U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

29–774 WASHINGTON : 2018

RESTORING ENFORCEMENT OF OUR NATION’S 

IMMIGRATION LAWS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 28, 2017 

Serial No. 115–13 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 


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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

MARTHA ROBY, Alabama 

MATT GAETZ, Florida 

MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIE ́ RREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana 

HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

TED LIEU, California 

JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland 

PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington 

BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

JIM SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice-Chairman 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

LUIS V. GUTIE ́ RREZ, Illinois 

PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 


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C O N T E N T S 

MARCH 28, 2017 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin, Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Immigration and Border Security, Committee on the Judiciary ................ 1 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, California, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 

Immigration and Border Security, Committee on the Judiciary ...................... 2 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ......................................................................................................................... 14

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., Michigan, Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 4 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Thomas M. Hodgson, Sheriff. Bristol County, Massachusetts 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 7 

Ms. Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration 

Studies 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 9 

Mr. Andrew R. Arthur, Immigration Judge, Retired, Executive Office for 

Immigration Review, York Pennsylvania 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 11 

Ms. Archi Pyati, Chief of Policy and Programs, Tahirih Justice Center 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 12 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, California, Committee 

on the Judiciary. This material is available at the Committee and can 

be accessed on the committee repository at: 

http://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20170328/105787/HHRG115-JU01-20170328-SD002.pdf 

Material submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Washington, Committee on the Judiciary. This material is available at the Committee and 

can be accessed on the committee repository at: 

XXXXX 

Statement submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Arizona, Committee on 

the Judiciary. This material is available at the Committee and can be 

accessed on the committee repository at: 

XXXXX 


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RESTORING ENFORCEMENT OF OUR 

NATION’S IMMIGRATION LAWS 

TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a.m., in Room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Sensenbrenner 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Sensenbrenner, Labrador, Goodlatte, 

Smith, Buck, Biggs, King, Jordan, Johnson of Louisiana, Lofgren, 

Conyers, Jayapal, Cicilline, Gutie ́rrez, and Jackson Lee. 

Staff Present: Joseph Edlow, Counsel; Maunica Sthanki, Minority Counsel; Tanner Black, Clerk. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The subcommittee will be in order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recesses of the committee at any time. 

We welcome everyone to today’s hearing on restoring enforcement of our Nation’s immigration laws. The chair recognizes himself for an opening statement. 

It is fitting that today’s hearing is called restoring enforcement 

of our Nation’s immigration laws. The past 8 years witness the 

Obama administration’s deliberate undermining of our immigration 

laws; the growth of anti-immigration enforcement policies at every 

level of government; and the vilification of Federal, State, local law 

enforcement officers who attempt to enforce our Nation’s dually enacted immigration laws. 

Our immigration laws are an expression of our Nation’s sovereignty. They are not suggestions, yet, for the past 8 years, they 

were largely ignored, and the example was set from the top. The 

Obama administration abandoned the rule of law under the guise 

of prosecutorial discretion, has to have devastating consequences: 

the cold-blooded murder of Kate Steinle, the death by DUI of Sarah 

Root, terrorist attacks ranging from the World Trade Center to the 

massacre at San Bernardino, the brutal sexual assault against a 

Rockville teenager. 

The time is long overdue to ensure our immigration laws are enforced and the rule of law is truly restored. 

The Obama administration’s policies of catch and release and of 

rubber-stamping credible fear claims at the border and its outright 


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prohibition of ICE officers and prosecutors from carrying out ICE’s 

critical mission have left this Nation increasingly at risk. The skyhigh credible fear and asylum grant rates encouraged aliens to 

make the dangerous, illicit journey to the United States. Aliens 

overran our border, and credible fear and asylum claims increased 

tenfold. 

Simultaneously, ICE removals from the interior dropped from 

238,000 in 2009 to only 65,000 in 2016. The Trump administration 

inherited a shell of immigration enforcement that it must now rebuild. I am pleased that we will hear today from witnesses who can 

fully explain the benefits of Federal, State, and local cooperation 

and the detrimental effects of obstruction. 

The sanctuary communities have decided to make a political 

statement out of lawlessness. They declined the detainer outcome 

report that ICE will now regularly issue to approve itself a useful 

tool in continually identifying these jurisdictions and the criminals 

that they let out into our streets. 

The government must discourage, not encourage, sanctuary policies and practices. Under DHS’ November 14, 2014 departmental 

guidance, ICE was given stringent parameters regarding these removable aliens that were permitted to apprehend and seek to remove. 

Additional guidance ending the successful Secure Communities 

programs further constricted these parameters. This was sold to 

the American people as prioritizing ICE’s limited resources to go 

after only the worst of the worst, yet the number of the criminal 

aliens removed from the interior fell from almost 87,000 in fiscal 

2014 to approximately 63,500 the following two fiscal years. 

Under President Obama, it was widely understood that asylum 

officers should get to yes on credible fear determinations and request for asylum by any means necessary. Asylum laws were written to offer refuge to the truly persecuted, and policies like this did 

nothing to advance those goals. Instead, those Obama administration policies worked to encourage many aliens to seek asylum with 

fraudulent, boilerplate stories. 

The new administration is taking steps to correct this, and already, the flow of illegal aliens across the border has significantly 

slowed. This problem is endemic, and I look forward to hearing 

today from our witnesses on the best practices to address asylum 

fraud. 

It is now my pleasure to recognize the ranking member of the 

Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, Ms. Lofgren of 

California, for 5 minutes for her opening statement. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The title of today’s 

hearing, ‘‘Restoring enforcement of our Nation’s Immigration 

Laws,’’ implies that, up until recently, our immigration laws simply 

went unenforced. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

The past administration deported more immigrants than any 

other previous administration and the President, President Obama, 

even earned the infamous nickname, Deporter in Chief. But this 

massive increase in deportation never satisfied many Republicans, 

who repeatedly kept citing this supposed lack of enforcement as a 

reason not to pursue reform. 


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These alternative facts were used time and again to avoid solving 

the real problem: our broken immigration system. Today, Republicans control all levels of the Federal Government, but instead of 

finally tackling the pervasive problems affecting our immigration 

system, they are focusing on attacking local governments with community trust policies. Among other things, President Trump’s executive orders threaten to attempt to shame and attempt to withhold 

Federal funds from jurisdictions that resist, in the administration’s 

opinion, the Federal Government’s request to cooperate with immigration enforcement. 

The Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment, protects 

states’ rights, and it prohibits Federal actions that commandeer 

State and local officials. When it comes to immigrations, these 

principals somehow seem to be overlooked. Recently, I was at a 

meeting with the Mayor of San Jose said, ‘‘You know we do not 

send out the San Jose Police Department to enforce a security and 

exchange laws, the Federal tax laws, the maritime laws, or the immigration laws, that is the job of the Federal Government.’’ 

There are well-known constitutional limits on the ability of the 

Federal Government to withhold funds to the States. State and 

local officials know their communities and know how to keep them 

safe better than the Federal Government. The Constitution’s longstanding principle is apparently either ignored or seen as an impediment by some people. 

In the recent executive order on Interior Enforcement, President 

Trump abolished the prior administration’s enforcement priorities 

to go after all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United 

States, just as Candidate Trump promised he would do. And while 

this enforcement agenda may satisfy the most extreme elements in 

our country, it isn’t smart. It does not make our country safer, and 

it does not make our country stronger, and it has created a culture 

of fear. 

There are videos of parents taken from their U.S.-citizen children 

by armed ICE officers wearing the word ‘‘Police’’ on their vests. 

There are stories of mothers, who have lived in this country for 

decades, being deported after dutifully checking in to ICE appointments, and there are threats by the head of the Department of 

Homeland Security, the Secretary himself, to separate mothers 

from their children for deterrence purposes. 

The fear caused by these acts is pervasive, and it is paralyzing 

communities across our country. Now, some may dismiss the heartbreak of many families across the country, but we shouldn’t dismiss how it is making communities less safe. We have already 

seen, for example, reports of domestic violence and sexual assault 

drop dramatically among Latinos in Los Angeles. We also shouldn’t 

dismiss the devastating economic consequences these policies are 

sure to have. 

It is time to stop the posturing and start thinking about ways to 

fix our broken immigration system. I stand ready to work with my 

colleagues across the aisle to reform our immigration laws from top 

to bottom. 

If I could, Mr. Chairman, I would also ask a unanimous consent 

to enter into the record statements from the following individuals 

and organizations expressing concerns about President Trump’s enVerDate Sep 11 2014 06:06 Apr 25, 2018 Jkt 029774 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A774.XXX A774

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forcement policies, and that would be the National Immigration 

Justice Center; the Chief of Police of Marshalltown, Iowa; the retired Chief of Police of Garden City, Kansas; the Fair Immigration 

Reform Movement; the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence; the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition; as well as a letter from 292 law professors and 

scholars saying that the President’s executive order is unconstitutional. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Virginia and the 

chairman of the full committee, Mr. Goodlatte, is in the Senate, 

and I wish him well in whatever he is talking about there. 

Mere House Members will have to ask the voters every 2 years 

to send this back, dealing with the Senators, and I will now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Conyers of Michigan, for his opening 

statement for 5 minutes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, was the unanimous consent request—— 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, Ms. Lofgren’s unanimous consent request will be granted. 

[The information follows:] 

This material is available at the Committee and can be accessed 

on the committee repository at: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/ 

JU/JU01/20170328/105787/HHRG-115-JU01-20170328- 

SD002.pdf. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. So ordered. The gentleman from Michigan. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations 

again on your ascension to the chairmanship of this important committee. 

Members of the committee, I want you all to know that I welcome all of our witnesses and look forward to their testimony, and 

I would just like to remind you, I don’t frequently quote former 

President Reagan, but he once said, ‘‘Our Nation is a nation of immigrants. More than any other country, our strength comes from 

our own immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome those 

from other lands.’’ That quote was uncontroversial among my Republican friends and colleagues, and it should remain so now. 

Affirmation of the morale and social worth of immigrants is not 

a partisan position; it is simply American. As we begin today’s 

hearing, I urge my colleagues to use this forum to examine sensible, effective measures rooted in fact and practice for enforcing 

our laws and keeping our communities safe. 

One fact we must consider is that studies have repeatedly shown 

that immigrants in the United States are less likely than nativeborn Americans to engage in crime. The vast majority of immigrants in the United States are peaceful, law-abiding individuals 

who support their families and communities. 

Another fact is that the southern border is more secure than 

ever. Apprehension rates at the southern border have plummeted 

since the 1980s, and apprehensions of Mexicans, specifically, have 

reached their lowest point in nearly half a century. 

This helps explain why most Americans do not want the Trump 

border wall, which would cost upwards of a staggering $20 billion 

to build and $750 million annually to maintain it is estimated. NotVerDate Sep 11 2014 06:06 Apr 25, 2018 Jkt 029774 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A774.XXX A774

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withstanding these facts and others, the current administration 

continues to vilify immigrants and attack the communities that 

have decided not to conscript their law enforcement into a mass deportation force. 

In fact, yesterday, Attorney General Sessions threatened to withhold Federal funds from such jurisdictions. Let me be clear: Attorney General Sessions should not substitute his judgement for that 

of law enforcement in local jurisdictions, who know what it is best 

to keep their community safe. 

The Attorney General purports to place a high priority on fighting crime, but threatens to withhold much-needed Justice Department funding from the very agencies that are on the front line in 

protecting all of us. 

Over 600 counties and cities have made the decision to resist the 

administration’s efforts to conscript their local officials into a mass 

deportation force because experience in data show that local enforcement of Federal immigration law often makes communities 

less safe. It breeds profiling, discrimination, and distrust. Immigrant victims and witnesses stop reporting crimes to authorities 

and criminals grow emboldened. In fact, studies have shown that 

these sanctuary cities are actually safer and more prosperous than 

their non-sanctuary counterparts. 

Finally, under the guise of enforcing the law, we have already 

witnessed Donald Trump and his administration follow through on 

divisive campaign rhetoric with actions that threaten our core 

American values and will do nothing to make us safer. To cite a 

few examples, in less than 90 days, this administration has already 

threatened an unconstitutional use of Federal spending authority 

to strong-arm local jurisdictions into enforcing Federal immigration 

law. 

Two more points undermined the Fourth Amendment by pressuring cities into detaining immigrants without probable cause and 

has conducted indiscriminate raids on peaceful, immigrant families 

in their homes, places of work, and even in their schools. Such 

anti-immigrant measures not only raise serious constitutional concerns, but they are contrary to our proud history as a Nation of immigrants. 

I thank the chairman; welcome, again, the witnesses for their 

testimony today; and I yield back. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. 

Without objection, other members opening statements will be 

made part of the record. 

We have a very distinguished panel today, and I will begin by 

swearing in our witness before introducing them. 

Please rise. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that you 

will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, 

and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Let the record show that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

I will begin by introducing the witnesses. 

Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson was an elected official and the chief 

law enforcement officer of Bristol County, Massachusetts. 

Sheriff Hodgson, originally appointed in 1997 by Governor William Weld, has subsequently been reelected to several 6-year 


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terms. Under his watch, the sheriff’s office has established a Warrant Apprehension Unit, a Drug Task Force Gang Unit, and works 

regularly with Federal partners, including ICE. His department 

participates in the 287(g) program, and he, along with other sheriffs, have called for the immigration reform with the emphases on 

border security and interior enforcement. He previously testified 

before the Massachusetts Great and General Court regarding sanctuary policies. 

Ms. Jessica Vaughn serves as the director of policy studies with 

the Center for Immigration Studies. In that role, she studies numerous facets of immigration policy, including immigration law enforcement. Prior to this role, she served as a Foreign Service officer 

with the State Department and has testified before this committee 

on numerous immigration-related matters, including at a similar 

hearing in 2015. Ms. Vaughn has a master’s degree from Georgetown University and earned her bachelor’s degree in international 

studies at Washington College in Maryland. 

Mr. Andrew Arthur is the former staff director for the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, National Security Subcommittee. Prior to serving as a staff director, he was an immigration judge for the United States Department of Justice, the Executive Office for Immigration Review of York, Pennsylvania Immigration Court. He is also a fellow colleague of House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, where he served as a counsel for 5 years advising the chairmen, me, on matters relating to 

the enforcement of immigration laws and immigration policy. He 

has received his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his law 

degree from the George Washington University School of Law. 

Ms. Archi Pyati serves as the chief of policy and programs at the 

Tahirih Justice Center. She spearheads national and local policy 

programmatic initiatives overseeing direct services to immigrant 

women and forging and mobilizing diverse bipartisan coalitions to 

press for laws, regulations, and policies to better protect them from 

violence. Before joining Tahirih, Ms. Pyati was the deputy director 

of the Immigration Intervention Project of the Sanctuary for Families in New York. She is a graduate of Brown University and received her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School. 

Without objection, each of the witnesses written statements will 

be entered into the record in their entirety. I ask that each witness 

summarize his or her testimony in 5 minutes or less, and to help 

you stay within that time limit, there are lights in front of you, and 

you all know what they mean. 

So, Sheriff Hodgson, why don’t you lead off? Press the button on 

your mic. 


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STATEMENTS OF THOMAS HODGSON, SHERIFF, BRISTOL 

COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS; JESSICA VAUGHN, DIRECTOR OF 

POLICY STUDIES, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES; ANDREW ARTHUR, IMMIGRATION JUDGE, RETIRED, EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW, YORK, PENNSYLVANIA; ARCHI PYATI, CHIEF OF POLICY AND PROGRAMS, 

TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS HODGSON 

Sheriff HODGSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the 

committee, security guards, metal detectors, and scanners greeted 

me this morning as I walked into the Rayburn Office Building. 

These measures are in place to protect the safety of everyone inside. Most people are cleared pretty quickly and go about their 

business. It is the others who intend to do us harm, those who have 

no respect for our laws, that we have to worry about. It is those 

who the Capitol Police must deny entry. 

We owe the same level of protection and safety to our legal residents. We must use all the tools in our toolboxes, share resources 

in intelligence to truly restore enforcement of our Nation’s immigration laws for the safety and security of our citizens. Public safety is my number-one priority. Public safety is your number-one priority. Public safety is any government’s and any government official’s number-one priority. 

Public safety is what brings me here today. There is, arguably, 

no bigger threat to public safety than illegal immigration. 

Mr. Chairman and esteemed members of this committee, I want 

to thank you for inviting me to testify this morning on what is, perhaps, the most dangerous threat to national security and the safety 

of all Americans. 

Good, thoughtful immigration law exists, as enacted by legislators like you, decades ago; however, if a law is not enforced, it is 

useless verbiage, protecting no one and accomplishing nothing. 

As a sheriff for 20 years and a police officer for 6 more, I have 

spent my career enforcing laws. I have a sworn duty to uphold the 

Constitution of the United States and enforce all laws, whether I 

agree or disagree with them, just as you took the oath of office to 

faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you entered. 

The law is what you and the courts say it is, but unfortunately, 

due to years of liberal policies tailored to non-enforcement, Congress now has to hold hearings on how to enforce laws that have 

been on the books for decades. Most of my law enforcement colleagues will agree that severe damage has been done to national 

security by lackadaisical enforcement, and the only thing we can do 

now is move forward and discuss how we can fix it. The fact is our 

Nation would be better off, and our citizens would be safer, if we 

never stopped enforcing immigration law and if we never formed, 

or turned a blind eye towards, sanctuary cities. 

Local county, State, and Federal law enforcement all working together to keep the public safe, sharing resources and intelligence 

as much as possible, working together as one team with the simple 

goal of keeping the public safe. 

Our law enforcement team has an opposing team that consists of 

local officials, elected or appointed, who have created and advoVerDate Sep 11 2014 06:06 Apr 25, 2018 Jkt 029774 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A774.XXX A774

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cated sanctuary cities, States, communities, and even colleges. 

These officials pledge not to work with, cooperate, or even communicate with Federal immigration enforcement. As a result, these 

safe zones have become magnets for illegal aliens, some of which 

have violent criminal records. At best, sanctuary cities are a direct 

violation of trust between legal residents and the elected officials 

who took an oath to protect them at all costs. 

At the worst, it is careless, illegal, and extremely dangerous. If 

these sanctuary cities are going to harbor and conceal criminal, illegal aliens from ICE, which is in direct violation of title VIII of 

the U.S. Code, Federal arrest warrants should be issued for their 

elected officials. 

At a time when these officials are pledging to not work with Federal law enforcement, I have doubled down on my commitment to 

partner with Federal authorities and boost public safety by becoming the second organization in New England to enter into 287(g). 

If there is one thing our country learned from 9/11, it is that all 

branches of law enforcement have to work together and share resources as much as possible. 

Under the 287(g) program, correctional officers in my department 

will become, with training, the fact that ICE agents will perform 

all immigration-related actions. Our officers will be able to identify, 

process, detain, and assist in deportation of criminal illegal aliens 

in Bristol County. They also get access to the ICE database to identify criminal illegal alien enterprises. 

Instead of waiting for an ICE agent to drive hours to our facility 

for an immigration screening, at which time the suspect may be 

bailed out, our officers can check the databases, interview the suspect, and electronically communicate with ICE to keep dangerous 

criminals, illegal aliens, off the streets and out of our neighborhoods. 

The Department of Homeland Security estimates more than 

400,000 immigrants were identified for deportation through 287(g) 

programs between 2006 and 2015. About 13,000 foreign-born individuals were processed in our facilities in the past 5 years. If this 

program can result in just one dangerous criminal, illegal alien not 

being able to commit another crime in the U.S., deportation or detention, then it is a tremendous tool in our toolbox and a nobrainer in terms of public safety. 

I want to just inform the committee of something that was just 

reported this morning that I think completely underscores my point 

about immigration laws being undermined in the United States. 

We have a State representative in the 10th Plymouth District in 

Massachusetts, it was just reported this morning, who learned that 

ICE may be coming to the city of Brockton in Plymouth County, 

sending all alert message out on Facebook, telling everyone that 

ICE is going to be coming, and make sure you do not answer your 

doors, and make sure that you stay out of sight. 

This is the most outrageous, outrageous example of what is going 

on across the United States that is undermining my job and every 

other law enforcement officer in the United States to keep our community safe, and that elected official, who is responsible for protecting the welfare of the people of their communities, needs to understand that they could be protecting someone who the ICE is 


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looking for that may be, possibly, connected to terrorism, 

transnational gangs, or some other horrific, criminal history that 

they have had. 

Thank you for the time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of 

the committee. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. 

Ms. Vaughn. 

STATEMENT OF JESSICA VAUGHN 

Ms. VAUGHN. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity 

to testify on this very timely topic, restoring enforcement of our 

Nation’s immigration laws. President Obama’s policies left immigration enforcement in a state of collapse. This has been bad news 

for the country, but the good news is that there is nowhere to go 

but up now. 

The Obama administration claimed that they achieved record 

levels of deportations, but in fact, the total number of deportations 

by all enforcement agencies, which is what the DHS Office of Statistics has always reported, has plummeted. 

Actually, deportations were half the level of the Bush and Clinton administrations. Interior deportations by ICE dropped by 70 

percent since 2011, as illustrated by charts in my written statement. The Obama administration inflated ICE’s numbers by counting cases of people arrested by the border patrol that had never 

been counted before, as former Secretary of DHS Johnson admitted 

in testimony before Congress. 

The Obama administration claimed that they were doing smarter 

and more effective immigration enforcement, but in fact, they operated a massive catch-and-release program both at the border and 

in the interior. About 40 percent of the people caught by the border 

patrol trying to cross into the country illegally in 2014 and 2015 

were allowed to enter and were still here in 2016. 

Just this morning, I was on a conference call with an ICE field 

office director and some local law enforcement agencies in her area, 

and this ICE official said that they have seen an increase of 20 to 

25 percent in their caseload as a result of new, illegal immigration 

at the southwest border. 

Not only are the illegal border crossers still here, so are about 

950,000 other illegal aliens who have completed their due process 

and received a final order of removal, but are still here in the country. And the smarter, more effective enforcement in the interior included releasing more than 86,000 convicted, criminal aliens in 3 

years. More than 100 of these individuals were arrested for homicide after their release, including one man who killed 21-year-old 

Grant Ronnebeck in Mesa, Arizona, in 2015 after being released. 

The previous administration claimed that they were focused on 

felons, not families, but in fact, deportations of criminal aliens declined by 60 percent since 2011, even as they implemented the Secure Communities program, allowing ICE to identify more criminal 

aliens than ever before. The previous administration claimed that 

they were simply exercising what they called prosecutorial discretion, but in fact, they were giving out immigration benefits, literally millions of work permits to illegal aliens and others not otherwise eligible to stay. 


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The Obama administration claimed that their vetting of visa applicants was rigorous, but then released a report saying that more 

than 500,000 foreign visitors overstayed in 2015. The vetting for 

work permits was no better. Hundreds have been issued to gang 

members and other criminals. Just last week, it was revealed that 

a man who had been arrested for killing his 15-year-old stepdaughter in Texas had been issued a work permit. He had arrests 

on his record for smuggling, assault, and theft, and ICE was trying 

to deport him, but instead, he was issued a work permit under the 

previous administration’s policies. 

I do not dismiss the disappointment of families who have been 

allowed to live here illegally for all these years or gotten away with 

it, but this lack of enforcement has imposed enormous costs on 

American communities. These costs include lost job opportunities 

and stagnant wages for native workers, higher tax bills to cover increased outlays for social services and benefits, compromised national security, and increased public safety threats. 

The Trump administration has already taken steps to reverse 

this state of affairs and already to good effect. They have ended the 

catch-and-release policies at the border; they have discarded the 

strict prioritization scheme that exempted so many illegal aliens 

from deportation; they are taking steps to rebuild partnerships 

with local law enforcement agencies, including expanding the successful 587(g) program. 

They are planning to use accelerated forms of due process, so as 

not to drag out the deportation process and prevent clogging up the 

immigration courts even further. They are reviving task forces focused on smuggling document fraud, gangs, and other 

transnational crime, the entire infrastructure that supports illegal 

immigration. This is making difference, but some things can be 

done only by Congress. 

No matter how many miles of barriers are built, how many ICE 

agents are hired, or how much more rigorous our vetting system 

becomes, as long as employers think that they can get away with 

hiring illegal workers, they will keep doing it, and as long there is 

someone who will hire them, people in other countries will keep 

trying to come here illegally. 

We need Congress to enact a phased-in, universal e-verify requirement to help turn off the job magnet that motivates so many. 

We need the Davis-Oliver Act to shore up the weak spots and the 

Immigration and Nationality Act, and we need to address the problem of sanctuaries, which interfere with ICE efforts to remove 

criminals, meaning that they get to stay here and have the opportunity to reoffend and create new victims. 

Finally, Congress must reduce opportunities for executive abuse 

of authority on work permits, parole, deferred action, and other 

gimmicks that have been used by presidents in the past to make 

an end run around the laws crafted by Congress. Thank you. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. 

Mr. Arthur. 


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THE STATEMENT OF ANDREW ARTHUR 

Judge ARTHUR. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lofgren, and 

members of the subcommittee, I thank you, and I thank Chairman 

Goodlatte for the opportunity to testify on this important topic. 

I have been involved in immigration for more than 2 decades. 

When I started, the Simpson-Mazzoli Act was in its 6th year of implementation. It will turn 31 on November the 6th, but the premises of this legislation remain sound today: that immigration is essentially the wellbeing of the country, that our immigration laws 

must be enforced to be effective, and that employment is a magnet 

that draws immigrants to the United States. 

Unfortunately, the 86th Act has never been fully enforced. The 

employer sanctions provisions have never been implemented effectively, and the document fraud provisions are all but a dead letter. 

As a result, the jobs magnet has not been shut off, and the population of aliens in the United States illegally today dwarf that 

which confronted the 99th Congress. 

I credit this committee with returning the issue of immigration 

enforcement at the beginning of the 115th Congress, and I am 

hopeful that your efforts and oversight will result in an immigration system that both addresses the needs of our country and protects the wages and working conditions of all Americans, both citizens and lawful permanent residents. 

Much has changed in immigration since November 1986, but the 

primary change has been an expansion in the focus of enforcement 

on national security. The main reason that I left the INS, where 

I had been Acting Chief of the National Security Law Division in 

July 2001, to come to this committee was because I did not believe 

we were doing enough to address the terrorist threat from abroad. 

I was in this room when the chairman and Ranking Member 

Conyers took steps needed to address that threat, and I am grateful for their leadership. But I believe that more still needs to be 

done. 

For 8 years, I served as an immigration judge in York, Pennsylvania. As a judge in a detained court, my docket consisted of lawfully-admitted aliens, who had committed removable offenses, and 

aliens unlawfully present in the United States, who had been apprehended in the interior along the border. 

I will focus on this latter group today. Much attention has been 

placed, recently, on the vetting of refugees. I can speak to that 

matter further, but I think that it is important for the members to 

also focus on a separate, but similar, group of aliens: those in expedited removal proceedings, who have claimed a credible fear. 

Unlike refugees, aliens claiming credible fear have not been 

screened before coming to the United States and, for reasons that 

I detail in my written statement, are generally not screened effectively after they enter either. A few of these individuals have actually bypassed the refugee screening process altogether leaving refugee camps and making their way to the southern border of the 

United States, where they are apprehended or turn themselves in 

to U.S. Immigration authorities. 

Unlike the orderly system that the United States government 

has in place abroad for refugee admission, the system for screening 

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sources to effectively separate those who may pose a danger to the 

United States from those in legitimate need of protection. 

Rumors abroad, fueled, in part, by a failure within the United 

States to enforce immigration laws, have also encouraged men, 

women, and children to trust their lives to smugglers and traffickers. The sobriquets, coyote and snakehead do not accurately describe the savage and debased nature of those who prey on the desperate and who stock and trade in human misery. Enforcing our 

immigration laws will quell those rumors and undercut the ability 

of smugglers to peddle their trade. 

It has been argued that some of those seeking to enter the 

United States illegally have been told by smugglers, friends, or fellow migrants that there is no real cost to entering illegally. If they 

avoid apprehension at the border, they will never be removed. But 

if they were apprehended at the border, they can still stay by making fraudulent claims, so it has been said. This is undoubtedly, in 

some cases, true. Many asylum claims do not hold up to scrutiny, 

are inconsistent with country conditions, are internally inconsistent, or are contradicted by the record as a whole. 

The ability of government officials, border patrol agents, asylum 

officers, ICE attorneys, and immigration judges to identify fraud in 

the creditable fear process is crucial to squelching those rumors 

and to the prevention of that misery before it begins. It is also essential, if we are to protect the American people from the criminals 

and national security risks who would take advantage of our humanitarian system to do harm to our communities. 

More resources, better directed, and a better system for verifying 

claims are needed to address this problem. 

Legal immigration, including the refugee process, visa issuance, 

and admissions at the ports of entry is the front door of America, 

and it must be secure. It is equally important, however, that 

threats to our country, to our immigration system, are not able to 

abuse our laws by sneaking in through the back door. 

I thank each of you, and I look forward to your questions. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Pyati. 

THE STATEMENT OF ARCHI PYATI 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 

The Tahirih Justice Center is a nonpartisan, national nonprofit 

that, for over 20 years, has provided legal services to immigrant 

survivors of human trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence. As an advocate for victims, I am honored to be invited to 

comment today on the importance of protecting public safety while 

still enforcing our Federal immigration laws. 

Over the years, I have heard hundreds of women and girls tell 

me stories of exploitation and abuse by men who viciously capitalized on disparities in economic and social status to establish their 

power and control over their victims. Among the most vulnerable 

to this, immigrant women and girls face a number of challenges to 

accessing help, including language barriers, limited resources, inability to work legally, lack of access to public benefits, and fear of 

deportation. 


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Many abusers use a woman’s lack of immigration status as a potent tool by threatening that their victims could be deported away 

from their children. This is an all-too-familiar narrative for my organization’s clients, many of whom have been harmed by U.S.-citizen men. 

Congress recognized this when, in 1994, with robust bipartisan 

support, it passed the Violence against Women Act and created, in 

2000, the U and T Visa programs to ‘‘strengthen the ability of law 

enforcement agencies to detect, investigate, and prosecute cases of 

domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking.’’ These laws encourage victims to report and cooperate with law enforcement to 

help get violent criminals off our streets and make all of us safer. 

These critical protections and the public policy goals of community safety they serve are now being significantly undermined because of misguided immigration enforcement policies. Secure communities, 287(g) agreements, and the like rely on a false narrative. 

There is no data to suggest that localities with community trust 

policies have more criminal activity than others. 

On the other hand, there is data to suggest that localities with 

community trust policies have actually achieved a reduction in 

crime. I heard, just a few weeks ago, a very compelling story by one 

police chief who told me that, one morning, there was a gentleman 

driving his car with his domestic partner, his girlfriend, in the car 

with him. I am sure, as a victim of domestic violence, she was attempting to escape the car; he dragged her back in, slammed the 

door, and shot her right there at 9:00 a.m. in the morning at broad 

daylight. 

The gentleman kicked her out of the car and sped away. There 

were only two eye witnesses to this crime: two undocumented men 

who were day laborers standing outside a store nearby. When police came to try to investigate the crime and find the man who 

murdered this woman, they questioned the witnesses. The witnesses said they would be happy to cooperate, but asked for reassurance that they would not be deported. When the police gave 

them that reassurance, they were able to identify the assailant and 

were able to apprehend him and prosecute him and bring him to 

justice. 

More than 600 jurisdictions nationwide have enacted community 

policing strategies precisely to serve this goal of enhancing public 

safety. A recent report concluded that there are, on average, 35.5 

fewer crimes committed per 10,000 people in so-called sanctuary 

counties than there are in non-sanctuary counties. For this reason, 

major policing groups, including the Major Cities Chiefs Association, have opposed efforts to defund so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. 

The policies of the January 25th executive order on interior enforcement are already having a devastating chilling effect on reporting of criminal activity. 

In Denver, City Attorney Kristin Bronson reported that four domestic violence victims informed her office that they no longer 

wished to pursue charges against their abusers out of fear that 

doing so would place them at risk for deportation. 

In Los Angeles, Police Chief Charlie Beck said that reports of 

sexual assault have dropped by 25 percent and domestic violence 


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by 10 percent among the Latino population since the beginning of 

the year. 

Less than 3 weeks after the President issued the executive order, 

ICE agents arrested an immigrant woman outside a courthouse in 

El Paso, Texas where she had gone to seek an order of protection 

from her abuser. The result? Fear of reporting spread like wildfire. 

Domestic violence shelters in highly diverse areas reported a large 

drop in the number of women coming in for services, indicating 

that undocumented victims are not taking the next steps to escape 

abusers such as pressing charges or moving into shelters. 

One of our clients who, years ago, called the police and cooperated with law enforcement after being brutally beaten by her husband while she was pregnant, recently said that, ‘‘I needed help 

and at that time, it was not like now. You believed the police were 

there to help you, not that they would come and deport you. Now, 

I would think they would just come and deport me because that is 

what my husband was telling me and that is what we are hearing 

everywhere. That is what we are seeing now, even though I did not 

commit any crime.’’ 

I applauded this committee for taking so seriously issues such as 

trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence. I hope your concern spreads to all victims including immigrants and those victimized by United States citizens. I trust you will direct your outrage 

towards strengthening laws like VAWA and pursuing policies that 

will actually protect our society’s most vulnerable individuals. The 

difficult truth is that policies like Secure Communities and 287(g) 

will not effectively prevent crime. Instead, they leave perpetrators 

on the streets. I urge Congress to avoid crafting policies that seem 

like they could enhance safety but that will in fact have exactly the 

opposite impact. Thank you. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. I see the chairman 

of the full committee, and without objection, I will recognize him 

for 10 minutes for his opening statement and his questions. Without objection, the gentleman from Virginia is recognized for 10 minutes. 

Chairman GOODLATTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for 

your forbearance, and I want to thank all the witnesses for their 

testimony today. 

When the Obama administration sailed off, it left in its wake a 

systematically dismantled immigration enforcement infrastructure. 

Through so-called priorities, defined by the President, not Congress, the administration dramatically scaled back immigration enforcement and allowed millions of unlawful and criminal aliens to 

remain in the country free of consequence. 

By terminating successful programs, including Secure Communities, the administration permitted, if not encouraged, sanctuary 

city practices and policies. This left us with an immigration system 

more broken, more dysfunctional, and far friendlier to those that 

flagrantly disregard our Nation’s immigration laws, especially 

criminal aliens. The effects of 8 years of not-so-benign neglect of 

immigration enforcement will be felt for many years. 

Earlier this month, two students at Rockville High School in 

Rockville, Maryland brutally raped and attacked a fellow student. 

Reports indicate that the perpetrators of this horrendous crime 


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both entered the country as unaccompanied alien minors from Central American, likely drawn here by the Obama administration’s 

policy of releasing such aliens to their relatives in the United 

States, often illegally present themselves. This was a double tragedy because of both its impact on a young girl’s life, and because 

it could have been prevented by sensible immigration enforcement. 

School districts around the country are facing a gang epidemic 

partly fueled by the Obama administration’s policies. As in this 

case and the countless others demonstrate, illegal immigration is 

not a victimless crime. Foolhardy jurisdictions continue to pass legislation and implement policies aimed at stymieing immigration 

and customs enforcement officers from enforcing the law. 

The same week as the tragedy in Rockville, a Baltimore City 

Council member introduced a resolution calling on ICE to only arrest those posing a ‘‘serious risk.’’ In discussing this initiative, the 

council member likened ICE officers to Nazis several times. 

Such rhetoric is reprehensible, creating a moral equivalence between genocide and a Nation exercising a fundamental right and 

obligation of sovereignty. It is especially ironic, given that the 

United States has long had the most generous immigration system 

in the world. 

In a deeply troubling move, San Francisco even announced that 

it would no longer participate in the Joint Terrorism Task Force 

because of concerns that the task force’s duties may coincide with 

immigration enforcement. Sanctuary policies often focus on ICE detainers: notices issued by ICE to allow it to take custody of aliens 

in law enforcement custody in order to initiate removal proceedings. 

These irresponsible sanctuary policies have led to a sharp drop 

in ICE’s intake of aliens from criminal detention facilities, which 

forces ICE agents to engage in the far more time-consuming and 

dangerous task of picking them up on the streets. 

The Trump administration is issuing a weekly report of declined 

detainers nationwide. During the first week of the administration, 

206 detainers were not honored nationwide, leading to the release 

of aliens who were arrested for, or convicted of, sex assaults, aggravated assaults, arson, robbery, and many other serious offenses. 

The new administration, only 2 months old, has already started 

to right the ship. On January 25th, the President signed two executive orders aimed at securing our Nation’s borders and strengthening interior enforcement of our immigration laws. These executive orders nudge the rudder of this massive ship in the right direction. 

I am encouraged that the new administration’s enforcement priorities include all aliens who are threats to public safety and national security and restores the Secure Communities program. Just 

yesterday, Attorney General Sessions announced that sanctuary 

cities will be ineligible for Justice Department grants. Progress at 

the border has been dramatic. The number of illegal aliens apprehended decreased by over 40 percent in the first month of the new 

administration, by over 60 percent in the second month. 

Yet, while this is encouraging, many thousands still make the 

dangerous trek across the border in order to turn themselves in 

and game our asylum system. It is no secret that credible fear and 


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asylum claims have been being rubber stamped with claimants released with work authorization as they await their hearings, some 

now scheduled for 2021. I applaud the President for addressing 

bogus credit claims in the executive order. 

As much as I am encouraged by what the new administration is 

doing within the current statutory framework, it also desperately 

needs new statuary tools to enforce the immigration laws. Over the 

past two Congresses, this committee has approved such measures 

to provide such tools to the administration, including providing 

that unaccompanied minors are safely and expeditiously returned 

home, that the Federal Government will work with local jurisdictions that want to provide assistance and enforce the immigration 

laws, that sanctuary cities will lose Federal funds curtailing fraud 

in the asylum process, and to allow for the detention of dangerous 

aliens. 

Sheriff Hodgson, welcome. I appreciate your testimony. I wonder 

if you could tell us, what value do you see in involving local law 

enforcement in immigration enforcement? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Thank you, Councilman. 

It is imperative that we participate in local law enforcement. One 

of the things that President Trump made very clear in one of his 

recent speeches to the sheriffs was, ‘‘Look, we recognize that you 

all have your boots on the ground. You have the information, the 

intimate relationships with the gang activities and the things that 

are going on.’’ The intelligence that we get through the prisons, 

these are very important aspects of us working with our Federal 

partners. 

If we didn’t learn anything after 9/11 by the fact that we needed 

to strengthen our relationships with our Federal partners to prevent our citizens of our communities from being victimized, look, 

we just had a woman, a 19-year-old women whose father had been 

deported twice, came over the day before Father’s Day; as she got 

out of her car, shot and killed her right there at her home. These 

things are happening all over the country. 

Chairman GOODLATTE. Let me interrupt because I have a limited 

amount of time, and the chairman has been very generous. 

Do you consider State and local enforcement to be competent to 

assist in the enforcement of immigration laws? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Absolutely, and I think the Davis-Oliver Bill 

should be passed in giving us the authority to be able to add more 

tools to our toolbox. 

Chairman GOODLATTE. Let me turn to Ms. Vaughn. Last week, 

the Department of Homeland Security released its Final Declined 

Detainer Outcome Report. The report demonstrated that, in a 1- 

week period, January 28 through February 3, there were 206 instances of detainers not honored. What does this report say about 

concerns for public safety in these jurisdictions, and other than releasing a weekly report, what else can either the administration or 

Congress do to discourage sanctuary policies? 

Ms. VAUGHN. Well, I think that report validates the concerns 

that people have had about sanctuary policies and that the beneficiaries of sanctuary policies are the criminal aliens who get sent 

back to our community. And I hope that the public will hold their 


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leaders accountable for those policies now that they have that information. 

In addition to denying funding, I think that, in some cases, there 

are going to be die-hard sanctuary jurisdictions that want to keep 

their policies anyway, despite the lack of funding; they want to be 

martyrs over it. I think that, for the sake of public safety, the Department of Justice is going to have to take legal action against 

those jurisdictions, potentially seeking an injunction. There may be 

cases where it would be appropriate to even prosecute local officials 

who deliberately and knowingly harbor an illegal alien from detection and from deportation. 

Chairman GOODLATTE. Mr. Arthur, your written testimony discusses a regulation governing confidentiality of asylum information 

and dramatically limiting third-party disclosure. Does this limitation extend to investigators looking into fraud or national security 

concerns, and what can either the administration or Congress do 

to aid ICE or another government agency in its attempt to verify 

pertinent information with a home government? 

Judge ARTHUR. It does. It prevents any disclosure of information 

that is provided in an asylum application to anyone outside the 

government; there are very strict limits. But one of the main things 

that it does is that it prevents the information that is provided in 

the asylum application from being verified with the home country. 

Probably the best thing to do would be to amend the regulation 

to make it clear that the biographical information and allegations 

with respect to arrests, can be verified with the home country, but 

the fact that the individual has actually applied for asylum cannot. 

So, that would be the best way to deal with it. 

Chairman GOODLATTE. Thank you, and Ms. Pyati, in your testimony, I noticed that you referred to localities that have community 

trust policies. Would you say that Montgomery County, Maryland, 

where Rockville High School is located and is a sanctuary jurisdiction, whether that county’s community trust policy protected that 

14-year-old girl? 

Ms. PYATI. First, I want to start by saying that, of course, what 

happened to the 14-year-old girl was a tragedy. None of us would 

have ever expected that to happen and feel horribly sorry for her 

and for what she experienced. 

Chairman GOODLATTE. Wouldn’t it have been better if those two 

boys had never have arrived in Montgomery County, Maryland? 

Ms. PYATI. Well, I think they are two different questions, if I 

may. Your first question was whether community trust policies 

were a part of it at all, and the answer was no. The boys had no 

criminal record whatsoever before, had never been picked up by 

law enforcement, and therefore, a community trust policy had nothing to do with what happened that day in that school. 

Secondarily, whether they could have been—— 

Chairman GOODLATTE. I am sorry, but it is a violation of the law 

to cross our border, so were not they illegally present in the United 

States? 

Ms. PYATI. They did violate the law by crossing our border. 

Chairman GOODLATTE. Were not they turned over by the previous administration to, in one case, to a parent and, in another 


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case, an uncle? I know the father of the one boy was also illegally 

present in the United States. 

Ms. PYATI. What happened at the border when they entered is 

very different than what happened in Rockville, Maryland. Your 

question to me was, in Rockville, Maryland, could a defunded sanctuary policy, for example, have prevented the rape, and the answer 

is no to that. 

I think what happened there was completely—— 

Chairman GOODLATTE. I think the enforcement of our laws would 

have prevented the rape; would it not? 

Ms. PYATI. When they came to the border, at the southern border—— 

Chairman GOODLATTE. My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes. 

Let me begin by making a statement. You know the whole issue 

of sanctuary cities is something that is very disturbing because it 

is an attempt by those jurisdictions to nullify Federal law and to 

say that Federal law does not apply in the sanctuary city. 

Now, this country suffered probably the worst trauma in its history when certain States, over 150 years ago, decided that they had 

the power to nullify Federal law. And there were over a half million people who were killed during the Civil War, and I think that 

the horror of that has been forgotten. 

Secondly, I am very disturbed by saying there are certain types 

of Federal laws that State and local law enforcement do not enforce. I guess I can say that robbing a bank is a Federal offense, 

and I do not think that State and local law enforcement wait for 

the FBI to come to respond to the bank and try to catch the people 

who are committing a Federal felony in the process of trying to 

clean out the bank’s till. 

Now, having said that statement, let me ask you, Ms. Vaughn, 

under current immigration law, drunk driving is typically not a removable offense and neither is most gang activities. Would you 

favor a change to make those offenses removable, so it is very clear 

that gang activity and being convicted of a DUI would be a removable offense? 

Ms. VAUGHN. Absolutely. Of course, anyone who is in the country 

illegally is potentially subject to deportation, whether they have 

been driving drunk or not, but I do think that immigration officers 

and agents need better tolls within the INA to make it easier to 

accelerate the removal of those individuals and to protect the communities. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I know that, in my district, there has been 

at least one real, major tragedy where a van of family going to 

church ended up being hit by a drunk driver and some, but not all, 

of them were killed, which was a family tragedy that could have 

been prevented. 

How about gang activity? We have a lot of people who have been 

claiming that they are fleeing groups like MS–13 as they arrive at 

the border. Do any of the witnesses know if there are any people 

who have made such a claim for asylum who have ended up rejoining MS–13 once they get across the border? 


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Ms. VAUGHN. From what I understand and have been told from 

some local law enforcement agencies, there have been instances, 

from what they have learn from gang members who are now incarcerated, that, of course not all of the youths who have been crossing illegally from Central America are involved with gangs, but the 

gangs here know that the policy is so lenient that, if someone who 

is a minor makes it to our border, that they will be allowed to resettle in the country with very few questions asked. So, they have 

deliberately taken advantage of that policy and used it in order to 

boost their ranks of clicks here in the United States in order to 

benefit the gang as a whole, so that is definitely happening. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. My time is running out. 

Ms. Pyati, in your written testimony, page 1, you say that your 

center advocates for laws and policies that help immigrant survivors of violence include sexual and domestic violence. Do you advocate for victims such as the Rockville teen? 

Ms. PYATI. Absolutely, I do. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay, that is good to know. How do you do 

that? 

Ms. PYATI. How do we do that? So we do have offices in a number of cities around the country, four different cities; we are opening a fifth. Our work is to meet with victims, understand their situation, hear their stories, know if they are eligible for any form of 

immigration remedy in this country, interview them extensively to 

find out, in fact, if they have a credible claim and one that might 

survive under the law, and if so, then offer them free legal assistance in order to enter their claim into the adjudication system. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay, so you do not do any of the type of 

counseling that is needed by anyone who is a victim of a sexual assault? You turn that over to somebody else? 

Ms. PYATI. We do. Our center offers holistic services, so we have 

both social workers and lawyers on our staff and we would definitely offer that type of counsel to somebody who came to us. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay, so you are not proactive in seeking 

out and offering those types of services? The victim and the victim’s 

family have to come to you rather than you going to them? 

Ms. PYATI. We conduct outreach in the community to be sure 

that individuals know that we are there; you know where our offices are, what kind of services we provide, and to make sure that 

folks know they can come to us. The majority of people who seek 

our services have heard about us by word of mouth, as well as 

through our outreach efforts. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 

from California, Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of observations. I think it is a mistake to use the tragedy on 9/11, where 

19 Saudis during the Bush administrations entered, legally, to the 

United States with visas, and then brutally attacked and killed 

Americans, with reason to deport nannies and farm workers in 

2017. The two do not compute. 

Just in terms of the sanctuary city issue, there is no definition, 

really, of what a so-called sanctuary city is, but 8 U.S.C. 1373, 

which really originated out of this committee before it became law, 

does not require localities to hold peoples, who are otherwise to be 


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released, to detain them, nor does it require States and localities 

to collect information. That would be beyond the authority of the 

Federal Government to commandeer States and localities to do 

that. 

I am wondering, Ms. Pyati, the detainers that were outlined in 

the Detainer Outcome Report, in jurisdictions where the controlling 

Federal court rulings, such as the four circuit has set compliance 

with those detainers is unconstitutional violation of the Fourth 

Amendment, what exposure would a locality have if they did what 

the Attorney General said in a jurisdiction where the circuit is said 

that violates the Fourth Amendment. 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you for your question, Congresswomen. Certainly, the local jurisdictions complete exposure. The Federal courts 

have ruled that detainers that hold individuals after they have 

been released or could be released by the criminal system for civil 

law infractions such as immigration law infractions, is a seizure 

that goes well beyond the 48 hours often and that constitutes a violation under the Fourth Amendment, and that is the local jurisdiction that is on the hook for that and so they absolutely would have 

full and complete exposure there. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Just a couple of other observations and then 

maybe a question. Clearly, the police chiefs and the police officers 

that I know in the district that I represent are against criminals, 

I mean that is why they are in police work, that is why they are 

called to do that. 

In Santa Cruz, recently, there was an effort. The sheriff actually 

sent his officers out with ICE agents because they were going to 

do an anti-gang activity, and what he found out, at least what the 

law enforcement officials said was, he will never deal with ICE 

again because, instead of doing an anti-gang activity, they did just 

general immigration enforcement. 

Now, they cannot get immigrants to call in to report crimes; they 

cannot get people to be witnesses. So, I do think the distinction between Federal and State obligations is an important one, even 

though, for example, DUI was an enforcement priority under the 

Obama administration; if you had a DUI, you would be deported 

under the Obama administration. 

So, I guess the question is, what is that distinction? I have had 

complaints out of California that ICE agents are putting the word 

‘‘Police’’ on their jackets, even though they are not police, and the 

police are greatly concerned about this because it muddies up who 

is doing what. Do you think, when we talk to the Secretary of 

Homeland Security about this issue and explained that the sheriff 

in Los Angeles and the police departments all over California—I 

mean that, because that is where I am from, are complaining about 

this. 

He just said, well, he did not care. What are your thoughts on 

that, Ms. Pyati? Do we have an opportunity, do you think, to remedy this? Would this be a problem with ICE agents, having ‘‘Police’’ 

on their jackets when it comes to domestic violence and sexual assault cases? 

Ms. PYATI. I appreciate your question, Congresswoman. Certainly, I think any time we comingle local law enforcement with 

immigration enforcement, we are in a very dangerous game. There 


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are definitely officers wearing vests that say ‘‘Police,’’ and it does 

not make clear that we are talking about immigration police wandering around in the streets. We saw this, at times, in the Obama 

administration, and we are seeing it now in this administration. 

What we see is, when people are in the community, let us say 

in a home and afraid, I am not going to pick up the phone and call 

911 if I am not sure who is going to show up at my door. What 

I need to be sure of is that, if my child is watching me be hurt, 

when I call 911, my child and I are going to find safety, and we 

are going to find protection. And the gentlemen who is hurting me, 

whether he is my husband or family member, could be armed, 

could be dangerous, could be intoxicated, could be a danger to others in the community, and that person is actually going to meet 

justice. 

If I am too scared to call 911 because I am worried that, because 

of who I am, where I am from, what my national status is, or the 

color of my skin, I am not going to get fair treatment, safety, and 

protection from my local police, then all of us are less safe. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired and I yield 

back. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, many 

members of Congress, and as far as that goes, many members of 

the media, often say that immigrants are no more likely to commit 

crime than other individuals, but that, in my view, is a misleading 

statement because they do not distinguish between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants. 

When you look at the crimes committed by illegal immigrants, 

you find out that, for example, 35 percent of the individuals who 

are sentenced for Federal crimes are illegal immigrants. Thirty-five 

percent. Well, illegal immigrants are 3.5 percent of the population, 

so that means they are 10 times to more likely to be sentenced for 

a Federal crime than other legal residents, 10 times. 

That is why we say, rightfully, that illegal immigrants are disproportionately dangerous to innocent Americans and dangerous to 

our communities and dangerous to our neighborhoods. 

Sheriff Hodgson, let me address my first question to you, and 

thank you for your strong testimony on sanctuary cities. 

Another figure that I know you are familiar with is that about 

one-third, 30 percent or more, of those who are released, the criminal immigrants who are released back into our communities, are 

rearrested for another crime. And the fact that we have law enforcement officials sworn to uphold the law intentionally releasing 

these individuals into our communities really makes me think that 

they are an accessory to the crimes that these illegal immigrants 

go on and additionally commit. It is just inexcusable. 

My question is this, and you have had so many good years of experience: what should the Federal Government do about the sanctuary jurisdictions that intentionally release these dangerous individuals back into our communities? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Thank you, Congressman. What I believe they 

should do is, in those instances, we cannot say that elected officials 

who taken the same oath that we have can decide which laws they 


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are going to follow or not. They should be held to the same standards of accountability that we are. In those instances, where they 

are intentionally harboring and concealing people they know to be 

in the country illegally, they should have Federal warrants, arrest 

warrants, issued for them. No ifs, ands, or buts. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, thank you, Sheriff. And Mr. Arthur, welcome 

back. 

Judge ARTHUR. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. SMITH. A question for you: What programs are most abused 

by illegal immigrants to try to wrongfully stay in the United 

States? 

Judge ARTHUR. Anecdotally, it would appear that asylum is probably the number-one source of fraud in the system. Part of the 

problem, Mr. Smith, is the fact that there are no hard-and-fast 

studies on fraud in the system. GAO did an analysis back in 2002 

in which they found that nobody could really estimate how much 

fraud there was. 

Don Crocetti, who had been the head of FDNS, the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, at CIS testified before this 

committee back in the 113th Congress, I think it was, and indicated that a study had been undertaken that had found a fairly 

significantly amount of fraud, but had never been completed for 

various reasons within CIS. 

There is marriage fraud. There are other forms of fraud, but just 

based on the number of credibility determinations or adverse credibility determinations in the application, it would be asylum. 

Mr. SMITH. Do you think it is a major problem or a minor problem, the degree of fraud? 

Judge ARTHUR. I would always do a credibility determination in 

every case that I did, in every asylum decision that I issued, 

whether I granted or denied. And I would probably guess that, in 

probably a fairly large number of those cases, I made adverse credibility determinations that were sustained by the Board of Immigration Appeals in the Third Circuit where I sat. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, thank you. Last question. 

Ms. Vaughn, what are the three policies that you feel would be 

most effective in keeping criminal immigrants off of our streets and 

out of our neighborhoods? 

Ms. VAUGHN. I think the most effective policy would be, first of 

all, for ICE to make better use of the accelerated forms of due process. ICE agents and officers need to be empowered to use detention 

as the law allows. And I think that we need to take action against 

the sanctuaries because they have been releasing 1,000 criminal 

aliens a month for years now and we know that they go on to reoffend and it is a significant public safety problem. 

Mr. SMITH. Like I said, over 30 percent are rearrested for additional crimes. 

Ms. VAUGHN. I have heard even higher over long periods of time, 

that they are comparable to the re-offense rates of all criminals. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, thank you, Ms. Vaughn. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers. 


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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the 

witnesses. 

Let me turn to the chief of policy and programs at the Tahirih 

Justice Center. Ms. Pyati, many of the witnesses on this panel 

have argued that community trust policies encourage lawlessness 

and create an environment where undocumented immigrants are 

allowed to commit acts of crime, violence, and terror. What is your 

response to such a claim as that? 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you, Congressman. My response is quite simply that when we talk about so-called sanctuary cities and those 

communities, we have to be very clear that the more than 600 jurisdictions that have adopted these types of policies have adopted 

a very wide range, and so it would be really impossible to say that 

they all are engaging in one type of practice or another. 

Some of the jurisdictions are 100 percent cooperating, but they 

also offer protections for those who might call 911 or come into an 

emergency room seeking lifesaving emergency services. And so, the 

range of policies is really quite dramatic. It would be very difficult 

for us to try to make any generalizations about what could be happening on a level with crime in all of these jurisdictions and make 

some sort of statements that it is making us all less safe. 

I think that that is an unfair characterization and one that, in 

fact, will leave more criminals on our streets if we are not very 

careful. 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, with your experience, do you think that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes in areas with community trust policies? 

Ms. PYATI. I don’t know, Congressman, honestly, that anyone has 

measured whether there is a likelihood of committing crime in a 

certain area or not. I do think that our likelihood of catching criminals and actually keeping communities safe, especially preventing 

crime, is much higher in a community that has a community trust 

policy. 

Local law enforcement officers know what they are doing, and 

they know that when they are trying to keep a community safe, 

making sure that when they walk around town, when they go to 

community events, when they patrol apartment buildings, when 

they are speaking with members of their town that they are getting 

real information. When they say, ‘‘Who is likely to be committing 

an offense? Who is a criminal in your neighborhood?’’ they need 

that information from the community in order to be able to make 

arrests, and watch for crime, and protect citizens and noncitizens 

in the community. If there is a barrier put up between local law 

enforcement and the community, there is no way for them to do 

their job effectively. 

I do not think we can effectively measure, in fact, if I may, Congressman, how much crime has honestly been prevented by these 

community trust policies. It would be hard to say thousands of 

crimes, for example, did not happen because people called the police and trusted the police. It is much easier to pick out the one 

or two crimes we have seen across America, and really shine the 

light on those, than it is to really weigh the benefit of these community trust policies. We can only take our law enforcement officers’ word for it. 


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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. My last question is my infamous three-in-one 

question, three questions in one. Have you worked with law enforcement agencies on strategies to combat domestic violence; what 

specific challenges have these agencies shared as it relates to criminal arrests and prosecution within the immigrant community; and 

finally, how do you think the Trump administration’s approach to 

withhold Federal funds will impact on these local law enforcement 

efforts? And I will be happy to repeat any of them if necessary. I 

do not think you need that. 

Ms. PYATI. I did take notes, Congressman. Thank you. 

Our organization does definitely work with local law enforcement 

agencies across the country, and I know many other organizations 

like ours do as well. What we do is we communicate with local law 

enforcement. We provide training on immigration law and how to 

recognize victims in the community. We also work with them to 

identify different cultural barriers that might exist between local 

law enforcement officers and members of a community, so that they 

might break down those barriers and find ways to actually get critical, vital information from those in the community. 

Some of the specific challenges we have learned involve a number of those that I cited earlier as challenges that the victims face. 

It is a two-way street, whether it be language barriers, cultural 

barriers. You know, many undocumented immigrants come from 

environments in other countries where trusting law enforcement is 

not smart, where when you talk to a police officer as a rape victim, 

for example, you might yourself be revictimized. And so, to say to 

a woman, as I have had to, ‘‘Honestly, these armed and uniformed 

police officers are here to help you,’’ takes a lot of courage. Not on 

my part; it takes a lot of courage for the victim to look at me and 

believe me and trust me and want to work with local law enforcement. Those are the challenges we have heard from law enforcement officers. 

We have also heard about those who prey on immigrant communities. We have heard about, from local law enforcement officers, 

about notarios. We have heard about people who hold themselves 

out to be either legal representatives or members of the government. 

Since the Trump administration has come into power, the executive orders have actually led to a sense of mistrust and fear in the 

community, but it has also led to a number of people standing outside apartment buildings, for example, in one community. I have 

heard this; I have heard this from several, actually, saying, ‘‘We 

are with the immigration, and we are here to ask you questions; 

we would like to see your papers.’’ Then, all of a sudden, you have 

people kind of trying to steal identity and trying to take information from law-abiding members of the community. 

So, specific challenges law enforcement faces involve really policing in a cooperative way in communities that historically have not 

felt included in law enforcement efforts. And the Trump administration, honestly, the actual executive orders that came in January 

coupled with rhetoric, honestly, from the campaign trail together 

have led to a sense of fear among community members, also, a 


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sense of confusion. ‘‘What are our rights? Where can we go for 

help? Who can we call?’’ 

Advocates have been calling us from around the country, thousands, actually, asking us, ‘‘So, if a victim tells me she has been 

raped several times by her husband, and he is actively beating her, 

do I tell her to call the police or not?’’ We don’t know. These are 

strategies we have, for decades now, been so lucky to have in this 

country, the opportunity to tell victims, ‘‘Look, America understands that violence is something we need to prevent. We have 

laws for that. Call your police officer; he or she will help you.’’ We 

do not know what to say anymore. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs. 

Mr. BIGGS. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this committee hearing today. It is important. 

I appreciate all the panelists for being here. One of our panelists 

recently indicated that we should not focus on one or two crimes 

that we have seen across America, and yet in one recent 15-month 

period in Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, more 

than 3,600 criminally violent, illegal aliens were released back onto 

the streets of the State’s largest county. 

There are two things to point out about that. We know they were 

criminally violent because they had been in the system, charged, 

and convicted of crimes, and yet they were released without being 

deported. So, I appreciate, particularly, Ms. Vaughn mentioning 

the Grant Ronnebeck case where Grant, an unfortunate 21-year-old 

convenience store clerk, had been brutally shot and killed for failing to deliver a pack of cigarettes to a criminally violent, illegal 

alien who had been convicted, and yet was on the streets of Maricopa County, and that is why I introduced Grant’s Law here in 

Congress, which should pass. It is a no-brainer, and it requires the 

very accelerated due process requirements that Ms. Vaughn has 

mentioned to deport these criminally violent, illegal aliens from our 

country within 90 days. 

I wanted to talk specifically with regard to you, Ms. Vaughn, 

with regard to the apprehension rates reported. If we were to look 

at the apprehension rates, historically, we would see that there are 

consistently over a million people, sometimes than 1.5 million people, actually apprehended at the border, and that began to slow 

down in 2006. 2007 was the first time reported apprehensions actually began declining below 1 million. But all experts talk about border apprehensions, and this is the southern border, versus the multiplier effect of people who actually cross and remain in the country. 

The lowest number I have ever seen reported was opined by several U.S. senators to be about four times the actual apprehension 

rate. Last year, 415,000 illegal aliens were apprehended at the 

southern border; more than half were other than Mexican nationals 

coming into this country. I guess my question for you is if you 

would please comment on the multiplying effect and whether the 

numbers were accurate for than 10-year period under the Obama 

administration when we saw the actual apprehension rate dip as 


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low as 330,000 in 2015, whether that was accurate in the reporting, please. 

Ms. VAUGHN. Well, unfortunately, the Border Patrol does not 

have full situational awareness to know that important number of 

who was not apprehended. There was a very credible study that 

was commissioned by DHS that found that in 2015, the estimated 

apprehension rate of people trying to cross illegally was only 54 

percent. So, you know, that suggests there is at least one person 

succeeding for every one who is caught. And there is also a low apprehension rate of people trying to enter illegally at the legal ports 

of entry, people getting through in car trunks or as imposters or 

whatever. 

Most concerning, there is the high rate of people who are caught 

by the Border Patrol, but who are allowed to enter anyway, either, 

you know, because of policies or because of the prioritization policy 

imposed on the Border Patrol in November 2014 where they were 

told, you know, to let people go if they claimed to have been here 

before January 2014. The head of the National Border Patrol Council has said that at that time, he estimated the Border Patrol 

agents were letting as many as 80 percent of the people that they 

encountered stay in the country. 

Mr. BIGGS. Thank you. Sheriff Hodgson, thank you for being here 

as well. We previously talked about drunk driving and gang membership being disqualifiers for remaining in this country. I just 

wanted to relate the story of Brandon Mendoza, a police officer who 

was driving in March of 2014, almost exactly 2 years ago, when an 

illegal alien who had been apprehended at least three times, once 

committing crimes in Colorado, had a blood alcohol limit over three 

times the legal limit in Arizona and had driven on a freeway the 

wrong way for 33 miles when he hit Officer Mendoza’s car and 

killed him tragically. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Will he ask his question? 

Mr. BIGGS. Yes, thank you. My question is, do you think enforcement of immigration laws by local agencies has a chilling effect on 

community participation or reporting of crimes? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Congressman, I do not think so. I believe that 

the crimes that are happening in our communities, illegals are not 

going to report those crimes. It is no different than what happens 

in America with criminals, people who have done something wrong. 

I do not understand why people have a problem with people feeling afraid that they have done something wrong in this country. If 

you have done something wrong, you should feel afraid and you 

should be concerned if you violated the laws. And so, I do not think 

any more than anyone else in our country. If you have done something wrong, there are going to people who will not come forward; 

there are going to be others who will. But the realities are that 

these things are happening in every community throughout the 

United States. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 

from Washington, Ms. Jayapal. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Mr. Chairman, I am here. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I call on people in the order in which they 

appear for the committee. Ms. Jayapal appeared before you. 


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Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. I was here when everybody started. 

Ms. JAYAPAL. I am happy to yield. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. I know you do not want to hear from me, but I 

was here when they all started. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Oh, I am always happy to hear from you, 

Mr. Gutie ́rrez. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Well, then you should follow regular order. I was 

here, present. I listened to all four of the witnesses. I was here for 

all of their testimony. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay. Well, I just got a list from the staff 

on who appeared in what order. They must have made a mistake. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. They made a mistake. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Illinois is recognized 

for 5 minutes. Would you please reset the clock? 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Thank you. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. So, you get it all. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Want to make sure. We could talk about the 

Sensenbrenner bill to start. I mean, maybe we should start right 

there. It was so popular. You do not even want to talk about it. But 

let’s go on to some other stuff. 

Number one, here we go again. Does not change. Ms. Vaughn, 

she is always here. She is a regular. She would be out of a job if 

we fixed this problem, and we can fix this problem, but she would 

be out of a job. 

Sheriff, they kind of rotate the sheriffs to come and kind of say 

what you say all the time. 

Judge, you are a new experience here. Thank you for the advocacy for our immigrant community. 

It all kind of changes here, but it really does not. We are not 

here to solve a problem. We are here to say that immigrants are 

drunk drivers, murderers, rapists, and gang members, because it 

does not change. But that should not surprise us, since we have a 

President that said that all Mexicans are murderers, rapists, and 

drug dealers, and got away with that. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Illinois will comply 

with the rules in referring to the President. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. I will say Donald Trump. Is that okay? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. No, it is what you said, whether it is President or Donald Trump. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. But he did say it. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman will comply with the rules 

and not cast dispersions on the President because those are rules 

of the House—— 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Okay, let me just repeat that. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER [continuing]. And the gentleman from Illinois knows that. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Let me just repeat that. We have a President of 

the United States that said, and I can bring the YouTube video, 

that Mexicans are murderers, rapists, and drug dealers. Fact? 

Good. Let’s move on. 

So, it does not really surprise me, the conversation we are having 

here. It is not looking for a solution; it is looking for a demonization of a community of people to score political points and not to 


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resolve it, because we could resolve it. We can resolve this problem, 

but we do not want to resolve this problem, just like we do not 

want to resolve the healthcare issue in this country. We do not 

want to resolve it. We want to make a political point about the 

healthcare issue in this country because, if we wanted to resolve 

it, we could do it. 

See, what we have here is people that say, ‘‘How do we expect 

to restore Western Civilization with other people’s babies?’’ That is 

what we have members of Congress saying, and that is part of 

what goes on here. 

It is a demonization. It is other people’s babies. It is this constant, which, I have to say, the President is playing one big role 

in all of it because, you see, today there are millions, at least 5 million American-citizen children who live in fear of their Federal 

Government, live in fear of their Federal Government, because people go around calling their moms and dads murderers, rapists, killers, drug dealers, and drunk drivers. Millions of American citizen 

children. Shame on us for not responding. 

You know what those murderers and rapists do every weekend 

now under this administration? They go see lawyers so that they 

can prepare in the eventuality that they are deported and separated from their American-citizen children. That is what they are 

doing: filling out guardianship papers, filling out who is going to 

get the car. How do you deal with the house? How do you deal with 

the contingency? What family member is going to be there? Shame 

on us for not resolving this problem and leaving a legacy of abuse 

against those 5 million. 

Since everybody wants to talk about the undocumented, which 

you call illegal, right? I want to talk a minute about those who are 

here legally in this country, those American-citizen children, and 

that is what we do. So, we sit by smugly, and we talk about 9/11, 

but we have a Muslim ban, and they did not even include Saudi 

Arabia in the Muslim ban, yet last time I checked, every last person that attacked this country was from Saudi Arabia. 

You know what it is? It is politics because, also, they want to 

make us afraid of who? Of the Muslims. So, they have a Muslim 

ban. They call Mexicans one thing, Muslims another thing, and 

then they said, ‘‘Oh, we are going to leave the gay people alone,’’ 

until they decided the transgender children and the transgender 

community would be one that we are going to attack. That is what 

happens here, and so we do not resolve the problem. 

We could resolve this problem because I happen to know for a 

fact that there are over 60 members of the Republican caucus who, 

today, would vote for a comprehensive immigration reform bill. 

Today, but we are not allowed to vote for that bill. 

And you know what evidence I have? Check last week. Why? Because you have radicals on that side of the aisle who say, ‘‘We will 

not allow there to be a vote on an issue,’’ so they withdrew their 

own immigration bill. That is why we cannot deal with this. 

We can deal with it in the Senate. We had 68 senators come together in the summer of 2013 to help solve this problem. And how 

could we do it? It is quite easy we could do it, because, see, what 

we all know, Sheriff, here is what we all know. The resources do 


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not exist of the Federal Government to pick up, jail, and deport 11 

million people. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. You know what they can do? Insist on bringing 

fear to those people. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Shame on all of us. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. He 

can see the clock up there like all the rest of us. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Mr. Chairman, you took at least 15, 20 seconds 

admonishing me for something. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. No, no. If you were listening to me, Mr. 

Gentleman from Illinois, I asked that the clock be reset. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. No, no, no. You reset it one time, but not during 

the second intervention. There is a video of this. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay, well—— 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Okay what? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER [continuing]. Now, you know why we have 

difficulty reaching—— 

Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous—— 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. If the gentleman—— 

Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. If the gentleman—— 

Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman—— 

Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I will—— 

Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CICILLINE. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Gutie ́rrez be 

given an additional minute. 

Mr. KING. I object, and I ask—— 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The objection is heard. 

Mr. KING [continuing]. For the regular order. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GUTIE ́ RREZ. Shame on all of us. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would note that I was 

watching that clock, and you did reset it out of courtesy. And I 

would point out, also, that there was a complete and utter rebuttal, 

I will call it a pre-buttal, of Mr. Gutie ́rrez’s statement on November 

8th. 

The American people went to the polls and said, ‘‘We want the 

law enforced, and we want our streets safe.’’ And so, I want to first 

turn to Sheriff Hodgson and point out, in your testimony, on your 

introduction, it says, ‘‘The human cost and emotional impact of 

crimes committed by illegals is beyond measure.’’ Could you speak 

to that? I know that it is a thoughtful statement. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Congressman, I can tell you in one community 

in Milford, Massachusetts, there were three people killed by 

illegals, in the small community of Milford. We are seeing these situations happening all over the country and there is nothing wrong 

with us enforcing the laws that are on the books, and you cannot 

ask law enforcement—look, if there are members of the legislature 


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that want to change the laws in Massachusetts or wherever, come 

here and lobby Congress, but do not tell us that we have to violate 

our oath and allow our citizens we are protecting to be exposed to 

greater risks. That is what is going on, Congressman. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Sheriff. And you pointed out also the 

Facebook post that gave a heads-up that ICE agents were coming 

into the community. I opened the Federal code here, 8 U.S.C. 1324, 

and I want to read this into the record and I want to ask you and 

others what you think about prosecuting under this that individual 

or any individual. 

This is 8 U.S.C. 1324, ‘‘Any person who’’—and I am going to cut 

out the irrelevant language, ‘‘Any person who conceals, harbors, or 

shields from detection or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield 

from detection, or any person who encourages or induces an alien 

to come to and enter/reside in the United States, knowing that 

such coming to or entry or residence is or will be in violation of the 

law, or who engages in any conspiracy to commit to any kind of the 

preceding acts, or who aids and abets the commission of any of the 

preceding acts is guilty of the violation of this statute.’’ And if they 

did it for a financial gain, facing a 10-year penalty; if it was not 

for a financial gain, a 5-year penalty. Sheriff, you looked at that 

section, I know. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Congressman, I have been repeating that section every chance I get because the truth is the law is the law. It 

is up to 5 years per illegal alien in that case, and I have called for, 

actually, in the case where the Boston mayor and the mayor of 

Summerville, Massachusetts, came out and said, ‘‘I will use City 

Hall if I have to, to violate Federal law and protect these people,’’ 

as well as in Summerville, where the mayor said, ‘‘I will open my 

home.’’ My answer to that was act on title VIII, section 1324; issue 

arrest warrants, and we will figure out really fast how popular 

sanctuary cities will be in this country. 

Mr. KING. I absolutely agree with you, Sheriff, and I turn to Ms. 

Vaughn. 

You made a statement, ‘‘There may be cases where we need to 

prosecute local officials.’’ Did you have this section in mind when 

you made that statement? 

Ms. VAUGHN. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. 

Mr. KING. Do you concur with Sheriff Hodgson? 

Ms. VAUGHN. Yes, I do. When a judge takes an illegal alien out 

the side door of a courthouse to avoid ICE, when a jail does not 

permit ICE access to the jail to interview inmates, when a law enforcement agency receives a detainer that gives probable cause to 

hold a criminal alien and they have information on that individual’s crimes, all of those are shielding illegal aliens from ICE knowingly. 

Mr. KING. When a judge facilitates that kind of escape from their 

chambers, you are suggesting specifically 8 U.S.C. 1324 as a means 

to enforce? 

Ms. VAUGHN. Yes, and there are penalties there, especially when 

that individual who was shielded goes on to cause further harm in 

the community and potentially creates new victims or does in fact 

after their release, as we know has happened. These are not isolated cases. 


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Mr. KING. And there is a means where this Congress can act on 

their own without a Presidential signature. What I am thinking of 

is the impeachment of such judge. What is your advice to us on 

that? 

Ms. VAUGHN. Well, I do not know the law with respect to the 

standards for judge impeachment, so I would have to—— 

Mr. KING. We set the standards according to the Constitution. 

So, under those terms? 

Ms. VAUGHN. I think that would be an effective deterrent to try 

to nip this problem. 

Mr. KING. Mr. Arthur. 

Judge ARTHUR. I am not aware of any case law that does that, 

but one thing that would advise that, I do not know of any that 

would not, but one thing that I would say, Mr. King, is that the 

job that we ask our ICE officers to do is a difficult one, and when 

it is subverted by individuals deliberately, I am not familiar with 

the specific case, it just makes that job more difficult. 

And here is really the crucial part of that: if it is a public place 

and the officer has the opportunity to make an arrest, generally it 

is a controlled situation. If the officers have to go to the home of 

that individual, it is not a controlled situation anymore. 

My uncle and my aunt were both law enforcement officers in the 

city of Baltimore for many years. The worst thing that any police 

family can ever hear is that their loved one is not coming home, 

and if you put an agent in harm’s way, I do not understand that. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Arthur. I am going to yield back. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentlewoman from Washington, Ms. Jayapal, is now recognized. 

Ms. JAYAPAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our 

panel for being here. 

I must say that I have had a challenge listening to our majority 

witnesses today. I have worked on immigration issues for the last 

20 years of my life; I have been on a domestic violence agency 

board for many years, and I appreciate the testimony of Ms. Pyati 

in really trying to set the record straight about exactly why we 

have a division between Federal law enforcement and local law enforcement. 

There is a very specific reason why there are 600 jurisdictions 

across the country who have actually said the role of local law enforcement is to enforce public safety, not to get involved in Federal 

immigration laws enforcement. And some people do not realize this, 

but I think it is worth saying again for anybody who might be 

watching this hearing and perhaps some of you on the panel, but 

our Federal immigration system is a civil system. It is not a criminal system. It is a civil system. So, when somebody violates immigration laws simply for being here without documented presence, 

that is a civil offense. It is not a criminal offense. 

And I would like to set the record straight for, I believe it was, 

Mr. Smith who was talking about Federal sentencing rates. I just 

want to be clear about something. Federal sentencing rates are not 

a reliable indicator of criminal offenses because more than half of 

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lated offenses that include illegal entry, which is a misdemeanor, 

or illegal reentry, which is considered a felony. 

That has happened over the years as we have criminalized undocumented presence in this country instead of passing comprehensive immigration reform. 

Now, there is one thing that Ms. Vaughn said that I agree with, 

which is, ‘‘Some things can only be done by Congress.’’ Yes, comprehensive immigration reform is one of the things that can only 

be done by Congress. And, in fact, we had bipartisan agreement for 

that comprehensive immigration reform in 2013 where 68 senators 

agreed that we should pass an immigration reform bill because 

they understand the hypocrisy of a country that utilizes the labor 

of immigrants. 

If you eat fruits or vegetables, you utilize the labor of immigrants; if you stay in hotel rooms, you utilize the labor of immigrants. There are numerous places across this country where you 

simply cannot wake up in the morning without utilizing the labor 

of undocumented immigrants that have been building this country. 

So, that would be a solution that we should really move towards. 

Now, I want to talk quickly about immigration detainers and 

then ask Ms. Pyati a question about domestic violence and victims 

of crime. The overwhelming number of sanctuary jurisdictions are 

not violating the law. Let us be very clear about this. The vast majority of sanctuary policies, if you look at the Constitution in U.S.C. 

1373, do not prevent citizenship and immigration status information from being shared. 

In fact, when we worked on these sanctuary policies in my home 

State of Washington, my prosecutor, Dan Satterberg, who I will 

quote from in a second, as well as our local police chiefs, have been 

terrific about understanding that their mission is to promote community trust, and that they can only do that if they pass policies 

that ensure that people understand they are not enforcing immigration law; they are trying to protect public safety. 

I wanted to read to you what our association, the Major Cities 

Chiefs Association, stated, ‘‘Immigration laws are very complex and 

the training required to understand them significantly detracts 

from the core mission of local police to create safe communities.’’ 

Recently, our county prosecutor published an op-ed in the Seattle 

Times where he said, ‘‘From my position as King County prosecutor,’’ this is a prosecutor, ‘‘I can tell you that these actions have 

the opposite effect for crime victims.’’ He is talking specifically 

about all of the immigration executive orders that this President 

has signed. And here is what he said, ‘‘When victims of crime are 

afraid to trust police and the courts, the only winners are violent 

people because our top mission is public safety. This ‘crackdown’ is 

an immediate and serious concern to those of us who work to protect our residents.’’ 

So, Ms. Pyati, could you tell me, in your opinion, is local law enforcement qualified to act as immigration enforcement agents? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentlewoman has expired. 

Ms. Pyati, why don’t you answer her question? 

Ms. PYATI. I will answer quickly, Chairman. Thank you. 

I do not believe they are. Thank you, Congresswoman, for asking 

the question. The immigration code is huge. Some compare it to the 


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tax code in its complexity and diversity of issues it tackles. Just 

like I would not ask my doctor to fill out my taxes, I do not want 

the person who is in charge of my safety to be also spending his 

time worrying about the immigration law. Immigration law should 

be enforced by the Federal Government, not by our local police. 

Ms. JAYAPAL. Thank you, Ms. Pyati. And Mr. Chairman, if there 

is no opposition, I would like to introduce for the record the statement from our Supreme Court Justice on this issue in particular, 

just that statement. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

Ms. JAYAPAL. Thank you. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 

each of the witnesses for being here today. Since being elected to 

Congress in 2010, I have consistently advocated for some form of 

immigration reform, and I have consistently advocated for achieving immigration reform by addressing each aspect of our immigration system separately and in order. That makes sense to the 

American people. 

I believe that before we can address those who are currently here 

illegally or how to best modernize our visa programs, we must act 

to ensure that our immigration laws are being properly enforced. 

That must come first. This requires Congress acting to provide 

those who enforce our immigration laws with the tools and support 

they need to accomplish their mission. 

Mr. Arthur, I just want to ask you a quick question, because I 

hear this again and again and again. As a former immigration 

judge, is entry into the United States without documentation a 

crime or not? 

Judge ARTHUR. It is a misdemeanor. 

Mr. LABRADOR. It is a misdemeanor. So, I just get tired of hearing it is not a crime. It is a crime whether you want to enforce that 

law. We can have that discussion here in Congress, but it is a misdemeanor to come into the United States illegally. Ms. Vaughn, 

why have interior removals declined so much in the past several 

years? 

Ms. VAUGHN. Because of deliberate policies that were put into 

place by the Obama administration to greatly restrict the types of 

cases that ICE officers could pursue for deportation, and that exempted, according to one former ICE official, 99 percent of illegal 

aliens who were here. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So, what message does this decline send to those 

who would enter our country illegally or who have entered illegally? 

Ms. VAUGHN. It sends the message that if you can get here, in 

all likelihood, you will not be subject to deportation. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So, have we seen a difference in the last few 

months over the messaging and the results at the border? 

Ms. VAUGHN. There are some signs, according to the statistics 

that have been released by CBP, that apprehensions as a measure 

of attempts have dramatically declined over the last 2 months, and 

that the smuggling prices have risen, which is taken as an indicator that it is much harder to do now. 


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Mr. LABRADOR. Mr. Arthur, you testified about the impact that 

President Obama’s executive actions had on ICE’s ability to carry 

out its mission. 

Recently, President Trump has tried to reverse the damage done 

by President Obama’s actions. While I applaud these actions, I believe that Congress needs to act to ensure that we will not continue 

to have dramatic shifts in enforcement policies. I do not want one 

President to do one thing and another President to do something 

else. 

What can Congress do to ensure that future Presidents are not 

able to unilaterally halt or dramatically change interior enforcement activities? 

Judge ARTHUR. Any amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act would limit the ability, would have language in it, mandatory language, that would limit the ability of any future President 

to do something other than what it is. ‘‘With respect to inadmissibility, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take into custody 

and shall remove any individual,’’ for example. You could put mandatory language in 237 and in 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and you could put in detainer language as well. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. Ms. Vaughn, I am very concerned 

about the number of visa overstays that are occurring each year. 

We need to have a system to track individuals who come here on 

a visa and ensure that they leave when their visa expires. What 

roadblocks have you seen to implementing a functioning tracking 

system? 

Ms. VAUGHN. The lack of will on the part of the Federal Government to move forward with it. We got the entry part at airports 

and seaports done very effectively, but there simply has not been 

enough interest in completing the system. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. Sheriff, in your testimony, you discussed your participation as Section 287(g) program. Was the training your department received sufficient to be able to effectively assist ICE? 

Sheriff HODGSON. We are in the process, Congressman. They will 

be going within a couple of months, but I built an immigration detention facility at my complex in Dartmouth, so I have been housing illegals for over 8 years. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. Do you have suggestions, though, on how 

the training could be improved? Do you have anything as you have 

gone through the system? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Well, I think the training is critically important. The Federal Government does cover the cost, and that is the 

biggest part for any jurisdiction, is making sure that the costs are 

covered because we do have in our State some legislators who are 

attempting to prevent us by legislation from even participating in 

287(g), suggesting that our staff work for the State, and therefore, 

we should not be doing that, which would be contrary. 

And I think the committee needs to know this, that if we are 

going to suggest we cannot work with ICE, then what happens to 

our Federal task forces? I have people full time on the FBI task 

force, DEA. We have people that need to be out there every day, 

sharing the information, and making sure we put our best foot forward to get these criminals off the street. 


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Mr. LABRADOR. Are those task forces making your communities 

more safe or less safe? 

Sheriff HODGSON. More safe. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Cicilline. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Sheriff Hodgson 

said, public safety is our most fundamental responsibility, and it is 

precisely because of that that community-oriented policing policies 

must be protected, as they are vital to public safety because law 

enforcement rely on trust and cooperation from all their community 

members, including immigrants, to help prevent, solve, and prosecute crimes. 

Local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to decide 

which community trust policies work best for the individual localities, and that is why many cities have adopted policies that allow 

immigrants to come forward and seek the assistance of the police 

without fear. As my former chief said, and many chiefs across the 

country have said, the single most powerful tool the local police department has is the trust and confidence of the community. 

President Trump’s immigration crackdown, which is strong-arming local government, has created a climate of fear and uncertainty 

that has already begun to undermine public safety. The administration’s large immigration enforcement operations and attempts to 

force local police to do the work of ICE are making immigrants, 

both documented and undocumented, afraid to leave their homes, 

go to the grocery store, and send their children to school, as well 

as to help local law enforcement in fighting crime. There are also 

reports that domestic violence and sexual assault crimes, victims 

are afraid to report these crimes for fear of being apprehended 

themselves. 

Many of the witnesses in today’s hearing have suggested that the 

immigrant community is disproportionately responsible for crimes, 

so I would ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, to include in the 

record two reports, one from the Sentencing Project that found foreign-born residents of the United States commit crime less often 

that native-born citizens and another study by the Cato Institute 

comparing incarceration rates by migratory status that comes to 

the same conclusion. And despite the suggestion of—— 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, the material will be included in the record. 

[The information follows:] 

COMMITTEE INSERT 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And despite the suggestion of Mr. Smith that this does not distinguish between illegal 

and legal immigrants, the report says, ‘‘A few studies using other 

data sources to differentiate the legal status have supported the 

conclusion that immigrants, regardless of legal status, do not have 

higher crime rates than native-born citizens,’’ and there are three 

studies to support that. So, I want to set the record straight that 

that underlying claim is simply not true. 

I would also ask unanimous consent to introduce into the record 

a letter from February 28, 2017, signed by a number of law enVerDate Sep 11 2014 06:06 Apr 25, 2018 Jkt 029774 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A774.XXX A774

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forcement leaders across the country, criticizing the shifting of the 

burden of Federal immigration law onto local law enforcement 

agencies. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, that will be included as 

well. 

[The information follows:] 

[COMMITTEE INSERT] 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. And Ms. Pyati, I would ask you, hundreds of law enforcement agencies throughout the United States 

have adopted community trust policies. These agencies, everywhere 

from Michigan to California to Ohio, report that such policies, far 

from increasing crime, actually reduce it, and recent comprehensive 

studies have supported these claims statistically, showing that 

community trust jurisdictions are demonstrably safer than their 

counterparts. Why is that? Can you help us understand why communities where these trust jurisdictions are actually protecting our 

constituents and providing safer communities, less crime, why is 

that happening? 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you very much, Congressman. I think you actually said it yourself. You said that the former chief in your jurisdiction indicated it is really that trust between the community and 

the police officers that allows for thorough reporting by victims; it 

allows for cooperation as witnesses; it allows for investigations into 

community, you know, knocking on doors and finding those witnesses who want to respond and offer what they have seen, what 

they have heard. There is really no way to prosecute and investigate crime committed by anyone, whether it is a citizen or a legal 

immigrant or an undocumented immigrant; there is really no way 

to prosecute crime without participation of residents in the community. And so, that trust is the number one thing we are looking for. 

Mr. CICILLINE. You made some reference to an example of a case 

in which there had been someone who was murdered who without 

the presence of two witnesses—are there other instances that you 

are aware of around the country where individuals have either 

been unwilling or unable to come forward because of their immigration status, and how do you think the Trump policy or the 

Trump administration’s policies are making that either more likely 

or less likely to happen, and what is the impact on the safety of 

our communities as a result? 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, I am aware of a number of cases around the country that really resonate with what I 

was sharing earlier. I would say that one of the things that happens is that when a person is afraid to come forward and report 

crime or share information as a witness, our hands are tied behind 

our back in terms of investigating. We also do not then have a lot 

of media reports, for example, about those individuals because, as 

stated, they are too afraid to come forward, and so we do not get 

the splash that we might get otherwise in these situations. 

I do know that in El Paso, when there was an ICE pick-up of a 

woman while she was receiving her protection order, a message 

was sent, loud and clear, across the country, especially to survivors 

of violence: ‘‘if you use the criminal justice system to report the 

crime committed against you by an abuser, if you pursue what our 


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system is here to offer, which is a protection order, safety for you 

and your family, you could be a victim of an arrest by ICE in that 

moment and possibly deported.’’ 

And so, that had a very significant, chilling effect that our national hotlines, our national advocates, and coalitions across the 

country that work on domestic violence have been reporting in the 

last month and a half or so, a very significant drop-off. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Chairman, I would just say that—— 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. The 

gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, 

all of you, for being here. I know it has been a long day. We are 

almost done. 

Sheriff, my first question is for you. Last year, I was a legislator 

in Louisiana State Legislature, and in 2016, I coauthored a bill to 

prohibit local governments and State agencies from adopting sanctuary policies in our State. We were going to penalize them by taking away their ability to borrow money from certain projects from 

our State Bond Commission unless they complied with the Federal 

law. 

Ultimately, what happened down there was quite a saga. Our 

Democrat governor, with the assistance of a few local law enforcement officials in the New Orleans area, killed our legislation. They 

argued that our efforts were political pandering and that this was 

something that should remain solely a Federal effort. I just was curious, from your perspective, as a law enforcement official on the 

ground, as it were, you are the top law enforcement official in your 

county. I know that your state does not have such a ban, but if 

such a statute was presented in Massachusetts, or in other States, 

for that matter, do you think that is something that would be helpful, a State law to ban sanctuary cities? 

Sheriff HODGSON. State law banning, Congressman, sanctuary 

cities? Yes, absolutely. I mean, look, I commend you for filing that 

down in Louisiana. The reality is that we are basically suggesting 

that there are certain laws that we can enforce and certain laws 

that we cannot. Law enforcement cannot be put in that position. 

And I think it is important to point out our frontier has changed 

since 1993, when the first Trade Center was hit, in regards to how 

we police our communities. 

We are seeing a lot more gang activities through illegal immigration and I know that these police chiefs, and I think it is important 

for this committee to know—I am not going to say all police chiefs, 

but I think it is important to be mindful of the fact that police 

chiefs are appointed by mayors; sheriffs are not. We are elected by 

the people, as you are, so we are not beholden and our jobs are not 

relying and supporting our families based on the political appointments that we get. I think it is important for the committee to keep 

that in mind when it comes to measuring what, unfortunately, 

many of the chiefs’ positions that they have and have been put 

into. 

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I appreciate you saying that, and I 

wish I had had your testimony in Louisiana when I was battling 

that last year. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Any time you want me to come down. 


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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. All right. As John Adams famously 

said, he was distinguishing our republic from the monarchy in 

Great Britain, what we were fleeing from, he famously said, ‘‘We 

are a Nation of laws, not of men.’’ And we have to follow those laws 

and it is important to do that on a local and regional level just as 

it is on a Federal level, or it undermines that foundation of our republic. 

Another question. Do you believe there is adequate collaboration 

currently between Federal and local law enforcement agencies on 

addressing illegal immigration? More specifically, is there anything 

that maybe we could do to improve the sharing of intelligence? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Well, Congressman, I think that there is always more we can do. I think there is some cyber things that we 

can do through the internet and so forth that could help in addition 

to the acceleration of the 287(g) program. That becomes critically 

important because within our prisons across this country we really 

are the central intelligence base. The President pointed that out in 

a recent speech to the sheriffs and I think most law enforcement 

people would agree with me that that is critically important to 

have that information shared back and forth on an ongoing basis. 

The extension of 287(g) and the acceleration of it would be great. 

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. That same theme of technology, 

Judge Arthur, this is for you. Can you expand on why it is more 

difficult for the court when asylum and Border Patrol agent interviews are not electronic? 

Judge ARTHUR. Absolutely, and it is a very good question. Often, 

what will happen is asylum officers will present what purports to 

be the statement of the alien. Sometimes it is simply a summarization of what the alien said. If, in court, the alien is confronted 

by the ICE attorney with a contrary statement to one that is contained in the asylum application, often they will say, ‘‘I did not say 

that. That does not accurately reflect it.’’ I do not have the asylum 

officer in front of me and unfortunately, ICE never provides them. 

So, to have an actual electronic statement would allow me to look 

at that and better identify any true inconsistencies which would 

greatly aid in the decision. 

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Thank you. I think I have got 30 seconds left. 

Ms. Vaughn, this one is for you. In your testimony, you briefly 

mentioned how our local law enforcement agencies have been affected by incarcerating illegal aliens on local charges without the 

cooperation of ICE officers. I am just wondering if you can expand 

on the State criminal alien assistance program and what changes 

to the reimbursement program might need to be made. 

Ms. VAUGHN. Well, I think it would be a good idea and more effective to have that reimbursement funding tied to specific cooperation, and that is honoring ICE detainers. In other words, if a jurisdiction is not honoring ICE detainers, then they become ineligible 

for SCAAP funding. I think that would be a simple fix to the program that would be more directly relevant to the situation today. 

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Thank you all. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, will bat cleanup. 


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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the chairman and ranking 

member for a very important hearing. Let me ask just a straightforward question that deals with fixing the immigration laws and 

allowing individuals to come from out of the shadows and distinguishing individuals who are here as opposed to criminals and others who happen to be unstatused. Mr. Hodgson, would you support 

comprehensive immigrant reform, yes, or no? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Congresswoman, I have been working on that 

for 20 years, going back to the days of Henry Hyde and Barney 

Frank. I worked on the first bill that made it through the House. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. I was probably around at the 

time, sir. Good to see you. Ms. Vaughn, would you support comprehensive immigration reform? 

Ms. VAUGHN. No, I think it makes much more sense. We learn 

from—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Let me go on to Mr. Arthur. 

Judge ARTHUR. I would probably recommend enforcement of the 

immigration laws we have. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would you support comprehensive immigration reform? It takes into account enforcement. If you look at the 

concept of the Gang of Eight, it takes into enforcement. Would you 

support it? 

Judge ARTHUR. I would have to look at the particulars of any legislation. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. All right. Let me—— 

Ms. PYATI. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes. Would you support—— 

Ms. PYATI. Yes, Congresswoman, I would support it. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you so very much. Let me quickly move 

forward on my questioning. All of us were appalled at the killing 

of Kate Steinle and others who have suffered, but if we are to correlate that tragedy to high crime work with non-status people, as 

Republicans have tried to do, San Francisco then would have a 

high murder rate and, as of 2015, there was no rise in San Francisco’s murder rate in the 26 years it has had ‘‘a sanctuary city.’’ 

In fact, the city’s murder rate has fallen to its lowest level in decades, which I think is a very important point. 

The other point is that I would ask a yes or no question. Do you 

think, in the context of unstatused, that we are trying to deport the 

bad hombres that President Trump said? Is that, Sheriff, what 

your focus would be, the bad hombres? Yes or no? 

Sheriff HODGSON. That is exactly what the priority is. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Ms. Vaughn. 

Ms. VAUGHN. According to the Department of Homeland Security—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes or no? 

Ms. VAUGHN [continuing]. There are about 2 million criminal 

aliens in the country, and we should make them the top of the priority for deportation. Of course, you know, others are appropriate 

to deport as well. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Mr. Arthur? I am so sorry. 

Judge ARTHUR. In my court, Ms. Jackson Lee, I would see many 

individuals for a long period of time. I would see individuals who 

had committed serious domestic violence offenses. 


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Ms. JACKSON LEE. So, you would think that the bad elements 

should be the top priority, the bad hombres? 

Judge ARTHUR. Unfortunately, I saw those people disappear from 

my court. I do not know why. So, yes, I think that we should definitely remove individuals who commit serial drunk driving offenses 

like the chairman spoke about—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. All right. Thank you very much. 

Judge ARTHUR [continuing]. Horrible, domestic violence offense. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Ms. Pyati, your view of that? 

Ms. PYATI. Yes, thank you, Congresswoman. I certainly—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I am only rushing because I want to ask 

you a lengthier question, so it is just a yes or a no. Do you think 

it should be focused on the bad hombres that should be deported? 

Ms. PYATI. I think we should be focusing on those with serious 

criminal violations, yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you so very much. 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would like to offer into the record this comment: ‘‘Trump supporter thought President would only deport bad 

hombres; instead, her husband is being deported. Months later, 

after she voted, Roberto Beristain, her husband, a successful businessman, respected member of his Indiana town, and father of 

three American-born children, languishes in a detention facility 

with hardened criminals as he awaits his deportation back to Mexico, the country he left in 1998 when he entered the United States 

illegally.’’ I ask unanimous consent for that to be put into the 

record. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 

[COMMITTEE INSERT] 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. I also ask unanimous consent to 

be put into the record the statement of the Travis County Sheriff’s 

Office policy on cooperation with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to negate any suggestion that the so-called sanctuary city label is that cities are not cooperating with ICE. I ask 

unanimous consent to put that into the record. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 

[COMMITTEE INSERT] 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I also ask to put into the record this 

statement from the constitutional lawyers that this is unconstitutional, the order by Sessions and the President of the United States 

to penalize cities and deny them their money. I hope one of them 

will sue. I ask unanimous consent. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, reserving the right to object, who are 

these constitutional lawyers? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I am losing my time. I will pull that back. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I would like to reserve the right to—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. May I ask a question of Ms. Pyati? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Reserving the right to object, I would like 

to find out—— 


dlhill on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Are you going to give me extra time? I have 

a question for Ms. Pyati, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Just answer my question. You have been 

asking—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. There is a long list of, how many is it, staff? 

How much? 

No, there are more than that. They said they are representing 

292, 292, and they are from U.C. Irvine, University of San Francisco, Denver, and SMU Dedman School of Law, Southern Methodist. And there are 292. I can get those names; they are not attached to the letter right now. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The ranking member says she has already 

put that in the record. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. And may I ask my question? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Will you withdraw your unanimous consent request? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay, thank you. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. May I ask Ms. Pyati the question, please? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I ask unanimous consent the gentlewoman 

from Texas be given an additional minute. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Pyati, I am 

very familiar with the center. I think you know Marty down in 

Texas, and we have been very close working on it. I think it is very 

important to reemphasize how lives can be saved when we give the 

opportunity for individuals who are unstatused to feel free to report threats that not only can jeopardize the lives of the significant 

other, the spouse, the girlfriend, but the children in that home or 

in that context. Would you explain the impact that you have seen 

that the women that you have helped, of the children that have 

been involved, and how important is it for there to be freedom for 

that—— 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. Ms. 

Pyati, you may answer the question. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you so very much. 

Ms. PYATI. Thank you very much. Congresswoman, hello from 

our Texas office at Tahirih Justice Center, where you know we 

work hand in hand with Houston Police to help them to identify 

and investigate trafficking in the area. Our work there, I think, 

has been pioneering in attempting to bring trafficking as a crime 

under some kind of control. 

Right now, you have asked me to share with you something 

about a client. We do have a client who spoke at a briefing just a 

few weeks ago here in the House who shared that as a woman who 

met her husband, a U.S. citizen, military husband, overseas; he 

brought her here to the United States, and they had a child together. Their son was autistic, and the son was witnessing physical 

and emotional abuse in their home and was struggling significantly. 

She was afraid to contact law enforcement because her husband 

continued to say to her, ‘‘I am a citizen, and you do not have status, 

and if you call the police, you will be deported, and then our child 

will be with me, and you are out of luck.’’ And so, very desperately 

and very nervously, she contacted us for help and worked to build 


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42 

up her courage and eventually was able to cooperate with law enforcement, and her husband was removed from the home, allowing 

the child then to really flourish, and his autism has now significantly improved. 

So, we can see not just sort of emotional impact immediately, but 

certainly even cognitive and behavioral changes when abusers are 

removed from the home and women are able to care for their children in safety. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the chairman, and I thank the witness. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from California. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would like to ask unanimous consent to put in 

the record a letter from the Chief Justice of the California State 

Supreme Court, appointed by a Republican, I might add, to the Department of Homeland Security, asking that enforcement in courtrooms in California cease. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Chairman. 

[The information follows:] 

[COMMITTEE INSERT] 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from Washington. 

Ms. JAYAPAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the op-ed that I referred to from our 

King County prosecutor, also a Republican. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 

[COMMITTEE INSERT] 

Ms. JAYAPAL. Thank you. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I guess this shows that we Republicans are 

not like the Rockettes. 

Ms. JAYAPAL. That is right. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. This concludes today’s hearings. Thanks to 

all of our witnesses for attending. 

Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional written questions to the witnesses or additional 

materials for the record, and without objection, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ 


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