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CRIMINAL ALIENS RELEASED BY THE 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 28, 2016 

Serial No. 114–111 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Staff Director 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

ART ARTHUR, Subcommitte on National Security Staff Director 

DIMPLE SHAH, Counsel 

WILLIAM MARX, Clerk 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 28, 2016 .............................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Ms. Sarah R. Saldana, Director , U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 6 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

Mr. Ralph Martin, Chief of Police, Santa Maria Police Department 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 71 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 74 

Ms. Wendy Hartling, Mother of Casey Chadwick 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 77 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 79 

Mr. Scott Root, Father of Sarah Root 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 84 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 87 

Mr. Chris Burbank, Director of Law Enforcement Engagement, Center for 

Policing Equity 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 91 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 93 

APPENDIX 

Enforcement and Removal Operaions at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement within the Department of Homeland Security, Statistical Tracking 

Unit. This information was collected from a Freedom of Information Act 

request (2015–ICFO–95524) Entered by Chaiman Chaffetz ............................ 122 

Breakdown of the Types of Specific Criminal Convictions Associated with 

Criminal Aliens Placed in a Non-Custodial Setting in Fiscal Year 2015, 

Entered by Chairman Chaffetz ........................................................................... 126 

A letter from Senator Grassley and Senator Ernst regarding the case of 

Sarah Root, Entered by Chairman Chaffetz ...................................................... 133 

Responses to Questions for the record, from the Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Department of Homeland Security, Sarah Saldana, to Chairman Chaffetz ....................................................... 135 

Responses to Questions for the Record from Assistant Director for Congressional Relations Jason M. Yanussi, on behalf of Director Saldafia of Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Department of Homeland 

Security, Entered by Chairman Chaffetz ........................................................... 155 

November 24, 2015 letter from Senator Richard Blumenthal, Senator Chris 

Murphy and Representative Joe Courtney to the Department of Homeland 

Security Office of Inspector General, Entered by Ranking Member 

Cummings ............................................................................................................. 158 

Customs and Border Protection System Down Times at D FIS Passport Control, Entered by Representative Ron DeSantis .................................................. 160 

February 2016 message from the Arlington Pubic Schools by Patrick K. 

Murphy, Superintendent, Arlington Public Schools, Entered by Gerald E. 

Connolly ................................................................................................................ 161 

March 21, 2016 letter from the Southern Poverty Law Center to Ranking 

Member Elijah E. Cummings Re: Families in Fear: The Atlanta Immigrations Raids, Entered by Representative Gerald E. Connolly ............................ 162 


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CRIMINAL ALIENS RELEASED BY THE 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Thursday, April 28, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Duncan, Jordan, 

Walberg, Amash, Gosar, DesJarlais, Gowdy, Farenthold, Massie, 

Meadows, DeSantis, Mulvaney, Buck, Walker, Blum, Hice, Carter, 

Grothman, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Lynch, Connolly, 

Cartwright, Kelly, Lieu, and Welch. 

Also Present: Representatives Young and Courtney. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. 

And without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess 

at any time. 

Preparing for this hearing has been—I am telling you, it is hard 

to keep your cool in preparing for this meeting. And let me tell you 

the heart of why we are here today. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, I have met with the men and women who work there, 

wonderful, hardworking, dedicated people who do a hard and difficult job. But I have got to tell you, what is going on at Homeland 

Security, what is going on with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of the most infuriating things I think I have seen in 

this government yet. 

In a 3-year period, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has 

released more than 86,000 criminal aliens into the American public. These are people that were here illegally, got caught committing a crime, were convicted of that crime, and then instead of deporting them, they were just released back out into the United 

States of America. All told, they had more than 231,000 crimes 

that they were convicted of, 86,000 of these people. 

In 2015, 196 of these people were convicted of homicide, and ICE 

released them back into the public rather than deporting them. 

One hundred and twenty-four of those that were released between 

fiscal year 2010 and 2015, went on to commit homicide. 

Let me give you some other stats. In 2013, ICE released 36,007 

criminal aliens, criminal aliens who were here unlawfully and 

present in the United States. As of September 2014, 5,700 of those 

individuals went on to commit additional crimes. In March of 2015, 

ICE Director Sarah Saldana testified before this committee that 


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during fiscal year 2014 ICE released another 30,000 individuals 

with criminal convictions. 

In fact, ICE released 30,558 criminal aliens in 2014 who had a 

combined 79,059 convictions instead of deporting them. Of those 

30,558 criminal aliens, 1,895 were charged with another crime following their release. Their convictions include sex offenses, assault, 

burglary, robbery, driving under the influence. And ICE told us 

that in 2015 the agency released 19,723 criminal aliens with a combined 64,197 convictions, including 934 sex offenses, 804 robberies, 

216 kidnappings, and 196 homicide-related convictions. 

And that is on your watch. They were here illegally, they got 

caught committing a crime, they were convicted of the crime, and 

instead of following the law and deporting them, you release them 

back out into the public and they commit more crimes. How do you 

look those people in the eye? How do you go back to a family and 

say, you know, they were in our detention and we just thought it 

would be better to let them out into the United States of America? 

That is so wholly unacceptable. 

I want to show you this football stadium. This is Notre Dame 

football stadium. You have released more people that were convicted of crimes and should have been deported than you can fit 

into that stadium. You would still have people waiting outside the 

line. Those are the criminals that you released instead of deporting. 

And one of the people that is very passionate about this issue 

and has spent a lot of time on that is our colleague, Mr. DeSantis 

Florida. I would like to yield time to him. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, we in this country, the government at all levels has 

a responsibility to protect the safety of the American people. For 

the Federal Government, most of the crimes that are committed, 

particularly violent crimes are handled at the State level. And I 

wish we could prevent every crime from happening. I wish we 

could. But the fact of the matter is we rely on deterrents, we rely 

on penalties to prevent people from even trying to commit crimes 

in certain instances. 

But in this case, this is an example of where government could 

have prevented all of these crimes. You have somebody—and the 

story that came out, I thought, was just shocking where between 

fiscal year 2010 and February of 2015 there were 124 individuals 

who were in the country illegally, had been previously detained by 

ICE, and were released that were charged with homicide. You look 

at the number of convictions that we have seen for people who 

have been released by ICE even after being convicted of rape, of 

homicide, of domestic violence, violence against women, other sex 

offenses, this is putting the American people at risk. 

Something is wrong. Something needs to change. We have tried 

to highlight this over and over again. We get the numbers of convictions finally given to us for ’15, and it is startling because we 

are told that, oh, we are going to focus on really getting these 

criminals, but yet you have criminals in your possession, don’t have 

a right to be here, they should be returned to their home country, 

and yet they are released into American society and then they reoffend. 


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So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for having this hearing. This is 

an immensely, immensely frustrating issue to see this because 

some of these crime victims, the families, you can say to them had 

the Federal Government simply done its job, maybe your loved one 

would be here today. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

Director Saldana, who is about to testify before us, has testified 

before. She said, ‘‘We welcome any amount of money that we have. 

We can always do more with more resources. We are just doing the 

best we can with the resources we have right now.’’ Except in June 

of 2015, Department of Homeland Security leadership took $113 

million from ICE’s enforcement budget and asked Congress to reprogram it to other DHS components with no role in immigration 

enforcement. Further, in the latest budget justification, Homeland 

Security seeks $185 million less, less for deportation and transportation. Despite a mandate in the law requiring ICE to maintain 

34,000 detention beds, ICE only wants funding for 30,913. 

This administration’s failure to secure our border, enforce immigration laws, and hold criminal aliens accountable creates an ongoing threat to our public safety and sometimes delays consequences 

for innocent Americans. And many of those losses are preventable. 

The numbers became real in February of 2015 in a National Security Subcommittee hearing. During the hearing, we heard testimony from Jamiel Shaw, whose 17-year-old son was murdered by 

Pedro Espinoza, an alien living in the United States illegally. Mr. 

Espinoza had been released from jail on a conviction for brandishing a weapon before the Shaw slaying. This is a weapons conviction. 

We also heard from Mike Ronnebeck, the uncle of Grant 

Ronnebeck. Grant was 21 years old when he was killed in Mesa, 

Arizona, while working an overnight shift at a local convenience 

store. The guy is just working at the convenience store late at night 

trying to do the right thing. The alleged killer was in removal proceedings due to a burglary conviction but released by ICE on a 

10,000 bond, and Grant was killed. 

The Ronnebeck and Shaw families are not the only victims of 

crimes committed by aliens unlawfully present in the United 

States. Today, we continue to put names and faces with individuals 

whose lives were changed forever by the death of a family member 

killed by a convicted, convicted criminal alien. The common thread 

among these stories you are about to hear today is that each of 

them were preventable. If ICE had only followed the law, it is highly likely that these witnesses would not be sitting here today grieving the loss of another loved one. 

And I thank the family members that will be joining us on the 

second panel. They are heart-wrenching stories, and it was preventable. It didn’t have to happen. You could have deported them 

and you chose not to, and it is just infuriating. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. My time is expired. Let me recognize the 

ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for his opening statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And let me first of all start off by expressing how very sorry I 

am for the families of Casey Chadwick, Sarah Root, and Marilyn 


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Pharis. The crimes that were committed against them were brutal 

and barbaric, and their lives were stolen away from them all too 

soon. 

But not only were their lives stolen away from them, their lives 

were stolen away from their parents and their friends and relatives. And so to Mr. Root and Charlie, I want to thank you for 

being with us today. 

I thank you for something else, though. I thank you for taking 

your grief and turning it into a passion to make sure that it does 

not happen to anybody else. I really appreciate that. Thank you. 

I know how painful it must be to relive these nightmares, especially before a congressional committee, and when I read your testimony, Mr. Root, I got to tell you, you said over and over again a 

parent should never have to do this, identifying a child who has 

been harmed and murdered. So only you can truly know what 

losses mean to your families. 

I also lost a loved one 5 years ago almost to the day, a nephew 

at Old Dominion College. Folks busted into his room, blew his 

brains out, 20 years old. And then to go there a few days later and 

just see his brains splattered on the wall, I tell you, when I read 

your testimony, I could not help but think about all of that. 

And a lot of people don’t understand when you have somebody 

who was murdered. I tell people it is hard to mourn properly because you are always wondering why it happened, how it happened, sometimes, in my case, who did it. But at the same time, 

you mourn for what could have been. 

Every time a friend of folks get married, you think about your 

own, you know, what her marriage would have been like or you 

hear about a child being born, and so it is just constant. When the 

birthdays come, when Christmas comes, everything, it just replays 

in your mind, mourning over and over and over what could have 

been. 

And so I know you want answers, and you deserve those answers. And so I want to thank you also, Mr. Burbank and Chief 

Martin, for being here, for dedicating your careers to combating all 

types of horrible crimes in your communities. And it should be the 

business of this Congress to help you be able to do your jobs effectively and efficiently. After all, you go out there, you put your life 

on the line over and over and over again. And so often, you run 

into crimes that you can’t even solve. You try, you do the best you 

can, you don’t get the cooperation. So I am committed to making 

sure we get to the bottom line. 

And, Director Saldana, I want to thank you for your testimony 

and for your work as a public servant. It is crucial that we hear 

what Immigration and Customs Enforcement has learned from 

these cases and about your ongoing efforts to improve the agency’s 

procedures. 

You can understand why people are upset. Everyone on this committee wants to help improve public safety and enhance the security of all of our communities. Our committee is not just about 

oversight. And I emphasize this over and over again. It is not just 

about oversight. It is also about reform. If we identify a problem, 

our goal is to address it. 


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For example, in one of the cases we will discuss today, ICE repeatedly attempted to deport the perpetrator to Haiti before his release in 2012, but the Haitian Government refused to accept him, 

not once, not twice, but three times. Even after Haitian officials 

agreed to allow him to board a plane bound for Haiti, they reversed 

themselves and refused to accept him. 

I am sure these facts offer little solace to Ms. Chadwick’s family. 

So we need to ask what ICE could have done differently and what 

ICE can do in the future to improve these procedures. 

We also need to—and I think the chairman made a good point. 

We realize that there are issues that go to resources, but the question is, are we using the resources that we have effectively and efficiently. We also need to ask what more we as a government can 

do to force recalcitrant countries like Haiti, in this case, to honor 

their treaty agreements and to accept their own citizens. 

This process is already underway thanks to Senator Richard 

Blumenthal and Senator Christopher Murphy, and Representative 

Joe Courtney of Connecticut. On November 24, 2015, they sent a 

letter to the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security requesting an investigation to determine what more ICE 

could have done ‘‘to overcome the objections of the Haitian Government to the removal of this individual.’’ So I ask unanimous consent to enter their letter into our official hearing record today, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The inspector general has agreed to their request, and this investigation is now underway. I absolutely support 

these goals. What I absolutely do not support, however, is the hateful rhetoric we hear and have heard coming from some my members of the Republican Party who disparage all immigrants with 

false condemnation. 

Donald Trump has labeled Mexican immigrants as rapists. He 

has also called for a shutdown of Muslims entering the United 

States. These were not accidental lapses of off-the-cuff remarks. 

They are genuine statements from the leading Republican candidate for President of the United States of America in 2016. 

If you think his rhetoric is just words and does not cause actual 

harm, consider the brutal assault of a 58-year-old homeless Latino 

man in Boston. Last August, two brothers Scott and Steve Leader, 

who have extensive criminal records, hit him in the face, urinated 

on him, punched him, hit him with a metal pole, and then walked 

away laughing. When questioned by the police, one of the brothers 

said, ‘‘Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported.’’ 

And when Donald Trump heard about this brutal attack, he said 

that it was a shame but that his supporters are very passionate 

and ‘‘want this country to be great again.’’ 

And so, as I close, if we remain silent, if we remain silent in the 

face of these actions, hate will become our new normal. What we 

are hearing is racism, pure and simple. I do not like to use the 

word because it can sometimes be difficult for people to hear anything else. It can become a distraction. We are trying to work towards real solutions like tackling criminal justice reform, immigration reform, and gun violence. 


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Unfortunately, in this case, it is warranted. So I have lived too 

long and fought too hard. I will not sit by silently as some have 

tried to plunge our nation into a hateful division where we turn 

against each other. 

And so I hope our committee ultimately will do more than just 

hold a series of hearings on immigrants who commit crimes. I hope 

we all will take heart and that we will examine all of the legitimate questions. And there are a lot of legitimate questions here we 

are facing as a nation and that we will act to develop the bipartisan solutions needed to address them. We must come together to 

reject racist rhetoric and work to make our community safer in a 

comprehensive and constructive way. 

And again, I want to thank our witnesses for turning your pain 

into a passion to do your purpose. Thank you very much, and I 

yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record 

the Criminal Alien Report released by Homeland Security in 2015 

and also enter into the record a letter from Senator Grassley and 

Senator Ernst regarding the case of Sarah Root. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And we will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any member who would like to submit a written 

statement. 

And I will now recognize the distinguished witness on the first 

panel. We have two panels today. We are pleased to welcome the 

Honorable Sarah R. Saldana, Direction of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. 

Thank you for being here. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn before 

they testify. If you will please rise and raise your right hand. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. We would appreciate it if you 

would limit your oral testimony to 5 minutes. Your entire written 

statement will obviously be made part of the record. 

Ms. Saldana, you are now recognized, Director, for 5 minutes. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF SARAH R. SALDANA 

Ms. SALDANA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and other distinguished members of this committee. 

I cannot tell you how disheartening it is to sit here and hear an 

issue—and very important issues—related to the topic of immigration reform be bandied about as a political football. 

I’m a former United States attorney. I was a prosecutor for 10 

years. I am about the law and law enforcement. I’m about identifying problems and correcting them. I am here to get—to tell the 

public what the situation is with some of the issues we face, inform 

the public, and I would really appreciate we focus on solutions, solutions as opposed to political banter. 


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Along with our sister agencies at the Department of Homeland 

Security, ICE has no smaller mission, no smaller mission than the 

national security, border security, and public safety of our citizens. 

Like any law enforcement agency, we deal with serious and difficult matters every day. In the area of immigration, recent estimates are that there are about 11.2 million illegal immigrants in 

the country. There are approximately 2 million, 2 million undocumented immigrants who are involved in some form or fashion in 

ICE’s administrative process. There are about half-a-million, 

500,000 of those who are part of active cases in the immigration 

courts. 

ICE detention program booked in approximately 300,000 individuals last fiscal year. And as you know, we’ve been funded at the 

34,000 bed level for the last couple years. You, the Congress, had 

not only provided the funds to carry out our responsibilities for 

which we’re very grateful, but you’ve also set forth the framework 

to execute those responsibilities. And it’s all right here in the Immigration and Nationalization Act. You tell us who we are required 

as a mandatory matter to detain, and you tell us who we exercise 

our ability to release someone and not detain, make a decision 

about not detaining, or bond for that matter. 

Given the numbers I’ve just cited, obviously a very small percentage of individuals are detained while an immigration judge under 

the system that you the Congress has provided—are detained while 

that judge makes a decision in their removal proceedings. I am 

deeply mindful that this is not simply a discussion of statistics, capacity, policies, or procedures. There are families whose lives are 

personally affected by these decisions. 

As a human being and a mother, never mind my prosecutorial 

experience, I feel very strongly any time someone is injured or 

murdered or killed—otherwise killed by any person, and certainly 

those within the immigration system. 

I know that the women and men of ICE work tirelessly to enforce 

the law and protect the public, and they steadfastly bear the enormous responsibility that they are charged with. When the chairman, respectfully, sir, says we just decided—that being ICE—to let 

them out on the streets and ‘‘we chose not to detain people,’’ that 

is misleading the public and particularly these victims about the 

immigration situation and the entire picture. 

I think this committee well knows that this year over two-thirds, 

over two-thirds of the criminal releases, something I wish you had 

pointed out—over two-thirds of the criminal releases were as a result of the Supreme Court telling us we had to release someone, 

it wasn’t ICE choosing to do so, and another portion of the courts 

otherwise telling us that we had to release, the immigration courts, 

who have overall supervisory responsibility over this system. 

So to sit there and say that the proud women and men of law 

enforcement in ICE are choosing to release criminals is absolutely 

unforgivable. I am very proud of representing those men and 

women. Many of them are former police officers, sheriff’s department members, and they do not go around trying to put criminals 

on the streets. So I want the record to be clear, and I want these 

victims’ families to know exactly what ICE is facing. And I want 

them to have an accurate picture of that. 


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So when ICE makes a custody determination upon an alien with 

a criminal conviction, we act in accordance with the law, a law that 

you have given us. We are committed to carefully reviewing the circumstances of each case to ensure we make prudent decisions and 

to use the tools at our disposal, including supervision and conditions of release. 

Further, we include in our data set things over which we have 

no control when somebody’s claiming to be a citizen or an LPR. 

There are additional requirements on us. This is a very complex 

law, and every time or virtually every time I have been before a 

committee, I have begged, I have asked, work with ICE, work with 

me, work with the Secretary for comprehensive immigration reform. We can’t kick this down the road or after an election. We 

need to fix this, and I am—I implore you to help us. 

So this issue has been a very—of great importance to me since 

I started at the agency about a year-and-a-half ago. In March of 

last year, I set up a system that I think I’ve testified about to this 

agency to look—review every criminal release that there is. We 

have a panel that I’ve actually visited with. I’m in the process right 

now, like I do with any policy, of revisiting the policy to see how 

effective it’s been over the last year, because we started in March, 

and to see what we can do better with—in that regard. I am willing 

to learn, and I do listen. 

So as you’re aware, we’re proud of the fact—and I think it’s as 

a result in part of this panel—of going from 36,000 releases in 2013 

to, in 2015, a little over 19,700. So you know—I want to be sure 

it’s clear that while two-thirds of the criminal releases in 2013 and 

2014 were characterized even here as resulting from ICE determinations, that ratio actually is reversed in 2015. And as I said 

earlier, we have about two-thirds of our criminal releases being required of us by courts. 

And with respect to what Congressman Cummings pointed out, 

and that is the recalcitrant countries in getting people to take back 

their criminals, this world is a chaotic world. We have countries 

with great instability, countries that have suffered tremendous 

even natural disasters like Haiti and are in turmoil, and trying to 

deal with them is very hard. But I am working with the Department of State. Quite frankly, this afternoon I meeting with Assistant Secretary Michele Bond to talk some more about what more we 

can do with respect to recalcitrant countries. And I’m glad to do 

that. 

Let me conclude by saying that, having heard directly from families over the last 11 years of victims of crime who’ve suffered tremendous loss, I personally remain committed—Mr. Chairman, I 

personally remain committed to implementing ICE’s priorities in a 

smart and strategic manner and to safeguard our communities and 

maximize the agency’s success. 

I thank you for the opportunity to address the group, and I await 

your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Saldana follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I will now recognize myself for 

5 minutes. The numbers you gave us said just in the last 2 days 

discretionary releases by ICE were 54 percent. The total is 46,422. 

These Zadvydas rulings, you said, were two-thirds of the reason, 

and yet the numbers you gave us show that it’s less than 10 percent. 

Your microphone, please. 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t know which numbers you’re looking at, sir, 

but —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You are the one that said that two-thirds 

of the reason that you release people is based on the Supreme 

Court decision. The numbers you gave us just 2 days ago show that 

that number is actually less than 10 percent. 

Ms. SALDANA. The numbers we gave you, sir, were for 2015. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We have 2015, 2014, and 2013. 

Ms. SALDANA. Okay. Let’s just focus right now on 2015 as an example, although we can do each year if you would like. Nineteen 

thousand seven hundred and twenty-three—there was 19,723 

criminal releases —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Let me ask you another way —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Now, let me —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—because —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Let me —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—the media —— 

Ms. SALDANA. If I may finish because —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, no, no, no —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—you just said in the question that more than that 

has happened. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No. I want —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Eleven percent were Zadvydas releases. And IJ orders, the immigration courts that oversee the entire immigration 

system, were 52 percent. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. We will —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Only 37 percent —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We will hash out the numbers with your 

own numbers, but what is unacceptable is even one discretionary. 

Why do you even release one? Why do you even release one person? 

Ms. SALDANA. Because of the statute the Congress has given us —— Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, it is not. It is discretionary on your 

part, and you are not doing—you took more than $100 million and 

let it go to other purposes outside of the Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement. You are not maximizing the amount of money that 

you want in order to get to the beds that is mandated under the 

law. And you have asked for $185 million less for detention and 

transportation. You are not going to be convincing us that you are 

dedicated to removing these criminal aliens. 

Ms. SALDANA. If I may answer your question? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Well, yes, go. 

Ms. SALDANA. You have said here only a certain number of convictions even—they’re primarily convictions, offenses with convictions—are subject to mandatory detention —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And this is where —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—the rest are —— 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ.—you are totally wrong. 

Ms. SALDANA. If I may finish. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have somebody who commits homicide, 

yes, we want them deported. That is the law. 

Ms. SALDANA. Then put it in the statute, sir, because in the statute say if they do not commit one of those offenses that are specifically enumerated, including aggravated felonies, then these people 

are not subject to mandatory detention, which you’ve specifically 

outlined here. And when I say you, I mean the Congress. The rest 

you say, okay, ICE, you will then make a determination based on 

what the judges—Federal judges of this country make every day, 

and that is based on flight risk and harm to public safety or potential harm to public safety, you will decide which ones can be released on bond. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And there is a whole list of categories there 

that are harm to public safety, including those that commit homicide, that you went ahead and released anyway. And so the law is 

crystal clear. You are making these discretionary choices in releasing these people out into the public and they are committing more 

crimes. And I don’t understand why you don’t deport them. You 

used as an excuse these countries that won’t accept them. 

Here is my question for you. Based on section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, how many times have you recommended to the State Department in writing that these countries 

are—according to the law, ‘‘on being notified by the attorney general that the government of the foreign country denies or unreasonably delays accepting an alien,’’ and then it goes on that the ‘‘Secretary shall order the consular officers in that foreign country to 

discontinue granting visas or nonimmigrant visas.’’ How many 

times have you made that recommendation to the attorney general 

or to the State Department? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t have the precise number, but we have. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Have you ever? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, we have, sir. We are—we have a memorandum —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Which countries? Right off the top of your 

head, which countries have you recommended that we —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I can’t tell you off the top of my head. I —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When will you get me that information? 

Ms. SALDANA. I can get it to you within a week, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Okay. So you will give me, just to make 

sure we are on the same page, the letters that you have given either to the attorney general’s office or the State Department regarding the problems that you are having and the recommendations that you are making about the countries that will not accept 

these aliens? 

Ms. SALDANA. And—yes. And you understand that I have to talk 

to Department of State about that because some of these are sensitive areas that I believe we can talk about this further in chambers, sir, that I believe you would not want me to —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, we are going to talk —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—expose. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—it in the public. I want to know which 

countries are not taking—because, you know what, they shouldn’t 


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be getting Federal aid and we shouldn’t be giving them visas so 

that more people from those countries can come to the United 

States. I don’t know what you think is so sensitive about that, but 

I want you to prioritize Americans rather than those other countries. That is what I want to hear. I want to know that the citizens 

of our States are your number-one priority and put it out there in 

the public. Let’s know and understand which countries are not taking back the criminals that came here illegally and should be deported back into their country. 

Ms. SALDANA. Let me remind you, sir, that the Department of 

State is the one that issues visas, withholds aid. We don’t have 

money to give aid to countries. That’s not what we do. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I know but you have —— 

Ms. SALDANA. You have a Memorandum of Understanding with 

the Department of State where we say we are going to recommend 

to you certain steps, but we have it in a step-by-step procedure because this is a complicated world, I think you all understand, and 

we have to look at each country separately. Syria and Iraq, that’s 

a pretty hopeless situation —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You think that is your job —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—in trying to return those immigrants to those 

countries —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you really think Syria and Iraq is your 

job and your responsibility to make that determination? Here is 

what the law says, and I am quoting, ‘‘On being notified via the 

attorney general that the government of a foreign country denies 

or unreasonably delays accepting an alien who is a citizen, subject, 

national, or resident of the country after the attorney general asks 

whether the government will accept the alien under the section, 

the Secretary shall.’’ And so if you go to the first part of it —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Shall what, sir? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. ‘‘Shall order consular officers in that foreign country to discontinue granting immigrant visas or nonimmigrant visas or both to citizens, subjects, nationals, residents of 

that country until the attorney general notifies the Secretary that 

the country has accepted the alien.’’ What is incumbent upon you 

personally in your duty and your role and responsibility is to make 

that notification. If you are trying to take even just one alien and 

deport them back to a country, these are criminal aliens, remember? These are ones that committed crimes and were convicted of 

crimes. If you are trying to deport even one of those and the country won’t take them back, you need to give that notification to the 

State Department. 

Ms. SALDANA. And the State Department makes the decision. 

Let’s just be clear on that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, there is no decision because under the 

statute it says ‘‘the Secretary shall.’’ And so it starts with you, and 

if you don’t give them that notification, it doesn’t work. 

Ms. SALDANA. I agree. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. My time is expired. I want to have within 

a week’s time all of those letters since you have been in office that 

you have sent to the State Department and/or attorney general telling them where there is a problem. And I don’t want to hear about 

this excuse any further. 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let just start where the chairman left off. When 

that letter goes to the State Department, what happens then? Who 

makes the decision at that point? What happens? 

Ms. SALDANA. There’s a leadership group. The Consular Affairs 

Assistant Secretary Michele Bond is the person I’ve been dealing 

with. She makes the recommendation to the Secretary of the Department of State, and they look at the whole picture with respect 

to that country and make a decision and notify us. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And then that is the decision? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so you can’t change that? 

Ms. SALDANA. ICE is not in the business of issuing visas. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I see. I want to make sure we put all this in 

some kind of context because remember what I said in my opening 

statement about reform and trying to find solutions. You know, we 

have these families here who have suffered greatly, and by the 

way, I hope that—I know you may be leaving after your testimony, 

as is usual, but I —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m staying. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Oh, good, good, because I want you to hear from 

them. I think they want you to hear their pain. And again, they 

come a good distance, and I thank you very much for doing that. 

Ms. SALDANA. And I offered to both families, the Roots and Ms. 

Hartling, to meet with them personally. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

We need to eliminate any misperception that immigrants as a 

group are more likely to be criminals or commit acts of violence. 

Let’s start with the likelihood of landing in jail. Census data from 

1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 found that incarceration rates for nativeborn, essentially U.S. citizens, were 2 to 5 times higher than that 

of immigrants. Were you aware of that fact —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—Director? The fact contradicts the misconception that immigrants are inherently predisposed to be criminals. 

Would you agree with that? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So studies have widely shown that the recidivism 

rate for immigrant criminals is lower than for the general population. Is that right? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, for example, and based on the data submitted by ICE for fiscal year 2014, less than 5 percent of the immigrant criminals committed new crimes after release compared to 

more than 20 percent of all criminals across 30 U.S. States. Do you 

understand that? 

Ms. SALDANA. That sounds right. I’ve looked at the studies by the 

Department of Justice and the statistics. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Given this information, do you believe it is fair 

to say that a person’s immigration status does not indicate an increased likelihood that they will commit another crime? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. I —— 


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Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, I have got to tell you that if I were the 

family of a victim, I would say, well, Cummings, you know, I am 

really not interested in hearing that because I suffered a loss that 

will never be replaced. But I am trying to just put all of this in 

some kind of context because I think if we look at the total picture, 

then we have a better chance of coming up with a solution that 

truly addresses the problem. 

Now, I would like to discuss the cases in which ICE has discretion. The chairman talked about discretion, and I think he was absolutely right to address that. ICE has explained in the past that 

some criminal immigrant detainees are released after posting bond 

set by career ICE law enforcement officers. Can you please tell us 

again why not simply deport all criminal alien detainees that you 

have the discretion to the report? And is it a question of resources? 

Ms. SALDANA. It’s not so much a question of resources, sir, as it 

is the statute. Congress in its wisdom gave people who were found 

in the country and determined initially to be in the country illegally a very complex set of rights and ability to appeal and to have 

their cases heard by immigration courts. 

Let me just make this really clear. We cannot—we’d be violating 

the statute, which I think no one here wants me to do. We cannot 

deport somebody without a final order of removal from a court. ICE 

doesn’t deport people on its own motion. It has to have an order 

from the court. And obviously, we’ve got to have the ability to put 

that person in the country of their origin. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, ICE has reported having the resources to 

support only about 4 percent of the 11 million documented immigrants. Is that right? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s right. And in fact, I think you all have seen 

the studies that indicate that if we tried to deport 11.2 million people, it would cost anywhere from $650 billion, $650 billion to $750 

billion. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So ICE also explained that discretionary releases 

typically occur with individuals associated with less-serious offenses. Based on your experience as a prosecutor—and you were a 

former U.S. attorney? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I have tremendous respect for our U.S. attorneys. Why is it important for law enforcement agencies in general 

to have the discretion to release individuals? What is that about? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, again, it’s important for us because we have 

to manage the money that this Congress has given us. But I want 

to repeat, the bond procedure, the decisions to detain are all—or 

not detain are all outlined in here. We must look at flight risk, 

threat to public safety when we make those decisions. But you 

have given us that authority, and it’s important for us because 

we’ve got to manage the number of beds we have and obviously the 

entire fund that you have given us in order to remove people from 

the country. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I only have a minute left on my time. I understand that these determinations are based on risk evaluations giving consideration to factors like age, physical and mental health, 

risk of harm to public safety, risk of flight, and whether any mandatory detention factors apply. Director, can you please explain 


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why is important that these evaluations are conducted on a caseby-case basis? 

And then, knowing what you know and hearing what you know 

you are going to hear, I want you to tell us things that we could 

do as Congress folk to help you do the job that you are trying to 

do. 

Ms. SALDANA. Okay. If I may start with the last part of that 

question first, I would love to sit down with this committee or a 

group of this committee to go through this statute and talk about 

comprehensive immigration reform, what we can do with respect to 

some of the very complicated parts of this. And let’s not forget, this 

is just the statute. We have rulings left and right from all over the 

country literally going left and right that we have to abide by, even 

though we may be appealing them. 

But with respect to your overall question with—regarding discretion, we can—we have committed to deal with each immigrant on 

a case-by-case basis because we don’t have—I don’t think we have 

the will, nor do we have the funds to deport 11.2 million people. 

We have to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. Bright-line 

rules don’t work here. If we had a bright-line rule that we’re going 

to deport anybody who comes into our custody, we don’t have time 

to do what we’ve been trying to do and very successfully done, and 

that is focus on criminal aliens. So this is why we need to have 

that discretion and ability to make the decisions that we do. 

And I will tell you, sir, are we perfect? I have great faith in the 

judgments of our law enforcement officers in making these determinations. They’re experienced, well-trained, and they care about 

the safety of our community. Are we perfect? I can say firsthand 

I am not, and neither are our officers, but we do the very best we 

can. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. And I do want to echo the director’s 

remarks that our Customs and Border Patrol are some of the most 

professional, accomplish, hardworking individuals in the Federal 

Government. They work day in and day out to do their job and protecting our borders. But we do hear that things have affected their 

ability to control our borders. First of all, the number of deportations total is down fairly dramatically in this administration. Is 

that correct, Director? 

Ms. SALDANA. The numbers are lower —— 

Mr. MICA. We have a chart there. Can you guys put the chart 

up? 

[Slide.] 

Mr. MICA. So in the end of the Bush administration, we were deporting about a quarter of a million. We are down to about 100,000; 

2014 may be even lower than that. That is total, total deportations, 

right? 

Ms. SALDANA. No, sir. I think you say up there —— 

Mr. MICA. It is total deportations. And then if we turn to —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir, I’m—your chart says interior deportations —— Mr. MICA. Yes. 


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Ms. SALDANA.—not total. 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA. Interior—there’s also on the border—the border —— Mr. MICA. Right. 

Ms. SALDANA.—of removals. 

Mr. MICA. Right. Well, in this case I am taking—they are in the 

United States in the interior, not at the border. In any event, 

criminal deportations were 110,000 in 2013 and now they are down 

to 63,000. I don’t have a chart on that. Those are numbers provided 

by you, is that correct? Sixty-three thousand in 2014. I don’t know 

what 2015 is. I am sorry, 2015 is 63,000. I don’t have 2014. And 

2013 was 110,000. In any event, it is down —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Those are not the numbers I have. 

Mr. MICA. Well, again, all I can go by is what we got from you 

all. And you have said that the law prohibits some of your actions 

to deport, but actually, the agents tell us, well, two things. First, 

they say they are hamstrung by the President’s Executive order 

that has granted some amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. That 

is what the agents say. Have you heard that? 

Ms. SALDANA. From our agents or from border patrol? 

Mr. MICA. From your agents and —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I’ve heard reports of that —— 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA.—sir. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Ms. SALDANA. Nobody —— 

Mr. MICA. Again, they are telling us that. They also say that 

some of those people even—again, that there was a court decision 

and ICE has admitted, however, that of the 2,457 of the 30,000 releases, that that would the number affected by the court decision, 

which is Zadvydas v. Davis so that 57 percent were actually released at ICE’s discretion, at your discretion. So we have more 

than half of those at your discretion. We have had hearings we 

have had your folks in, and this is what they are telling us. 

The other thing, too, is you have the right to deport people, and 

again, the discretion is given to you. Again, your agents have told 

us. But in more than half the cases, you haven’t exercised that discretion. 

Then you also have when—the courts do let some folks out on 

appeal, these criminal aliens have committed an act. How many 

times have you appealed the bonds? 

Ms. SALDANA. Bonds, some occasions—I don’t have the precise 

number. 

Mr. MICA. Could you provide that for the record because —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I —— 

Mr. MICA.—I think it is fairly limited. 

Ms. SALDANA. I can provide it. 

Mr. MICA. But you have that discretion, too. So 57 percent of the 

time where you have discretion, you haven’t exercised it. Then, 

where people have committed it, they are out on bond, and you 

could appeal and go after those folks, you don’t do it. 

One of the other things that was brought to my attention is we 

have lost total control of the border, and this is most disturbing. 


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I got this yesterday. This is the Customs and Border Patrol system, 

the entire system that deals with passport control. This is just the 

last 2 months from March 4, 2016, to April 17. The system has 

been down almost two total days, and this is a record of the time 

the system has down. The system that we have to control our border and who is coming in is imploding. I don’t know what it going 

on here, and I would ask maybe the chairman of Government Operations or whoever is in charge of this area in our subcommittee to 

look at this. 

We have lost control of our borders, and your system that protects us and the main computer system has been down, down, and 

down, and I think this is something that needs to be looked at. I 

am going to hand you a copy of this, and I would like you to respond to these statistics. 

Ms. SALDANA. Are these ICE statistics or Customs and Border 

Protection? 

Mr. MICA. Customs and Border but —— 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s another agency, sir. 

Mr. MICA. Yes, but this is the system that controls the passports 

and entry into the United States. And you are also in DHS. I would 

like to have a response for the record. 

Ms. SALDANA. We should get the witness best able to answer —— Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Ms. SALDANA.—the questions —— 

Mr. MICA. And you will help me with that, and I appreciate it. 

Ms. SALDANA.—regarding CBP, yes. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

I will now recognize the gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. 

Maloney, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank Director Saldana for your public service first as a U.S. attorney in 

Texas and now as director of ICE. 

And I would like to understand the challenges that you and ICE 

face in trying to deport criminal aliens back to their countries and 

the countries refuse to take them. I want to understand what the 

challenges are, and more importantly, what can we do to force a 

country to take back their own citizen when we are deporting them 

for serious criminal crimes. 

Now, as you know, the Chadwick family is here. They lost their 

beloved child, and they rightfully want to know why a convicted— 

really a convicted, threatening, terrible felon was not deported 

when he served his conviction in the United States, he was out on 

release, the law said we can deport him, we should deport him, and 

as I understand it his home country Haiti refused to take him. And 

I want to understand how this happens, and I want to understand 

what we can do about it. In this case, the guy’s name was Jean 

Jacques of Haiti. 

And as we reviewed the record in this particular case, it is stunning and shocking how many times the Haitian officials approved 

his return to Haiti and then reversed themselves and essentially 

pulled the rug out from under U.S. officials and would not let him 

come home to his own country. 


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To give a specific example, on October 1, 2012, U.S. officials submitted a request to Haiti to deport him. Haitian officials gave their 

verbal confirmation that he was approved to go back to Haiti, and 

are you aware that Haitian officials approved his removal to Haiti 

on October 1, 2012? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. And you have cited—I don’t know if you’re 

done —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes, yes, yes. And then they changed their 

minds. They told you, U.S. officials that he was denied for removal. 

They pointed out that he was approved 3 days earlier. And do you 

know why the Haitian officials decided on a whim that he would 

not be allowed to come back to his country of origin? 

Ms. SALDANA. We have not been given a response. It is tremendously frustrating. We want to send this person back. We wanted 

to. And there are others, unfortunately others in that same position. 

As I said, with respect to Haiti —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes, yes. I want to go on. And this is really critical because if we had succeeded in removing him and deporting 

him, we would have saved an American life, we would have saved 

an American family, and it was the right thing to do. 

So one week later, unbelievably, on October 10 Haitian officials 

acknowledged to U.S. officials that they had actually approved a 

flight to Haiti that includes Mr. Jacques. He was supposed to go. 

But then on the very same day they reversed themselves again. 

They said that he could not board the plane. What in the world 

was going on with these Haitian officials? Were they just playing 

games with us? I mean, this is the second time they denied the deportation request of the United States Government. And by treaty, 

they had approved that illegal aliens and certainly criminal aliens 

would be accepted back in their country. 

Ms. SALDANA. And what’s extraordinary, Congresswoman, is that 

actually the Haitian Government has worked with us in many instances before. So it is a very arbitrary granting and then denial 

and then granting and denial. It’s extraordinarily frustrating. Just 

like the United States requires people to have travel documents 

when they come through the United Sates, all these other governments require that, too. 

Mrs. MALONEY. My time is almost up. Now, this is almost unbelievable. Then again on February 2 of 2016 of this year, U.S. officials tried again to send him back to Haiti, and on this day Haitian 

officials informed us the U.S. that Mr. Jacques was once again approved for removal and then again on the very same day these Haitian officials withdrew their approval. 

Now, what I want to know is what can we do about it? This is 

something I would like to work with the majority party on accomplishing. I personally support universal reform on immigration, but 

if we can’t reach a quick approval on that, we should get a quick 

approval on how we can deport someone back to their country, especially when they are ‘‘allies,’’ when we have treaties, when you 

are literally giving this country aid. And yet, three times they really made fun of the American Government and said, no, we are not 

taking him back, reversing a verbal confirmation that they would 

take this criminal back. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Now, I feel very strongly about this. I have my own two daughters. I can’t imagine the grief that this family is facing. And this 

is such an injustice not only to this American family and to this 

young girl but also to our whole country that they will not abide 

by the treaty, they will not take their felon back that came here 

illegally. 

And my question is, and it is a serious one, how can we enforce 

this and how can we stop this type of abuse of the American Government? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, we have a system in place and we have an 

understanding with the Department of State, a Memorandum of 

Understanding where —— 

Mrs. MALONEY. But if they refuse to take him, which is what 

they are doing —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Exactly. 

Mrs. MALONEY.—what do we do about it? 

Ms. SALDANA. Exactly. And what we need to do is have Department of State at the table, but we need to talk about how we accelerate the process because right now, it is very, very slow. We have 

—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. But you accelerated it. You achieved it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. [Presiding] The gentlewoman’s time is expired. 

Mrs. MALONEY. He was ready to be deported. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And the country said no. We have got to get a 

system —— 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlewoman’s —— 

Mrs. MALONEY.—where we can force these countries to be responsible. 

Ms. SALDANA. I agree. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlewoman’s time is expired. 

The chair notes the presence of Mr. Courtney from Connecticut, 

and I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to fully participate 

in today’s hearing. 

And without objection, so ordered. 

I would also like to introduce for the record a CBP system downtimes log. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And the chair will now recognize the gentleman 

from Michigan for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Director Saldana, thank you for being here, but let me reiterate the fact that, number one, we support the proud enforcement 

officials that you work with and that you lead. We expect that the 

overwhelming majority of them are as frustrated as we are in trying to deal with the problem, but our frustration goes up to leadership aspects even above you and concerns in making sure that our 

citizens are safe. 

We are also concerned with the fact that there are plenty of desiring immigrants who want to come to this country for all the 

right reasons, but it is more difficult for them to come because of 

what is going on with these illegals, and especially the ones perpetrating the crimes and the murders in our society. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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And to get to the accomplishment of having comprehensive immigration reform take place, we have to make sure that our systems 

are working to keep this terrible, cruel element out of our society. 

And so let me ask you a question. Information that I have, statistics say that as of August 2014, the administration indicated that 

over 375,000 aliens and 121,000 level-one convicted criminal aliens 

who the Obama administration deems ‘‘the worst of the worst’’ 

were removed as a result of the Secure Communities. Instead of 

continuing to utilize that successful existing system, the Obama administration ended it and implemented the Priorities Enforcement 

Program that we are under right now. Why did the administration 

end the successful program that flags criminal aliens once they are 

booked into jails? 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir, we may have to have a discussion on what 

successful actually means. I think you are aware of the fact that 

—— 

Mr. WALBERG. People living and not dying. 

Ms. SALDANA. I think you’re aware of the fact that we, the 

United States, have been sued many times because of Secure Communities, and the fact that there are people that had claims that 

they served in Federal court, some ended up being successful even 

though we challenged them. 

With respect to the implementation of the program, many people 

are concerned that, as a result of Secure Communities and the way 

it was implemented, something that was in place before— I was actually gone—before I got there, that there was a tremendous controversy about it. Well —— 

Mr. WALBERG. Let me jump on here. During the Secure Communities program that has been ended, how many detainers were 

issued by ICE but ignored by local law enforcement? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t have that number in front of me. 

Mr. WALBERG. Do you have a number of how many of those ignored detainers resulted in an alien being released and subsequently committing a crime? 

Ms. SALDANA. No, sir. 

Mr. WALBERG. Do you have —— 

Ms. SALDANA. For Secure Communities you’re asking? 

Mr. WALBERG. Secure Communities. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. WALBERG. How many of those ignore detainers resulted in 

additional crimes being committed? Do you have that number? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t have it. 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, you have indicated you want solutions, but 

it seems like you would want these numbers in order to get to 

those solutions, wouldn’t it? 

Ms. SALDANA. I just don’t have them on the top of my head, sir. 

They’re available. We can probably find them. It may take a manual search of our records, but—and some time, but we can. I—the 

fact that I can’t answer that right now shouldn’t undermine my 

point about wanting to do something positive in this area. 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, I would like to have those numbers provided 

for our committee, and whether it is the week that you initiated— 

you said about the letters or not, we would like it as quickly as possible. 


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Mr. WALBERG. Why is the Federal Government satisfied with localities coming in contact with removable aliens and then not collecting sufficient information, records, fingerprints, et cetera? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, that is happening, and when you say removal of aliens, no alien is removable until we have a court order. 

So they go through a very—sometimes years-in-the-making process, 

a very long process to make that determination. 

I will tell you, though, you know that Secure Communities, that 

program was replaced by the Priority Enforcement Program where 

we work with all of these State and local jurisdictions. That’s what 

I did as a United States attorney. We relied on local law enforcement, not only police departments but Sheriff’s departments, to assist us, and we do that. We —— 

Mr. WALBERG. And aren’t there stipulations for them to provide 

the information to you such as fingerprints on these people? 

Ms. SALDANA. There’s a provision in the statute that talks about 

cooperation from them, not specifically fingerprints, but cooperation. 

Mr. WALBERG. So cooperation would include information that is 

necessary for protecting our citizens, correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. It could. 

Mr. WALBERG. It could? Well, maybe that is why this hearing is 

being held today, and hopefully, information will come out so that 

families won’t be seated in the room again because there is indication that we have not done what is necessary to protect them. And 

that is my concern. 

And again, it is not the ICE agents. It is the administration that 

isn’t doing what is necessary or at least pushing for the funds, the 

resources, the systems in place to make sure that we have that capability. And that is my concern. That is not a charge. That is a 

request. Help us to do the right thing. But in turn, don’t give us 

excuses. 

And I yield back. 

Ms. SALDANA. Another party, though, is the Congress, sir, and 

you could help us by —— 

Mr. WALBERG. I think we have helped you with plenty of things. 

We have asked questions today about why you haven’t used some 

of those resources, why there hasn’t been the pushback on other 

countries, why there hasn’t been a request for dollars to put toward 

the programs that keep these people off the streets as opposed to 

other entities. 

And I yield back my time. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. Cartwright for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Director Saldana, for being here, but I also want 

to take time to acknowledge and thank everyone for the presence 

of the families here today, starting with you, Mrs. Hartling. Your 

daughter’s case has been discussed a bit and we will talk more 

about it, but our hearts go out to you. And I know I speak for everyone here and everyone in the United States Congress in expressing our most profound condolences. 

Also, we have Chief Ralph Martin here taking up the cause of 

Marilyn Pharis. And I know she is not family to you, but she is 


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starting to seem like it, I am sure. So condolences to you as well, 

and thank you for taking up that cause. 

But we also have Michelle and Scott Root here today, and thank 

you. 

Mr. ROOT. My wife is not here today. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Oh, okay. We have Scott Root here today, and 

I thank you for being here. An ineffable, unspeakable tragedy. I 

mean, we are talking about your daughter who just graduated college the day before with a 4.0 in, of all things, criminal justice. And 

then the next day in a drunken-driving drag-racing incident, an 

undocumented illegal struck her from behind with such force that 

she died within about 24 hours. Unbelievable. 

And this is a situation that I want to talk to you about, Director 

Saldana. We had this 19-year-old illegal, a young man named 

Mejia from Honduras, and really what happened after the crime 

was even more shocking because he got out on bail. There was a 

judge—this is in Nebraska, I think. A judge let Mejia out on 

$50,000 bail. And if you know how bail works, if you post 10 percent, then you are out on bail. Well, 10 percent of $50,000 is 

$5,000. Mejia’s brother came up with the money, and as soon as 

he got out, he was gone. And are you familiar with the case, Director Saldana? 

Ms. SALDANA. Oh, yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. So I want to look into that a little bit 

because the thing—I was a lawyer for 25 years, and I know a little 

bit about how bail is set. And one of the considerations is when the 

judge decides to set bail, is this person a flight risk? Is this person 

likely to be somebody who would plunk down the 10 percent and 

skedaddle out and never be heard from again? 

In fact, Mejia had a history of brushes with the law before this 

horrible drunk-driving incident. He had had a history of skipping 

out on other charges when the judge considered bail. But what I 

read, and I want you guys to disabuse me of this if it is wrong, but 

what I read was that the trial court judge never—the one charged 

with setting bail never even heard that this was an illegal immigrant, never even heard of his history with the law, and most importantly, never even knew that he had skipped out on other 

charges before. This was the poster child for somebody that ought 

to have a very, very high bail set. And the judge never even knew 

it, and it was because the prosecution, which knew all these things, 

never informed the judge. 

Now, that is what I got from news accounts, and if it is wrong, 

that is why I am asking that I want you to tell me if it is wrong. 

But we saw on the news accounts that the Douglas County attorney acknowledged that his office could have handled the matter 

better. And we will talk about it later, but if you are familiar with 

the case, Director Saldana, am I getting the facts right there? 

Ms. SALDANA. More or less, although I can’t speak to exactly 

what the judge had in his mind when he made the decision to release Mr. Mejia. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And let me interrupt you. In a case like that, 

does it require an ICE detainer for a local judge to set a high bail 

in a case of probable flight risk? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Ms. SALDANA. No, sir. He just needs to know the facts. And we 

obviously were not in the courtroom at that time. It was a—it’s a 

distinct matter, as you all know, when it comes to this kind of activity. And I want to tell Mr. Root, express my sympathies as well 

with respect to this. 

I think you said earlier that the DA had said that things could 

have been done better. There’s a lot—unfortunately, there’s a lot of 

different things that could have been done better, and I’m—I am 

going to use this as a—when I said I was revisiting our criminal 

review process, I am going to use this as an example of what could 

we have done differently in this case because I don’t want this to 

happen again obviously, and neither does the officer or the agents 

involved in this case. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Well, thank you, Director. And I do look forward to hearing from the families later today. 

I yield back. 

Mr. WALBERG. [Presiding] I thank the gentleman. 

I recognize the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Saldana, you have reached out to the families, but I want 

to make sure it is for the record that you reached out to the families around April 22 only upon finding out about this hearing and 

their testimony. So I want to make sure that is for the record. 

Ms. SALDANA. And I want to be sure for the record —— 

Mr. GOSAR. You know, I understand. I made a statement —— 

Ms. SALDANA. You don’t want me to —— 

Mr. GOSAR. I made a statement, ma’am, so let me—this is my 

time, not yours. 

Ms. SALDANA. Okay. You —— 

Mr. GOSAR. Okay. 

Ms. SALDANA.—understand that they are —— 

Mr. GOSAR. Once again, it is my time. 

Ms. SALDANA. And you understand that I would like the record 

to be clear, sir. I am meeting with Ms. Hartling this afternoon. I 

don’t want to —— 

Mr. GOSAR. I find it—I am going on. I don’t think you ought to 

be picking a fight with Arizona. Of all places, you better not go 

there. Operation Streamline goes away, incarcerations over and 

over again, told them to release them. It is not the men and women 

in ICE and Border Patrol; it is leadership just like you, like the 

President, like the attorney general all the way across the board. 

So let’s put a face on this. Are you aware in January 2015 of a 

young man in my home State of Arizona who was shot and killed 

by an illegal alien who was facing deportation proceedings but was 

out on bond? Are you familiar with the murder of Grant Ronnebeck 

by an illegal alien in Mesa, Arizona? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. GOSAR. This is important because I want to make sure you 

and your agency know about the numbers that you cite and all 

these reckless, lawless policies, Director, have real consequences, 

murderous consequences for real people and their families. One life 

lost in this manner is way too many, wouldn’t you agree? 

Ms. SALDANA. Absolutely. 


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Mr. GOSAR. So the man who murdered Grant Ronnebeck was an 

illegal alien who, instead of being detained or deported, was out on 

bond. In fact, Apolinar Altamirano, a self-proclaimed drug cartel 

member, had deportation proceedings dragging on more than 2 

years after he was released on bond following a conviction, a conviction on a burglary charge. While out on bond, this illegal alien 

had two harassment charges—very similar to what my colleague on 

the other side was talking about in the previous case—against him 

in which one of the victims said that she feared for her life several 

times in claiming to the court he pointed a gun at her and her boyfriend. Yet this man remained on the streets. 

Now, here is this thing you have talked about, this discretionary 

issue. So then on January 19, 2015, Mr. Altamirano walked into a 

convenience store, demanded a pack of cigarettes in exchange for 

a jar of change. When the clerk, young Grant Ronnebeck hesitated, 

Altamirano pointed a gun at Grant and shot him, fatally shooting 

him, 21 years old. 

Now, Director Saldana, Grant Ronnebeck’s murder is a direct result of your agency’s failed policies. Why do you let murderous people like this free into our communities? Once again, all the discretion, I pointed out he has got a history and a rap sheet. Tell me 

why. 

Ms. SALDANA. I can tell you, sir, what I said earlier with respect 

to the fact that our officers —— 

Mr. GOSAR. It is not that code, and you keep pointing to that 

code. It is not that code. There was no reason why this man should 

have been on the street. 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m sorry, what did you just say? 

Mr. GOSAR. It is not about that code. 

Ms. SALDANA. The code? 

Mr. GOSAR. The code that you keep referring to —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Oh, statute. 

Mr. GOSAR. Yes. It is not about that. This man, the whole rap 

sheet, this guy should have been incarcerated. Unfortunately, 

Grant’s murder is not unique, and this murderer’s situation is not 

an isolated case, is it, Director? It is not an isolated case, is it? 

Ms. SALDANA. What is? The specific facts —— 

Mr. GOSAR. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA.—of that case? 

Mr. GOSAR. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA. Well —— 

Mr. GOSAR. There are lots of them. We heard one from Mr. Cartwright. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes—we—I think the numbers are in the record. 

Mr. GOSAR. So how many aliens entered the United States illegally were charged with felonies in fiscal year 2015? 

Ms. SALDANA. I’ll have to look up that number, sir. 

Mr. GOSAR. How many in 2016? 

Ms. SALDANA. How many aliens who were in the system or who 

are out there in the public? 

Mr. GOSAR. How many aliens who entered the United States illegally were charged with felonies? If you don’t have those numbers, 

I would like them for the record —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, sir —— 


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Mr. GOSAR.—2015 and 2016. 

Ms. SALDANA.—as I said earlier, there are 11.2 million aliens in 

the United States illegally —— 

Mr. GOSAR. I don’t care about the 11 million. I am asking about 

those that come in with felonies, that were charged with felonies. 

I want —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Some we haven’t encountered. There’s no way we 

can have information on them. 

Mr. GOSAR. How many aliens who entered the United States illegally were charged with felonies in fiscal year 2015? You have 

those numbers. I want them. 

Ms. SALDANA. We don’t have those numbers. 

Mr. GOSAR. After they got here. Don’t you get it? I mean, you 

were a U.S. attorney —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Many of them are not trying to be found, sir. We 

don’t have any record that they’re here in the country. The 11.2 is 

an estimate. 

Mr. GOSAR. Yes, they are illegally here and they were charged 

with a felony here. You got those numbers. 

Ms. SALDANA. No, sir. They wouldn’t —— 

Mr. GOSAR. You have got to be kidding me. 

Ms. SALDANA. They wouldn’t be complete. 

Mr. GOSAR. You have got to be kidding. These are illegals—so 

they come into this country, they are illegal, they have been 

charged with a felony. What are those numbers in this country? 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir —— 

Mr. GOSAR. Are you kidding me? 

Ms. SALDANA. No, I’m not kidding you. I ask you to listen to my 

answer. There are 11.2 million people in the country illegally. 

Mr. GOSAR. I am not asking about the 11.2. 

Ms. SALDANA. It’s —— 

Mr. GOSAR. I am asking about those that are here illegally —— 

Mr. WALBERG. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you. 

Mr. WALBERG. I now recognize the gentleman —— 

Mr. GOSAR. Unbelievable. 

Mr. WALBERG.—from California, Mr. Lieu. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. GOSAR. Unbelievable. 

Mr. LIEU. And let me first say to the families, thank you for 

being here, and I apologize for your loss. 

I would like to follow up on Representative Maloney’s line of 

questioning about Haiti and Mr. Jacques. No one disputes that he 

had a legitimate court order for deportation and that the Haitian 

Government three times rejected accepting him back to their country. Are you aware that the U.S. has been the largest Federal aid 

donor to Haiti since 1973? 

Ms. SALDANA. No, sir. I —— 

Mr. LIEU. Okay. 

Ms. SALDANA.—don’t follow that. 

Mr. LIEU. So we are the largest Federal aid donor in history to 

Haiti. And are you frustrated that countries such as Haiti don’t 

take back their citizens after they commit crimes in the United 

States and have a valid order for deportation? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Ms. SALDANA. Absolutely. If we can remove somebody and we 

have that order we want to remove that person. 

Mr. LIEU. Right. Would you support a law or an amendment that 

says countries like Haiti should no longer get foreign aid or get a 

reduction in foreign aid if they do not accept their citizens back 

that have committed crimes in the United States? 

Ms. SALDANA. I would support looking at that question, sir, and 

working with the Department of State to see if that’s a reasonable 

and logical thing to do. 

Mr. LIEU. Has the Government of Haiti apologized to ICE or to 

the victim’s family at all? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t know about the family. I don’t know —— 

Mr. LIEU. Have they apologized to the U.S. Government or ICE 

for their actions? 

Ms. SALDANA. Not to ICE at least that I’m aware of. 

Mr. LIEU. So I hope someone from the Haitian Government 

watches this hearing because now they have got bipartisan outrage 

about the Government of Haiti. That is not a good place for the 

Government of Haiti to be in. They could lose Federal aid, and I 

would like to know if ICE, since you have already gotten a letter 

from U.S. Senators to look into this, if perhaps you could communicate to either the Department of State or the Government of 

Haiti and say that their behavior was unacceptable, and we need 

them to change? 

Ms. SALDANA. I’ll certainly raise that subject again this afternoon. 

Mr. LIEU. So I would like to talk a little bit about the case of 

Sarah Root and how the person that killed her fled by posting 

bond. It is my belief that the bond system is in drastic need of reform in the United States. Only two major civilized countries have 

a major bail bond industry, a for-profit industry. It is the U.S., and 

the Philippines is the other one. Many other countries actually 

banned money bond, and that is because there is very little relationship between how much money someone can have posted or the 

cash in hand they happen to have and how dangerous they are. 

And in this case, it is a good example where someone posted money 

and then fled. 

It seems to me it would make a lot more sense if we eliminated 

money bond and instead when to a risk-assessment system, which 

is what the District of Columbia has done for many years. And basically, they say, look, if you are at risk of fleeing or if you are dangerous, we are just not going to release you. But if you are not and 

you are poor and you can’t post a bail, we are going to release you. 

We are going to do it based on a risk assessment. 

And I think what happens often is these judges and the whole 

system tends to look at the money factor and say, oh, if they can 

post $50,000, we are just going to release them. In real life, there 

is very little relationship between money and how dangerous the 

person is or whether they can flee. Often, it just depends can you 

get someone to post that 10 percent for the rest of the bond. 

And so I would appreciate if you could look at how the bond system in the Federal Government may actually be helping to release 

people that are quite dangerous or at risk of fleeing and maybe we 

should reverse that and look at a risk assessment system. 


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I note this is not a partisan issue. The State of Kentucky is looking at moving towards a risk assessment system. And so could you 

look into that issue and let us know? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, actually, sir, it’s supposed to be a risk assessment. I don’t know the specifics —— 

Mr. LIEU. Well, here is the problem. When you attach for-profit 

money to that system, it warps it so that judges, I think, don’t do 

their proper risk assessment. I think judges would do a much better risk assessment if they thought, hey, it is on me now. It is not 

really how much money this person can post. It is my decision 

whether to release them and it is totally on the judge and the factors. So would you at least look at that issue? 

Ms. SALDANA. I certainly can. 

Mr. LIEU. Great. Thank you. And with that, I yield back. 

Mr. WALBERG. I now recognize Mr. Grothman for his 5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right. You right now are supposed to fill an average number of beds of 34,000 a day, is that correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s what we’ve been authorized for, yes, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right. And of those, are they filled now about? 

Ms. SALDANA. Excuse me? 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Are they filled now about? 

Ms. SALDANA. We’re about at 32,000 I think the last time I 

checked average daily population, and right around that number in 

terms of like the last time I looked that day. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. And of those 32,000, how many are people who 

have been found guilty of a crime and how many are people who 

are maybe for just whatever reason grabbed at the border? 

Ms. SALDANA. There would be some that are there because of 

having been charged with a crime and others that are recent border entrants, some that came into the country after January 1 —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right, right, right. About how much of each? 

Ms. SALDANA. I can get you that—those percentages. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Like about half-half, 80/20, 90/10? 

Ms. SALDANA. I hate to pull something out of the air, sir, but I 

certainly can look at that. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. So you have extra bed space available 

now? 

Ms. SALDANA. About 200 if I’m right, and of course that number 

varies from one day to the next because —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I thought you said you had about 32,000 in there 

and you’re authorized for 34,000. 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m sorry. You’re—did I say 200? 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA. Let me add an extra zero. I’m sorry, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Right now, what percentage of criminals 

who could be deported you think are being deported? 

Ms. SALDANA. Every criminal who has a final order of removal 

and a travel document is in the process of being removed. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right, but there are criminals right now who are 

arrested for crimes who are not removed, correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. And do you know percentagewise the number of 

people we could remove, what percentage are being removed? 

Ms. SALDANA. Any given year, no, I don’t, not right now. 


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Mr. GROTHMAN. Could you guess wildly, half, a third, 90 percent? 

Ms. SALDANA. It’s a portion of it. I would think it’d be—I don’t 

want to guess, sir. I’ll give you a proper percentage. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Could you tell us what types of crimes we 

don’t remove people for now? 

Ms. SALDANA. Oh, traffic tickets —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Drunk driving, do you —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m sorry, that’s not a crime obviously, it’s a civil 

matter. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right, right, right, right. 

Ms. SALDANA. It could be for minor offenses. Gosh, the list is long 

and depends on a —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Well —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—State by State —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Well —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Where the—let me put it this way. Where the offense has a sentence of—possible sentence of less than a year probably. Those are often misdemeanors. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. And you wouldn’t remove somebody for that? 

Ms. SALDANA. It depends. Our priorities do allow us to move people with multiple misdemeanors. They are a priority. We just have 

to look at every case on a case-by-case basis and the facts relating 

to that case. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you have a databank of all the people who 

have been convicted of a crime who are here illegally? 

Ms. SALDANA. We have the criminal history on anybody we’ve 

touched who’s in the removal process. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Okay. This is kind of difficult. I am going 

to ask the chairman if we would have another follow-up hearing so 

you can come back with more answers. 

But right now, if somebody is charged with two burglaries in the 

State of Wisconsin and convicted, are they going to be part of your 

database? 

Ms. SALDANA. The offenses they’re charged with? 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, probably so because we’ll be drawing the 

criminal history of each one of them. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. So you have a databank somewhere in 

which you are trying to keep track of all illegal immigrants here 

who are convicted of crimes? 

Ms. SALDANA. Those that we know about. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Okay. And do you feel that there are a lot 

you don’t know about? 

Ms. SALDANA. Pardon? 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you feel there are a lot you don’t know 

about? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, about—I said there are about 2 million people in the process, and the guesses are that there are about 11.2 

million here who we—who may—we may or may not know about. 

So one could draw a conclusion from that that there’s 9 million or 

so who we don’t know about that are in the shadows. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. But the question is did they commit crimes? You 

feel there are —— 


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Ms. SALDANA. About people I don’t know, we don’t know—if we 

don’t know who that person is here, we don’t know what their 

criminal history is. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. This is the question I am going to try to 

get at. If an illegal immigrant commits two burglaries in this country, will you find out about it? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, we may. It depends on how —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Every one of your answers is not quite on point. 

Yes, we may? I mean, will you or won’t you? 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir, it depends on the local jurisdiction. I mean, if 

the local jurisdiction keeps records well and we’re—and they input 

into the system that we are a part of, I can’t give you an unequivocal answer. It’s not a simple matter. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Can you give us any public policy reason why, 

say, if somebody commits a burglary why they should not be deported? 

Ms. SALDANA. No. It depends on the cases and the facts relating 

to that case. If it’s a burglary that was—if the person’s been here 

for 25 years, they have three U.S. citizen children, and the burglary was 24 years ago, that, looking at it on a case-by-case basis, 

we may make a decision not to remove them but not to detain 

them. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I have no more time. 

Mr. WALBERG. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, the 

ranking member on the National Security Subcommittee, Mr. 

Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and 

the ranking member for holding this hearing. 

I want to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman 

from Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright, and also the written comments 

of the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney. 

And I want to express my condolences to the families as well, 

and thank you for turning your tragedy into something that may 

eventually help other families from the same tragedy that has befallen your families. So thank you for taking something very, very 

bad, something very painful and trying to make something positive 

out of it. And I appreciate your courage and your willingness to do 

that. 

I just want to make a couple of observations here. Ms. Saldana, 

you are aware of the Zadvydas v. Davis case where the Supreme 

Court back in 2001 said that if you are holding a person, an illegal 

alien charged with a crime that has a deportation order but there 

is no foreseeable opportunity for that person to be deported, you 

have got to release him? 

Ms. SALDANA. Painfully away. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes. So I am just pointing back to Congress, you 

know, we have got a responsibility here. You have got to recognize 

the context in which all this is happening, and it is happening in 

the absence of a coherent and workable immigration policy. 

And I have had a chance, with my colleagues on the other side 

of the aisle, to go down to Central America, went down to Honduras, went down to Guatemala, went down to El Salvador. And 

like it or not, because of the Executive orders that are out there, 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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these human traffickers—they call them coyotes but I think that 

is too romantic a term—these are human traffickers capitalizing on 

that. And for $7,000 they will give you three shots to get into the 

United States. And we visited some of the centers where, if they 

get caught trying to cross the border, they get sent back. And —— 

Ms. SALDANA. And we’re targeting those, Congressman. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes, I know, I am just trying to make a point here. 

Every one of those kids that was returned, and there were hundreds that got caught at the border and were returned because in 

Mexico they support that sometimes, every one of those kids was 

picked up by their family within a couple of hours. So this is an 

organized attempt. It is not something that is just, you know, people are desperate. You know, they are economic refugees and they 

are trying to have a better life. 

The point I am trying to make is the last numbers we have for 

South and Central America, there are 61 million people living on 

less than $1 a day. They are desperate, extreme poverty, less than 

$1 a day. So if we have a system, if we are going to treat North 

and South America as a borderless region, then I think if we want 

an idea of what might happen, I think we look at Germany and we 

look at Europe because in that case—and I have spent a fair 

amount of time in Germany and in the Middle East and at refugee 

camps in the Middle East. We are asking for the exact same problems where people are in desperate situations, and we do not have 

control of our border. We do not. 

And it is not the fault of Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

that we don’t have control of our border. It is a problem of a willingness here in Congress to grapple with that problem. 

And we have a serious, serious problem. We can’t have a 

Schengen zone here in the Western Hemisphere. We just can’t sustain that. That is not a system that is going to provide for the safety of our citizens, and it is not going to be a system that will adequately address our need for legitimate and legal immigration. 

And I think it is—At one point you were pointing back at Congress and saying, you know, you have got a responsibility here, too, 

and I think you are absolutely right, Ms. Saldana. Congress is responsible. We are responsible. 

And I think there is a solution out there. And, you know, I think 

we have got to just, you know, let cooler heads prevail despite the 

vitriolic language we hear elsewhere about, you know, painting 

every single person south of the border with the same brush. That 

is not helpful. It is not right. 

But at the same token, we have a prime responsibility of protecting our people. And this is a national security issue. We have 

got to get control of our borders, north and south. And the faster 

we do that, the better our opportunity we will have to come up 

with a cogent and sustainable and responsible immigration system. 

So I thank you for your attendance here today. I see I have exceeded my time, and I thank the chairman for his indulgence. I 

yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. [Presiding] The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, 

for 5 minutes. 


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Mr. JORDAN. I thank the chairman and thank him for his hard 

work on this issue and a number of other members of the committee. 

I was struck by the director’s statement. In fact, she was looking 

directly at Congressman DeSantis, now the acting chair, when she 

talked about Republicans making this political. It is not about politics. It is about enforcing the law. It is about following —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I didn’t say Republicans. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, your comments were obviously directed to Mr. 

DeSantis. The entire time I was here you were looking at Mr. 

DeSantis and following his opening statement and Mr. Chaffetz’s 

opening statement. But that is fine. You can say Republican, so 

that is fine. You did say, I think political bantering was the term 

you used. 

So I wanted to try to dissect these numbers. And again, from my 

perspective, following the law is not politics, it is the rule of law, 

it is what American is supposed to do and what American is supposed to be about. So let’s look at some of these. It seems to me 

there are four categories of individuals that ICE probably interacts 

with. You have people who are here on a visa and they overstay 

or they violate their visa. I think the law says if someone does that, 

they are supposed to head back to their native country as well. 

Then you have someone who is an illegal entrant. They didn’t 

come here on a visa; they just illegally entered the country. If that 

comes to your attention, you have them, they are also supposed to 

be deported is my understanding of the way the law is supposed 

to work. 

And then you have the categories that we are talking about 

today, a subset of this bigger universe if I am getting this all right. 

You have got people who overstay their visas or are here illegally, 

illegal entrant who commit a crime and they are in your custody. 

They are supposed to be deported. 

And then it seems to me you have maybe the most important category, overstayed their visas or illegal entrant who commit a violent crime and then are in your custody and are supposed to be deported. 

So we have got four categories where the law says they are supposed to be deported, but we are really only focusing on the last 

two, actually, even a smaller subset, illegal entrants who commit 

a crime who then you have in custody. And my understanding is 

you have released 86,000 of just that subset over the last few 

years. And over half of that 86,000 were released at your discretion, what is commonly called prosecutorial discretion. Is that accurate, Director? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. That is all correct. So again, when you break it 

down, people came here illegally, did a crime, many cases violent 

crime, were in your custody, the law says they are supposed to be 

deported, and at your discretion, not because their country 

wouldn’t take them back, you couldn’t get travel documents, or notwithstanding other reasons, but over half of those 86,000 were you 

just decided you were just going to not follow the law. You were 

going to release them. 


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Ms. SALDANA. I disagree with that. We do follow the law. The 

law that Congress has provided says that for those—other than 

those that are subject to mandatory detention, a bond decision 

must be made and cite some of the factors that we consider, very 

much what you’re familiar with in the penal system. 

Mr. JORDAN. But the fact remains you release them. 

Ms. SALDANA. After a careful analysis of each case. 

Mr. JORDAN. Careful analysis. My guess is the families who are 

here, who I also want to express my condolences to, would disagree 

with your careful analysis. 

Ms. SALDANA. Are we 100 percent accurate every time, looking 

back, sir, your—we—as I said earlier, we strive for perfection, but 

we are human and we do fall short sometimes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Half of the 86,000 were the way I described. Is that 

accurate, Director, over half? 

Ms. SALDANA. I think so. I think that is right. 

Mr. JORDAN. What are the other reasons? What are the other 40 

percent, 45 percent, whatever it is? 

Ms. SALDANA. Someone who’s on their deathbed and is going to— 

you know, we have something from a doctor says there’s no purpose in putting this person in detention, they’re going to die in a 

few months, someone who is too ill to board a flight and they have 

to be transported by air, someone who is pregnant, those are some 

of the reasons. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, I mean, again, I am struck by the four different categories, we are focused on what I think American citizens 

would say the most dangerous category and the fact that over half 

of them are released just because you can do it, that —— 

Ms. SALDANA. You provided—Congress has said we can do it. We 

wouldn’t do it if we—if Congress hadn’t provided that you consider 

bond for those that are not subject to mandatory detention. 

Mr. JORDAN. But my understanding is you have the capability to 

hold more and you are not doing that. 

Ms. SALDANA. We do, but I’m telling you that —— 

Mr. JORDAN. So —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—we exercise —— 

Mr. JORDAN. So —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—our judgment, sir, on —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Oh —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—based on what you have told us. 

Mr. JORDAN.—well, you can’t have it both ways. It can’t be your 

judgment and you have the capability to hold more and then you 

blame it on Congress. 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m not blaming it on Congress. I’m telling you 

what the law —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, I think you just did. 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, that’s what the law says, sir, if that’s what 

you —— 

Mr. JORDAN. But then it can’t —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—how you interpret —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Then it can’t be your judgment. So you can’t have 

it both —— 

Ms. SALDANA. No, you’ve given us that judgment. You’ve said 

there are things that are mandatory and everything else —— 


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Mr. JORDAN. And you have the —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—is discretionary. 

Mr. JORDAN.—capability to hold more people in that final category, illegal entrant, committed a violent crime and they are in 

your custody, you have the capability, the facilities to hold more, 

and you are exercising your judgment to release them. And some 

of those people you release did violent crimes and actually took the 

life of American citizens. 

Ms. SALDANA. Today, we have about 2,000 beds available —— 

Mr. JORDAN. Right. 

Ms. SALDANA.—based on what you authorized, this Congress authorized for us to do. 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. So I think we are saying let’s use them. 

Ms. SALDANA. Okay. And tomorrow, it may be 34. It may be 36 

tomorrow. That number fluctuates. 

Mr. JORDAN. I am over. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. Connolly from Virginia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, Ms. Saldana, and my heart also goes out to the 

Hartling family and the Root family. I am a dad with a daughter. 

I cannot imagine. And it was a failure of the system that made you 

victims. It made your daughters victims. 

And we have got a problem with immigration, and I think Director Saldana has been trying to point to that tome in front of her 

saying I need your help in fixing that because there are problems 

in the current system that affect American citizens who count on 

it to protect them, but also immigrant families who want to make 

sure that they are treated with respect and dignity, because overwhelmingly, most of them are not criminals. 

I want to enter into the record, Mr. Chairman, two pieces of correspondence. One is from the Southern Poverty Law Center about 

some of the problems with the Atlanta immigration raids, and another one from my part of the country, northern Virginia, from the 

Arlington Public Schools, direction given by the superintendent of 

schools to all families and staff because of growing anxiety about 

these raids in northern Virginia. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. 

Ms. Saldana, I added those letters into the record, and one of 

those letters states that ICE ‘‘trampled legal rights, subjected 

mothers and children to terrifying and unnecessary police encounters, and tore families apart.’’ It also says ‘‘these raids have turned 

to schools, including students on their way to schools.’’ Are there 

indeed ICE raids on students on their way to schools? 

Ms. SALDANA. No, there are not raids. We conduct operations, sir, 

and I really work very hard in the community. I’ve met with lots 

of organizations that simply do not understand what ICE does. And 

when the term raid is thrown around, it implies a thoughtless 

sweeping of people. The people we targeted in this—in both these 

operations that occurred earlier this year, Operation Border Resolve, Operation Border Guardian, were specifically targeted to 

people who had—whose status was determined to be illegal, who 


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had the whole—had run their gamut of appeals and rights and the 

processes afforded them by the Immigration and Naturalization 

statute, who had a final order of removal and who were ready to 

be removed. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Director Saldana —— 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s not what I call a raid. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. All right. You don’t call that a raid. They do. And 

it is leading to the superintended of schools feeling he needs to provide counsel and reassurance to an entire school system based on 

the actions of ICE. Now, maybe that is justified, maybe it isn’t, but 

maybe you want to talk to the superintendent of our schools in 

northern Virginia. 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m happy to. In fact, sir, let—if I can just brag 

a minute, we have set up a network—we’re setting up a network 

of community relations officers, people who will meet with law enforcement, with school superintendents, with rotary clubs, whoever 

will listen to us so that we can lay out for them exactly how we 

go about our business. The taxpayer is entitled to know that —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA.—and that’s why we want to do that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Fair enough. But let me go back to a student. So 

a student on the way to school, Supreme Court has ruled that, irrespective of status, if you are a student, you show up, you are entitled to a public education, correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. I am not sure. I take your word for it. I —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, that is a matter of case law. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You were a U.S. —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Whatever it is —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY.—attorney. I mean, that was a Supreme Court 

ruling. I am not making that up. And that is why local governments throughout American have to educate children, irrespective 

of status. So whether they are documented or not is immaterial to 

a local public school. And is ICE targeting children based on their 

documentation on the way to what is a constitutionally protected 

education? 

Ms. SALDANA. No, just adults. Unaccompanied children —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Just —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—who have aged out are eligible —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. 

Ms. SALDANA.—if they’re over 17, I believe, or older. So, no, we 

don’t target children. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. I have got a few seconds left. Just while 

you are doing your outreach, I urge you to do it with Members of 

Congress as well. I can tell you in my district probably my numberone subject now is immigration, given the demographics of my district. And we need a partner in your agency. We are not trying to 

make your life more difficult, but we are trying sometimes to solve 

through difficult problems that are family-related and confusion 

and all kinds of other things —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I’d like to follow up with you —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I would love to do that —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—and get —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY.—because —— 


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Ms. SALDANA.—and get that arranged. 

Mr. CONNOLLY.—if we don’t have your cooperation, we can’t resolve some problems. And trying to make sure that from the top 

down caseworkers cooperate with Members of Congress as they are 

trying to do their jobs, too, on behalf of their constituents is always 

welcome. 

I wish I had more time. I thank the chair for the hearing. And 

again, my profound sympathies go with the families. There aren’t 

words to describe how we feel. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, 

Mr. Gowdy, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director, I appreciate your service in a previous life, and I have 

got to confess to you, I was surprised when you used the phrase 

‘‘political bantering’’ in your opening. I was not only surprised, I 

was disappointed because you seemed to direct that towards the 

Republicans. It was the solicitor general of this administration not 

2 weeks ago before the Supreme Court who talked about the damage wreaked by the separation of families. Of course, he wasn’t 

talking about Sarah Root’s family and he wasn’t talking about 

Joshua Wilkerson’s family and he wasn’t talking about Casey 

Chadwick’s family or Kate Steinle’s family. He was talking about 

the families of people who were not here legally. 

And that just struck me as a political comment that he made, 

and of course it is not us on our side that advocate for sanctuary 

cities, which is quintessentially a political analysis that we are 

going to allow State and local officials to decline to follow Federal 

process, but at the same time we don’t trust State and local cops 

enough to actually enforce immigration laws. That is a political calculus. That is not done by folks on our side of the aisle. 

My friend from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, went to great lengths 

to quote episodically from a single Republican. I have never heard 

him quote Secretary Castro, who has come before committees of 

this Congress and advocated for citizenship for all 12 million aspiring Americans, like all 12 million can pass a background check, all 

12 million, not a single one of them can’t pass a background check. 

So if we are going to talk about political bantering and if we are 

going to use your phrase, and you are the one who used it, I think 

we ought to at least acknowledge there is plenty of political bantering going on on your side as well. 

Ms. SALDANA. Let me make myself very clear, very clear. I was 

not referring to one party or the other. I asked for everyone to drop 

the political banter and fighting and help me get a system that 

works. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. Well, then —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I want the record to be clear on that. 

Mr. GOWDY. The record is clear. Let’s let the record be clear 

about one other thing because I am vexed as to why Mr. Mejia was 

not detained. Can you tell me as a former prosecutor why the killer 

of Sarah Root was not detained? 

Ms. SALDANA. An individual from ICE looked at the specific facts 

and circumstances related to that matter, had—the individual had 

no criminal convictions, previous criminal convictions, and made a 


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determination based on his judgment that he did not need to be detained. 

Mr. GOWDY. And —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Could you and I disagree with that decision —— 

Mr. GOWDY. No, no, no, it is more than that you and I disagree 

with that. That individual was in fact wrong because Mejia has 

failed to appear for court, has he not? Has he absconded? 

Ms. SALDANA. It is very easy to look back, sir —— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—very easy to look back, and yes, he has absconded. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I am looking back so we can look forward and 

prevent the next one —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Exactly what I’d like to do. 

Mr. GOWDY.—and that is about all we can do unless we have a 

crystal ball is look back and see what facts we were given. And Mr. 

Mejia—the only two things you look at in a bond analysis are danger to the community and flight risk. Those are the only two things 

you look at. So help me understand why someone driving three 

times the legal rate of impairment who is not here legally, did he 

have any criminal history at all, any arrests at all? 

Ms. SALDANA. We did not find criminal history. I think I’ve been 

advised by Senator Ernst that he had some traffic violations previously, but criminal convictions, our records didn’t indicate that he 

had. 

Mr. GOWDY. Has he failed to appear subsequently for court appearances? 

Ms. SALDANA. Subsequent to what? 

Mr. GOWDY. Subsequent to his killing of Sarah Root? 

Ms. SALDANA. Oh, no, he did not appear for his —— 

Mr. GOWDY. Right. So he has —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—immigration court hearing. 

Mr. GOWDY. He has failed to appear, that was my question. 

Ms. SALDANA. Absolutely. 

Mr. GOWDY. So the discretion exercised was wrong. 

Ms. SALDANA. These are tough decisions, sir, and —— 

Mr. GOWDY. This one actually is not that tough to me —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Well —— 

Mr. GOWDY.—Director. With all due respect, it is not that tough. 

Ms. SALDANA. Okay. Federal judges make these —— 

Mr. GOWDY. Would you have granted a $5,000 for that defendant? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t think the bond was set at $5,000 —— 

Mr. GOWDY. No, it was $50,000, which means he had to post 

$5,000. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. I —— 

Mr. GOWDY. Would you have set that bond? 

Ms. SALDANA. I would not if I were a judge in that State court, 

and I believe that was a judge of the State court system who made 

that decision, another factor that the officer from ICE might have 

looked at in making his decision. I will tell you, judges make tough 

decisions every day. And we can point to judges—I was on the receiving end of many of these as a prosecutor asking for bond—asking for detention and a Federal judge said no, and later, that perVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:48 Feb 17, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\23480.TXT APRIL

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son absconded. Unfortunately—it irks me every time of course. Unfortunately, it happens a lot. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, it does happen, and sometimes with tragic consequences. 

I am out of time so I will close up with this. I believe in a previous life I am sure you worked with State and local law enforcement in addition to Federal law enforcement —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Absolutely. 

Mr. GOWDY.—and it has always struck me as unusual that we 

trust State and local law enforcement with the enforcement of 

every category of crime. I am sure you had them on some task 

forces, whether it be narcotics, whether it be human trafficking. We 

trust them in child pornography cases. We trust them in all categories of cases, including traffic enforcement. So why don’t we 

trust them in immigration cases? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, we do actually. We have a 287(g) program 

that we enlist the help of local law enforcement in helping us with 

immigration enforcement. There are a number of jurisdictions, and 

I’ve asked our people to expand that program. 

Mr. GOWDY. You have asked them to expand it? Because it seems 

like it is shrinking. 

Ms. SALDANA. No, sir, it’s not shrinking other than maybe a jurisdiction withdrawing. That I can’t control. We beg them to stay, 

but sometimes they withdraw based on whatever considerations 

—— Mr. GOWDY. So you do trust State and local law enforcement to 

enforce immigration laws, and you do not buy into the Democrat 

mantra that somehow racial profiling prevents them from being 

able to enforce that category of crime but not any other category 

of crime? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, that’s a fully loaded question, which I’d like 

to break down because there is racial profiling, sir. I’m not saying 

that it happens every day, but there is. And so for me to agree with 

your general proposition would require me to agree with parts of 

it that I don’t agree with. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I would like to have this conversation more because there would be racial profiling in narcotics cases, there is racial profiling in traffic stop cases, and that doesn’t stop feds and 

State and locals from partnering. So I am just trying to understand 

why immigration cases are different. 

Ms. SALDANA. And think I said they’re not different. We have a 

—— 

Mr. GOWDY. You may have said it, but my Democrat colleagues 

have not. You may have. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The chair now recognizes Delegate Norton for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I am less interested in the racial profiling than I am in the racial 

sensitivities raised by this issue. I want to thank you, Director 

Saldana, for being here. 

Like those who have spoken before me, I don’t have the words 

to offer to parents who have lost their children, particularly when 

they consider that it could perhaps have been prevented. I have 

only the deepest condolences. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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I would like to get beyond recrimination and into how you do law 

enforcement when the rhetoric is steeped with racial overtones. 

Look, I grew up in the District of Columbia as a minority group. 

It was a deeply segregated city. I went to segregated schools. I 

couldn’t go in public accommodations because I was black. And 

even the newspapers, the best newspapers would say John Jones, 

black, committed X crime in northeast Washington. This had an effect on me and how I felt about criminals to tell you the truth because John Jones, black—sorry, they didn’t say back then. John 

Jones, negro, I don’t know whether he was guilty or not. All I know 

is that by pointing out his race, my community, minority group in 

the city, felt that law enforcement was pointed at all of us. 

So I want to ask about the delicate task of law enforcement when 

those that are chiefly involved do happen to be from a minority 

group. For example, Donald Trump, when he announced he was 

running for President, said something that—if I put black where 

Mexicans are, I think people would know how I and others who are 

from minority groups felt. When Mexico sent its people, they are 

not sending their best; they are bringing drugs, they are bringing 

crime, rapists. 

Now, I want to ask about the effect on law enforcement where 

you have a delicate task of in fact going mostly after perhaps Mexican-American, Central Americans who are coming into this country 

and operating under the specter not of racial profiling but from the 

highest levels on television every day hearing ethnicity called out 

in relation to your work. How does that affect law enforcement 

from the point of view of those charged with carrying it out, with 

carrying out law enforcement that will in fact mostly involve the 

very people whose names have been called out? We are cheering 

from the grandstands. How does that affect law enforcement? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, we go about our business without regard to 

race. I—it’s—I will tell you this, though, Congresswoman. Immigration enforcement is a little different in the sense that the very definition of who we’re after is determined by their country of origin, 

the fact that they’re not from the United States and they’re illegal. 

Ms. NORTON. Their country of origin will be where people of color 

are chiefly located. I understand where they are coming from. But 

the point is that they have many relatives in this country, too, and 

somehow the other—law enforcement has to handle the delicate 

task of—you heard talk about the raids, perfectly legitimate to do, 

and somehow making sure it is not caught in the rhetoric we hear. 

We heard also from Mr. Trump that we should close up—I would 

close up our borders to people, and he named who he was talking 

about, in this case not Mexicans but Muslims. Apart from the ignorance of that statement, is completely sealing our borders to any 

group possible, and is it an effective way to combat terrorism? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, that’s a huge issue, but I would say no. 

That’s why everything we do, starting with the Secretary and his 

priorities, is based on a case-by-case basis. You’ve got to look at 

every individual. It doesn’t matter —— 

Ms. NORTON. So sealing the borders would involve what? 

Ms. SALDANA. I can’t imagine how you’d go about that. I think 

there have been some discussion about building a wall and that 


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kind of thing. That doesn’t sound like it would secure anything actually because I’ve seen the videos of a —— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, could you issue something for people coming 

overseas saying if you are a Muslim, don’t travel to the United 

States; you will not be accepted? 

Ms. SALDANA. We would not do that. 

Ms. NORTON. From the highest point of leadership, somebody has 

to make the American people understand the delicacy of this task. 

So while first I think of the relatives who have lost, my second 

thought is with those who have to carry out this difficult mission. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlewoman’s time is expired. 

The chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes. 

Thank you for coming. I would just echo some of my colleagues. 

You know, I appreciate your service and what you are trying to do, 

but to dismiss what we are trying to get to the bottom of as political banter, that is not what we are doing. I mean, when we see 

reports where—and many of these releases were before you were 

even in ICE. But when we see 124 people who had been in custody 

and were here illegally and then end up getting charged with murder, when you see things like Kate Steinle who was just going 

about her business and then she got killed by somebody who had 

no business being in the country, that is something that concerns 

people here in the Congress and the American people. 

And our government is involved in a lot of different things, you 

know, the type of health insurance you have to buy, how much 

water our toilet can flush, all these different things, and yet a core 

function of the government is to ensure the safety and security of 

the American people. And it is frustrating when government is involved in all these other things and then fails at its core function. 

So we are absolutely serious about it. And it is not political theater. 

It is just the frustration to have families who have to go through 

this. 

Now, you said something earlier in your testimony. You said you 

that you need a removal order to deport someone. Without that, 

they can’t be deported, is that correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. A final order of removal. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, because aren’t there administrative removals? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, there —— 

Mr. DESANTIS. There are stipulated removals? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, absolutely. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And then there are expedited removals, correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, a person can volunteer to go back, a person 

who’s caught at the border at ports of entry, we can move through 

that process little quicker. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So there are ways to do it. And I think that part 

of the frustration as we have gone through the numbers, a lot 

about the numbers that were discretionary versus what ICE would 

say because of the Supreme Court’s precedent in the Zadvydas 

case, but even there, that is a 6-month window. 

So you have somebody in custody, let’s say, who got out of prison 

after committing a sexual assault against a child, and that individual is being held, you do have time to be able to repatriate that 


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individual back to their own country. And what we are a lot of 

times told by DHS is, well, they don’t get the paperwork to us in 

time, they don’t do all this, and so then the 6 months elapse and 

then this individual is released when they are clearly a danger to 

society. 

So you guys can work through this quicker, and some of these 

other countries—and I get that they are not always going to comply 

immediately—we have not used any of our leverage against them. 

The State Department has not suspended a single visa for any of 

these countries at all. 

We have the ability to do that. They depend on us more than we 

depend on their visa, and so what can you do to be able to move 

through the process quicker so that people who are clearly dangerous, have been convicted, don’t have any legal right to be here, 

can be repatriated before that time limit expires? 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m all about procedures and institutionalizing a 

process to make sure it works. My interest is not in second-guessing all our officers. It’s in setting up a process and procedure that 

would get to that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So what do you need to do, though, to do that? 

Ms. SALDANA. I —— 

Mr. DESANTIS. What do we need to do? Because Mr. Gowdy, he 

has a legislative fix for this Zadvydas issue. Is that something that 

you are familiar with? 

Ms. SALDANA. I am not. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Would that be something you would be open to 

learning about? 

Ms. SALDANA. Absolutely, sir, and working with you on that total 

subject. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Because here is, I guess, the issue, and you have 

raised the statute books and you have said, look, they are not mandated to be deported even if they have been convicted of some of 

these bad crimes because Congress has made these decisions. And 

while some of those crimes, it is true, may not be mandatory, that 

doesn’t mean that the law does not provide you at least authority 

to detain them. In other words, just because it is not in that book 

does not mean that they have to be released. That does not follow 

that that is the case. Now, do you agree with that? 

Ms. SALDANA. That is true. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. And then in terms of the immigration 

courts, you have mentioned those. Just so that the American people 

understand, the immigration courts, they are not article III courts, 

correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. They’re not. They’re within —— 

Mr. DESANTIS. They are —— 

Ms. SALDANA. They are in —— 

Mr. DESANTIS. They are article II courts, correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So they are within the executive branch? 

Ms. SALDANA. Within the Department of Justice. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And so if an immigration judge orders somebody 

has got to be released and you feel very strongly that that is bad 

for the safety of our country, you can then go to the higher up in 

the executive branch and try to change that, correct? 


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Ms. SALDANA. You have immigration appeals and then circuit 

courts after that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. Great. Do you know when we first did this 

issue in fiscal year 2013 there had been 36,000 individuals who 

had been released who had been convicted of crimes who are here 

illegally, and as of last year there had been 1,000 of those people 

who had already been convicted of new crimes? 

Do you guys have the figures on anybody from fiscal year 2013 

through fiscal year 2015 who has been in ICE custody, previously 

been convicted of a crime, and then got released and then got convicted of a new crime? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t know about ’15 precisely. We may have ’15, 

but yes, we do have those numbers generally. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. Well, if you can provide those for us, I 

think that would be important. And then also back from ’FY 2013, 

because I know that has obviously probably changed since the last 

time we had it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. My time is up, and the chair now recognizes Mr. 

Hice for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

All right. Bottom line when we all come to this, everybody involved, when it comes to the issue of criminal aliens, the public 

safety is paramount for past victims, as well as potential future 

victims. We agree on that? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HICE. With these criminals under the custody of ICE, are 

there convicted sex criminals? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Do you have any idea how many? 

Ms. SALDANA. I think that number is available, but I don’t have 

it in front of me. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. If you could provide that, I would appreciate it. 

Ms. SALDANA. In —— 

Mr. HICE. But to that specific —— 

Ms. SALDANA. In 2015, sir? 

Mr. HICE. From my understanding in ’15 there were almost 

1,000 sex criminals released. 

Ms. SALDANA. That may be right. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Let me go on from there. Of these sex offenders 

who are released back into society, does your agency notify law enforcement? 

Ms. SALDANA. We do. And this is something I think I testified 

about the last time I was here. I’m very proud of the fact that we 

have stood up the law enforcement notification system whereby 

when we are releasing actually more than just sexual offenders but 

other criminals into a State that we believe they are going to—they 

have indicated and they’re going to a specific State, we notify them 

that there are —— 

Mr. HICE. You notify who? 

Ms. SALDANA. The State database. Usually, it’s the State office 

and, for example, in my State of Texas, in Austin, the —— 

Mr. HICE. Because you promised last time you were here that by 

the end of 2015 that the States would—law enforcement would be 

notified. I spoke with the sheriff of Gwinnett County this week, 


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which is the second-largest county in America next to Harris County, Texas, where criminal aliens are being released, and he says he 

does not hear from you. 

Ms. SALDANA. I did exactly as I promised. We did get the notification system up and running by the end of last year to the States. 

What we’re working now is phase 2 —— 

Mr. HICE. So let’s just cut to the quick of this. So you are saying 

that when an illegal alien sex offender or any other is released into 

a community, you are assuring me that law enforcement is notified? 

Ms. SALDANA. The State law enforcement, yes, the State that is 

responsible for all the local jurisdictions within. 

Mr. HICE. But not the specific counties? 

Ms. SALDANA. No. We have 254 counties in the State of Texas. 

It would be very difficult to do that. But we are trying —— 

Mr. HICE. But isn’t that where the rubber hits the road? 

Ms. SALDANA. Absolutely, and that’s why we’re in phase 2, Congressman. We’re in phase 2, which is trying—we’re going to be 

communicating with the specific local jurisdiction —— 

Mr. HICE. All right. What about victim notification? Are they notified when the criminal is released? Say you have someone who 

was raped, the rapist is released —— 

Ms. SALDANA. We —— 

Mr. HICE.—in their community. Is that victim notified? 

Ms. SALDANA. We have a criminal notification system just like 

the Department of Justice does with respect to the penal system, 

and people sign up for that, and we do issue notices. 

Mr. HICE. So let’s suppose a rapist is released, they do not register, as we know many of them do not do on the sex offender registry. How does a previous victim know that that predator is released? 

Ms. SALDANA. They sign up. I think Mr. Root did this also with 

respect to his situation. He wanted to be advised about the proceedings with respect to that particular illegal immigrant. That 

they sign up for the victim notification system, and that’s how we 

get them that information. 

Mr. HICE. And all of them sign up? 

Ms. SALDANA. I can’t say that all of them sign up. 

Mr. HICE. Well, I guess, really my question has to do with the 

predators themselves who are released. Now, I have actually introduced a bill, and I think that it closes this loophole, H.R. 2793. It 

is called TRAC. It would require ICE to register these sex offenders 

on the national registry when they are released. 

Right now, that is required of every citizen in the United States 

who commits a sex crime. They are put on the National Sex Offender Registry. That is not the case with illegal aliens who commit 

sex crimes. And I don’t understand that. For one reason, it seems 

very commonsensical to me that if an illegal individual in this 

country commits a sex crime, they need to be put on the National 

Sex Offender Registry when they are released. Would you have a 

problem with supporting that bill? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, I understand that’s what happens with respect to any person that’s —— 

Mr. HICE. It does not happen with respect to illegals. 


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Ms. SALDANA. Well —— 

Mr. HICE. That is the point. 

Ms. SALDANA. And my concern is they—we expect the person to —— Mr. HICE. Do you really expect a person to put themselves on a 

National Sex Offender Registry? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s —— 

Mr. HICE. It doesn’t happen. 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, that’s what you all have provided for with 

respect to sex offenders —— 

Mr. HICE. Would you have a problem with ICE being required to 

make sure that they are put on the National Sex Offender Registry? 

Ms. SALDANA. I’d certainly like to look at that and study it, sir, 

yes. 

Mr. HICE. I would like, Mr. Chairman, to encourage all our colleagues to get on board with H.R. 2793. This is a commonsense approach to close an enormous loophole by requiring these people to 

be put on the National Sex Offender Registry. I yield back. 

Ms. SALDANA. Twenty-seven ninety-three? 

Mr. HICE. Twenty-seven ninety-three. 

Ms. SALDANA. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding] I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes for questions. 

Ms. Saldana, you know, I am going to come to you because 

throughout this testimony this morning you have made a point to 

pat the large book in terms of the law that you need help with, you 

have said it is somebody else’s fault. You continue to focus on everyone else that has a stake in this, and yet some of the blame actually rests directly with you. And so that is where I want to go 

with this because you have been equivocating, in my opinion, with 

some of the questions that have been answered. 

And you know I think specifically the ones that I had issue with 

when you were talking with Mr. Grothman, when you talked about 

the fact do you know the entire universe of those who have committed crimes that get detained, do you know who they are, yes or 

no? 

Ms. SALDANA. Who are in the country illegally? 

Mr. MEADOWS. No, who get arrested by local law enforcement, do 

you get notified of all of those under the new system, which would 

be the Priorities Enforcement Program? 

Ms. SALDANA. We have the ability to check the system. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Do you know, yes or no, all of the people that are 

there? Do they ping DHS and you know it? 

Ms. SALDANA. Not necessarily. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. And is that a change? 

Ms. SALDANA. Is what a change? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Where they don’t ping DHS anymore, is that a 

change in the way that you have been notified over the last 18 

months? 

Ms. SALDANA. It’s a database —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes or no. I know the answer, so yes or no, is it 

a change? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t understand the question. 


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Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. Let me be a little bit—under the Secure 

Communities Act, they were required to actually come and ping 

you and let you know that they had someone who has committed 

a crime and they would actually let you know that. Is that not correct? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t know that specific —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You are the head of the agency. How would you 

not know that? 

Ms. SALDANA. That program has never been —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am a Congressman and I don’t even know and 

I have had to read up on it. So —— 

Ms. SALDANA. That program has never been in effect since I have 

been director —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. So the —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I am generally familiar with Secure Communities. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So the PEP program, let’s look at it. You are saying that they are all participating. What would you classify as participating by someone under the PEP program? 

Ms. SALDANA. I didn’t say they were all participating, all the jurisdictions, 3,000 plus in the country are participating. I wouldn’t 

have said that because that’s not correct. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, you had said that—okay. Well, what —— 

Ms. SALDANA. We’ve made progress. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Made progress. So if someone has committed a 

violent act under the PEP program, are they required to let you 

know that they have been incarcerated, yes or no? 

Ms. SALDANA. No. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So we could have an illegal alien that 

has had a violent crime, and local law enforcement does not have 

to let ICE know? 

Ms. SALDANA. Doesn’t have to, but many jurisdictions —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I know many do, but they don’t have to let you 

know. Do you not see a problem with that? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s why I’m working so hard to change the 

minds and hearts of —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, but you are not working hard. So let me go 

on a little bit further. Why would ICE be arresting and detaining 

40 percent fewer people than they did in the previous year? 

Ms. SALDANA. Apprehensions. Apprehension numbers are down. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So is it your testimony here today that there are 

fewer people that are actually committing the crimes? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, I didn’t get to finish my answer. 

Mr. MEADOWS. No, I am all ears. 

Ms. SALDANA. Okay. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Because I want to understand how all of a sudden 

there has been this 40 percent reduction in crimes by illegal aliens 

according to your stats because you are not 40 percent less on detainers, 40 percent less on administrative removals. How all of a 

sudden did that happen this year? 

Ms. SALDANA. What happened, sir? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Forty percent less detainers, 40 percent less removals. 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, I’ll tell you, we have less people in the system. I mean, that’s going to be —— 


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Mr. MEADOWS. By design because you have changed the system 

to make sure there are less people in the system, and that is the 

frustration of the parents is what happens is you have made the 

universe lower so you can report fewer people that you let out of 

jail free. 

Ms. SALDANA. I —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Do you not see a problem? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s not correct. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Listen, if you want to go over the numbers privately after this hearing, I will be glad to go over the numbers. I 

am a numbers guy. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you tell me how it could be 40 percent fewer. 

Ms. SALDANA. As I started, part of it is the apprehensions, the 

number of people in the system. We are going about our apprehensions—all our decisions on a very informed —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. No, no, not informed —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—basis —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—because you have to know the whole universe of 

the people in order for it to be informed. So how many drug dealers, how many rapists, how many kidnappers do you let a get-outof-jail-free card? 

Ms. SALDANA. None that have a final order of removal and we 

are able to —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. No, no, no —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—remove them. 

Mr. MEADOWS.—you are equivocating again. The —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I am not equivocating. There’s not simplistic answers —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. Out of —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—to you, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS.—the 7,000 plus that you had the discretion to let 

go, were any of those violent that you had total discretion over letting go? I am saying—they weren’t traffic offenses, out of those discretion, were any of those violent? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, there were some that had been —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—convicted of homicide —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So don’t blame it on everybody else. So it was 

your —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m not blaming it on everybody else. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So violent criminals at your discretion have been 

let go? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. Some are by order of the court —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Do you not see a problem with that? 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir, it’s all—it’s all based on the statutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. No, no, no, no, don’t go there because I can go further —— 

Ms. SALDANA. How can I leave the statute out? 

Mr. MEADOWS.—it is prosecutorial discretion. And that is your 

discretion, ma’am, and that is my problem. 

Ms. SALDANA. And I can’t —— 

Mr. MEADOWS. And I am —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—ignore the statute. 


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Mr. MEADOWS. I am out of time. I am out of time. Are you willing 

to take me up and go through all these numbers after the hearing? 

Because I am —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I am always —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—perfectly willing, and then we will —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—always —— 

Mr. MEADOWS.—go public with them, right? 

Ms. SALDANA.—happy to meet with you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have got a couple of lines of questions, but I want to start with 

this discretion stuff that everybody is talking about. Congress has 

given you guys the discretion to not deport people. You know, I give 

my children discretion to spend their allowance as they see fit. I 

would probably have to come back and revisit that if I thought they 

were being stupid about how they were exercising that discretion. 

And to me it seems like you are exercising your discretion in a way 

that is coming up with tragic results. 

Listen, I can understand you have got a violent criminal who is 

hospitalized and isn’t expected to live 6 months, of course you use 

the discretion there. It is not worth the money or it is probably not 

even possible to safely transport that person to their country of origin. But, you know, that is the far extreme. I think you are too far 

towards we are just going to let them go. And I think that is the 

criticism that you are hearing from the Members of Congress here. 

Even though we have given you the ability to do something 

doesn’t mean you should do it. And I just wanted to clear that up 

because I think in all the back-and-forth here, that hasn’t entirely 

been made clear. I think the whole point of this hearing is there 

are a good many members on this panel who have you up here because we think that discretion isn’t being exercised wisely. 

Ms. SALDANA. I got that impression. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. I just wanted to make sure that everybody was clear on that. 

I want to talk a minute about the Priority Enforcement Program. 

I meet and hear quite a bit from my local sheriffs in Texas, and 

as a Texan, you know, everybody loves the sheriffs and they all 

have an opinion. And what I hear from them is that they are having problems in getting you guys to determine about detainers. And 

sometimes, they will arrest somebody and it will be 3, 4, 5 days before they hear back from you guys as to whether or not to issue 

a detainer. And by that time, the person is already bonded out. So 

how can we improve that process to where they get, let’s say, pick 

a number, 24-hour response there? 

Ms. SALDANA. Okay. You know, I don’t have to tell you that there 

are 254 counties in the State of Texas, and it is wide and long. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Right. But everybody has got a computer. I 

mean —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Oh, yes. Yes, yes. So—but the problem is getting 

to the specific local jurisdiction within a timely manner. You know, 

so we try to get people there as quickly as possible. 


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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Right, but what they want is a determination 

of whether or not to keep them. Most of the sheriffs I know, they 

will drive them to you. They will be happy to deliver them. 

Ms. SALDANA. Congressman, oh my goodness, thank you so 

much. Would you give me the names of those —— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Yes, I will. 

Ms. SALDANA.—sheriffs? No, I am not only half-kidding. I would 

like to know any sheriff that is having any difficulty in hearing 

back from ICE. I want to know that. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Okay. We will get you that information. 

Ms. SALDANA. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. We have actually worked with some of your 

local people and have seen that improve some. I also —— 

Ms. SALDANA. And I’ve got to say the great State of Texas does 

a very good job of cooperating with us. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, we are spending an awful lot of money 

doing the job that the Federal Government can do. We could do a 

whole other hearing on whether or not and how much Texas should 

be reimbursed for doing the Federal Government’s job. 

But I also want to talk about the 287(g) program. And what the 

sheriffs have found is that if they have the revenue to pay for 

somebody, and a lot of these small counties—you know, you look 

at Brooks County, small county, very little property value, they 

don’t have the ability to pay for a person to—you all will give them 

the training for free, but they have got to pay the salary for the 

person. 

But what has been found effective in that program in addition 

is you get a jailer in that program where they can actually access 

the computer and information database directly, and then they are 

able to determine. So I would encourage you to work on growing 

that program. I am working with the appropriations to make sure 

you all have the money to continue to make that work. 

My final question is, we talked—I am going to get back to discretion for a second. And you don’t make the decision for everybody 

there. I mean, it is delegated down the line. How do you ensure 

that it is consistent, and how do you ensure that the person who 

has the discretion isn’t of a disposition to say, oh, let’s just let them 

all go? 

Ms. SALDANA. No. No, sir. They all know my background, and 

they know that that would be fully unacceptable. 

What we do is we train, we issue directives on policies, make 

things clear, give guidance. We revisit. I have myself at least once, 

maybe twice got on the phone with each one of the 24 field office 

directors with responsibility across the country to say my expectations and to make sure that people have the message of how we 

go about our business with respect to detention and those decisions 

and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in general. 

So—but it is a challenge when you have 6,000 officers out there 

who are involved in this. We just stay on—need to stay on top of 

it. I’ve got my field leadership coming in next week. We’re going 

to go through this item by item and talk about the general subject 

of is the word getting down all the way. So I—that’s what I do. 

We’re—it’s a constant vigilance. 


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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, I have plenty more to talk about but my 

time is expired. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. 

Saldana, for being here. 

Ms. Saldana, last year, it is my understanding that you released 

19,723 illegal aliens with criminal records, 19,723. That is the 

number I have been given —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Illegal —— 

Mr. CARTER.—19,723. 

Ms. SALDANA. That number is correct by, remember, court order 

or some discretion. 

Mr. CARTER. And these are illegal aliens with criminal records 

such as kidnapping, sexual assault, DUI, and homicide? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s correct. 

Mr. CARTER. You say that somewhat matter-of-factly as if it is 

okay. 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, it’s not okay, but that’s what the statute tells 

me, sir. It tells me we need to—that we need to abide —— 

Mr. CARTER. You know, it is just unbelievable to me that we 

have released 19,723 illegal aliens with criminal records such as 

kidnapping, sexual assault, DUI, and homicide. 

Ms. SALDANA. I —— 

Mr. CARTER. That is appalling. No wonder America is in an uproar right now. 

Ms. SALDANA. It is appalling. I would —— 

Mr. CARTER. It is appalling. 

Ms. SALDANA.—appreciate you speaking to the Supreme Court of 

Texas with —— 

Mr. CARTER. Well —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—the United States with respect to some of it. The 

immigration courts have another —— 

Mr. CARTER. So tell me when you can detain them. What is a priority 1? Explain to me what a priority 1 is very succinctly, very 

quickly. 

Ms. SALDANA. Threats, generally, to national security and —— 

Mr. CARTER. So kidnapping, sexual assault, DUI, and homicide 

are not priority 1? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, they are in that priority if they’re convicted. 

Mr. CARTER. If they are convicted? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. CARTER. Now, you have got me confused here. We established the fact that you have released 19,723 illegal aliens with 

criminal records, including those with kidnapping, sexual assault, 

DUI, and homicide, and you are telling me you shouldn’t have released them? 

Ms. SALDANA. If—no, I’m telling you—you just asked about priority 1. There’s another priority they might be included in. And let 

me just remind you, sir —— 

Mr. CARTER. There is another priority so there is more than just 

priority 1. 

Ms. SALDANA. There are three priorities. There’s three priorities. 


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Mr. CARTER. There are two priorities. And the second —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Three. 

Mr. CARTER.—priority includes kidnapping, sexual assault, DUI, 

and homicide? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, the first could also. The first could because 

it is persons convicted of crimes. We don’t—in the United States we 

don’t assume somebody is going to be convicted until they’ve actually been tried. I’m just saying a simple matter of fact. I think 

that’s fairly obvious. 

Mr. CARTER. So you just go ahead and release them? 

Ms. SALDANA. And I should remind you that you all determine 

—— 

Mr. CARTER. So please answer my questions. So you go ahead 

and release them? 

Ms. SALDANA. If we’d been ordered by a court or if we’ve exercised discretion in looking at the entire case —— 

Mr. CARTER. So why —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—we may make efforts —— 

Mr. CARTER.—are you releasing them instead of deporting them? 

Ms. SALDANA. Because of all the strictures in this statue, sir. I 

am not going to go outside the law in what I do. I cannot deport 

somebody without a final order of removal who’s had the entire 

framework—been allowed to follow the entire framework you have 

provided, including appeals and consideration by the courts with 

respect to their claims of asylum or torture or whatever it is. 

Mr. CARTER. So you are just releasing them right here in America, not deporting them at all, they are staying here, and then we 

have had numerous examples of where they have gone and committed these crimes again? Don’t you find that to be somewhat appalling? 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s horrible. I wish we were—I wish there were 

no crime committed by anyone —— 

Mr. CARTER. Let me ask you something else. Let me ask you, and 

since fiscal year 2012 the annual budget has increased more than 

$680 million. Is that correct? That is the figure I have been given. 

Since 2012, your budget has increased more than $680 million. 

Ms. SALDANA. ICE’s? 

Mr. CARTER. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. CARTER. But at the same time the number of aliens removed 

has decreased, decreased by 174,000, 174,000. Can you tell me 

what the reason for that is? 

Ms. SALDANA. Because we can only remove those people that 

have a final order of removal and travel—the appropriate travel 

documents. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, if we cut your budget, would you stop releasing them? Because we are giving you money and you are releasing 

them. 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir, you know, you are misrepresenting the facts 

when you say you release them —— 

Mr. CARTER. I am not misrepresenting the facts or —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, we —— 


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Mr. CARTER. We have increased your budget over $680 million, 

and you have decreased the number of people that you have deported by 174,000. 

Ms. SALDANA. Let’s make it clear that these releases, only 7,000 

plus have been entirely discretionary, but it’s not willy-nilly. It’s 

made on a case-by-case analysis of the record that we have in front 

of us and on flight risk analysis. 

Mr. CARTER. Let me ask you this. DHS leadership took $113 million that Congress appropriated to ICE detention and reprogrammed for use by Secret Service and FEMA. Why was that? Are 

you familiar with that? 

Ms. SALDANA. That is a secretarial-level decision. 

Mr. CARTER. Oh, secretarial-level decision. 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, it it’s the Department of Homeland Security, 

sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Okay. So you wouldn’t have been involved in 

that, and you wouldn’t have known about that? 

Ms. SALDANA. In the decision? 

Mr. CARTER. Or even in the process. 

Ms. SALDANA. Am I informed about it? I’m informed about the 

process, but the decision is the Secretary’s. 

Mr. CARTER. So we are giving you money and here we are releasing less than 174,000—you know, I am just appalled by this. This 

does not make any sense at all what we are doing. No wonder 

America is upset. They should be upset. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time —— 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Chairman, I apologize and I appreciate this, but 

Ms. Saldana, we have got to do—this is ridiculous. This is ludicrous. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. CARTER. I yield, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Saldana, critics have argued that one factor encouraging 

illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. is the belief that, once they 

enter the country, they will not be removed. I think that has been 

pretty well established here. Secretary Jeh Johnson recently stated 

that the 11 million illegal immigrants in this country are not going 

away and that are in effect—and I find this absolutely astonishing—United States citizens. Does that include those who have 

criminal records? It is a yes or no. I am just asking, is that a yes 

or no? 

Ms. SALDANA. Sorry. I’m just a—if you won’t mind repeating me, 

what was your question specifically? Did —— 

Mr. PALMER. Jeh Johnson stated that there are 11 million illegal 

immigrants in the country who are not going away. They are in effect United States citizens. Does that include those who are here 

who have criminal records? That is a yes or no. 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t think he said they are United States citizens, sir. 

Mr. PALMER. He said ‘‘in effect’’ United States citizens. But we 

are not debating what he said. I am asking you, do you believe that 


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that includes those who are here with criminal records? Are they 

—— 

Ms. SALDANA. They are not —— 

Mr. PALMER.—staying? Are they —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—United States citizens. 

Mr. PALMER. No, are they staying? 

Ms. SALDANA. We’re doing our best to remove them. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, I don’t know about that because let me tell 

you what just happened in Alabama just earlier this month. Authorities in Oxford, Alabama, which is not in my district, arrested 

three men, two who are from Honduras and one from Mexico. One 

of the men, Camilo Antonio Espinoza-Medrano, had been ordered 

removed from the United States in absentia by an immigration 

judge on or about January 7, 2014. According to the affidavit, it appears Medrano failed to voluntarily deport himself. 

Another guy, one of the other guys, Enrique Benitez of Mexico, 

an immigration history check confirmed Benitez was illegally 

present in the United States. His criminal check showed that he 

has prior convictions for possession of cocaine in 2011 and evading 

arrest in 2008 in the District Court of Dallas County, Texas. 

Now, let me tell you why they were here. They were working for 

a security group out of Honduras who is a front for a drug cartel, 

and they were here, and here is what the affidavit says. They were 

here through a deal arranged through a security company owned 

by the friend’s boss, who Benegas, another one of the guys, new as 

an enforcer and the collector for drug organizations. They were 

going into a private residence to steal a safe and kidnap the occupants, and Benegas further stated that he and the other individuals traveled to Oxford, Alabama, and were provided firearms, bulletproof vests, camouflage clothing, and other gear to do the job. 

And the group was instructed to assault the resident and take its 

occupants captive. 

Now, here is the point. Two of these men had criminal records. 

One goes back to 2008. But they are still here. Now, because of the 

excellent work of the Oxford Police Department, who stopped them 

on a traffic stop but realized that something was awry when they 

saw them in camouflage and had weapons. And by the way, one of 

the weapons was a Smith & Wesson pistol that was confirmed stolen by the Arlington, Texas, Police Department. 

Can you all imagine what would have happened if they had carried out this and kidnapped those people? And let me tell you what 

Benegas said. He planned to use the handgun to shoot the occupants of the house if they presented a firearm during the home invasion. I want to remind you, this is Alabama. Just about every 

house has a gun, and for good reason. I won’t get into this administration’s policy on gun control, but this, let me tell you. Can you 

imagine what would have happened if they had shot that police officer? 

This is insane. You let people in here, you do criminal background checks, they commit crimes. I have got a deal here where 

one guy rapes a 10-year-old girl in Alabama. Here is another one. 

Sofyan Eldani had 34 arrests over 12 years, he is a Palestinian. 

When he was arrested by the Hueytown Police Department, which 


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is in my district, ICE told them they couldn’t deport him because 

the U.S. doesn’t recognize Palestine. 

Director Saldana, it has been reported that ICE recently proposed changing current policy to require that fingerprints be taken 

from all people claiming custody of children who have entered the 

United States illegally without an adult relative. Let me ask you 

this. Among the many policy suggestions that have been made, do 

you think this would be an effective policy to actually implement 

for illegal immigrants who are repeat criminal offenders that are 

not consider priority 1 in accordance with current DHS policy? 

Ms. SALDANA. I would consider that. I don’t—that—we have not 

proposed that, but I would consider it. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, why haven’t you? 

Ms. SALDANA. Done what, sir, proposed that? 

Mr. PALMER. Why have you not proposed that? Why haven’t you 

taken that action? 

Ms. SALDANA. It’s a—I’ll tell you, sir, there’s a lot of things I 

need to get to, and I’m pedaling as fast as I can. But I—we are— 

we all have it under advisement right now and we’re looking at it. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, pedaling as fast as you can won’t do much 

good for people who are at a funeral. 

Ms. SALDANA. That’s the best I can do. 

Mr. PALMER. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And that is what is pathetic. 

Mr. Walker of North Carolina is now recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to start by recognizing two groups of people. The first one 

is Sarah Ann Root, age 21. Mr. Root, I am proud of you for representing her today, and I am also proud of your service to our 

country. 

Casey Chadwick, Ms. Hartling, as a former minister, I can only 

imagine what your family has gone through and losing this 25- 

year-old beautiful daughter here. 

There is Marilyn Pharis. Chief Martin, thank you for coming all 

the way to represent her today. 

There is also another group of people that I want to talk about, 

three people: again, Eswin Mejia, Jean Jacques, and Victor Ramirez. They also have something in common today in the fact that all 

three of them were arrested on previous charges before they ultimately committed this heinous crime. Victor Ramirez was an illegal from Mexico. The chief did his part. Over a 15-month time, he 

arrested this gentleman six times, six times over 15 months. This 

is the guy, along with his partner, that beat Mrs. Pharis’s face in 

with a hammer. Somehow she fought back, survived 8 days. See, 

this is huge. 

And then we hear today from my colleagues that the way we justify this is that criminal aliens, according to one statistic, commit 

less crimes than the general public, of which you had a sweet chat 

with him about. But what if they weren’t here to begin with? 

Would they have committed these crimes? It is not rhetorical. If 

they were never here, would they have committed these crimes? 

Ms. SALDANA. No. 

Mr. WALKER. And then we talk about the challenge of returning 

these people to their country. And then I believe if—I want to 


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make sure that you were on record saying this. As the director of 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did I hear you say 

correctly that sealing our borders or building a wall or even finishing the wall of 2006 from the former George Bush as President, 

you said that that would not help us prevent illegals from coming 

in our country? Did you say that? 

Ms. SALDANA. I said—yes, sir. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes, because I’ve seen many videos where people 

scale those walls very easily. I—you know, that’s just not the only 

answer. There’s lots of things we have to do to secure the border. 

Mr. WALKER. So it is easier to not have a wall at all instead of 

making somebody go and scale a wall in your opinion? I don’t understand that a bit. 

Here is the data—and let me start with the question here. Do 

you believe that the sexual assault, abuse, and exploitation are heinous crimes? You would agree with that, wouldn’t you? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. And a little earlier my colleague, Mr. Carter, 

talked about charges. These 19,000 are not charges; they are convictions? 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. And according to this, including 1,614 convictions of sexual offense—my wife is a sexual assault nurse examiner. She works in this world. She understands that she is reaching 

out to the people who are going the very darkest point of life. Three 

hundred and fifty-two convictions involve commercial sex trade. My 

State is number nine in the country. Yet for some reason these are 

listed as priority 2 instead of priority 1. Why is that? 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir, because the most serious offenses are listed in 

priority 1. The most serious offenses, terrorism, it’s just a matter 

of directing resources in the place that will hurt the country the 

most. 

Mr. WALKER. So you are telling me that sexual offenses or the 

rape of a 6- or 7-year-old child is not as important an offense as 

some other? 

Ms. SALDANA. I was a United States attorney. Do you—you know 

the answer to that question. 

Mr. WALKER. Well —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Of course it’s a serious offense. 

Mr. WALKER. But I am just going by what you just told me, that 

you said no, that is not, that is priority 2 —— 

Ms. SALDANA. It is. 

Mr. WALKER.—because it was more concerned with other ones. 

Ms. SALDANA. Sir, in your authorization, you directed us, you 

have directed us to prioritize—you directed the—‘‘the Secretary of 

Homeland security shall prioritize the identification and removal of 

aliens convicted of a crime by severity of that crime.’’ And that is 

exactly what we’ve done. You may disagree with the three categories or the way they were placed, but you directed us to do that, 

and the Secretary did that. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, here is what I hope we agree on is that we 

have a major problem, and we have illegal aliens in this country 

committing heinous crimes who are not being deported. 


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I also want to add one more thing in closing here in my 30 seconds that I have left. There was a statement made earlier that law 

enforcement needs to be concerned about the delicate task of not 

putting some of the nation of origin into the definition of the criminal activity. Do you believe that law enforcement should stop 

being—I look at Chief Martin, who worked 30 years in gang-related 

activities with El Salvador and did some great work there. Do you 

believe that we should stop or drop the race part of describing some 

of the crimes that are going on? 

Ms. SALDANA. We have to look at whether someone’s in the country who’s not a citizen, so we have to look at the country of their 

origin. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. I don’t know whether that was a yes or no, 

but with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MULVANEY. [Presiding] I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes. 

Ms. Saldana, you got a little bit of attention at your outset when 

you encouraged us this morning in your opening statement to drop 

the political banter, and I think you have pointed to the rules and 

regs and the statues that are in front of you, and you invited us 

to help you develop a system that works. And I would like to talk 

about that. In fact, you and I have talked about that in the past. 

So let’s go back to something you and I have talked about before, 

which would it help you develop a system that worked if we figured 

out a way to require local law enforcement to cooperate with your 

retainer requests? 

Ms. SALDANA. Well, we need to figure out a way to get law enforcement to work with us just like this individual from law enforcement works with us. And I don’t think he would take kindly 

to us browbeating him —— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Not browbeating —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—and forcing him to do things —— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Let’s stay on topic. You know where I am getting 

at, which is, would it help you develop a system that works if we 

required local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE? 

Ms. SALDANA. Compulsory? 

Mr. MULVANEY. Yes. 

Ms. SALDANA. It would help me to some extent, but that’s what 

I’m doing in PEP is I am trying to get everybody —— 

Mr. MULVANEY. All right. Let’s talk about that. 

Ms. SALDANA.—to the table. 

Mr. MULVANEY. To what extent? Because that is the third answer I have gotten now —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Well —— 

Mr. MULVANEY.—because I asked you the exact same question in 

June of 2015. I asked you ‘‘Would it help if we clarify the law to 

make it clear that it was mandatory that those local communities 

cooperate with your detainer requests?’’ And you answered, ‘‘Thank 

you, amen, yes.’’ The next day however, you released a statement 

that read in relevant part a different answer: ‘‘Any effort at Federal legislation now to mandate State and local law enforcement’s 

compliance with ICE detainers will, in our view, be a highly counterproductive step.’’ Now, today, you just gave me a third answer, 

which is, ‘‘In a way, it would actually help.’’ So let’s talk about how 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE would help 

you. 

Ms. SALDANA. In enforcing the 4,000 laws that the Department 

of Justice had to enforce and I had to enforce as United States attorney, I found that the best way to work with State and locals is 

through cooperation and agreement and standing by—side by side. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Well, that is fair, but if I am in a city that has 

said, you know what, we want to be a sanctuary city, we don’t want 

to cooperate with ICE, my guess is that chance for cooperation is 

probably gone at that point. Wouldn’t it help you do your job if we 

went to these so-called sanctuary cities and say, you know what, 

you can’t do that. You have to cooperate with ICE when it comes 

to dealing with the sorts of people who kill their children? 

Ms. SALDANA. I am working with the—with all the cities whether 

they want to —— 

Mr. MULVANEY. How is that working in San Francisco? 

Ms. SALDANA. We’re making some inroads. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Some inroads? 

Ms. SALDANA. I believe we’ve gotten—yes. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Would it help you more if we required them to 

do it? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t think the government would be—the local 

government would be more cooperative if you browbeat them over 

the head by saying the feds —— 

Mr. MULVANEY. How about if we required them by law to do it 

or deny them some type of Federal money? 

Ms. SALDANA. I think that they are—at least I’ve heard, sir, and 

read that State and local government don’t want the Federal Government to tell them what to do. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Do you think that a State and local government 

should have the right to tell the Federal Government that they are 

not going to cooperate with an immigration issue? 

Ms. SALDANA. No. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. So they don’t have a right to do it, but 

they are doing it anyway, and you don’t want us to bring them into 

line? You don’t want to require —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I am telling you the realities of the real world, and 

that is in trying to get people to work with us for the bottom line, 

and that is the public safety —— 

Mr. MULVANEY. I hate to be melodramatic because it is not usually what I am very good at. Turn around and tell the people behind you about the real world. 

Ms. SALDANA. I have been, and I hope they’ve been hearing me. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Let me ask you this. Does the sanctuary city program put your field personnel at more risk than they would be otherwise? 

Ms. SALDANA. Having to—yes, having to go into a jurisdiction 

when—into somebody’s home when we could have gotten them at 

a local sheriff’s or police department, yes, it does put them at risk. 

Mr. MULVANEY. So you don’t want us to take steps to lower the 

risk for your own people? 

Ms. SALDANA. I’m saying give me an opportunity to get this done 

with—PEP has only been in effect since last July. It’s not even 

been a year. So give me some time to work with State and local 


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jurisdictions. I have made tremendous headway. Of the top 25 jurisdictions that did not honor detainers, we’ve got 17 back at the 

table. I —— 

Mr. MULVANEY. It has been a year since you were here last time. 

Let me ask you this. Does the sanctuary city program put the public at risk? 

Ms. SALDANA. I don’t know what the sanctuary city program is, 

sir. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Well, no, then let’s use the terminology we have 

been using for the last couple of minutes, which is the programs 

whereby cities say, you know what, we are not going to cooperate 

with ICE. ICE calls us and says detain that person that you just 

picked up, and the city says, you know what, no, we don’t want to 

do that. Does that put the public at more risk? 

Ms. SALDANA. I want every jurisdiction to cooperate with ICE. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Good. We could help you with that. Would you 

like us to help you? 

Ms. SALDANA. I need all the help I can get. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. 

Ms. SALDANA. And I will work with you to try to come up with 

a rational system by which we can improve that situation. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Which is the third answer you have given, so I 

thank you for that. 

And I will yield back the balance of my time to the chair, and 

I will recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, you know, all over this country people have read headlines 

and stories similar to the ones, some that I have here, and this one 

story has been mentioned a few times already today, but I was presiding over that House earlier and I didn’t get in on all of this. And 

I know there are some people watching now who probably didn’t 

hear some of these things earlier. 

But the Washington Examiner had a headline that said ‘‘ICE releases 19,723 criminal aliens, 208 convicted of murder, 900 of sex 

crimes.’’ And before that, there was a story from the Washington 

Times which the headline says ‘‘3,700 illegal immigrant threat 

level 1 criminals were released into the U.S. by the Department of 

Homeland Security,’’ and that story said most of the illegal immigrant criminals Homeland Security officials released from custody 

last year were discretionary, meaning the Department could have 

kept them in detention but chose instead to let them onto the 

streets. Some of those released where the worst of the worst. More 

than 3,700 threat level 1 criminals who are deemed the top priority 

for deportation were still released out into the community. That is 

why people are so upset. That is why people are so angry about all 

of this. 

And then earlier, we had testimony in this committee from Jessica Vaughan from the Center for Immigration Studies, and she 

testified that ICE officials have told her that, since the administration’s policies on prosecutorial discretion were expanded, they are 

processing a small fraction of the number of aliens that they used 

to process, and one recently told me that his office used to process 

as many as 100 aliens per day, but since the President’s executive 


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actions when into effect, now they are processing closer to 5 aliens 

per day with the same staff and budget. 

And it seems to me that this is a shameful record, and the people 

at the top should be embarrassed about this. As Mr. Carter pointed 

out about how the funds have gone up so much and yet the prosecutions have gone way down, and I doubt that there is another 

agency in the entire Federal Government that has gotten the percentage increases, Director Saldana, that your agency has 

percentagewise. I mean, we just keep pouring more and more and 

more money into your agency, and we are getting less and less and 

less for that money. And I can tell you that people all over this 

country are angry about that and upset about that. 

Are you embarrassed about this in any way? Are you ashamed, 

disappointed? Surely, you are not happy about all this that we 

talked about here this morning. 

Ms. SALDANA. No, sir. And I will tell you, I think you may have 

missed when I spoke earlier about the fact that I would like not 

to see one person injured or one person certainly killed at the 

hands of someone who’s in the country illegally. 

Mr. DUNCAN. That is a —— 

Ms. SALDANA. But when people say —— 

Mr. DUNCAN. That feeling is —— 

Ms. SALDANA. But, Congressman, when people say that we have 

released 19,723 people, it failed to point out the fact that twothirds of that were by court order or an instruction of the Supreme 

Court of the United States. And that is a misrepresentation of the 

picture. That is what I have to have to. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I tell you, it is a terrible thing. I mean, I have 

got stories up here from the Texas Tribune, and they tell about one 

man who was passed through Webb County four times on more 

than a half a dozen charges before allegedly beating his wife to 

death with a hammer. Another man spent 3 months in the Hidalgo 

County jail, 4 months in State custody, and 6 years in Federal prison for multiple felony offenses at the time he went on a random 

shooting spree in Houston, killing two people and injuring three 

more. And then of course you have the famous case of this man in 

San Francisco who shot Kate Steinle to death after he had racked 

up a criminal record, including seven felonies, mostly drug-related. 

People are really angry about these sanctuary cities that the administration has gone along with. The American people are the 

kindest, most generous, most sympathetic people in this world, and 

we have allowed far more immigration, many, many millions more 

than any other country, and the American people have gone along 

with that. But they are sick and tired and angered about reading 

about all of these criminals being released, and you or somebody 

is going to have to do a lot better job on this. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MULVANEY. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Mulvaney. 

And I want to thank the committee, both majority and minority, 

for waiving my appearance here today and having the opportunity 

to participate in this hearing. 


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To Chief Martin and Mr. Root, thank you for your presence here. 

Again, your stories are incredibly powerful and really demonstrate 

that this discussion today is not academic. It has profound, reallife impact, and it takes a lot of persistence on your part to really 

be here to remind us of that fact. 

I am here because one of my constituents is here, Ms. Wendy 

Hartling. She is joined by attorney Chester Fairlie, whose story has 

been mentioned by other members here this morning. 

Again, just a little less than a year ago just a horrific crime took 

her child Casey Chadwick from her, and I can personally attest to 

the fact that southeastern Connecticut and the whole State, you 

know, has, you know, been just part of the grief and pain that followed. And the admiration that folks have for Ms. Hartling, as Mr. 

Lynch said, trying to get some good to come out of this horrific 

event, it just has drawn admiration from all quarters. So thank you 

for being here, Ms. Hartling. 

And I think I am the last one here, so all your patience is going 

to be paid off shortly and give you an opportunity to talk. 

Director Saldana, you know, the one thing about the Casey 

Chadwick case is that, you know, really, there is just no ambiguity 

in this instance in terms of, you know, whether or not some 

charges were pending or whether or not the individual was convicted of an aggravated versus, you know, serious offense. 

Jean Jacques, you know, came into the country without documentation, he was convicted by the State of Connecticut of the 

homicide, he served over 15 years in prison. At the completion of 

his sentence, the Department of Corrections surrendered him to 

the custody of ICE, again, the government had run the traps in 

terms of getting a deportation order completed at that point. Any 

appeal that he tried to pose had been exhausted. So there was just, 

you know, again, no sort of glitches that anyone could point to that 

would interfere with that process going to the next step, which is 

obviously removal from the country. 

As we heard from Mrs. Maloney, the Government of Haiti, again, 

played this very frustrating exercise in terms of verbally granting 

and then refusing on a number of occasions. 

So a year ago you were before this committee and this question 

of uncooperative other nations was raised with you, and at the 

time, your testimony stated that ‘‘Bolstering ICE’s ability to obtain 

travel documents from recalcitrant countries is an important priority, and I will continue to work closely with the Department of 

State to achieve better cooperation from countries in accepting the 

return of their nationals.’’ 

Again, this morning, you have talked about your efforts within 

the PEP program in the last year or so. Can you just tell us with 

some specificity what is going on between ICE and State in the intervening time since you testified to fix this, you know, glaring 

problem? 

Ms. SALDANA. I think I said earlier I’ve met with the Assistant 

Secretary for Consular Affairs, Ms. Bond, and actually, I’m going 

to see her this afternoon about Guinea in particular. So we meet 

periodically, and we made a commitment to continue to do that because I want to keep her posted on the countries we’re having trouble with. 


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So this Memorandum of Understanding we have, we make—we 

give her—we meet to discuss what can be done with a particular 

country, and right now, you know, countries like Syria and Iraq 

and Afghanistan, we’re just having tremendous difficulties with. 

So she has listened, she has promised to follow up. She sent a 

cable out to our ambassadors across the world last March to say 

please be mindful of this. Help ICE and other agencies that are 

seeking to get cooperation from the jurisdiction and assist them in 

their efforts to remove people that —— 

Mr. COURTNEY. But what levers—I mean, we have levers. 

Ms. SALDANA. Yes. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Members have mentioned it, you know, that 

visas that we grant to citizens from these nations coming into the 

U.S., foreign aid, I mean what —— 

Ms. SALDANA. Sanctions, there are sanctions that we can impose 

—— 

Mr. COURTNEY. But give me an example of where they have actually, you know, done more than just meet to discuss this? 

Ms. SALDANA. Where Department of State has? I’m not familiar 

with the specifics of what they’ve done. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Okay. And I guess, you know, Mr. Chairman, you 

know, that is sort of the crux of the frustration that myself and 

Senator Blumenthal and Murphy have experience, which is that, 

you know, this just screams out for the fact that we know, the 

agencies in the U.S., ICE and the State Department are not getting 

this done, and that is why we requested an inspector general’s report. That process is underway right now. We are going to be receiving the results of that. 

But frankly, I would just say, Director, you know, that response 

is just really not acceptable given the fact that, you know, we have 

instances where somebody—again, there was just no question 

about their status in terms of being deported, and to have other 

countries stonewall our efforts and to say that the State Department’s best efforts right now is just simply to meet with ICE and 

to send out warning telegrams —— 

Ms. SALDANA. I —— 

Mr. COURTNEY.—to embassies, there are other options that we 

have available to us, and we need to exercise those. 

Ms. SALDANA. Withholding aid and the sanctions, I mentioned, 

but I just want to be sure, sir, I am doing the best I can to try to 

persuade State. State is the most appropriate witness to explain to 

you why they make the decisions they do because —— 

Mr. COURTNEY. Well —— 

Ms. SALDANA.—I can’t speak for the Department of State. 

Mr. COURTNEY. If I could just have another 30 seconds, again, we 

experienced in this case where the Government of Haiti, again, for 

paperwork reasons, stonewalled Mr. Jacques’ deportation. ICE can 

do more in terms of creating a record of country of origin in terms 

of interviewing witnesses in the U.S. I mean, this guy had been 

here for over 20 years. There were other ways that verification of 

country of origin could have taken place stateside, in addition to 

having the State Department apply levers of pressure, which, 

again, I think should have been exercised at the greatest and highest level. 


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So this discussion, Mr. Chairman, again, I want to continue with 

you and the members here about the fact that, you know, the response so far just, frankly, has not been satisfactory. I would ask 

that my letter to you and Mr. Cummings setting forth the IG request —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. It has already been submitted to the 

record. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. Okay. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And, Mr. Courtney —— 

Mr. COURTNEY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—I appreciate your commitment on this 

issue. The director has agreed within a week’s time to give us all 

the letters of correspondence that she has had with State Department making these requests because the statute is clear. Once the 

Secretary receives that, it says the Secretary ‘‘shall.’’ And I would 

be fascinated, and I think you are right, I think another hearing 

would be most appropriate, and I hope you can join us for that. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Director, we thank you for your being with us here today. The 

committee is going to stand in recess until 12:30, and then we will 

convene the second panel. We stand in recess. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order, and we will continue with the second panel of the hearing today. 

I would ask unanimous consent that Congressman Young of Iowa 

be allowed to participate and fully participate in today’s hearing. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

I am glad that you can join us, as well as Mr. Courtney of Connecticut, who can also come join us. 

The second panel is probably the most important people that we 

can hear from, and we are pleased to welcome Mr. Ralph Martin, 

who is the chief of police at the Santa Maria, California, Police Department, has an important perspective for us. And, Chief, we are 

pleased and honored that you would join with us here today. 

I would also like to allow Mr. Courtney to help introduce Ms. 

Wendy Hartling. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking 

Member Cummings. 

Again, we are honored today to have Ms. Wendy Hartling from 

Gales Ferry, Connecticut, join us here today. Gales Ferry is sort of 

the quintessential sort of small-town America, and she was, again, 

the devoted mother of Casey Chadwick, who has been mentioned 

many times this morning, lost her life almost a year ago in Norwich, Connecticut, to a brutal homicide, which roughly a couple 

weeks ago came to a legal conclusion with a conviction of Jean 

Jacques. 

And all I would say, Mr. Chairman, is that Wendy Hartling was 

leading a very private life and, you know, with strong family connections in the community. That changed radically. She has been 

thrust into the public eye as someone who has, again, faithfully attended all the court proceedings and has spoken out about really 

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ernment in terms of really following through on what, as I said 

earlier, was just a totally unambiguous deportation case. 

She is joined here today by attorney Chester Fairlie from New 

London, Connecticut, who participates in the Survivors of Homicide 

group in the State of Connecticut; and Crysta Wydra, who was 

Casey’s best friend, who is also from Gales Ferry that is here. 

Again, I think all the members will be, again, deeply moved by Ms. 

Hartley’s testimony here today. And again, it is an honor to have 

the opportunity to introduce her. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

So, again, Ms. Wendy Hartling is the mother of Casey Chadwick, 

who was killed by an illegal immigrant on June 15 of 2015. And 

we are beyond sad for your loss. And you woke up one morning and 

your life changed, and I am sure you never expected this. You certainly didn’t ever ask for this, but we appreciate your bravery for 

stepping forward and sharing your candid thoughts and perspective. It is important that we all hear that, see it, and feel it, and 

so thank you for being here today. 

We also are pleased to have Mr. Scott Root, who is here with us 

today, but I would like to have Congressman Young of Iowa help 

introduce him and give a little background and perspective. 

Congressman Young, you are recognized. 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 

Member Cummings and the colleagues here that share this room 

today for this hearing, which is very important obviously. Thanks 

for allowing me to participate in today’s hearing to introduce Scott 

Root, a fellow Iowan. He is from Council Bluffs, which is on the 

western end of the 3rd District nestled up against the Missouri 

River. And our mantra there is just to work hard and treat others 

right, a lot of patriotism there, fear and love of the Lord. Thank 

you for being here today. 

Earlier this year, Scott lost his daughter Sarah, a beautiful girl, 

to a drunk driver, a criminal who took advantage of this administration’s immigration policies, jumped bail, and may never be 

brought to justice for his crime. 

Scott, thank you for being here today to share your story. And, 

Ms. Hartling, thank you for coming as well. 

As I am sure Scott and my colleagues from Iowa can attest to 

Iowans have a unique sense of community, as well do other members and the folks from their district and State, a unique sense of 

community. We are all in this together. When something happens 

to one of us or our neighbors, it really gives levity to the situation. 

It hits us hard. It puts an impact on us personally because it is 

like it is happening to all of us. Though we cannot fathom his grief, 

Mr. Root, we are left with a deep sense of loss, and we want to see 

justice. 

What happened to Sarah was a tragedy and a horrible crime, 

and now the Root family and the community are left waiting to see 

if Eswin Mejia will ever be found, will ever stand trial because of 

failures of the court and failures of the Federal Government to enforce our laws. 

I had the chance to question Director Saldana early this year and 

she shared when I failed to follow through on a detainer that kept 


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Eswin Mejia from facing justice. She also said ICE will be looking 

at this case to make sure this doesn’t happen again. As the chairman knows, this is something we hear too often without seeing actual results. 

From ICE, not accurately reviewing the request of the local police to the Department of Health and Human Services, placing 

Eswin Mejia as an unaccompanied minor with his brother, who 

was also here illegally, I am astounded this administration not only 

continues to restrict the enforcement of our immigration laws, but 

they don’t seem to understand them at all in the first place. 

Nothing can bring Sarah back, but we can honor her and preserve Sarah’s memory with justice in making sure this never happens again. 

Scott, thank you for being here today. May God give you courage, 

wisdom, peace, and strength in your fight for Sarah and her memory and for justice. Thank you for being here today. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Root, we appreciate your strength in being here today and 

offering your perspective and look forward to hearing your testimony and grieve for your loss as well. So thank you. 

We are also pleased to have Mr. Chris Burbank. He is the director of law enforcement engagement at the Center for Policing Equity. He is also the former chief of police, I believe 9 years in Salt 

Lake City. I have had the pleasure of interacting with him on a 

number of occasions. And, Mr. Burbank, we are pleased to have 

you here and participating and giving a perspective as well. So 

thank you for being here. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn before 

they testify. So if you will please each rise and raise your right 

hand. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the 

record reflect that the witnesses all answered in the affirmative. 

We would appreciate your limiting your verbal comments to 5 

minutes, but your entire written statement will be entered into the 

record. 

Chief Martin, we will start with you. You are now recognized for 

5 minutes. And please know in advance, you need to bring that 

microphone up close and just make sure it is on. And thank you. 

That will help us all. 

Chief Martin. 

STATEMENT OF RALPH MARTIN 

Chief MARTIN. Mr. Chairman and committee members, good 

afternoon. My name is Ralph Martin and I am the police chief for 

the city of Santa Maria, California. Santa Maria is the largest city 

in Santa Barbara County and one of the largest cities on California’s Central Coast. It has a population of over 100,000, is a few 

minutes from the coastline, and is surrounded by agriculture. We 

are about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

I am here today to share with you an event that occurred just 

9 months ago. It’s about the brutal and vicious attack of 64-yearold Santa Maria resident, Marilyn Pharis. At the time of this atVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:48 Feb 17, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\23480.TXT APRIL

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tack, Ms. Pharis was gainfully employed at nearby Vandenberg Air 

Force Base, where she worked the night shift as a satellite tracker 

civilian contractor. She’s been doing this since 1974. Prior to that, 

she spent 4 years in the United States Air Force. 

On the morning of July 24, 2015, at approximately 9:45 in the 

morning, while Ms. Pharis was sleeping, two suspects broke into 

her home, sexually assaulted her, strangled her, and beat her 

about her head and face with a hammer. But despite the incredible 

beating, Marilyn would not give up. She fought back with all the 

strength she could muster, even while receiving repeated blows. 

The suspects left her for dead. But somehow, with her eye socket 

shattered and her broken—neck bone broken, she dialed 911. 

As the suspects made their escape, one of them, identified as Victor Martinez-Ramirez, broke into another home on West Donovan 

Street, entering through a sliding door. There, he encountered 

three young children and their mother. However, she managed to 

dial 911 and the suspect fled again. 

As officers were responding to Ms. Pharis’s home, additional officers were now responding to the West Donovan home. Suspect 

Martinez starts jumping backyard fences, but the patrol officers set 

up a solid perimeter around him. And within minutes, one of our 

K–9 officers finds Martinez hiding underneath a tarp on a patio of 

a nearby home on Cox Street. Now, that’s three blocks from Ms. 

Pharis’s home and one block from the Donovan Street home. 

He was arrested for burglary, sexual assault, and attempted 

murder. During the fourth day of the investigation, detectives identified and arrested a second suspect, Jose Villagomez. He was subsequently charged with the same crimes. 

Eight days after Ms. Pharis was attacked, she died in her hospital bed, unable to recover from her brutal injuries. 

Victor Martinez is an illegal alien from Mexico. He had been arrested by the Santa Maria Police Department six times in the previous 15 months. He was released from the Santa Barbara County 

Jail 96 hours before he attacked Ms. Pharis. Villagomez is a U.S. 

citizen, although he spent much of his life in Mexico. He had one 

previous arrest. Both are currently in custody awaiting trial. 

I believe that when the Federal and the State government fails 

to do its job, it falls on the shoulders of local government, and we 

are not equipped to deal with these issues financially or with personnel. 

The arrest sheet on Martinez is a glaring example of Federal and 

State failures. On one occasion in 2014, ICE filed a form I–247 immigration detainer. However, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s 

Department does not recognize the hold—the lawful hold based on 

the Miranda-Olivares v. Clackamas County decision, which is a 

Federal court ruling. Two weeks before the attack, Martinez was 

cited as opposed to arrested for possession of methamphetamine, 

because recently, California passed prop 47, which I’ll address in 

just a moment. 

On July 16, 2015, eight days before assaulting Ms. Pharis, Martinez was arrested again for felony possession of a dirk or dagger, 

as well as possession of drug paraphernalia. He was additionally 

charged at that time with two additional misdemeanors because he 

had two outstanding warrants for $10,000 a piece, one for failure 


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to appear, and the other was—failure to appear in court, and the 

other one was a probation violation. He was released that day. 

Four days later, he attacks Ms. Pharis. 

Now, the State of California passed prop 47 in November of ’14. 

It was a complete con job pulled on the people. It was titled ‘‘Safe 

Schools and Safe Neighborhoods,’’ but in reality it was just nothing 

more than a title. What it did was in the fine print reduce felony 

drug possession like possession of heroin, possession of cocaine, 

possession of methamphetamine to a misdemeanor citable offense. 

So now thousands of arrestees are petitioning the courts to reduce their convictions, as did Martinez. And the reason I bring this 

up is that if the convictions are then reduced to misdemeanors, ICE 

will look at those later on and see the felonies are now misdemeanors. 

The city of Santa Maria, as well as other cities throughout California, are seeing an increase in homeless persons that been high— 

with high drug dependency. And many of these persons would have 

been removed from our streets, been required to appear in court, 

and referred to drug rehabilitation and treatment programs. But 

the numbers have substantially decreased because of prop 47, so 

it’s a combination of Federal issues and State issues. 

You know, I can’t help but think our U.S. marine makes a wrong 

turn at the border and he’s locked up for months and months at 

a time, and yet we in the U.S. seem to be running a catch-and-release program for criminal aliens. 

And I’ve been in this business for 40 years, and when I hear of 

incidents, whether it’s the Root case or others and people say it’s 

a tragedy or some kind of senseless tragedy, you know, I just shake 

my head and say no because when we do not enforce our Federal 

and our State laws, all we truly have is predicable consequences. 

Thank you for your time. 

[Prepared statement of Chief Martin follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Ms. Hartling, you are now recognized. 

STATEMENT OF WENDY HARTLING 

Ms. HARTLING. Hi. Hi. My name is Wendy Hartling, and my life 

will never be the same after June 15, 2015. 

I am here on behalf of my daughter Casey who was stabbed to 

death over 15 times and stuffed into a closet by a criminal alien, 

Jean Jacques. He was found guilty of attempted murder in 1996 

and served 16 years in Connecticut Prison. He should have automatically deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

when he was released from prison. Instead, he killed Casey on 

June 15, 2015, and was found guilty of her murder after a trial. 

My hope is that he never gets out of prison. 

According to laws passed by Congress, Jacques should have been 

deported. ICE had him in custody and detention three times. Tragically, ICE released him three times, and he killed my—killed 

Casey just a few months after his last release by ICE. 

From defensive wounds, we know that Casey fought courageously 

and that she suffered greatly before her death. If ICE and Homeland Security had done their job, Casey would not have died, and 

I would not be here as part of the club of Homicide Survivors, 

which no parent ever wants to join. 

My Attorney Chester Fairlie has written an article on the failure 

of deportation of criminal aliens. I would like to submit a copy of 

deportations process contributed to the—oh, wait a minute. No. I’ve 

got to go back. 

Mr. Fairlie states ‘‘This miscarriage of the deportation process 

contributed to the death of Casey Chadwick and caused grief and 

suffering to her parents and friends.’’ 

I understand that the Inspector General of Homeland Security 

has undertaken a full investigation of the Jacques failed deportation case, and we are awaiting the report. 

My daughter was loved so many family and friends. Over 300 

came to her wake. Casey and I were very close. She called or texted 

me every day. I can no longer talk to my daughter, hold her, hug 

her, or simply just hang out with her or go out to eat, which was 

one of her favorite things to do. This breaks my heart of every second of every day 

Her best friend Crysta of 13 years plus, who came with me on 

this trip in support, is devastated, as is Casey’s boyfriend. 

This is what I have lost. I can’t watch her walk down the aisle 

on the arm of her father. She will never have the chance of becoming a mom, something she was thinking of before her death. She 

will never see her two nephews grow up or go to her siblings’ weddings. She will never again be at our family functions and holidays. 

The tragedy of Casey’s death is not an isolated case and is occurring frighteningly around the country. Something has to be done to 

fix this horrible problem. I would never want any family to have 

to go through this. The pain is always with me. My heart is broken. 

I go to a Survivors of Homicide group, which is very helpful. An 

important thing I learned was that the pain will never go away. 

I have to learn to live with it. I am trying, but it is the hardest 


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thing for me in my entire life. Still, I must find the courage and 

strength to advocate for Casey, who cannot speak for herself. 

Thank you for listening. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Hartling follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. And of course we will include 

that letter into the record. 

[The information follows:] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And you did great. Thank you. 

Mr. Root, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT ROOT 

Mr. ROOT. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and 

respected members of House Committee on Oversight and Government. My name is Scott Root, and I thank you for the opportunity 

to be the voice of my murdered daughter, Sarah Rae-Ann Root, 

murdered on Sunday, January 31, at approximately 2:00 a.m. by 

a drunk driver and illegal immigrant, Edwin G. Mejia. 

Less than 24 hours, Sarah walked with a 4.0 grade point average 

at—bachelor’s in criminal investigations from Bellevue University. 

I would also like to take this to thank Officer Bowes, Rizzo, 

Adam and Dawn Turnbull and Swanson of the Omaha Police Department. We would also like to thank Congressmen and staff of 

Steve King, Robert Goodlatte, also take Senators Ernst, Fischer, 

Grassley, Sasse, Sessions, and the doctors and nurses at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. 

As a 30-year member of Steamfitters Local 464, it is ironic that 

I find myself thanking a Republican House and a Senate member 

who reached out to us within weeks of Sarah’s death. My ex-wife 

were not contacted by any Democrats or ICE until April 22, after 

I learned I would testify and the days—and 82 days after my 

daughter was murdered. They were told ICE had a victim’s unit 

and they would be reaching out. 

I am an Army veteran. I served with the 1st Cav. My father was 

a World War II medic and was a recipient of the Purple Heart, Silver Star, and a French medal, Croix de Guerre. I don’t share this 

to talk about ourselves, rather to point out that the Root family has 

served their country when called upon. Now, they’re asking for 

your help in getting answers and justice. 

My mother and sister legally immigrated to the United States 

after World War II and—to become American citizens. In my opinion, the Obama administration with open-borders policy has 

changed us. We no longer ask for immigrants to assimilate to our 

way of life; rather, schools, governments are required to accommodate to their needs of their country. 

My mother and sister took pride in becoming Americans and 

learning the language and culture. By allowing illegal immigrants 

to take custody of illegal immigrants with no controls in place for 

a person like Edwin Mejia, the man who killed my daughter, were 

to break our laws. 

Sarah was a daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin, niece, and 

friend. She was bright, smart, loving, caring, respectful, and strong. 

Like her brother and mom, she stood up for her beliefs. My son 

Scott lost his best friend, confidante, when I—when Sarah died. 

Her mother lost her best friend, daughter, and fellow Kansas City 

Chief. 

I would like to take this opportunity to walk my daughter down 

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ed. She loved to fish and her—and this year, she wanted to try 

deer hunting. 

In the early morning of January 31, I received no call a parent 

should ever have to change. My family was summoned to the hospital at approximately 4:00 a.m. I thought we had a deal with a 

broken leg or a broken arm. I didn’t get—dare think the worst. I 

was awaiting something that no father should have to go through. 

That was identify their child. Her spinal cord was snapped, her 

skull fractured in two places, her face was swollen beyond recognition. We identified her by her tattoo on her ribcage, ‘‘Live, Laugh, 

Love’’ and a crucifix. 

The neurosurgeon said on a scale from 1 to 10 that her chance 

of recovery was zero. No parent should have to deal with that, especially when the situation could have been prevented if the laws 

had been followed and enforced. 

Sarah was an organ donor. Her mother and I kept her on life 

support 3 days to allow the organ recipients and their doctors to 

prepare themselves for harvesting. Sarah, through her unselfish 

act, was able to save six individuals. She also helped five—four to 

five dozen more through donation of tissue and tendons, bones. 

Since the accident, I learned Edwin had been apprehended in Arizona at 16-year-old minor, yet our government allowed him to be 

turned over to his brother, another illegal immigrant. Due to pressure being applied to the mentioned Congressman and Senators, 

Edwin is now on the ICE’s top-10 most-wanted list. This is ironic, 

on the Web page it says ‘‘unlawful,’’ ‘‘illegal.’’ When apprehended 

in Arizona, he was released to another illegal. 

When the Omaha police approached ICE five times requesting a 

detainer we were reached each time with unlawful illegal. Edwin 

was released 4 days in jail and his brother posted 10 percent of 

$50,000, which is $5,000. It cost more to bury my daughter than— 

and her family and friends have been given a death sentence and 

a denial of her love, companionship. 

My family understands that our questions have not been answered, but I would like to go on for record with the following: 

At a local level, my friends are collecting signatures against Jeffrey Marcuzzo to remove him from the bench. He failed to for 

minor traffic infractions and presented a flight risk. Our question 

at the Federal level, who is accountable? Sarah Saldana? Jeh Johnson? Barack Obama? Harry Truman used to say, ‘‘The buck stops 

here.’’ This is not only a case of administration. 

Marcuzzo recently set bail for another illegal immigrant accused 

of vehicle homicide in Omaha, $2 million for—the local ICE set a 

detainer on him. 

Congressman Goodlatte, Senator Grassley, in a joint letter to Jeh 

Johnson demanding answers for our case. The Senator has—Senator Sasse has demanded answers from Sarah Saldana. If they cannot get answers from a family from Iowa—Iowa—sorry—accountable. Yes. Sorry. Has anyone been held accountable for the local 

level? It’s been 2–1/2 months since the Senators and Congressman 

have asked answers from ICE. When can we expect to get the answers? 

The Omaha Police Department did their jobs. How is it that his 

illegal brother was able to bail him out and disappeared? Do I get 


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a choice which laws to follow? If now, which does an unlawful or 

illegal immigrant mean? Sarah’s family and friends are punished. 

When officials of ICE Edwin’s crime in the criteria for level. I 

would like—would someone please explain to me how a daughter 

had a spinal cord and a skull fractured in 2,000 places by a 6,000 

pound pickup with 1,000 of roofing equipment traveling at 70 to 80 

miles per hour and an underage person three times over the legal 

limit drag racing from Honduras not violent? Explain that to me. 

What information do we have on Edwin’s family and friends? 

Who owned the vehicle that Edwin was driving that killed my 

daughter? I understand it’s another illegal from Wichita, Kansas. 

He was driving the streets of Omaha with no driver’s license, no 

registration, no insurance. He did not show up for obligations for 

minor traffic violations. It was assumed he would show up for 

motor vehicular homicide? 

On intentional level, has a red pool notice been issued? Are those 

steps in place? Does he have a cellular card? What is being done 

as the country of Honduras? Edwin was apprehended in Arizona. 

Was a file created? If so, what information has been communicated? 

If the Obama administration position on this is not to enforce immigration law, what is the purpose of ICE and our tax dollars 

being wasted? The only incentive to capture him is $5,000 reward 

through the Omaha Crime Stoppers. What other tools and means 

are available to the national law enforcement and people in Honduras, Mexico, or United States to turn Edwin into the authorities? 

In my closing, my family and friends will not stop until people 

at the local and Federal level are held accountable to her killer and 

brought to justice. When Edwin is caught, he will face a 20-year 

prison sentence and 8 to 10 years with good behavior, but my family is facing a sentence without her. Her sentence is avoidable and 

would not—occurred if the failed policies of the Obama administration and the laws that allowed be ignored and an incompetent local 

judicial system. 

This was—the last time I saw Sarah was January 31. She graduated from Bellevue University. Now, I carry a cross on my heart 

with a crucifix around my neck. 

I want to leave you with a personal story. When Sarah was 

young, she had a patch of hair on her back. I would tease her by 

calling her Monkey Girl. She hated it, but she knew it came from 

a father’s love. I love you forever, Monkey Girl. 

Thank you for this opportunity to share Sarah’s story and my 

family’s story. Scott Root. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Root follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Mr. Root, thank you. Thank you for your 

personal service to this country —— 

Mr. ROOT. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—and for the strength to be able to offer 

that statement and be here today. And God bless you. Between 

yourself and Ms. Hartling —— 

Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—thank you for sharing your stories. 

We will now recognize Chief Burbank for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF CHRIS BURBANK 

Mr. BURBANK. To begin, I would like to say to the Hartling family and the Root family that I am sincerely sorry for your loss. You 

deserve much better, the tireless effort of law enforcement and the 

love of your communities. 

Committee members, we are experiencing a modern transformation of our world and especially of our nation. Demographics, 

cultures, economies, and public expectation are evolving rapidly. 

Interconnection of the globe through technology and the migration 

of people is a dynamic driver of change. 

Modern immigration has introduced cultural, religious, and intellectual diversity creating avenues for multicultural competitiveness. Robust scientific evidence indicates that immigrants contribute economically, improve the local tax base, stabilize the economy, and drive down crime whether they move lawfully or unlawfully into new communities. 

Some of the highest immigrant-populated cities have experienced 

the steepest declines in crime. Coincidentally, this dramatic change 

has also marked an increase in bias, inequality, vitriol, and fear. 

Immigrants are ever-increasingly stereotyped and demonized inappropriately for their involvement in criminal activity. 

Research conducted over the past 30 years has consistently 

shown that immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or 

to be incarcerated. This holds true whether documented or undocumented and regardless of their country of origin. It is a fact, as undocumented immigration has increased, crime has decreased dramatically. There’s no demonstrable correlation between immigrants 

and crime. Additionally, there is no documented relationship between enhanced immigration enforcement and reduced crime. Public policy must be driven by evidence and not anecdotes. 

We have demonstrated that enforcement, arrest, incarceration, 

and force are not the most effective tools to prevent crime. A case 

in point, as incarceration rates soared in the 1990s, so did police 

officers, search warrants, and other enforcement activities. We 

were at war against drugs, against gangs, and yet violent crime increased. 

The lasting legacy of this period was not crime reduction, but 

rather historically high national incarceration rates, zero-tolerance 

approaches, stop-and-frisk practices, and the over-incarceration of 

individuals of color for misdemeanor violations, harming our communities far more than helping. 

In fact, the mistrust in communities of color that we face today 

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People experience their lives within neighborhoods, rarely at a 

national, State, or even city level. This is especially evident in 

socioeconomically depressed communities. Effective and appropriate policy and practices must understand and address life 

issues, education, health, housing, safety, and transportation. Public safety, as exercised through community policing, is best accomplished at a local level capable of a nimble, small-government approach to addressing these life issues. 

Immigration enforcement has created a double standard wrought 

with constitutional concerns. Immigrants not only face potential 

criminal penalty but excessive detention without due process and 

ultimately deportation. Immigration enforcement can only be accomplished through racial profiling. Immigrants have been stopped 

for pretext traffic violations, questioned about their status, detained for numerous days without probable cause, transferred to 

the custody of ICE and deported without notification to their families. This most certainly does not represent equal treatment under 

the law. 

Recidivism rates hover around 67 percent for individuals incarcerated. Conversely, persons adjudicated within a restorative justice model, designed to be an alternative to incarceration, reoffend 

at a rate less than 40 percent. Education or knowledge about society, social norms, laws and traffic codes gained through participation and inclusion is the way out of addiction, substance abuse, and 

misdemeanor crime. 

When communities or groups of people are afraid to participate, 

we systematically isolate them, creating a negative environment 

where success is difficult, if not impossible. Studies have shown 

that immigration enforcement is not viewed as a legitimate public 

safety tool. It does not serve to enhance community well-being but 

further divides communities and undermines the already-difficult 

job law enforcement has of maintaining public trust. 

Throughout history, law enforcement has been an efficient tool of 

social oppression directed to protect certain races against the symbolic threats of others. We are still working to repair the mistrust, 

resentment, and rage that many in our communities continue to 

feel. 

It is not surprising that law enforcement officials across the Nation are troubled at the proposition of mandatory immigration enforcement practices that appear motivated by prejudice and are 

likely to result in increased crime. 

The time has come to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform. We must bring millions of people residing in our neighborhoods, contributing to our economy, adding value to our lives out 

of the shadows and into mainstream. Crime prevention is best accomplished when we are partners in the effort with all members 

of society. Just as we have been unable to incarcerate our way out 

of crime, we will never solve immigration issues through deportation. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Burbank follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. We have got a lot to talk about, Mr. Burbank, because I think you are in totally the wrong planet. But we 

are going to get after that. There is a vote on the Floor, and so our 

apologies for this, panel, but the committee is going to recess. We 

have three votes, and then we will come back and resume the questioning portion of this. 

So the committee will stand in recess and we will reconvene no 

sooner than 1:30. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will return to order, and we will start the questioning 

portion. We have excused Ms. Hartling, but we will continue now 

with the questioning part, and we will start with the gentleman 

from Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank each 

of you for being here. And your stories are extremely moving, and 

our hearts go out to you. 

I spoke yesterday with the sheriff of Gwinnett County, which is 

number two in terms of criminal aliens being dropped off, second 

only to Harris County, Texas. And he heads law enforcement, of 

course, in the country. In fact, he informed me that, as I just mentioned, that it is number two. 

Chief Martin, as a 40-year veteran of law enforcement, I am hoping you might be able to shed some light on some of the questions 

from your own experience, your knowledge. When an illegal alien 

is released, are you notified? 

Chief MARTIN. No, sir. 

Mr. HICE. By anyone? 

Chief MARTIN. We are not notified by anyone. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So we heard testimony this morning that ICE 

notifies the States of all those who are released, and then that information filters down. And you are saying that that is not the 

case? 

Chief MARTIN. We do not receive any direct communication from 

ICE. The only way we would know if somebody was released is if— 

what they talked about earlier, the victim would be notified, and 

if they filled out a form, then the local sheriff’s department is supposed to notify us if they’re released so that we can talk to the victim. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So the law enforcement notification system, is 

it working? 

Chief MARTIN. No, sir. 

Mr. HICE. What is it doing? If it is not working, what is the 

value, if any? 

Chief MARTIN. Well, I have to take you back years ago when INS 

or ICE used to have their agents in all the county jails. I think by 

reason—I’d like to preface my remarks by saying that most municipal police departments don’t hold their prisoners at the police departments. They book them into the county jails so the sheriffs 

would have the authority to keep them. 

Now, Santa Maria, we arrested 6,000 people last year, and we’d 

keep them, we would book them into our custody, and then within 

about 6 to 8 hours we would transfer them to the sheriff’s department. And what we do at that point is we do fill out a pretrial servVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:48 Feb 17, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00100 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\23480.TXT APRIL

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ice, and about three-quarters of the bottom of the page it says 

‘‘Does the police officer request an immigration review?’’ And in the 

case of Victor Martinez, we checked yes. So that’s about the only 

time that we have the ability to communicate with ICE to have a 

review done. 

Now, that the ICE doesn’t have officers in the county jails full 

time, they just show up in the morning, they’ll look at the scrolls 

or the gate book if you will. But that really doesn’t serve any purpose because many times they’ll bail out the night before. So it’s 

not working. 

Mr. HICE. Is it true that when a criminal alien is released from 

prison on parole that local law enforcement have to be assigned to 

check on them? 

Chief MARTIN. No. We’re not assigned to check on them at all. 

In fact, when they’re released from either the county jail or, say, 

a State prison, they’re taken by ICE to a processing center and 

then down to Los Angeles where they’re supposed to be released. 

They never release them from the prisons. They always do it down 

in Los Angeles. 

Mr. HICE. So how does the parole work? I mean, does the State 

assign someone to watch over them? 

Chief MARTIN. Well, pretty much the State of California has gotten rid of almost all of their parole. It’s all become localized for the 

probation department, which is really not equipped to deal with it. 

So the State has gotten rid of their funding for parole and pushed 

it down to the local level much like —— 

Mr. HICE. But you are saying local level is not handling it? 

Chief MARTIN. No, we’re not being notified of any of it. 

Mr. HICE. So what is happening to these people? There is no parole, no accountability? They are not watched at all? 

Chief MARTIN. I think if they’re watched, it’s—in our county, in 

Santa Barbara County, it’d be by the local probation department. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So how do they get involved? In other words, 

when these people are released and put on parole, who is looking 

after them and how does that process work? 

Chief MARTIN. It would just be a county probation officer who is 

assigned the case, and he may or she may see them once a month 

or maybe never. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Well, then who is paying for it? The local parole 

officers—who is paying? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, Congressman, in the county it’s actually the 

probation departments, county probation. 

Mr. HICE. So the taxpayers are paying this? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HICE. All right. So we have ICE that is responsible for releasing these people that should be deported, but in many cases no 

one is looking out for them. But when there are cases that a parole 

officer—in other words, your local county is having to pick up the 

tab for the lack of work being done by ICE? Is that a fair assessment? 

Chief MARTIN. That would be a fair assessment. And not only 

that, we’re having to pay for all of the investigations that result of 

us arresting these people. And the local district attorney’s office is 

also having to pay to prosecute. And then once they are found 


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guilty, they have to go to a State prison if it’s a State crime. So 

either the local, the county, or the State is paying for all of that. 

Mr. HICE. Well, thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this, but I am shocked we have a 

conflict in testimony from what we heard earlier from Ms. Saldana 

saying that all the States are being notified, and it is filtering 

down, and that obviously is not taking place, at least in your case. 

And I think this needs some further research and investigation. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for 

holding this hearing. I thank the ranking member as well. 

Like all of the other members before me, I just want to say to 

the victims’ families, thank you for your courage and your willingness to come forward and try to make sure that this does not happen again. And Mr. Martin and Mr. Burbank, thank you as well 

for your participation. 

Ms. Hartling, can I ask you, the contact that you have had with 

any Federal law enforcement or—can you tell me if they have 

been—I am trying to explore the communication between Federal 

agencies and victims such as yourself and families. Could you tell 

me a little bit about that? Has any of that gone on? 

Ms. HARTLING. No. My—I have not heard from the Federal Government or Homeland Security or —— 

Mr. LYNCH. ICE? 

Ms. HARTLING. ICE, nothing, no. 

Mr. LYNCH. No. 

Ms. HARTLING. But—no, not Congressman—Blumenthal, he had 

got things rolling pretty good for Casey’s case when I saw him in 

Hartford last year that—so I know for a fact that Homeland Security is investigating Jean Jacques’ case, my daughter’s case. 

Mr. LYNCH. Right. Right. 

Ms. HARTLING. And we’re just waiting for the report. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Mr. Martin, could you tell me about the contact that your department has on a regular basis with ICE? Do 

they inform you when there could be somebody in your jurisdiction 

that is, you know, under a deportation order or is there any communication going on between your department? 

Chief MARTIN. We do have some limited communication with 

ICE. Recently, Homeland Security did build an ICE facility in 

Santa Maria, and it was —— 

Mr. LYNCH. And you are north of L.A., between L.A. and —— 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, we’re between Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Yes. 

Chief MARTIN. However, it is not a detention center. It is simply 

a processing center. So when they go—and I’m referring to ICE— 

when they pick up people maybe who have done their time in a 

State prison or a county jail, they will take them to that processing 

center for a few hours and then by van take them down to either 

Oxnard or to Los Angeles. So the center is there, but it’s only open 

during the day, and it’s just simply a processing center. 


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Mr. LYNCH. That is it? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. And tell me a little bit—I know in some of your testimony, you know, there is a description of decriminalization of possession of heroin —— 

Chief MARTIN. Yes. 

Mr. LYNCH.—meth, others. How has that played into your ability 

to do your job in this respect? 

Chief MARTIN. All across California it has increased property 

crimes over 20 percent, so we’re seeing an increase there. We’re 

seeing an increase in homelessness. So—and many of these—some 

of these people are illegal aliens who are living on the streets. So 

when they passed that law, prop 47, it really took our ability away 

to force them into a court or to force them even into rehabilitation 

or probation. 

Mr. LYNCH. I see. All right. Well, again, Ms. Hartling, Mr. Root, 

very sorry for you—Mr. Root, do you have anything else you want 

to add to that in terms of any contact with ICE or Federal authorities or their inability or unwillingness to do so? 

Mr. ROOT. I had one gentleman from ICE when we were dealing 

with the Omaha Fugitive Task Force by the name of Jake, and he 

was 100 percent great, you know, trying to give me some information. He had—if they catch this killer of my daughter, the sheet 

where they—if they tell where he has hearings, that type of stuff. 

And he was going to hand-carry it out and have me fill it out, and 

whoever his superior is did not that want to happen and it came 

in the mail. And I just asked him, I said, are—doesn’t he want to 

deal with me? You know, they dropped the ball again. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes. 

Mr. ROOT. And then probably about a month later I’m trying to 

get some answers. I had some contact numbers from Jake up to the 

Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and a couple of his supervisors called 

back, and basically it was just general information about the same 

thing as Sarah Saldana. And then 2 days before I came here, 

Sarah’s advisor had called, said she wanted to reach out to me. I 

told them I wasn’t interested, you know, and a day or two later 

wanted to know after the testimony, and I said no. I mean, what 

part of no don’t you get? No means no. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes. 

Mr. ROOT. That’s it. Thank you. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Thank you for your testimony. I see my time 

is expired. Again, I thank the witnesses. 

Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Mr. LYNCH. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We will go to the gentleman 

now from Florida, Mr. DeSantis, the chairman of the Subcommittee 

on National Security. I will recognize him for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to 

the witnesses. You have my sympathies. This is just a terrible 

thing. And the thing is, is what really gets me, it was preventable. 

Had our government simply done its job, its core duties, you guys 

would have your loved ones here today. 

And I appreciated, Ms. Hartling, in your testimony pointing out 

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forcement a time as a prosecutor, and if it is just some random 

American commits a crime, we want to prevent it, but when you 

have somebody in custody and you release them, whether they are 

early release as a criminal in the normal justice system or here, 

in this case people were here illegally and don’t have a right to be 

here and have committed crimes, you are putting the public at risk. 

And so it is just very, very frustrating. 

And I was disappointed in Director Saldana trying to say this is 

just political banter. It is not political banter. These are lives that 

are at stake, and this is a government that is not fulfilling its duty. 

What was your view, Ms. Hartling? I mean, when you hear that 

being dismissed as political banter, how did that make you feel? 

Ms. HARTLING. I couldn’t believe it, let’s put it that way. I found 

it hard to believe that that came up. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Mr. Root, how did you feel about that? 

Mr. ROOT. I don’t know how you can be so incompetent and still 

keep your job. 

Mr. DESANTIS. What about the excuses that you hear, well, we 

got a lot of factors to consider or this or that, how does that make 

you feel? 

Ms. HARTLING. That’s the worst part because I know in my heart 

and my family and everybody that loved Casey that—I forgot 

where I was going with this. What was your question again? 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, just when you hear the different excuses 

about why we can’t do this or —— 

Ms. HARTLING. Oh, yes, that —— 

Mr. DESANTIS.—we have to release people, how does that make 

you feel? 

Ms. HARTLING. That’s the first time I said she was—Casey was 

killed last June. When I heard that he was an illegal alien and he 

was supposed to be deported three times, I said to myself, I said 

out loud, I want to make it to Washington, D.C. one day. And I did, 

and I’m very happy about that because it—I don’t see anything 

happening, any changes happening, you know, with our deportation rules and enforcement of them, you know, so this doesn’t happen. I mean, he got—he was supposed to be deported three times, 

and he got let go the same day the last time, the—when he—before 

he killed Casey. He was let go the day he got out of prison and ICE 

had him and let him go that exact same day. So it’s very frustrating. 

Mr. DESANTIS. How about you, Mr. Root? 

Mr. ROOT. Well, several times I saw her hold the book up. I 

think, you know, it comes down to common sense, you know? I 

mean, in my case you got a homicide, you’re going to let that person go with priors? Are you nuts? Just common sense. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Yes, I agree. I think that showing a statute book 

that says these are mandatory removals does not then mean anything not in there means you should let them. You still have the 

authority to hold people, and when the public safety is at risk—and 

the frustrating thing is is that maybe we do need to do some reform in the Congress, but a lot of this, there are tools available 

right now that the executive branch isn’t using. I mean, if some of 

these countries aren’t taking these folks who have committed 


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crimes, we have things that we can do through the State Department. They have never attempted that one time. 

Ms. HARTLING. Right. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Not once. 

Ms. HARTLING. Right. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And so basically, we are going to continue to 

see—and the list of criminal offenses that you see—and this is 

what ICE gives us—and it is really startling to see the type of 

things—so these are all, in every instance people that are not here 

lawfully, and you have sex assault, kidnapping, homicide, arson. I 

mean, it is a terrible, terrible list, and I feel for you. We on the 

committee on the subcommittee, on the full, we think it is a very 

important issue. We are going to continue to do what we can do. 

If that means legislative changes, we need to do it, but the executive branch has got to take this seriously. 

I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Root, 

thank you for your testimony and —— 

Mr. ROOT. You bet. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—I did want to follow up with you because we 

were talking about your daughter’s case earlier. And I didn’t realize that you are passing a petition against the judge who set the 

bail so low —— 

Mr. ROOT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—for the killer, and what I read from news reports, and I want to get your take on it because —— 

Mr. ROOT. Sure. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—you can’t always trust the news, it said that 

the prosecuting attorney, the Douglas County attorney admitted 

that it could have been handled better, and that basically we were 

dealing with an offender who had committed previous offenses and 

who had skipped out on court appearances on previous occasions. 

Am I getting that right? 

Mr. ROOT. That is correct. I believe he had a—he was going the 

wrong direction on a street before, I think he didn’t have a child 

seat-belted in and a couple other—he had two other times where 

he was supposed to show up for court and he did not. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. So my colleague —— 

Mr. ROOT. Prior to my daughter’s death. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Right. Right. And my colleague Mr. Gowdy 

pointed out—and he was a prosecutor for many years—is there is 

really only two issues in front of a judge when you are setting bail 

is danger to the community and probability of a flight risk. But 

here is a guy that had exhibited not the probability but the certainty that he would be a flight risk, and then add to that that he 

was an undocumented illegal immigrant. That is like walking into 

court with a stamp on your forehead that says I am a flight risk. 

Incarcerate me at a very, very high bail. 

And so, you know, I can see being mad at the judge, but it sounded like the prosecution didn’t lay that out, according to the news 

reports. Were you there for that? 


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Mr. ROOT. I was not. I mean, I don’t know what was communicated. You know, when he got his bond, we were actually burying 

my daughter, you know, so we didn’t go the pretrial. I spoke with 

Officer Swanson. Both of them—a lot of them officers I dealt with 

day and night shift daily, and they took it real personal. I mean, 

they all did their job. To me and my family, you know, whatever 

you do for your job, whether you’re a judge, ICE, whatever, you 

should be accountable for what you do, you know. If I—I’m a pipefitter. If I put in pipe that falls down and kills somebody or leaks, 

I don’t have a job. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Right. 

Mr. ROOT. So from my understanding is they’re saying he didn’t 

have all the information but he didn’t ask for it either. But with 

a name Eswin Mejia and having a homicide, maybe—wouldn’t you 

want to do some leg work? He was in jail for 4 days. You wouldn’t 

do some research on him before you just hurry up and set the bond 

instead of just running him through? 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Right. Do you fault the county attorney for not 

putting that information in front of the judge? 

Mr. ROOT. I would say yes, too. Yes. I mean, it’s at all levels, you 

know, city level, Federal level, yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Well, again, thank you for being here and —— 

Mr. ROOT. You bet. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—hopefully, we do learn something —— 

Mr. ROOT. You bet. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—from all this. 

Mr. ROOT. I’m sorry. The same judge had a bond of $2 million, 

too. It was just last week when my ex-wife Michelle was there, 

same judge. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Ms. Hartling, again, thank you as well for 

being here. 

The man who killed your daughter unquestionably should have 

been deported. That is why ICE put him on the deportation list, 

but as we know, that didn’t happen. And you deserve an answer 

as to why —— 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes, yes —— 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—it didn’t happen. 

Ms. HARTLING.—I do. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. November 24 last year Senator Blumenthal, 

Senator Murphy, and Representative Courtney, who you heard 

from here today, wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general—there are inspectors general that serve as 

watchdogs over Federal agencies—asking for an investigation. And 

in that letter the members wrote, ‘‘It appears that ICE could and 

should have taken simple additional steps that might have resulted 

in Jacques being repatriated and therefore never given the opportunity to murder Casey Chadwick.’’ Ms. Hartling, I assume that 

you support that letter? 

Ms. HARTLING. Oh, yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. And on January 12 the inspector general 

sent a memo to ICE announcing that they had agreed to this request and were initiating the investigation. Were you aware of 

that? 

Ms. HARTLING. I knew that the investigation is still ongoing. 


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Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. So since then, we on the committee have 

obtained some additional details about your case, and the information indicates that Haitian officials repeatedly, repeatedly said they 

would accept Mr. Jacques, and then they reversed their decisions 

over and over again at the last minute. In fact, in one instance, 

these Haitian officials even approved a manifest that had Mr. 

Jacques listed to board a flight to Haiti, but they pulled it back at 

the last minute. And that happened October 10, 2012. 

Ms. HARTLING. Right. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And you were familiar with that? 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Okay. So the letter from Senator Blumenthal, 

Senator Murphy, and Representative Courtney also asks the inspector general to examine what could be done ‘‘to overcome the objections of the Haitian Government to the removal of this individual.’’ And I assume you support this part of the investigation 

—— 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—as well? 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Well, again, thank you all for being here. And 

my time is up so I have to —— 

Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT.—yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding] The gentleman’s time is expired. The 

chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Walker, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today is about six names, what it boils down to, the name of 

Marilyn Pharis, Sarah Rae-Ann Root, Casey Chadwick, and the 

people who took their lives: Victor Ramirez, Eswin Mejia, and Jean 

Jacques. 

Now, what I am impressed with is, Ms. Hartling, Mr. Root, you 

are willing to relive this situation over and over again, many questions, and I am sure you don’t want politicized or exploited. Yet at 

the same time, Mr. Root, Ms. Hartling, I have got the same question. What is it that drives you to keep fighting for you lost loved 

one? Why are you doing this? 

Mr. ROOT. Well, if it changes the life of one person, it’s worth it. 

You know, I know if you don’t say nothing and do nothing, nothing 

gets done. You got to be vocal on what you want to do and how 

you feel. I was brought that—brought up that way, and that’s how 

I feel. My whole family’s that way. 

Mr. WALKER. So whatever the sacrifice is —— 

Mr. ROOT. It doesn’t make a different —— 

Mr. WALKER.—you’re willing to take on. 

Mr. ROOT. What do you live for, your kids, don’t you? 

Mr. WALKER. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROOT. I have one kid left. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Root. 

Mr. ROOT. It’s my only daughter. 

Mr. WALKER. Ms. Hartling? 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes, I agree with—exactly with what he said. 

Casey should still be here. There’s no doubt about that. She should 


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still be here. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t belong to a group that 

nobody wants to join. And I’m glad he—that he’s guilty, he was 

convicted. 

Mr. WALKER. Sure. 

Ms. HARTLING. So that’s a big relief. But having to go over and 

over it in your head —— 

Mr. WALKER. I want to compliment the strength that you guys 

are exhibiting. And Chief Martin, for you to take up the cause, and 

of course, congratulations, December, as far as being appointed 

full-time chief there. And a lot of that is due to your many years 

of experience. I have done a little reading on your background, very 

impressed with the background for what you did with the sheriff’s 

department and the gang-related stuff, that you have been fighting 

this fight for a long time, so you have seen it firsthand. 

I was very impressed that you are willing to call it out what it 

is. I believe that you made a quote, said I think this is a national 

issue. I think it starts in Washington, D.C., with this administration that we see and their policies. I think you can draw a direct 

line over to Sacramento with the policies. And you talk about AB 

109, prop 47, and you made this quote. You said, ‘‘And I am not 

remiss to say that from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento there is 

a blood trail into the bedroom of Marilyn Pharis.’’ Do you still believe that? 

Chief MARTIN. I do, sir. 

Mr. WALKER. Can you expound just for a moment why, why you 

feel that way. Why are you that passionate about it? 

Chief MARTIN. Well, you know, we on the local level are really 

feeling the total brunt of all this. You know, we talk about the national, we talk about the State, but, you know, it’s every police officer that goes to all these crime scenes. And it just sunk in that this 

was so, as I stated earlier, preventable. He was arrested six times 

—— Mr. WALKER. Yes, over —— 

Chief MARTIN.—in 15 months. 

Mr. WALKER.—15 months, yes. 

Chief MARTIN. In 15 months. 

Mr. WALKER. Yes. 

Chief MARTIN. And it’s catch and release, catch and release. All 

right. Now, if they’re misdemeanors and—there—two of those were 

felonies and they’re dumbed down to a misdemeanor, I still think 

ICE ought to look at those cases and say, okay, he might have, you 

know, went and said I’ll go ahead and take the misdemeanor plea 

bargain —— 

Mr. WALKER. Right. 

Chief MARTIN.—but I think we ought to look at the original case 

and what it is if it’s a felony. 

Mr. WALKER. Of course. Yes. 

Chief MARTIN. Yes. 

Mr. WALKER. What does it do the morale of the good men and 

woman that you lead when they see this kind of situation where 

they’re working, putting themselves in danger, six times out of 15 

months? Speak to that if you would, please? 

Chief MARTIN. Well, the Santa Maria Police Department is a 

great police department, and hired 40 new police officers in the last 


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3–1/2 years. They’re dedicated, they come to work every day, and 

I just think they realize that something needs to be done at a higher level. They all need that. 

Mr. WALKER. And you know that by sticking your neck out like 

this, you’re going to get all kinds of innuendos and name-calling 

and everything else. I commend you for being willing to fight this 

fight because I think it is going to make a difference in the future, 

all of you. 

I had several questions. I may have time for one I at least want 

to get to for Mr. Burbank. 

Mr. Burbank, do you agree with the job Director Saldana is doing 

at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department? 

Mr. BURBANK. The system is broken on both ends. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. Does she have a responsibility for some of 

the decisions that she is making? 

Mr. BURBANK. Absolutely. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. I have got a specific question for you. As you 

previously testified before the House Judiciary Committee in opposition to a bill that would make criminal alien drunk drivers deportable. How do you explain that? And I am not trying to add 

histrionics to this case today, but how do you explain this to families that that shouldn’t be to that level of criminal offense? 

Mr. BURBANK. The criminal offense should be equal under the 

law. So if you are a citizen, if you are a visitor to the country, or 

if you are undocumented in the country, they should have the same 

due process that anyone is entitled to the in the United States. And 

that’s what I firmly believe in my job. 

Mr. WALKER. But see, that is a flawed argument. I heard that 

today. You said, listen, aliens don’t have as many criminal background or acts as the normal population. My point is if they 

weren’t here to begin with, there would be no criminal acts from 

them. Is that not true? 

Mr. BURBANK. You have a point. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you. I yield back. I see I am over my time. 

Thank you for your time. I appreciate that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. 

Cummings, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What were you going to say? 

Mr. BURBANK. I was just going to say we’ve identified many 

flaws within the criminal justice system that are not necessarily directly related to immigration status. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. As I said to you, Ms. Hartling, and to you, 

Mr. Root, I really do thank you for being here. 

Mr. ROOT. You bet. 

Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, you know, the Government Printing Office 

prints the records of these hearings, and you know, one of the 

things that I noticed about myself—sometimes you can learn stuff 

about yourself when you go through stuff—is that I never wanted 

anybody to forget my nephew. You know, I didn’t want him to be 

like a flash and then it is like he didn’t exist. 

And since a record is being made here that is a permanent 

record, I wanted to give you an opportunity to say anything special 

about your loved ones. Ms. Hartling? 


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Ms. HARTLING. Oh, now? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, you. 

Ms. HARTLING. Oh. Casey was a spitfire. Everybody loved her. 

She was a tiny little thing and —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Was she like you? 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. HARTLING. She was like me except she —— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. How did I guess? 

Ms. HARTLING. She is not as tall, though. She was very short, 

right. My—I have two daughters that are 5’1’’. That’s Casey and 

my oldest, and my other daughter is 17. She’s as tall as me. But 

all my other—my other two daughters are short so—but she was— 

Casey wouldn’t put up with any wrongdoings or anything. Casey 

was—she was a fighter, and that’s why she had so many defensive 

wounds on her and everything because she fought. She fought 

back. 

And—but she was great. She was—we talked every single day. 

I talked or texted—she talked or texted me every single day. If 

there was a car accident on the highway, because I’m a lousy driver, she’d call me on the phone and—to make sure that it wasn’t me 

in the accident every time. And I would—sometimes I’d just answer 

the phone, I’m home, Casey. It wasn’t me. 

So she just—she was just a very caring, loving 25-year-old beautiful girl with her whole life ahead of her, and now she’s gone. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, you said something that kind of 

caught my ear, and you said after it happened you wanted to come 

to Washington. 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you said these words, you said it made me 

happy to be able to come. 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Sometimes I think we who sit in these chairs 

don’t realize the significance of these kinds of moments. Can you 

explain to me why you said that? 

Ms. HARTLING. Because I felt that I could contribute my story 

about my daughter and how he was supposed to be deported three 

times, and you know, so ICE and the Federal Government need 

to—I wanted to just say what I wanted to say, that it was wrong 

and they need to have more steps to take or whatever they do to 

detain an illegal alien who may—did a heinous crime. 

So he obviously had already done that before Casey. He had already—he was acquitted of killing one guy and he attempted murder the guy’s girlfriend. So he was already a—you know, he was 

already a criminal. And when he got out of jail and I just—when 

I found out that ICE let him go the same exact day, I was like that 

doesn’t make any sense to me. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. You know, one of my favorite sayings is that 

out of pain comes one’s passion to do their purpose. 

Ms. HARTLING. Exactly. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Pain, passion, purpose. Mr. Root, can you tell us 

about your daughter? 

Mr. ROOT. Well, my daughter, she’s just a lot like Mrs. Hartling’s 

daughter. She was small but she was a little spitfire. You know, 


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you always knew where you stood with her, just like my whole 

family being vocal. But, you know, she was very loving, very smart, 

very beautiful, very caring. She was passionate and willing to help 

people all the time. She was—like I said, she just graduated with 

a 4.0 at—and then she worked at Walgreen’s, too, while she wanted to continue her master’s. And then people, you know, need 

something, she was always willing to help somebody, you know, at 

the drop of a dime, just a good-hearted person, you know? 

Enjoyed doing a lot of family things, you know, hunting and fishing. She was going to hunt this year with me. She goes, Dad, you 

know, you’re going to be pissed when I shoot on bigger than you. 

So I bought her a shotgun and, you know, them aren’t in the cards. 

But, you know, she just was—she was real active in soccer when 

she was younger, she used to go fishing with me, be on the boat. 

If we’re not catching no fish, she’d want to steer. And just a real 

joy, you know. We never had problems with either one of our kids. 

It’s just—it’s a lot to swallow in, you know, but I’ll see her again. 

And, you know, you don’t want your kids to die in vain. You’ve 

got to speak up for you believe in. And it’s hard to do but, you 

know, myself and my family, like I said, feels from a—from the 

local to the Federal level, you know, it’s—the ball’s been dropped 

everywhere, and everybody should be held accountable. Until my 

baby girl gets justice, I’ll be here. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, there is a song that I love so much. 

It says the time we shared will always be. The time we shared will 

always be. And, you know, as I listen to you, you know, I think it 

is very important that we put faces. That was one of the reasons 

I wanted you to talk about them —— 

Mr. ROOT. That’s fine. 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—to put faces. I mean, people—you know, we get 

to a point in our nation and in our world where things happen to 

people and it is just collateral damage. It is like it is not a human 

being, a family behind, the people mourning, feeling sorrow, you 

know, and as I say mourning for things that could have been. 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so I just wanted to—I appreciate you all 

sharing. 

And, again, there are definitely some problems here that we are 

going to try to solve. And I agree with the other side. I don’t 

think—to use the word political banter, I thought that was not appropriate. It is about trying to solve problems and trying to make 

it so. And I think this would be—your aim of being here, trying to 

make sure that this doesn’t happen to somebody else’s daughter 

—— Mr. ROOT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—or somebody else’s cousin or sister or friend or 

fiance. So, again, I want to thank you all for being here. 

Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And when you talk about your daughters, I can 

tell you, when you put the personal side to it, I think it helps us 

when we are trying to resolve these problems to just keep in mind, 

you know, this is for two wonderful, awesome spitfire—as you have 

said—young people. 

Ms. HARTLING. They probably would have been friends. 


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Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. Thank you all. Thank you very much. 

Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Mr. ROOT. You bet. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize myself. 

Again, I love how Elijah Cummings puts his heart into it and 

cares, and I think we all do. I don’t think this is a partisan issue. 

But there are public policy issues that we have to deal with. 

And, Mr. Root, I wanted to put up a picture, if it is all right with 

you, of Sarah. This is your daughter there. How long ago was that 

picture? 

Mr. ROOT. She graduated the 30th of January. She died January 

31. That night, her—after graduation during the day she went out 

with her mom and her mom’s side of the family and they had something to eat, and I was helping a friend do some work and I asked 

if she wanted to have steak and crab legs with us, but no, she 

wanted to go celebrate her graduation with a friend. And I had her 

in the driveway blocked in with my vehicle, and she moved her vehicle—or, I’m sorry, I moved my vehicle. I was parked behind her. 

And she parked her vehicle on the street, and she walked back up 

after parking her vehicle and hugged me and gave me a big old 

hug, and it was like a death hug. You know, she said I can’t go 

nowhere without telling you I love you, Dad, and that’s the last 

time I seen her alive before I identified her. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Well, you know, the strength that you exemplify here is just amazing to me. I have long said that it is ordinary people doing extraordinary things that I think I am most impressed with. And people wake up and something happens and 

they don’t think they are going to be sitting in this situation, and 

here you are testifying before Congress. 

And I want you to know in your heart it does make a difference 

and that it is incumbent upon all of us to learn those lessons. As 

clearly and succinctly as you can, the person that is suspected of 

committing this—or that committed this murder, what had this 

person done previously —— 

Mr. ROOT. Well —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—that you in your mind justifies deportation? 

Mr. ROOT. Well, first of all, he was 16 or 17 when he was—15 

or 16 was he identified in Arizona, I believe, and he was released 

to his brother, who was another illegal. You know, they—to me, 

they should have been both deported at that time. You’re both entering the country illegally, you know, that’s—there’s two. If he 

would have been deported, we wouldn’t be in this boat right now. 

And then the traffic offenses he committed where he was going the 

wrong way and didn’t—failure to show up for that, I think, and he 

might have had a couple other—I know he had one where he didn’t 

seatbelt a child in. I mean, I don’t have the information right in 

front of me. I know —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. ROOT.—he had two or three other times where he was supposed to be in court, and he didn’t show up. This was prior to the 

incident with my daughter. And that—you know, with the judge 

deal, that should have been all public record. I mean, in this day 


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and age, you know, you should be able to push that computer and 

it should show everything. 

And prior to releasing him, he was in jail for 4 days, 4 to 5 days. 

So, you know, they were claiming they didn’t know his immigration 

status and the county prosecutor didn’t, you know, give us this information. And to me, you know, that’s—you know, if a guy’s in jail 

for 4 days, it gives you plenty of time to figure it out. You know, 

you should have known 15 minutes pretty much all of it. I mean, 

I don’t do legal work, but it’s just commonsense issue, you know. 

And the way his name is spelled—and I’m not trying to be prejudiced because, like I said, my mother was an immigrant—that 

would probably tell you that he’s, probably, you know, not, you 

know, just like Bob Smith or something. You know, you might 

want to do a background check, just common sense, you know. 

And not to the point where—even where you’re a judge and 

you’re supposed to be highly educated, to protect the public, to me, 

you’ve failed. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And, Mr. Burbank, look, you served the 

people of Utah for a long period of time. And I may not be able to 

convince you or change your mind, but I do want to offer another 

perspective. I want you to be able to offer another perspective, and 

I want to offer one as well because I believe in the principle of restitution. You steal a candy bar, you put it back or you pay for it. 

You break a window, you pay for it. You are here illegally, you go 

home. 

And so I think you do—for me personally, I think you do see 

need for some immigration reform—which I agree with. I think we 

need to fix legal immigration. I think it is broken. I think we are 

failing those people who are trying to do it legally and lawfully, but 

we doing it to the advantage of the people who do break the laws 

and just blow past the laws of the land. And I think we need to 

stand more firm as a nation and say we are a nation of laws. And 

if you break them, there is a consequence to that. 

And right now, that is what I don’t see happening, and that is 

what I see time and time again just being dismissed as, well, that 

wouldn’t have really helped. 

And there are a couple things that you said that I would like to 

ask you about. You said we couldn’t deport our way out of this, but 

for somebody who has committed a serious crime who is here illegally—remember, they are here illegally—they committed a crime, 

they are convicted of that crime, why shouldn’t they all be deported? Why should we stand for that? 

Mr. BURBANK. If they have committed a serious crime, I don’t 

think there’s a police chief in the nation that’s not going to tell you 

they shouldn’t be deported or dealt with appropriately. But we 

should not move outside the laws or the Constitution in order to 

obtain that. Now, we have unfortunate circumstances where people 

fall in a category, but our criminal justice system adjudicates this. 

Now, if part of that is they are adjudicated and then we fail, I 

mean there’s no question we’ve identified today that there’s failures 

in the system. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So would you agree that—see, Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement is required by law to have a minimum 

of 34,000 beds, but they are only in the 30,000 range. That means 


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there is a good at any time 2 to 4,000 people that should be detained, could be detained, that the Congress funded to be detained, 

and they don’t do that. 

Now, you don’t work for ICE, you don’t work for Homeland Security, but can you see the frustration, that there are literally thousands of people that are here illegally as criminal aliens and they 

are not being detained? Not because they haven’t been funded, not 

because it is not the law, just because the Homeland Security folks 

and the Obama administration decide, no, that is probably not in 

our best interest. But why is that not in the best interest of the 

United States of America? 

Mr. BURBANK. If we have identified individuals—interestingly 

enough, I did work with ICE in order to come up with those people 

and to try and make the major city chiefs of the United States say, 

yes, we should deport those people who’ve committed serious criminal acts. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you think driving under the influence 

falls to that level? 

Mr. BURBANK. I think laws such as that fall into the category 

that they should be adjudicated as they do with someone else. 

We’ve identified a shortcoming. Do you realize there are people 

driving around in this country now that are citizens that have four 

and five DUI arrests in the past that we haven’t dealt with appropriately either? And so we’re looking at a flawed —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now, but I am asking you, for somebody 

who is here illegally and convicted, convicted of a DUI, do you believe they should be immediately deported? 

Mr. BURBANK. A DUI is a class B misdemeanor in the State of 

Utah —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I am asking you —— 

Mr. BURBANK.—and so —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ.—do you —— 

Mr. BURBANK. No, I do not. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you think somebody who is here illegally, drives under the influence, it is in the best interest of this 

country to leave them in the United States? 

Mr. BURBANK. I think it’s in the best interest of this country to 

follow the standards set forth so that you have equal —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I am asking you what —— 

Mr. BURBANK.—protections under the law. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I am asking you what you think the standard should be. I would deport all of them. You commit a crime in 

this country, you are out of here. Guess what, you did jump to the 

front of the line. That is the deportation line. So why shouldn’t we 

deport that person? 

Mr. BURBANK. Well, this is where you and I absolutely disagree 

because I think that we have a practice in place and how we adjudicates things, and I think there needs to be some fairness and equity in that system. And when there’s not, when we identify people 

and they have harsher penalties because of the color of their skin 

or the language that they speak —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, wait, wait, wait. I never said anything 

about the color of their skin. Those are your words, not mine. I 

never said that. I said they are here illegally. And that knows no 


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bounds, right? Name a country that doesn’t have somebody here illegally. It happens from the entire world. Why shouldn’t we deport 

that person? 

Mr. BURBANK. One, I don’t think we have the capacity to reach 

that, and then two, this is the same —— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you think that saving money is more 

important? 

Mr. BURBANK. No, but what I’m telling you is this is no different 

than tax code. This is a civil penalty. It’s not a criminal penalty 

enforceable in the State of Utah as a crime. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. This is where —— 

Mr. BURBANK. You can only be detained and deported for this, 

you cannot be jailed or fined for being in the country undocumented. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And you should be deported. That would 

solve all the problems. That would solve all the problems right 

there. 

My time is expired. 

I will now recognize Mr. Grothman of Wisconsin. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. 

I am not going to follow with Mr. Burbank, but my goodness, it 

is kind of incredible how we have people who don’t want to enforce 

our immigration laws. 

I will go with Mr. Martin, Chief Martin. Could you just in general—you have been involved in law enforcement for quite a while. 

When were you first involved in law enforcement in California? 

Chief MARTIN. Nineteen seventy-three. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. So you have seen a lot. Could you describe 

the difference in the way the immigration laws of this country, say, 

have been enforced, say, in 1975 and the way it is today? 

Chief MARTIN. Well, I can tell you from a perspective in Los Angeles when I worked in the Los Angeles County Jail, we used to 

have INS agents at the time working inside our jail, so every person that was booked in to the Los Angeles County Jail, they were 

screened by, at that time, INS, has now become ICE. So there’s a 

change there. 

Then, I’ve seen changes—just through administrations you see 

the differences, you know, ’70s into the ’80s, and now we see it to 

the point where it’s—like I testified earlier, it’s like catch and release. It’s at the point now where we’ve—at the local level it’s saturation, and we’re having a very difficult time dealing with it in 

Santa Maria and other places, too. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Are you seeing that people who would have been 

deported 40 years ago, today either for the lack of resources or 

maybe kind of Mr. Burbank’s attitude of, you know, we don’t care 

who comes in this country very much—do you see a difference in 

whether somebody would be deported or not 40 years ago compared 

to today? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, I do. And what we saw in the ’70s and ’80s 

was when you would have one or two convictions, you would normally be deported. Victor Martinez was arrested six times in 15 

months, and he was never deported, not even on the list to be deported, so therein lies the actual evidence. 


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Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you get any feeling—it is to a certain extent 

a mystery of mine because in my mind, we are ruining our country. 

And we have had witnesses appear not just in this example but 

people who represent the border patrol the degree to which—not 

just this administration but other administrations as well—don’t 

want to enforce our immigration laws at all, which is I think, I as 

a Republican, we are going to get Donald Trump as our nominee 

because we have a lot of bad candidates who wouldn’t say they 

would enforce the immigration laws. Did you ever hear why we 

don’t care to enforce our immigration laws anymore? Is there any 

speculation you have? 

Chief MARTIN. Well, the only thing I hear in California is that 

we need illegal immigration to work the agriculture area, but that 

does not—that doesn’t ring true in Santa Maria. We have many 

people there who come from different countries under the H–2A 

laws, and they work there for 6, 7, 8, 9 months and then return. 

So that argument doesn’t seem to really hold water for us. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Do you feel we ought to do a better job 

enforcing our immigration laws? 

Chief MARTIN. I’m sorry, sir, say —— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you think we ought to do a better job enforcing our immigration laws? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Do you care to comment on Chief Burbank’s comments before? 

Chief MARTIN. Well, the only thing I would say, I would like to 

share with the committee what happened in Santa Maria just 8 

weeks ago. We had an increase in homicides for the past year-anda-half in Santa Maria. Normally, we only have about three homicides a year. Last year, in 21 months—or in 15 months we had 

about 21 homicides. 

Eight weeks ago this day, we undertook an operation that had 

an impact in these homicides. Along with the FBI, along with ATF, 

we undertook and we led the investigation. We served search warrants at 12 locations, eight in Santa Maria, some in Bakersfield, 

some in Ohio and other areas, culminating in the arrest of approximately 16 people. All 16 people are illegal aliens from either El 

Salvador or Honduras, and they were all booked for multiple 

counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and there are other murders that we believe we will be able to prosecute them for later on. 

So that was just 8 weeks ago on March 3. 

So, yes, I am seeing a huge increase in some of the problems 

we’re having. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. It would seem to me common sense that if you 

have somebody breaking the law to come here, while there may be 

wonderful people doing that, proportionately they would be more 

likely to break other laws, including maybe the laws against murder. Based on your experience in the last 20 months, do you believe 

that illegal immigrants in Santa Maria are less likely to commit 

crimes than the native-born? 

Chief MARTIN. Are they less likely? 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right. Right. 

Chief MARTIN. No, I don’t believe that. I think it’s proportional. 

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panic population. Half of my police force is Hispanic or AfricanAmerican, right, so they’re seeing it on all levels also. But I don’t 

think that, you know, they’re—the illegals are—that when they are 

here, many of them, the only way to support themselves—they’re 

not working the fields—they’re committing crimes just like Victor 

Martinez was doing. He didn’t have a job. You know, he’s hooked 

on methamphetamines so he makes his living—or he makes his 

money by stealing. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. That, to me, makes sense. So you would say in 

general—and there is this myth out there. I think I saw it in some 

of the stuff that Chief Burbank said—that the illegal immigrants 

are less likely to commit crimes. I mean, my experience just talking 

to people in law enforcement, common sense would tell you, you are 

here illegally, more likely to commit crimes. Is that your experience, more likely to commit crimes, you think, people who are here 

illegally? 

Chief MARTIN. No, I don’t think—well, let me give you an example. We had—we arrested 500 people for drunk driving, I think it 

was last year in Santa Maria. Of the 6,000, 500 were drunk-driving 

cases. I would estimate that about 40 percent were illegal aliens, 

and I think they only make up about 20 percent of our population. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Well, that is kind of shocking. 

Mr. PALMER. [Presiding] The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Well, thank you for giving me the extra minute. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes Mr. Connolly, the gentleman from Virginia, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Burbank, I just heard that last statistic, and that is awful 

misleading. I mean, if you want to go down that road, what percentage of black American men as a total population—part of the 

U.S. population and what percentage do they constitute in terms 

of incarcerated adults? 

Mr. BURBANK. They are incarcerated at a much higher rate. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Much higher rate. What are we to conclude from 

that? Don’t answer. I would suggest, respectfully, tread very lightly 

on what you conclude about that. 

So the fact that you have got a higher percentage of people who 

are undocumented who are arrested in a community that has a lot 

of undocumented people, I don’t know what to conclude from that. 

There could be good and bad things to be concluded from that, including about policing. And I can tell you this. If my police chief 

were at this table, he would testify that we don’t want to essentially federalize our police forces and make them the equivalent of 

immigration police because we want the cooperation of the immigrant community, including the undocumented immigrant community, in terms of law enforcement. 

I can tell you in my community right across the river it was because of an undocumented individual we were able to solve a murder by an undocumented individual. We would never have gotten 

the cooperation of the day laborer community, in this case undocumented, with our police if we had not had a different kind of policy 

where we differentiated our local law enforcement function from 

that of immigration and customs and so forth. 


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So just a word of caution about that, and Chief, you are more 

than welcome to comment on that if you wish. 

Chief MARTIN. Thank you, Congressman. I have an excellent relationship with the Hispanic community. We have outreach officers 

that go out into the fields and speak with them all the time. We 

do have many undocumented people come forward to report crimes. 

But the question was do I see an increase or decrease, I’m not 

sure the exact numbers, but I think it’s proportionate, as I said. So 

—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. 

Chief MARTIN.—we have B coordinators, we have—like I said, 40, 

45 percent of my officers speak Spanish. So I go to every meeting 

that I’m invited to. So I agree. We’re not supposed to be immigration officers, that’s not our job —— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. 

Chief MARTIN. But at the same time, we are feeling the impact 

—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Sure. 

Chief MARTIN.—of the lack of enforcement at the Federal and 

State level. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I understand that, too. 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. Thank you very much. 

Chief MARTIN. Sure. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Burbank, is deportation just sort of the answer to all of our immigration problems here? Let’s really up the 

game on deportation and that will solve everything? 

Mr. BURBANK. I do not believe it’s the answer personally, no. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Really? Why not? 

Mr. BURBANK. I do not believe it’s realistic, and in fact, it’s an 

unfair system in which we don’t treat people equally across the 

board. Then the other thing is border issues and everything else. 

People come back. We need a system that reforms immigration so 

individuals can come into the country and work, can come into the 

country and visit, return home, can come out of the shadows and 

participate in society. 

This is not a question of legalization of everybody. This is a question of allowing them to participate so that understand traffic laws, 

so that they understand the rules, that they can get the treatment 

that everyone in society—for drug, alcohol, and mental health 

issues that everyone in society experiences regardless of what their 

race is or where they may be from. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. What is the recidivism rate of deported individuals? I mean, we sometimes act as if deportation is the ultimate 

answer to a set of problems. But the fact of the matter is, depending on who you are and where you come from, you may illegally 

enter the United States multiple times even after having been deported, is that not correct? 

Mr. BURBANK. That is correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And that is because of why? 

Mr. BURBANK. I think there is a desire to be in this country. And 

there are family members, there’s many issues, but they do not— 

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sities across the Nation that show that individuals even in multiple 

returns are committing crime at a lesser rate. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But even where we have got criminal activity, for 

example, in northern Virginia where I live, we have had gang leadership that has been deported back to Central America only to 

have them show up again, you know, 4 to 5 months later, and we 

had to go through the process all over again. 

So sometimes when we are dealing with criminals, they have a 

criminal network that also serves to re-inject them unfortunately 

back in this community. And that is a different kind of challenge 

than simply addressing somebody’s status. Would you agree? 

Mr. BURBANK. Absolutely. And you’ve just identified the frustration of police chiefs across the Nation. The system is broken, and 

until we reform immigration as a whole, we will not be able to get 

past some of these loopholes that criminals are finding. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I would just say this in my final comment, but 

I think you just put your—I spent 14 years in local government before coming here and was chairman of my county, was the equivalent of being a mayor, 1.2 million people. And that is my feeling 

that the Federal Government in some ways, by overseeing a broken 

system, has forced localities and local communities to deal with the 

consequences of this broken system. And sometimes, certainly as 

our two grieving parents here give witness to, it leads to tragedy. 

We have got to fix this system. 

Thank you. 

Mr. PALMER. The chair now recognizes Mr. Carter, the gentleman from Georgia, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you for 

being here. I can only imagine the feelings that you have. And 

please know that you are in our prayers, and we appreciate your 

courage for being here. 

Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Mr. ROOT. You’re welcome. 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Martin, if I can ask you specifically, Victor Martinez-Ramirez, he was the illegal alien who cared Air Force veteran 

Marilyn Pharis. He had been arrested by your police department 

six times in the previous 15 months, is that correct? 

Chief MARTIN. That’s correct, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Six times in the previous 15 months? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. And it is my understanding he had been released 

by the Santa Barbara County Jail only 96 hours prior to doing 

this? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Had ICE issued a detainer for this guy? 

Chief MARTIN. Not in this particular case. They did provide a detainer in 2014, but that was the only one we knew. 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Martin, is your city or Santa Barbara County 

a sanctuary jurisdiction? 

Chief MARTIN. No, sir. The city of Santa Maria is not a sanctuary 

city, never has been. In fact, I have letters from our State manager, 

which was authored by our city council stating specifically they 

have never voted for at any time in the past or in the present to 

be a sanctuary city. 


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Mr. CARTER. Have you ever contacted ICE previously to request 

a detainer on someone or on a suspected illegal alien? Have you 

ever had that experience? 

Chief MARTIN. No, sir. What we do is when we arrest someone, 

the Santa Maria Police Department makes an arrest, we fill out a 

form that goes with the prisoner to the county jail. The Santa 

Maria Police Department, we don’t have a jail for people to put in. 

We just have a booking/processing area. And in this form we do 

check—the officer does—the officer requests an immigration review, and in this particular case for Victor Martinez, we checked 

yes. So then it would be in the hands of the sheriff’s department 

and ICE for them to go down and make the review. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. And you are not sure what happened after 

that in that particular case? 

Chief MARTIN. No, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Wouldn’t you agree, Chief, that increased 

communication between local law enforcement and Federal law enforcement would—and Federal law enforcement especially because 

obviously they are the ones who are responsible for the immigration enforcement, wouldn’t you agree that better communication 

would obviously benefit everyone in this case? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir, I would. 

Mr. CARTER. And hopefully keep a tragedy like this from happening again? I mean, this is obviously not our best work and could 

qualify as being our worst work. 

Mr. Chairman, obviously, I am appalled, as we all are, at what 

has happened in this particular case and what has happened in 

many cases like this. And, you know, especially when you had a 

veteran who was murdered at the hands of an illegal alien who 

was in police custody only hours before, only hours before this person was in police custody. 

So I want to bring to your attention, Mr. Chairman and other 

members of the committee, a bill that I have. It is H.R. 4007, the 

ALERTED Act, and it helps to increase communication at all levels 

of law enforcement, and it ensures that DHS and that ICE are responsive to those inquiries just like Mr. Martin just indicated. And 

that is that they will work to make sure that these illegal aliens 

are indeed checked on and that our immigration laws are enforced. 

Again, it is H.R. 4007. That is a bill that I am sponsoring. It is 

called the ALERTED Act. Hopefully, it will improve communication 

between local law enforcement and between the Federal Government. That is what we need more of. 

Again, thank you for being here, and again, our condolences. 

Thank you so much. We appreciate your courage. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. PALMER. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. 

I now recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

And first of all, I want to thank the ranking member for asking 

you to tell us about Casey and Sarah, and you can, Mr. Martin, tell 

us a little bit about Marilyn Pharis. We don’t want these people to 

just be statistics. And I watched as people wiped tears. As the dad 

of two daughters, I can’t imagine what you have been through. We 

all of us are very, very grateful for you coming. This has been very 

helpful. 


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Mr. Root, is it true that Mr. Mejia’s bail was less than the cost 

of Sarah’s funeral? 

Mr. ROOT. Yes, it is. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you know whether or not Mr. Mejia had a driver’s license? 

Mr. ROOT. He did not. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you know whether or not he ever had one? 

Mr. ROOT. I do not know that fact. I know there’s no insurance. 

The vehicle that killed my daughter, I’m not even sure the true 

owner of that vehicle. It’s in the Omaha impound lot right now. I 

heard it was from another illegal roofing contractor from Wichita, 

Kansas, but, you know, I—they won’t let me take it out of there 

to get it tested for prints or whatever you want to say. So —— 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. Mr. Martin, I listened to Mr. Burbank’s response to Chairman Chaffetz about deporting drunk drivers, and 

frankly, that didn’t go over well with me. But I’m going to ask you, 

do you think we have enough legal citizens that drive drunk without adding illegal immigrant drunk drivers to that number? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you think it makes sense when we know that 

they have record of drunk driving—and I would like for you to answer that again. You didn’t have your microphone on. I ask you if 

you think we have enough without adding illegal drug drivers to 

that —— 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir, we have enough. 

Mr. PALMER. Do you think it makes sense when they are picked 

up for drunk driving since they are here illegally, regardless of 

race, national origin, sex, gender, does it matter—or since they are 

here illegally and they are breaking our laws, does it make sense 

for them to stay here? 

Chief MARTIN. No, sir, it does not. I view the vehicle just as I 

would a pistol. 

Mr. PALMER. And in Sarah Root’s case it was just as deadly as 

a pistol, wasn’t it? 

Chief MARTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PALMER. Mr. Burbank, in your last comments, you seemed 

to imply that the American taxpayers should pay for substance 

abuse treatment for people who are here illegally. Is that what you 

are saying that we need to do as a nation? 

Mr. BURBANK. I don’t believe I said that as regards to that —— 

Mr. PALMER. I believe you did. 

Mr. BURBANK.—and the taxpayers. I said that we have demonstrated through restorative justice programs in which substance 

abuse treatment—that is the direction that we bring people out 

and they do not reoffend. We are more effective than we are with 

incarceration. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. But —— 

Mr. BURBANK. What I said. 

Mr. PALMER.—you said that in the context of illegals, and if they 

are here illegally and they are in these substance abuse programs, 

you are pretty much saying that we need to invest American taxpayer dollars in providing substance abuse for people who are here 

illegally. Does that not create another incentive for them to come 

here illegally? 


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Mr. BURBANK. We have people who exist in this country in all 

different forms and stats —— 

Mr. PALMER. Listen, you are trying to —— 

Mr. BURBANK.—so I —— 

Mr. PALMER.—turn this into something it is not, and I am not 

going to let you do it. And the chairman would probably pull me 

out of the chair, but we are sick of this. You have got three people 

here representing families who have lost loved ones. We know that 

there were 124 people who are here illegally who have committed 

murders. Just this month in my home State of Alabama they have 

arrested three illegals, two Hondurans and a Mexican, who were 

here to do a home invasion, and one of them said had the family 

been there with a firearm, he would have shot them. 

They were arrested, Mr. Martin, by local police in Oxford, Alabama, who were alert enough to see that they were carrying weapons and arrested them. They had prior convictions as well. One of 

them was carrying a pistol stolen from Arlington, Texas. One of 

them had a felony that goes back to 2008. It is insane. It is criminal. And you are sitting next to people who have lost two of the 

most precious things they will ever lose in their lives. And frankly, 

I find it offensive. 

Mr. BURBANK. May I respond? 

Mr. PALMER. Yes, you may. 

Mr. BURBANK. So I sympathize with these individuals. In fact, in 

the year 2000, my friend and colleague lost his life at the hands 

of an undocumented immigrant. I would not want that person 

caught who has never been found—he was held in custody and released, but I would not want that person found at the expense of 

someone else’s constitutional rights or civil rights. 

Mr. PALMER. We are not talking about constitutional rights, and 

I think you have crossed a line in trying to imply that people who 

are here illegally have the same rights as people who are here legally, who are citizens of the country. And we are not denying people due process. We are not denying them access to the justice system. We are trying to treat people as humanely as we possibly can, 

but the fact of the matter is I don’t care if it was just one in the 

last 10 years, it would have been one too many if it were my 

daughter or my son. 

I yield back and recognize Mr. Grothman for 2 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I don’t even need 2 minutes. I just wanted to do 

a follow-up with Chief Martin. I would like to thank you for being 

here today. I see Congressman Connolly had left. I just did want 

to respond a little to his comment. I thought it was completely out 

of line. I think the implication was completely unwarranted without anything to back it up. 

I appreciate what you are saying, and I think we see, both from 

Representative Connelly and former Chief Burbank, kind of the 

mentality that we have got to get over in this country if we are 

going to save our country because we are going to lose our country 

unless we begin to take these immigration laws seriously. We have 

too many people thinking of any ridiculous pretext under the world 

not to do the obvious. And we have seen that here today. 

But I just would like to thank Chief Martin and thank all the 

other law enforcement officers around the country who, I think, are 


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doing a tremendous job. I think it is unfortunate that so many people want to disparage them. That is all. 

Mr. PALMER. I now recognize the ranking member for a closing 

statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Again, I want to thank all of you for being here. 

And I think when we look at this total problem, we have to understand that there is a lot of pain, and rightfully so. And at the 

same time, when our nation was put together, the Founding Fathers tried to create all kinds of balances so that we keep our people safe, make sure that there is equal protection under the law, 

and a true sense of justice. And sometimes, these things seem to 

kind of collide, but I am convinced that we can do better. I mean, 

as I heard Director Saldana talk, she was clear that there are some 

things that we need to do, we as Members of Congress need to do 

perhaps in looking at the code and figuring out ways we can help 

them be more effective and efficient in what they do. 

No system, unfortunately, is perfect. I practiced law for many 

years, and I saw a lot of things that will go with me in a negative 

way until I die. But I think what we have to do as Americans is 

constantly reach for that more perfect union. Whether we will ever 

get there, I don’t know, but we need to be striving for it every day. 

And there are so many people who—and I want us to always be 

careful, though, and I go back to my opening statement, that we 

don’t just label a group of people because I think that is very dangerous, too, because when we turn against each other, then I think 

it is almost impossible for us to truly pursue that more perfect 

union. So that means we have got to try to address the issues that 

come out of this. We have got to look at ICE and make sure that 

ICE is doing what it is supposed to do, and all the other agencies. 

And where there are places that need to be strengthened, we need 

to do that. 

But in the end, we want to try to make sure, to all of you, that 

these kind of things don’t happen again. And again, we may only 

be able to minimize the possibility because, Chief, as you know, 

things happen. Even when you have the laws, people find a way 

to get around them. You know that because I know you have been 

in this business long enough. 

But again, your testimony has been very helpful to all of us. And 

I really—from the depths of my heart, I thank you. I really do. And 

I think somebody said it a little bit earlier, you know, you never 

get over the loss. You don’t. You just learn to live with it. You learn 

to live with it. And you have learned—you are learning to live with 

it because it is still new. And the idea that you are able to do what 

you are doing, to come here and speak for, for your loved ones, and, 

like you said, Ms. Hartling, I think you said something to the effect 

that I don’t want to see her having died in vain. You want to see 

something come out of this —— 

Ms. HARTLING. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS.—to help somebody else, and that is one of the 

greatest ways you can deal with it. And we really appreciate it. 

And you came to the right place. 

Ms. HARTLING. This is where I wanted to be. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, we are glad you came, all of you. Thank 

you very much. 


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Ms. HARTLING. Thank you. 

Mr. ROOT. Thank you. 

Mr. PALMER. We thank all of our witnesses for their appearance 

here today. If there is no further business, without objection, the 

committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:59 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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