Lofgren, were delighted youre here. Ms. Lofgren, you been here for a couple of hours id like to defer to you first. Of ill just go back and forth. Well go ms. Lofgren then mr. Aderholt, then mr. Ambiguity less mr. Castro mr. Barletta, you will be the cleanup batter tonight. Pretty good thing for a pretty pitcher, pitchers normally go last in the battle order anyway. So nothing new here. Were delighted that youre here. Ms. Lofgren, youre now recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Noting that my friend judge carter and Ranking Member nita lowey spoke on the underlying legislation, i will limit my comments to the five amendments that were released on friday night by the majority. The First Amendment offered by representatived Aderholt Mulvaney and barletta is designed to [inaudible] l all but one of the executive actions from taking place. This includes the deferred action for parental Accountability Initiative that would offer temporary or protection from de30ration to certain parents of u. S. Citizens and the expansion of deferred action for childhood Arrival Initiative to include people brought to the country as children who have extensive ties to the community. In the absence of any other reforms to our immigration laws this provision would break apart more families and destroy more communities. It would insure that we continue to deport the parents of u. S. Citizens and lawful permanent residents and send many thousands of these children into the foster care system every year. But the amendment actually goes farther than that. In the interest of time ill touch on just a few of the initiatives targeted by this amendment. It would prevent dhs from using formal rulemaking to approve the additional waiver of the three and tenyear unlawful [inaudible] to help u. S. Citizens from avoiding extreme hardship that would result if their close relatives were forced to remain abroad for three or ten years as part of a process of obtaining a green card. The changes the administration intends to make to the provisional waiver process would wring the waiver more closely bring the waiver more closely in line with the terms of the waiver enacted by congress. Second from taking steps to insure that u. S. Citizens who want to serve in the military will be permitted to do so, notwithstanding the fact that they have an undocumented parent spouse or child and, third, the amendment would prevent dhs from finalizing regulations to permit spouses of h1b workers who are waiting for a green card to get Work Authorization themselves. It would also prevent dhs from increasing job portability for h1b which helps raise wages increase opportunities and reduce exploitation. Fourth, the amendment would prevent the administration from using its Parole Authority and National Interest waiver both created by congress, to capitalize on the innovation of foreign entrepreneurs and to make green cards available to accomplished entrepreneurs with a track record of creating jobs and generating substantial revenue. Finally, the amendment would block a series of initiatives designed to promote the integration of immigrants and refugees into our communities and to help lawful permanent residents complete the naturalization process to become u. S. Citizens. In fact, the only november 20 executive action not blocked is the one pertaining to pay increases and work force realignment in i. C. E. The message this sends, i think, is that pretty much everything the administrations done over the past six years to defer removal for the parents of u. S. Citizens to promote Legal Immigration, promote citizenship, sensible enforcement priorities, spur entrepreneurship, protect american and foreign highskilled workers was somehow an unconstitutional abuse of power by giving more money to i. C. E. Officers to track down and deport immigrants is just right. The Second Amendment is offered by representative blackburn and is more targeted but no less objectionable. This would prevent the use of funds to further implement the original 2012 dhaka memo dhaka memo. Because there had been some confusion in the past, this amendment explicitly applies to new applications, previouslydenied applications. It would prevent hundreds of thousands of young people who have already come forward and receive renewed action from renewing their deferred action and would, again, put these young people in a deportable status. The desantos amendment states that no fees or funds may be used to implement any enforcement policy that fails to treat any people convicted of an offense involving Domestic Violence, sexual abuse child moll station or child molestation or child [inaudible] as the highest priority. Nearly all of the crimes described in the amendment already are treated as Top Priorities of the department. That is the case with Crimes Involving sex abuse with a minor, child pornography rape, any crime of violence in which a person receives a sentence of one year or more and nearly any felony regardless of the terms of imprisonment. The only crimes that do not fall within the highest priority are deemed significant misdemeanors under dhs, and theyre in the second highest priority and still preclude the relief. So all the people were talking about are high enforcement policies for dhs, and theyre all ineligible for deferred action. This amendment is not unnecessary, however its also harmful because under the dhs policy. It was careful consideration of domestic violencing conditions must be given because we want to make sure that victims of Domestic Violence are not treated as a high enforcement priority. And heres the situation that can occur. In some jurisdictions when there is a Domestic Violence call, all the parties present are arrested. And the theory being sorted out not in the living room with the battling bickersons, but at a later date. Often times one of the victims may simply plead guilty to a minor offense to get out of jail, we believe and the president has directed that there should be scrutiny to make sure youre not saying in that case a victim of violence is treated as if they are to offender. This amendment would nullify that. The Fourth Amendment is an amendment by representative thompson, and its based on a premise that i believe is false which is that the president S Immigration Actions Create an incentive for employers to hire deferred action recipients instead of American Workers. Thats not true. All businesses, which are the vast majority, are generally exempt from the employer mandate because they have fewer than 50 employees. Theres no incentive there to hire people with deferred action over oh workers. Other workers. Larger employers that provide insurance cannot pick and choose which of their employees get health insurance, and if they do not provide adequate insurance policy, the penalty they pay is generally based on the total number of employees regardless of immigration status. So lets not forget that the alternative to allowing people to come forward to register with the government and get right with the law and obtain deferred action and Work Authorization is the status quo. Millions of workers living in the shadows and working under the table where they are much more likely to undercut American Workers and lower wages for everyone. And the final amendment filed last friday by representative shock says it is the sense of congress that uscis should adjudicate petitions of individuals in lawful status before adjudicating petitions of individuals in unlawful status. I believe what the amendment is trying to get at is this when daca was initially implemented there ended up being wait times for other petitioners and that was unacceptable. However, the amendment ignores the fact that usces is much better positioned to avoid delays than it was in 2012. The amendment also sweeps far too broadly. Uscia handles many petitions filed by people in unlawful status that we would never want to put at the back of the line; asylum applications adjustment of substitute applications people married to american citizens, requests for t visas for people who are victims of sex trafficking or crime, these are all people who would be harmed by the amendment. I cant believe that was the intention, but that would be the impact. I believe Congress Needs to have a discussion about immigration policy. Im always open to that discussion. And as you know, i was part of a Bipartisan Group that met for four and a half years to try and craft a bipartisan bill which we finally actually did. But i dont think these amendments really solve our need to reform our immigration system. Last time in committee the chairman asserted that he didnt want to deport 11 Million People, nor to deport the dreamers, but that is exactly what these amendments would accomplish. So only if you approve deporting dreamers and the parents of american citizens should you make these amendments in order, and i thank you for listening to me. These are important issues that i have devoted many, many years of my life to, and i yield back. Thank you very much. If i can engage the gentleman quickly, i said i did not want to throw them out. There was a suggestion we wanted to load them on cattle cars, and i said that is not the process. So i did not say they could not be deported what i was in reference to is the assertion. Im from the party of abraham lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and ronald reagan. We follow process. I certainly did not mean to missate in the gentlewoman does understand what im saying then. I appreciate it very much. Mr. Aderholt welcome to the rules committee. Youre normally up here on appropriations time with agriculture. I assume, ive forgotten, do you still have that a chairmanship . [inaudible] and that you did. That you did. But thank you for your gentlemans recognized. Thank you. Thank you for having [inaudible] microphone please sir. Thank you for having me here this evening. The distinguished members of the committee and allowing me to speak on the amendment which i am cosponsoring with congressman mulvaney and barletta to the department of Homeland Security appropriation bill. I do want to recognize the work of representatives Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina and lou barletta of pennsylvania for their partnership on these important issues. For times sake, i want to keep my comments brief, but please let me can allow me to highlight some of the purposes of the amendment. The amendment that is before the rules committee prevents any funds appropriated or user fees collected by the agency to be used to carry out the executive actions that were announced on november 20, 2014 by the president which will grant deferred action to an estimated four Million People in this country unlawfully. Additionally it declares that no funds may be used to implement any substantial similar policies to those that the amendment defunds. The amendment defunds the obama administrations prosecutorial discretion memos which have eroded inflation enforcement in the interior of the United States, and my colleague representative barletta i think will speak to that more directly in just a moment. Finally, the amendment clarifies that the programs were already funding, regardless of their form have no statutory or constitutional basis. Again, ive kept my comments to a minimum because certainly know that were going to be hearing from several other members here this evening, but thanks for allowing me to be at the chief and would be at the committee and would be please today answer any questions. Mr. Gutierrez, welcome to the rules committee. You are a very valuable part of this body, and your testimony is very welcome, and the gentleman knows that we last time had some words with each other and im glad the gentleman has come back. Gentlemans recognized. Well, last month in this room at this desk and almost exactly at this hour i testified to this committee. The next day i had my testimony turned into quite a Remarkable Exchange between the chairman and myself on the issue of immigration. The bill in question was from congressman yoho of florida and was meant to cut funding on an executive action that the president announced on november 20 2014. I argued that undercutting the president s executive actions and defunding kerred action for Childhood Arrivals Program from 2012 was about tantamount in my book to calling for the blanket deportation of every undocumented immigrant. All 11 Million Immigrants in the country illegally. Indeed, anyone out of status who comes in contact with our immigration system. I tried to lay out the logical extension, the more than 5,000 judgement poe 55,000 jumbo jets we would neat we would need to deport those people and the millions of legal permanent residents, Family Members along with them. I discussed the food that would rot in the fields if we drove every undocumented immigrant out of the agricultural i have by making them priorities for deportation for as we know, the vast majority those who work in our fields are as some call, illegal aliens in this country. If you will recall, mr. Chairman, you were not too happy with me this evening. You thought it was outrageous to claim that any member of congress or to use your words, quote, no one in reasonable Republican Leadership, end quote, contemplated anything of kind. You assured me that you would never contemplate deporting immigrants quote, unless quote, they were dangerous to this country and committed a crime. And to suggest anything else was an affront to you personally. Well, now we are discussing legislation designed to make certain immigrants a priority for deportation. They are, one, dreamers who came to this country as chirp and submitted their fingerprints for a criminal background check and passed that criminal background check. They passed it. No crimes. Most of them have been three years working, filling out income tax returns, got right with the law. The amendments taken together with dhs appropriations bill say they would not only be treated as deportable, would be a serious priority for deportation equal to any criminal. Two, the spouses of military Service Members would no longer be protected from deportation while their husbands and wives are fighting for this country overseas. Spouses of those who have fought or are currently fighting. We have this incredible broken immigration system that on the one hand gives a man or woman an order to go protect the nation and at the same time receives an order for the deportation of their spouse. Actions taken by the president to grant with them parole would be lifted so that they would also be made a priority for deportation. Three, the victims of Domestic Violence who come in contact with local police would be lumped right in with the men who beat them up and abused them and they would have the same priority for deportation. The abuser and the woman abused. That is something that this administration has taken care of. The gentlelady from california asserted earlier. Dreamers, military spouses and victims of Domestic Violence these are three groups republicans feel are getting too easy a ride under president obama. A president who has deported more people than any other in the history of this nation. A president who has protested at every event by immigration activists for deporting too many people. Youre saying we need to deport more dreamers more military spouses. In the New York Times my colleague said what the republicans have put forward is designed to satisfy the most conservative elements on the issue of immigration and deportation. He was very happy the Republican Leadership was lining up to give the wing of the Party Everything they asked for. Quote this is as close to 100 as weve ever gotten on a tough issue like this. So here we are reaching back to the president s first term to make dreamers, military spouses deportable, republicans in the house are saying that the very idea enshrined in american law that prosecutors should be able to apply the law so that the real threats and criminals are at the top priority and noncriminal and nonthreats are not a top priority the whole nation is thrown out the window. But wait, all of the president s actions are unconstitutional. And he has overstepped his powers in the minds of republicans. But they make one exception. There is one exception, mr. Chairman. The president was absolutely acting within the law when he addressed the salaries of our Law Enforcement officers and put them on the par with federal Law Enforcement officers. He did that together with the dreamers and the parents of american citizen children. The republicans agree with that so therefore, the president has the constitutional authority. But when the republicans disagree, the president is a dictator and a rogue. I find it hard to believe after the incidents this past week, bombings and shootings and hostage taking that your side wants to play political theater with the big Law Enforcement entity we have, the entity charged with guarding our ports, our border, our airports and our coast. I just dont see how this is good politics, good policy or way of showing the American People that the United States congress is in the hands of a Republican Party thats doing everything to keep us safe. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, mr. Gutierrez. Mr. Castro, welcome. Im delighted that youre here gentleman from san antonio. Thats right. I consider really to be my hometown. I went to high school. And, yes, sir, and i want to really tell you were delighted that youre up here and with us, and i hope your brother is well. Oh, he is. You as upset as i am about the [inaudible] football . Oh, i think [inaudible] there we go. [laughter] see, were talking about ohio state, were talking about texas tech today, now were talking about dallas cowboys. Yes emans recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mic, please. Your mic. Thank you, mr. Chairman and members. I submitted four amendments, and ill go through them fairly briefly for you. The first one is a 1 million increase to u. S to the United States customs operation to supply and test victims of rape using rape kansas city and decrease the salis and expenses salaries and expenses account within the United States immigration and customs enforcement. Many of you on the committee may have followed in the news that there have been many instances of both alleged and or verified Sexual Assaults in Detention Centers in different parts of mostly the southwestern United States. And as we did our investigatory work, we found that according to the agency, some of these Detention Centers may have rape kits and some might. Oftentimes the victims of Sexual Assault are sent over to hospitals. But because some of these Detention Centers in fact, many of them are in more remote areas of states those hospitals are sometimes long distances away. This would simply provide a budget for rape kits to be at the facilities, at the Detention Centers to be used by the medical personnel there. Thats my First Amendment. My Second Amendment would be, essentially, a raise for Border Patrol agents. I know that in this bill there is a raise that is included but we also know that for a few years their raises were frozen. So it would, it would include an increase of 5 million for Border Patrol salaries. The third one is a 1 million increase for tsa specifically for the screening of airport employees. A few weeks ago there was a very alarming story about gun smuggling, an employee who was gun smuggling out of the atlanta airport, smuggling guns to new york. Now, in that instance it was a case of gun smuggling but you can imagine that if an employee can smuggle guns, they can be with smuggling drugs, other contraband or even explosives. So this amendment highlights that issue and requests an increase of a Million Dollars to address that situation, chairman. And then the fourth one, of course, is the biggest amendment that i have which is, essentially, contravenes or offsets mr. Aderholts amendment and ms. Blackburns amendment, would essentially negate legally what theyre trying to do with their own amendments. Thank you very much. Sure. Mr. Barletta. Were delighted that youre here. The opportunity for you to come to the rules committee is exciting for us. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The gentlemans recognized. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before i came to congress, i was the mayor of my hometown in hazelton pennsylvania. Hazeltons 2,000 miles away from the nearest southern border. Its not a town that you would expect to have a problem with ilLegal Immigration. But we did. I saw that our population increased by 50 which is a large growth for a city. However, our tax revenue stayed the same so can you imagine trying to provide services to a city that has grown by 50 but no more tax revenue to provide those services . I saw ilLegal Immigration from a different perspective than many of my colleagues because i had to deal with it firsthand mayor of a small town with limited revenue. Our School District to show you how it affected all aspects of life, our School District in the year 2000 esl english as a second language the budget was 500. Just fife years later five years later the budget was 1. 5 million. But yet we werent seeing any more revenue. So, you know, we were seeing a whole different side of the problem of ilLegal Immigration that many others havent seen. I remember one time we had arrested a guy for, he was selling drugs on a playground. It took our detectives five hours he was in the country illegally took our detectives five hours to find out who he was. He had five Social Security cards. And i realize Law Enforcement doesnt know who theyre dealing with too in many times. I testified as a mayor at the time to senator kennedy and senator specter and said this is a National Security problem. We had in our little city we had taken down a fraudulent documentation ring where for 1500 3000 you can get a whole new identity. You can become anyone you want. And i saw a different side of the problem, and very few people recognized that. You know i remember back in 1986 president reagan gave am necessary the city to what was to be amnesty to 1. 5 Million People turned out to be 3 million because immediately when people realize were going to get amnesty, more people rush to come in. There was a man who was given amnesty as an agricultural worker, but in reality he was a cab driver in new york. He was involved in the 93 plot to blow up the world trade center. The only thing he ever planted in america was a bomb. So my problem that began my crusade was that we are not going to be doing facetoface interviews when we do background checks. Anytime anybody said that were going to do background checks there will be no facetoface interviews with any of the applicants. We will have no idea whether the information that were getting is the truth whether its really a good person that just wants a better life or somebody that came here to do something wrong. So it was as mayor that i saw firsthand how ilLegal Immigration can affect a community trying to provide services with limited resources. I believe that my stance against ilLegal Immigration was really the reason i was elected to congress in the first place. Lets be clear about something right now, the president s Amnesty Program did not just begin all of a sudden with his announcement on november 20th. It goes back well beyond that. It goes back to the socalled morton memos of 2011 and that led to the deferred action for children and rivals program or daco of 2012. Daca of 2012. I believe we must do everything we can to defund the president s am necessary the city program, and in my view Amnesty Program, and in my view, it goes straight to the heart of it. Those them e mows instructed immigration officers to ignore broad categories of Illegal Immigrants and halt deportation hearings for them. In short, the memos told immigration officers to view the law the way president obama wished it had been written rather than how Congress Actually wrote it. This completely gutS Immigration enforcement in the United States. Ive talked to i. C. E. Agents about it and many of them have told me because of these memos they are actually afraid to do their jobs. Im someone who has dealt with ilLegal Immigration as a small town mayor. I know what it looks like on the back end when the federal government doesnt do its job. Our amendment very simply is about making sure that at long last we enforce the law. Thank you. Mayor, thank you very much. I want to thank each of you. I believe mr. Gutierrez you spoke about what happened last time we were here. I dont need to characterize it, i only slightly disagree with m some of your recollection, but i do know it was a difficult time. Today weve had a chance a to think about what were doing. I believe there have been perfected amendments to allow and think and see about the actions that are taking place. I myself will have to make a determination about where i am on this issue. I feel very strongly that we should as a congress, as a body and as a party, my party, address this issue. We have been placed in this position right now i believe rightly or wrongly at a disadvantage. I think the president of the United States has been taking advantage of things that he believes in. But i do not believe this president should do things of this nature. And i find myself as a member of this body believing that we can address these. We should address these. But i believe its wrong by what the president s done. Earlier when we opened up the hearing, i spoke about what i believe was illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional. And my party has taken a few minutes and thought about this over the last few weeks and i think that youve seen a fair presentation on both sides by honest people who can sit at the same table and recognize what were doing. What our party is not doing is attempting to do anything at the last minute. My party is not, nor or is this body attempting to do anything without agreement by the United States senate. We recognize and respect that process. But i believe that my party and its people do understand that once this process is started and done were going to have to deal with it in an effective and honest way, and i believe thats what were doing. So for the five of you who have showed up today who have disagreement, i applaud you for coming to this body and for speaking your mind, and im delighted that youre here. Chairman kohl . Thanks, mr. Chairman. I just wanted to thank the members for being here. I know all of you well. Maybe not quite as well for you mr. Castro, but look forward to getting to know you better and work with you more in the years ahead. Look, we all know what a challenging issue this is and how high the emotions run and how difficult the debate is likely to be. But i think its an important debate and discussion for us to have. I appreciate all of you playing frankly, leading roles in that. You know i look at what were likely to do here in the, and this week as beginning that debate and that process. I want to associate with the chairmans remarks about recognizing the role the United States senate has to play in this. But its important in my view, that we proceed legislatively in regular order which is what i i think were trying to do here. Because i think thats ooh over time what work thats over time what works the best. And thats where i do disagree with the president on this issue. I think hes whether intentionally nornlt, short circuited that. And i think if were going to get to a national consensus, then there has to be a National Debate and a legislative process. I know all of your positions well, i know the legislation well, dont really need to ask any questions. I just want to tell you i think that each and every one of you is playing a really Important Role in this process. And, you know, its time for us to have this discussion. I suspect this will not be the only piece of legislation we see this year about this, but i do think addressing the president s unilateral actions is the place to begin. I think thats what this legislation does or many of these amendments do. I do want to say this i take considerable pleasure in the fact that in the underlying base bill were actually pretty close together. The base bill is actually a preconference bill conferenced between the Democratic Senate and a Republican House with the president , of course playing a role. So in a lot of the spending, were not too far apart, and in a lot of the emphasis. So i think this will both clarify the differences in these amendment debates but also move us closer, ultimately, toward a legislative solution which is, in the end, where weve got to get to. And i dont think, you know unilateral actions are likely to ever solve the question. So again, just want to thank each of the members for being here, look toward to the discussion and look forward to the discussion and with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back my time. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your comments, and i do appreciate not only the way youve said that but the spirit you mean what youve said very much. For a man whos engaged in the heart of this battle, i think its important for us to speak clearly about a chance to Work Together which youve done. Thank you very much. Mrs. Slaughter . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im not really entitled to ask you questions because i missed the testimony. I was doing special orders on governor cuomo. So i hope youll forgive me for that. The way i see this whole thing, the way were meeting here, is a bit of pique. If the president had not taken unilateral alaska no action would have been taken. There wasnt much option here to try to get things done. And hopefully, you all saw the chart a i believe today in the New York Times about how many special orders that president obama has issued in comparison with ronald reagan. I think it was about a third as many. And nobody on my side or at least we have no evidence of it that anybody went screaming to the court and said he cant do that because we dont want that done. Im absolutely at a loss to try to even understand why we were being so awful about immigration and in the being able to do it since this is a country of immigrants. Any more than i can understand the constant haggle trying to take Health Care Away from people. I dont know what the countrys coming to. Ive been here a while, but theres a meanness, a mean streak that runs through all this that i find distressing. Were playing with Homeland Security here today. And what we saw last week, how dare we do that to the American People . Just because you dont like what barack obama did, lets grow up for heaven sakes here. I wish to goodness that there would be some possibility which absolutely does not exist that we would maybe have a rule to fund the Homeland Security department which we should have done in the first place. Secretary johnson said he couldnt possibly make a plan. He didnt know how in the world he was going to run his agency without any budget. We have just dangle led this out here for months. Enough already. Think what we look like in the rest of the world all those people who marched in france all those people out there sunday. If they knew that the United States congress was here about to destroy Homeland Security because most of us cant vote for it because of what youre doing to a large section of children who weve all said live here, have meant us no harm, need education, and we all know and certainly mr. Gutierrez has pointed out all reasons why we cannot deport 11 Million People. Im a little put out about it because weve been up here for hours on this. It will probably pass the senate, but itll be vetoed we know that. So its again another exercise in few facility of the United States futility of the United States congress being unable to step up to the base and do its job. So i appreciate your efforts. They wont work a bit in the world, but we keep trying. Thank you all for coming, all of you. Youre all my friends. I think very highly of every one of you. But im so tired of these games. Wed all be with so much better off if wed stop. It takes too much energy. Wed be much better off doing many, many err things to move other things to move this country forward. Gentlewoman yields back her time. Gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. I wish the gentlewoman from new york had been here for all all of mr. Barlettas testimony. When i listened to that testimony it is mean. I heard a Public Servant who was trying to serve his folks as a mayor back home, someone who was struggling to provide for families the services and requirements that they have to live their life as we as americans want it to be done. You didnt hear a bit of meanness, you didnt hear a bit of antiimmigrant conversation, what you heard is someone trying to find answers and trying to find solutions. The other gentlemen we have here offering amendments on the our side of the aisle is the former chairman of the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee. To suggest for a moment that someone who has borne that burden of responsibility is here today trying to undermine National Security defies the collegiality that i would have said we have developed here. And it makes me sad because this isnt the issue. I have a district full of first generation families. I doubt theres someone whos been in congress more than five years who didnt try to work a case for a constituents family who had a loved one pass away and wanted to bring a young Family Member in from overseas to be with the family at the funeral. But u. S. Consulate officers had to say no, you dont meet the qualifications for coming into the country, you cant come to be a part of your familys grieving. You have to stay away. Now, as it turns out, as the president has defined things, if you defied american law if youd snuck in to be with your family, if youd been smuggled in to be with your family, there is now a pathway to the American Dream for you. But what there is not a pathway for still as we sit here today are those families in my districts who also want to be reunited. Those families who also want to be together. Dad gummit, i know we could find solutions. To suggest that if we dont do it the president s way its never going to get done, again rejects a whole dais full of folks who have exactly the same challenges in their district that the gentlelady has in her district. And finally, having sat through two years four years of rules Committee Hearings where the definition of futility was passing a bill in the house because it was what we believed but its going to go nowhere in the senate, it distresses me no end that the new definition of futility is to pass a pill that the senate is also a bill that the senate is also going to pass but now the president rejects it, now thats an exercise in futility. And, sadly, if thats the way weve defined things, then what the house does doesnt matter and what the senate does doesnt matter. What matters is what the president believes . It is no wonder that some of my colleagues are not as outraged by these november alaskas as i am. Actions as i am. This is not an immigration issue were talking about, this is a separation of powers issue. And it is tremendously important that we have both of those conversations. Not a conversation about rhetoric, but a conversation that leads to solutions. We need to solve our article i and article ii issues, and we need to solve our immigration challenges that again impact families in my district with every bit as much intensity if not more given the composition of my district. As my neb as any member on this dais. And to those folks who are working independently to try to make a difference for those families in my district and in theirs, im grateful to folks for doing that. I do, i believe that we have 214 votes for a solution. I believe in my heart that what the president did in november is making it harder to provide those solutions. I regret it. This is an academic conversation. This is would you yield be happy to yield. Ill be extraordinarily brief, but i do think given the importance of Homeland Security, i think, frankly, it was really a drastic error. And as we said the secretary said he could not run a committee or an agency if he didnt know what his budget was. But, so i certainly agree with the importance of that. But by i attaching immigration to it surely you knew what you were going to draw was a veto as well as probably not very many votes on my side. And not because we dont agree with Homeland Security, but the attachment of that. And, frankly, it was a poison pill we had in the banking bill. I think you brought that down on the floor last week. Were going to have to be very alert to watch out to see that doddfrank doesnt just disappear completely off the books here with little sidling things in left and right. But i stay with what i said in the first place. I think its almost a childish thing to add Something Like that to try and make the president mad to go and poke him with a stick or whatever it is youre trying to do here. I yield back. The i hope that we can come to an agreement that defending article i prerogatives is not synonymous with poking the president with a stick. I hope that its bigger than that. I hope that it is more substantial than that. Development, i dont intend to dissuade the gentlelady of her views, i only wish to dissuade her that shes in an institution surrounded by meanness. I suggest to her that shes in an institution surrounded by caring and compassioned and a deep deep, deep love for this country on both sides of the aisle. And i think if we focus on that commonality as opposed to the differences, were more likely to come to solutions than the other way around. Madam chair, i yield back. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much dr. Fox. First, madam chair, i would ask unanimous consent to include the statement of administration. Without objection. And i lift from its third paragraph the following however, the administration strongly opposes the addition of any amendments to the legislation that would place restrictions on the departments ability to get smart enforcement priorities focused on criminals. I would just ask him if these five amendments that police lofgren so adequately explained from the position of that she takes after years of working in, before coming to congress on this issue and in congress as well and being a county official also at some point do you see these five amendments as the solution to our immigration problem . I ask my friend from georgia. I think, my friend, i see thesefy amendments as a solution to our constitutional separation of powers problem. All right. I hear you on that and ive been around here a long enough to see and know that the effects of other president s executive actions and i understand, i believe you alls outcry up to a point but i want to, weve all done the je suis charlie thing mentioning what happened in france but this particular measure, the base Homeland Security measure takes, and make as decree of 39 million in the National Programs and Protection Directorate for cybersecurity. Now, lets bring us to january 12th and the early portions of this day that most of us awakened to, in addition to the many retail establishments, many of whom we do business with and had credit card with and the sony cyberinvasion. We wake up and learn that some point it was in large measure unclassified material of the Central Command of the United States was attacked under cybersecurity. I just ask my colleagues how do you feel and i will do it rhetorically taking 39 million away from the directorate . Let me tell you what happens. I dont know how many of you other than fighting bureaucracies or been involved in themselves if you reprogram money and dont have money and start tinkering with it, if you get piled up, i might add a footnote. We will be back here for when the deadline for this end well be back here talking about this same measure again when we could very well have pass ad clean appropriations measure and indeed could have the discussion that we need to have in this country about immigration. So toward that end, i just, for the life of me can not understand why we would not want to fully fund the directorate of for cybersecurity, all of us knowing that were likely to be confronted with many more issues of cyber, security concerns to all of us and well live to see that because its going to happen no doubt sooner rather than later. I want to direct my attention to one of the newest members and i too want to see ohio state get on with this business so i went spend too much more time but i do want to address mr. Collins and i hope mine and his becomes a similar friendship to that that i share with your fellow georgian, my good friend, mr. Woodall. Mr. Collins, i dont speak for mr. Mcgovern. You will be hear enough to hear from me until sometimes you will wish you had not accepted this position on this committee but there is no time that i can think of in the long period that i have been on this committee that i have feigned indignation nor do i feel that about my colleague, mr. Mcgovern. We all speak very passionately as you did and we have that prerogative but you will hear from me sometimes real indignation about idealogical attacks like whats going on right now with these amendments but im not feigning and i just want to make it very clear that this is pretty serious. Will the gentleman yield . Of course i will. I do appreciate it and i appreciate my friend from florida and do look forward to that relationship growing. I think probably youre right feigned indignation was probably not the right, i was probably trying to be lighter than i should have been. I previous the perception of indignation, i believe the perception that something that we on this side many of us believe to do, and then to bring up the fact that instead of talking about what has been missioned here on the article i article ii separation, what we truly believe is the issue, which i believe should abbey partisan problem. A bipartisan issue for congress. I go home all the time and really the root of both, many times my democrats that i represent, democrats as well as all of my very conservative district groups and democrats and republicans they feel Like Congress doesnt matter anymore. What are yall doing anyway . Doesnt seem to matter because we run on continuing resolutions and run on executive orders and executive memoranda by the way use ad great deal on this and overlooked and we focus on executive order and this is executive memoranda that were dealing with here. I will say this to my colleague i appreciate the passionate debate. One of the reasons why i agreed to come up here but also please accept my, when i say probably should to the have used feign because i believe it was a diversionary. To say for us to talk about immigration is what we really need to do and not have those discussions when at the same point feels like at the time passionately spoken to when it could have been done, we already had bills we talked about in this committee today that were forced upon a minority at that time, our party that was my purpose. That is what i was trying to say. Lets deal with the real issue here. Dont say the in essence it is not about immigration. It is about a president who overstepped his bounds. It is about a president that is our focus here, these fine ladies and gentlemen, i work with many on the judiciary committee. I hear from them. Steams we agree many times we dont. The issue from my side at least from this gentlemans perspective were dealing with something that was an overreach and overstep for it to be characterized as anything else is retelling of history. That is where i was coming from and with that i yield back. I understand and what led you to that was something that i hope i can help to clarify for you and that is that, and if you recall, when you were speaking you commented of that democrat and you didnt say, democrats, you said yall and i say yall a lot to. Yeah hey where do you think im from . But anyway the, what you were saying was that we had control of the house and we had control of the senate and you you were correct. And you say why didnt you yall do it then . It sound so simple when you say it that way. It is almost as if the minority leader at that time, who now is the majority leader did not have one of the most nuanced programs to insure that nothing was done, not only on this subject but on any subject. Now let me tell you what the horror of that is getting ready to be as we move forward into the 2016 election will suck up all the air in this place and we all know that in a few minutes. What youre getting ready to see the flipside on the United States senate. We call them the other body, and i can assure you not much, never mind about the president s veto and i do understand the distinction between article i and article ii. I dont have any arguments about the fact that you have that prerogative to bring it here as you see it but the simple fact of the matter is, we could have done a bipartisan appropriations bill that chairman rogers and Ranking Member lloyd came up here and brought to us and now we have thiS Immigration attachment which cant reasonably help the argument on immigration. Now let me turn to mr. Barletta and mr. Mahre, you represented hazelton i guess is the correct pronunciation, how many people at the time you left the merrillty lived in your constituency . Approximately 30,000, it was estimated at about 30,000 at the time during the court case. It was also estimated that about 10 of the population was there illegally. If i can make a point, i think it is very important because i know it comes up often. Enforcing or standing up against ilLegal Immigration is not antii am my grant immigrant. Our city was 49 hispanic. I took probably at time one of the strongest stances against ilLegal Immigration. I won with 90 of the vote of that city. Our hispanic population has grown every year from the time we passed the ordinance which keyfies the defies the theory that hispanics would not come to hazelton. In fact they wanted to come to hazelton. They wanted to move their families there. I think it is important it sound good but not reality of what happened. The reason that i ask you you dent in and sort of into depth, not with any rhetoric, about the flip side of immigration and having dealt with it from the standpoint of a mayoralty, where you had a substantial influx of people who were not here legally and were not being productive as far as taxes coming in and services needed to be rendered. I just wanted you to understand that you dont have to come from a small town to know that flip side. I come from broward county. I cant begin to believe that there are too many Congressional Districts in this country that have as many persons who share the Spanish Language as the Congressional District that myself and Ileana Roslehtinen have and i think i have more Diverse Group because im not limited to any one segment. I have a school that has 53 languages in that school. I have several that have more than 40. And one area you left out and may not have been your charge, i dont know how pennsylvania is set up, but you left out hospitals and the people that present and, when you spoke about, and i agonize with you, when you spoke about the amount of money for your 30,000 citizens i could fit them in my life on with the beginning of persons coming to this country from cuba and point to you the amount of money that we utilized in a simulating many of those persons and rightly we did. The same way that we a simulated at some point and then, used anecdotal information doesnt wash with me because i can use anecdotal information to justify just about any one of these situations. And let me give you a for example. I dont know you well. I hope i do get to know you well but by having a vowel at the end of your name i suspect that your parentage may very well be from europe somewhere. And i would more than likely suggest my nose gives that away not the vowel. But i would suggest your grandfather or greatgrandfather, are they italian . They are. And you see lets use something i shared a lot of territory of italians who came here. 29 of the 31 mafia families lived in the congressional that i represented previous to this one. And to talk about harm done by illegals, i can begin to tell you that we should never shun the harm of that was done by certain immigrants that came to this country. Talking about the italian immigrants . No, im talking about one aspect, one aspect when it comes to crime. And i was going to ask you and want to ask you how do you reconcile i wasnt talking about the nationality illegal immigrant can come from anywhere, sir. Yeah. I wasnt talking about italians but i think you are. But most times in these days when were talking about it, were talking more about people that shared the Spanish Language than we are russian immigrants okay . I got my share of them too. So i would just go into it with you. I want you to reconcile for me if you can president obama having the reputation for deporting more people than any president in history. Sure i can do that for you. Sure. What he is counting is turn arounds at the border. He is not counting about deportations on the interior where never counted a turnaround at border as deportation they now included them in their numbers. You talk about trying to make, shine a different color light to make somebody by a different color suit that is exactly what youre talking about. I would like for mr. Gutierrez to respond to that . Well, first of all, lets be very clear that we are not fixing the problem that the gentleman from pennsylvania raised. Were not fixing that here today. He spoke about people that din pay taxes. I have got 600,000 young people that are on the books with Social Security cards paying taxes and getting right with the law. He is talking about people the police didnt know who they were. I to the 600,000 kids who went through a background check. There are 495,000 paid another 90 bucks so their fingerprints could be processed. That is what he is talking about but that is not what were talking about here. Were talking about people who are on the books paying taxes contributing. Now, if the gentleman had come forward said look at these thousands of people, mr. Gutierrez, who are paying taxes who are criminals but that is not what youre stalk about. Im talking about members of the armed forces of the United States of america. Members of the armed forces of the United States of america who when the president saw that their spouses were being deported while they were receiving orders of deployment, there was an order of deportation, that is wrong. That is what youre eliminating here. So i cant understand even casually what was going on in your city in your town, what were addressing here. I want to addresS Immigration reform. The gentleman yield . I will have time but i will yield. I just want to say, were here to addresS Immigration reform. We could take care, look, there are bad people out there. Lets go get them. We only put enough money to go get 400,000 people. There are 11 million of them. So why dont we set aside the parents of american citizen children, five million of them parents of american citizen children, why dont we set them aside when we go after them and all of them have to go you there a background check, get right with the law, get on the books so when they come across a Police Officer in a town, shows them a registration, where theyre working. I dont think one thing has anything to do with the other. Here is the astonishing thing, they used to say when they came to the border and got caught, it was catch and release catch and release. Antiimmigrant forces in congress and nation said that is catch and release. Now they catch them and they dont release them. Because precisely the argument was they were simply released back once again to be caught once again. Now they are processed, they are jailed. The number one crime prosecuted under Barack Obamas administration, the number one felony crime prosecuted under Barack Obamas administration is illegal reentry into the United States of america and yet people will sit here in this venue and other venues say he hasnt done anything. It is two Million People deported. Maybe for others it simply is a turnaround at the border. I suggest you simply come into your neighborhoods and see the real fear. Many of us know have held the hearings we have been out in our communities and state to state. So it didnt, it is real. Let me yield and give mr. Barletta an opportunity to respond. Thank you, i appreciate yielding the time. That is what makes this issue such a difficult issue. Youre talking about some good people, some children. I know some great people that are here illegally. What makes it such a tough issue how do you separate salt from sugar . How do you separate the good from the bad . How do you separate a young child from somebody here wanting to do harm . The 9 11 Commission Report which Congress Passed and the president signed was very clear that the terrorists people in the country that want to do us harm, they want primarily two things. Number one, they want to gain entry into this country and then two, they want to be able to stay. My point is with the president giving unilateral amnesty without peace to face interviews without you cant do a background check on a person as a mayor i know this just reclaim my time for just a moment. Does that include fingerprints, when you say you cant do background checks and mr. Gutierrez got through telling you about people that signed up and gave we have no record from the person of their country of origin. You dont you cant prove that. You cant prove who that person is. But in many instances their country of origin there are fingerprints at the schools and other places where they have been. They cleared background checks. Were talking about people came here, parents brought them here at age two as american citizens. The person that is here were talking about two difficult, two different people. Perhaps so. Perhaps that is what we should be doing. I wont belabor it. I hear you miss lofgren but my colleagues want to be on about their business and i will do one other thing and stop right here and that is weve been using the figure of 11 million for 11 years. There must by now be 12 Million People in this country. So lets begin to try to get it right, all right . If we coin get rid of 11, we damn sure aint going to get rid of 12. Gentleman yields back his time. The gentleman mr. Steveers. I appreciate the witnesses being here. I have got a question for gentleman from pennsylvania and the gentleman from alabama. Nothing in your amendment suggests that you dont want to addresS Immigration issues does it . Let me just speak to that. I think that is something that congress realizes we have to address. This, as i mentioned earlier, in my opening comments simply prevents any fund that are appropriated and user fees collected by the agency to carry out executive actions announced on november 20th, further fourth which will grant deferred action to an estimated four Million People in the country, signed by president obama. I agree that nothing in there [inaudible] so, the real argument here is not whether we take action on immigration secure our border, reform Legal Immigration, deal with folks who are here illegally and how we do it and article i, section 8 clause 4 of our constitution says we all took an oath to protect and defend says congress has the power and i will quote here, to establish uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws about the subject of bankruptcies through the United States. Those two things are not intended to be together but the whole point is, uniform laws created by congress. And that is really what the fights about here and i dont think the gentleman from pennsylvania or the gentleman from alabama are saying we dont want to deal with this issue. We do prefer to deal with it in a step by step approach. I think thats, these two and 3,000page bills have not been very good for america in most cases because theyre hard to implement and they dont seem to work. And so the gentleman i think are here trying to solve the problem of the fact that this was done in a way that i dont think conforms to our constitution. I respect what theyre trying to do. I certainly respect the points that the other representatives have made because you know, i do think weve got to reform immigration. I happen to believe we need to reform it on a step by step basis. I know that we have disagreements about how we do that. But i think you will see that things will start to happen on that with regard to Border Security. We passed a bill in this house last year with i think 350 votes that dealt with Legal Immigration and weve got and didnt do everything but did a bunch of things to get us started. I know that mr. Chaffetz from utah will reintroduce that bill and try to expand that and do some things on that too. I appreciate all the witnesses being here. I appreciate your points of view. We clearly are a diverse country with diverse views on many things including this issue but i think the bottom line is, this is really a fight about how were going to get to a solution not necessarily whether people want to get to longterm solution on these issues and i appreciate the witnesses and yield back my time. Gentleman yields his time. The gentleman from colorado. Mr. Chairman i do have an amendmentment i would like to present at the next panel and i want to present the amendment which includes last sessions bill on comprehensive Immigration Reform as an amendment. There is a lot of talk how this doesnt solve the broken immigration sim. There seems to be a agreement from both sides this doesnt solve our broken immigration system so i hope to put a solution forward and i hope it is included. It is truly incumbent upon us to address this issue. Both side acknowledge this doesnt. I think the president the president has certainly taken some steps not to the address of issue of our broken immigration system but to do the best that he can as our chief executive with the hand he has been dealt by congress, namely a set of facts where we have 10, 11, 12 Million People here illegally. We dont know, and think my colleague from florida is correct saying it will go up if we continue to take shun, no doubt about that. It is 12 million right now it will be 13 or 14 million in five years. Nothing will change until Congress Changes it. I think what this executive action tries to do is saying lets focus on keeping americans safe. Focus resources on criminal on criminal aliens and we know we dont have enough resources, congress hasnt given us enough resources to enforce the law across the board. And i would like to ask miss lofgren with regard to prosecutorial discretion, it seems to me it is already being used in immigration. It is just used in a very disorganized haphazard way at kind of the local level. All that seems to be happening to me here is just a set of riles replacing a selective enforcement that has to occur because there are only some bed compared to the number of people. It is, if anything, it is implying more organization seems like to the manner with which we use our prosecutorial discretion. I wanted to ask her about that use and how this fits into precedence of use of prosecutorial discretion as well . I thank the gentleman for the question and in answer i would ask unanimous consent to place into the record analysis prepared by 135 scholars and law professors and confirmed by four former general counsels to the immigration naturalization service, including a general counsel during the Bush Administration that outlines the precedent for this Action Action there is nothing that is unconstitutional, there is nothing that is departure from past precedence. Some people may not like what the president did. I understand that. People can disagree. But it is not unconstitutional and it is not a massive depart ture from what prior president s have done. I would note this although i very much agree with the litigation, it might be wiser for people who disagree on this subject to allow the litigation that is currently pending in the Federal District court in texas to proceed and find out the answer to the question rather than tying up the entire budget of the Homeland Security department. If gentlewomans miss lofgren i heard, the gentleman from pennsylvania refer to the president s actions as amnesty. I just ask him, has the president granted amnesty to anyone miss lofgren. The president does not have Legal Authority to give amnesty to anyone. What he has done is to defer prosecution to on a casebycase basis to people who are eligible to apply in some categories. For example this has been the case for some numbers of years. The spouses of american soldiers in active duty. We came across cases where wives with were home and their soldier husband was in iraq and they were going to be deported and who was doing to take care of their children and the defend department was greatly concerned by this phenomena. The president said in that case were going to different some deferred action. He cant give a status. He will say those cases fall to the bottom of the list. Were not going to round up wives of american soldiers and deport them. Well go after the felons instead and i think that is smart enforcement. If they have violated our lawS Immigration or otherwise that stays on their record. It is not cleared out. It is not amnesty. The president lacks authority to do that and i would note the memorandum specifically excuse people from relief that have committed crimes. Given the president doesnt have ability to do an amnesty this amnesty do you think its a mischaracterization to call this an amnesty . It is not an amnesty. It is prioritization of enforcement. In the absence of executive action, isnt there some way this prioritization occurs anyway at the local level . What will happen in a chaotic way and on the streets so that individual officers will be making determinations without a National Strategy. I dont think, certainly that is not what the constitution requires. It is not what we would want. We would want a National Strategy that is smart and directed in a cohesive way. That is what the president is attempting to do and succeeded in doing. The final note i want to make before yielding back, i believe, it was mr. Hastings entered the statement of administration that this would face a veto into the record and its rather ironic because were dealing with a bill about Homeland Security at a time of increased risk of terror. We saw the recent events in france. We have a president who disagrees with some of our colleagues in congress over this. If this were the to lead to closing down the department of Homeland Security and putting americans at risk, over an unrelated policy issue it would reflect not only poorly on this congress but it could really put the lives of americans in danger and i urge my colleagues to change course and to pursue a department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that the president will sign or has 2 3 support or if youre able to get 2 3 support by all means. I doubt this bill will have anything close to 2 3 support but one way or the other i hope the policies being pursued by my republican colleagues do not put american lives at danger by closing down the department of Homeland Security over an unrelated policy issue. One that i will be offering an amendment to address mr. Chair, given both democrats and republicans agree regardless of the contents this bill it does not solve our immigration our broken immigration system. I yield back. Gentleman yields back his time. Gentleman from texas dr. Burgess, does not seek recognitions. Mr. Collins, do you seek recognition. I think gentleman is recognized. Yes mr. Chairman i seek recognition. I think the interesting thing and lets get back to the real heart of this as we came to with my colleague from florida the heart of this is a general disagreement on how this was carried out. And i think one of the things is even in this discussion on attaching the homeland and attaching to a funding bill, again as we saw in the occurrences of just a little bit ago, most of Homeland Security is deemed essential. This issue would not play out in that vein. It goes back to what was done and how it was laid out. I believe again, in the context of where we are working and miss lofgren, you brought up a point, you said the discussion, we talked about this before, that other administrations have done this, it is something all i will say to that, if it was wrong, it is wrong now, it was wrong then and just simply pointing back to a wrong action to make a right now is not the way you find this out. Will the gentleman yield . I will definitely yield to my friend. I we worked often on the judiciary committee. My point would be, it wasnt wrong when eisenhower, reaganbush, took certain actions, when they took actions. It wasnt wrong before and i it is not wrong. I yield to the gentleman. I just disagree, when done unilaterally no matter who does it. I think that goes back to my point i made earlier. This to me and many others on our side of the aisle is simply matter that should concern all of congress, both sides of the aisle about the state of this body doing what it was elected and constitutionally required to do. And that is do our job. That is work this hard and make the hard votes and hard decisions and when were sidetracked by this, it makes it very difficult mr. Gutierrez, and others to have these conversations when you have this kind of a process before us. That is the problem we have right now. With that, mr. Chairman i yield back. Mr. Collins. Thank you very much. I want to thank not only members of our committee but also this panel. Mr. Barletta mr. Gutierrez miss lofgren, mr. Castro. You have both down yourself proud tonight and represent the spirit what were trying to accomplish here. Sharing of ideas in this process. I want to thank all of you. Well move on to the next panel, i want thank you all very much. If you have anything you have in writing, leave it for the awesome stenographer trying to stay up with all the words that we give here. We have, that im aware of, two additional members. Id also like to note that mr. Glen glockman who is from wisconsin has been attending this hearing for a couple of hours and i think it is rather telling after new freshman who has taken time not to try to barge their way up here to get up in front of the camera but rather who is taking a good view from the back row today and id like to pat him on the back for coming up to the rules committee and watching this as we proceed. Miss lee, its all yours and were now at the end of about six hours. Were going to try not to show it but i would hopefully express the gentlewoman as she turns on her mike she is welcome to the committee. She knows she is welcome and we would hope she would get to her point and the gentlewoman is recognized. I thank the gentleman very much and with certainly with the long time frame that the Committee Members have been and thank you for the opportunity to just to briefly make known my opposition on the amendment that have been put forward. I assume these amendments will be taken separately and i will not at this time ask for an open rule for which i would typically ask. Id like to offer as an amendment comprehensive save america act which has been introduced since the 1990s. I want to respond from the perspective of the Homeland Security committee and i know that representatives have been here from that committee but just want to make brief points and then yield my time back and i thank the committee for its courtesies. I want to cite two points that were made in a cq article. One, from the chairman of the Appropriations Committee that says it is a very dangerous time. Of course he continues in that by saying he wonders whether the president would veto the Homeland Security bill but his most potent point is this is a very dangerous time. Secretary johnson came before our committee indicated that he obviously could not function first with the cromnibus but more importantly with a Homeland Security bill that was going to be delayed. And i think with the testimony that he gave and the acceptance that we live in a world of franchised terrorism i would caution our colleagues with the kind ever amendments that will draw a veto. I will finish by saying as my colleagues indicated, as i have introduced immigration bills and watched these processes without the executive order working with i. C. E. Prosecutorial discretion is not new. All that is in the executive order is a framework that is more stringent than the present structure that i. C. E. Utilizes. In actuality it require as detailed process for anyone who would be granted not legal status meaning not an immigration status but permission to be in this country. And i think that we are clearly going in a direction that jeopardizes the National Security of this nation, if these amendments are allowed to be in contravention of the secretary of Homeland Security who said, that he will have a very difficult time planning, will have a very difficult time dealing with the atmosphere which were in. And he will be shortchanged on some major elements lycos guard secret service, and many others that are necessary. So my, i ask unanimous consent to put my statement in the record. Without objection. But i clearly want to emphasize the climate of franchised terrorism were engaged in this nation at this time and i would hope that these amendments would be rejected. Well vigorously open pose them on the floor and i would suspect we would have a veto. I dont think the shame would be on the president. It really would be on us as a congress. I finally close by saying, when the president put in place the executive order he said it is there until we pass legislation. This is not a permanent entity or document. And all we have to do is proceed with regular order of funding Homeland Security and begin a process of passing legislation that may be bipartisan. It may not. But it would be a ledge sure initiative that parallels the very need of funding Homeland Security which is a must with the backdrop of what were facing. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you very much. I will give myself one minute. As you finish reading the bill, you will see that there is some 10 million that is also withheld from the secret service. Pending which they provide which has been requested, the information about how the secret service is going to adapt, adjust and change their overseas operations where we have dignitaries including the president of the United States to be a part of it. We have found in the United States congress i cant tell you why president of the United States and this administration doesnt like to respond back to us when we have questions. This is one of the avenues withhold money. So well withhold 10 million bucks. I think we were pretty wise and smart to do that. We care about the president. We care about the Security Issues and we care that theyre the president s running the government right now the administration but they should be required to come up to plan and Tell Congress not just whatever they choose to do so. W does anybody have, does anybody on your side have the question for the gentlewoman . Okay. Did you see that. Okay. Would you want to look over here . Does anybody have a question for the gentlewoman from houston . Seeing none, thank you very much. Thank you for your point. Please make sure you leave anything that you brought in writing for your statement. We appreciate it. I will do so. I thank the generosity of my Ranking Member. Thank you for her humor. Let me make sure i correct it and say executive actions and not executive order. I hear your point about the secret service. This would be an overall veto in all aspects of it, including i think the misdirected approach of abolishing or not allowing them to use fees which have been a mainstay of Homeland Security for many, many years. Yes, maam. With that, let me yield back. I appreciate the gentlewoman. We have that im aware of one additional person who is a member of this committee who would seek time and if the gentleman that is great. I recognize the gentleman. Thank you mr. Chairman. I would offer an amendment to the rule that would add a section that would require the house to consider a bill consisting of the text of a bill we talked a lot about in the 113th congress. It will be new in this congress and that is hr 15 which was passed in the last congress by the senate by more than 2 3 looking changes in the senate. There should still be enough votes to reach the 60vote threshold. I dont know it would pass a 2 3 again but i think it would have north of 60 votes and i think it would pass the house. I would hope our members have the opportunity to vote on it. If it doesnt at least we know we tried to bring a solution to immigration. One thing im really struck with both everybody who testified acknowledged that, what weve were doing here with Homeland Security this doesnt fix emigration and people on both sides said they want to fix it they want to fix it they want to fix it. Im offering a solution and i hope we make it in order and i hope we make other solutions in order. I really think that what our frustration here is were dealing with this underlying issue of a broken immigration system. There is no easy answer how you use prosecutorial discretion, whether you use it or not there are still 11 Million People here illegally. Doesnt go up or down through the executive action. I think it is a more organized way to deal with it. For the reasons mrs. Lofgren and others supported it i think it is reasonable thing to do but i agree as they do and just as everybody has it doesnt fix our broken immigration system. I have a bill to fix it. I hope my colleagues can agree to hand amend rule to apply an upordown vote on that i will happy to yield to questions. Thank you very much. Questions from your side. Seeing none questions from the republican side . Mr. Chairman, gentleman is recognized. Just one brief comment. I said to representatives earlier this is not an immigration pill. I dont think 15 is going to fix anything anyway. It will further create a broken immigration system but the only thing that would compound the bad process that has gone on because of what the president has done would be if we tried to stuff an immigration debate into this Homeland Security bill and i would hope that my colleagues would vote no on the polis amendment. Gentleman yields back his time, thank you very much. Mr. Stivers, how close to kickoff time are we . Kickoff time was supposed to be seven minutes ago. Kickoff time was seven minutes ago. Thank you very much. Im sure youre not paying attention, thank you very much. Mr. Polis, thank you very much for your amendment discussion. This now seeing no additional members who here to seek time, this now closes the hearing portion of hr 244, Homeland Security appropriations act, 2015. Chairman will be in receipt a motion from the gentlewoman from North Carolina, of the committee, mrs. Fox. Gentlewoman is recognized. I move the committee grant hr 37 promossing jock creation, reducing Small Business burdens act the rule provide one hour debate equally divided controlled bit chair an ranking minority Member Committee on financial service. All points of order against consideration of the bill. Rule provides the bill will be considered as read of the rule waives all points of order against provisions in the bill. The rule provide one motion to recommit. Section 2 of the rule, provides hr 185, regulatory accountability act of 2015 a structured rule. The rule provide one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on judiciary. All pound of order against consideration of the bill and provide it shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions in the bill. The rule makes an order only those amendments printed in parta of the rules committee report. Each such amendment may be offered only in the order printed and the record may be offered only by member designated in report. Shall be considered as read. Debated for time sesfied in the report, equally dividing control by proponent and opponent. Shall not be subject to amendmentment. Not subject to demand from rule waives all points of order against the amendments printed in parta of the report. The rule provide one motion to recommit with or without instructions. The section 3 of the rule, hr 240, department of Homeland Security appropriations act 2015, structured rule. The rule provide two hours of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on appropriations of the rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill and provide it shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions of bill. The rule makes order only those amendments printed in part b of the rules committee report. May be overred only in the. Shall be considered as read. Shall be debatable for the time specified in the report. Equally dividing control bit proponent and an opponent. Shall not be subject to amendment and shall not be subject to demand for division of question. The rule ways all points of order against the amendments printed in part b of the report. The rule provide one motion to recommit with or without a instructions. Finally section 4 of the rule provides that the chair of committee on appropriations may insert the congressional record not later than january 14, 2015 such material as he may deem explanner to of hr 240. You. Erred the motion from the gentlewoman from the North Carolina and so i would ask if there is amendment or discussion . Yes mr. Chairman. Thank you. I do have an amendment. Recognized. I move to amend the resolution to remove special waivers of points of order to amendments to hr 240, the Homeland Security appropriations bill. The rule says that republicans dont have to comply with the rules of the house. The five amendments could not be offered on the floor without the rules committee giving them waivers of certain points of order. These five amendments are designed to sabotage a bipartisan deal to fund the department of Homeland Security and if they became law they could throw their already broken immigration system into even greater chaos. It is irresponsible to give these poison pill amendments special protections from the rules of the house. And as we noted last week in the last congress, this committee handed out 97 of these kind of waivers through the republicans and 3 to democrats. I ask that we give affirmative vote on this amendment. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman is correct that i have made a early did nation that believe that they should be in and thus theyre in the rule. But the gentlewoman also recognizes that she has an opportunity to amend that with a vote. Further discussion . Gentleman from florida. Now ready for the vote of the those in favor for the slaughter amendment signify saying aye. Those opposed no. Nos have it, nos have it. Roll call is requested. Miss fox, no. Mr. Cole. Mr. Cole no. Mr. Woodall, no. Mr. Burgess. Mr. Burgess no. Mr. Steveers no. Mr. Collins . Mr. Collins no. Miss slaughter . Police slaughter aye. Mr. Mcgovern . Mr. Hayes innings . Mr. Hastings aye. Mr. Polis . Mr. Polis aye. Mr. Chairman, no. Mr. Chairman no. Clerk report the total. Three yeas seven nayses. Amendment is not agreed to. Further amendment or discussion . The gentleman from colorado. Thank you. I have an amendment to the rule. I move we add a section of the resolution house consider a bill consisting of the text of hr 15 from last congress. It is from the 113th, a text of that which is Bipartisan Senate passed comprehensive Immigration Reform bill. Thank you very much. The gentleman has made strenuous and regular comments related to this. So i believe the committee is aware of the legislation that the gentleman speaks of further discussion . Mr. Chair . The gentlewoman from North Carolina is recognized. I would just like to add, put in the record it is my understanding that that bill although it was passed was never sent to the house for its consideration because of the concerns of constitutional issues. If gentlelady would yield. Yeah, this is a the gentleman is recognized. Yeah, thank you. This bill, this congress 114th has not yet passed senate. It passed the senate in the 113th congress. Were now in the 114th. If we were to pass it and amendment was made in order and pass on the floor it would still need 60 votes in the senate to become law. Talking about last congress . I was referring to the last congress, not to this congress. Okay. I was well aware that that bill passed in the last congress and thats what i thought i said and if i didnt, i was that was, i was correcting the record that has been made often that this bill had passed the senate and been sent to the house. It was my understanding it was never sent to the house. Not received. Not received in the house. It did pass the senate with more than 2 3. In fact it has not been received by action for the house. That is the only point the gentlewoman there was, there was a discharge petition filed on this bill. Which about over 190 members signed that discharge petition. Unfortunately just short of the people we needed to sign it. Had we passed that bill, and i should point out the bill has a couple of improvements from the Senate Version that it replaced, for instance Border Security language from the senate with a Border Security language that had been unanimously passed out of the Homeland Security committee with democrats and republicans changing that. So it had further more language than this amendment. It is slightly different than the version that passed the senate. If we were to pass this it would go to the senate and would need 60 votes for cloture. Further discussion . Seeing none the vote will be on the polis amendment. Those signaled aye by saying aye. Those opposed no. Nos have it. Roll call vote mr. Chairman. Miss fox no. Mr. Cole no. Mr. Wood dal no. Mr. Burgess. No. Mr. Stivers, no. Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins no. Police slaughter. Police shortie. Mr. Hastings aye. Mr. Polis aye. Mr. Chairman . No. Mr. Chairman, no. Clerk report the total. Three yeas, seven nays. Not agreed to. Further discussion gentleman from colorado is recognized. Mr. Chairman under the rule move committee make an order and necessary waivers for amendment to hr 37 by representatives ellison, issa and myself. Number eight would strike title vii of the bill. This is move towards transparency. The provides an amendment simply improves the bill frankly. U. S. Regulators are lagging behind with regard to implementing new technology and transparency for markets to function. People need to be able to search for financial record filings. Unfortunately the provision in hr 37 would make it so Public Companies with revenueses less than 250 million would not use standardized digital reporting submitting paperwork to the sec we all benefit from standardized physical reporting. It is less physical paper. When done correctly it should reduce costs not increase costs. Investors benefit and being able to search with databases with regard to information. Unfortunately the bill is written with the without the issa amendment would reverse progress toward transparency and towards efficient markets that we made since 2009 when the sec implement ad Trial Program that allowed companies to submit their report in digital format. So digital formatting helps businesses helps eninvestors. Can actually reduce costs when tools are available to do it correctly. This amendment would strip the hurt language out of hr 37 and improve the bill and i urge my colleagues to allow a vote on this amendment. You now heard the amendment from the gentleman from colorado. Further discussion . Seeing none the vote now be on the amendment. Those in favor signify saying aye. Those opposed no. Nos have it. Role call vote mr. Chair. Gentleman asks for roll call vote. Miss foxx no. Mr. Cole . Mr. Cole no. Mr. Woodall. Mr. Woodall, no. Mr. Burgess, mr. Burgess no. Mr. Steveers no. Mr. Collins, no. Police slaughter aye. Mr. Hastings aye. Mr. Polis aye. Mr. Chairman . Mr. Chairman no. Clerk report total. Three yea, seven nays. Amendment not agreed to, agreed to. Further amendment or discussion . Seeing none the vote now on the motion from the gentlewoman from grandfather community, North Carolina, vice chairman of the Committee Miss foxx. Signify saying aye. Those opposed aye. Ayes have it. Gentlewoman asks for roll call vote. Miss fox aye. Mr. Cole, mr. Cole aye. Mr. Woodall aye. Mr. Burgess aye. Mr. Steveers mr. Steveers aye. Mr. Collins aye. Police slaughter. Police slaughter no. Mr. Mcgovern mr. Hastings no. Mr. Polis no. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman aye. Clerk report the total. Seven yeas three nays. Motion is agreed to. I want to thank all the members of the committee. I am aware this is difficult hearing. Im well aware that a lot of staff time went into this. Im well aware also a number of members of committee had lots of things they were doing other than sitting here. Or at least mr. Stivers wishes that. With that said the committee had a duty and obligation and i believe our witnesses in many witnesses took clues directly from the members. I think that we were judicious. I think we were careful. I didnt agree with everything said. Im not sure you had to or not. But i thought we handled all the witnesses very well. And i appreciate us making this Committee Work to the betterment of the body. I think that is what were about. I will be handling this for the majority. Mr. Polis, my dear friend as we refer to each other from colorado will handle this from the democrats. I do not anticipate or expect we will have further work this week up at the committee and so we have now completed our work for the day and i thank you very much. The senates about to convene on this Tuesday Morning with debate on the keystone xl pipeline and the hill has an article this morning. Democrats are poised to make republicans cast a series of tough votes on legislation approving the pipeline. Democrats do not appear to have the votes to kill the legislation in the senate. Instead Senate Democrats opposed to pipeline are offering amendments that they think will be tough for the gop to vote against or will play well in the 2016 elections. Now to the floor of the u. S. Senate