AMERICA’S IMMIGRATION SYSTEM: OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEGAL IMMIGRATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION 

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FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 5, 2013 

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AMERICA’S IMMIGRATION SYSTEM: OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEGAL IMMIGRATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 5, 2013 

Serial No. 113–1 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

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

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

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 

MARK AMODEI, Nevada 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

KEITH ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

JOE GARCIA, Florida 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

FEBRUARY 5, 2013 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 1 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 3 

The Honorable Luis V. Gutierrez, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Illinois, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ............................. 4 

The Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of South Carolina, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................... 4 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 6 

WITNESSES 

Vivek Wadhwa, Director of Research, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke 

University 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 16 

Michael S. Teitelbaum, Senior Advisor, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Wertheim 

Fellow, Harvard Law School 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 19 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 22 

Supplemental Material ........................................................................................ 340 

Puneet Arora, M.D., M.S., F.A.C.E., Vice President, Immigration Voice 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 31 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 34 

Honorable Julia ́n Castro, Mayor, San Antonio, TX 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 45 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 47 

Julie Myers Wood, President, Guidepost Solutions LLC 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 262 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 264 

Chris Crane, President, National Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

Council 118, American Federation of Government Employees 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 278 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 279 

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

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 282 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 284 

Muzaffar A. Chishti, Director, Migration Policy Institute’s office at New York 

University Law School 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 288 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 291 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Spencer Bachus, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Alabama, and Member, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 9 
Page

IV 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Doug Collins, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary .. 10 

Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................................................................................................................... 63

Material submitted by the Honorable Spencer Bachus, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Alabama, and Member, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 220 

Material submitted by the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 224 

Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 310 

Additional Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 313 

Material submitted by the Honorable Judy Chu, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ........ 317 

OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD BUT NOT REPRINTED

Report of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) titled Immigration Enforcement in 

the United States, the Rise of a Formidable Machinery, by Dorris Meissner, Donald M. Kerwin, Muzaffar Chishti, and Claire Bergeron, submitted by Muzaffar A. 

Chishti, Director, Migration Policy Institute’s Office, New York University Law 

School. The report is available at the Committee and can also be accessed at: 

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/enforcementpillars.pdf. 
(1) 

AMERICA’S IMMIGRATION SYSTEM: OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEGAL IMMIGRATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL 

IMMIGRATION 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:28 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Bob Goodlatte 

(Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Smith, Chabot, Bachus, Issa, 

Forbes, King, Franks, Gohmert, Jordan, Poe, Chaffetz, Marino, 

Gowdy, Amodei, Labrador, Farenthold, Holding, Collins, DeSantis, 

Rothfus, Conyers, Nadler, Watt, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Johnson, 

Pierluisi, Chu, Gutierrez, Bass, Richmond, DelBene, Garcia and 

Jeffries. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel; Branden Ritchie, Deputy Chief of Staff & Chief Counsel; Allison Halataei, Parliamentarian & General Counsel; George 

Fishman, Counsel; Kelsey Deterding, Clerk; (Minority) Perry 

Apelbaum, Staff Director & Chief Counsel; Danielle Brown, Parliamentarian; and David Shahoulian, Counsel. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Good morning. This hearing of the Committee 

on the Judiciary on America’s Immigration System: Opportunities 

for Legal Immigration and Enforcement of Laws Against Illegal 

Immigration will come to order. Today, we hold the first hearing 

of the Judiciary Committee in the 113th Congress, and I will recognize myself for an opening statement after I welcome the Ranking 

Member. 

This year, Congress will engage in a momentous debate on immigration. This will be a massive undertaking with implications for 

the future direction of our Nation. As such, we must move forward 

methodically and evaluate this issue in stages, taking care to fully 

vet the pros and cons of each piece. 

This debate is often emotionally charged. That is because it is 

not about abstract statistics and concepts, but rather about real 

people with real problems trying to provide a better life for their 

families. This holds true for U.S. citizens, for legal residents, and 

for those unlawfully residing in the United States. I urge the Mem-
2 

bers of this Committee to keep that in mind as we begin our examination. 

America is a Nation of immigrants. Everyone among us can go 

back a few or several generations to our own relatives who came 

to America in search of a better life for themselves and their families. 

But we are also a Nation of laws. I think we can all agree that 

our Nation’s immigration system is in desperate need of repair, and 

it is not working as efficiently and fairly as it should be. The American people and Members of Congress have a lot of questions about 

how our legal immigration system should work. They have a lot of 

questions about why our immigration laws have not always been 

sufficiently enforced. And they have a lot of questions about how 

a large-scale legalization program would work, what it would cost, 

and how it would prevent illegal immigration in the future. 

Immigration reform must honor both our foundation of the rule 

of law and our history as a Nation of immigrants. This issue is too 

complex and too important to not examine each piece in detail. We 

can’t rush to judgment. That is why the Committee’s first hearing 

will begin to explore ways to fix our broken system. Future hearings will take place in the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee under the leadership of Chairman Gowdy. 

Today we will begin our examination of the U.S. immigration 

system by evaluating our current legal system and ways to improve 

it, as well as the history of the enforcement of our immigration 

laws. 

The United States has the most generous legal immigration system in the world—providing permanent residence to over a million 

immigrants a year. And yet, all is not well. Prospective immigrant 

workers with approved petitions often have to wait years for green 

cards to become available. So do their employers. It has gotten so 

bad that the immigrant scholar, Vivek Wadhwa, who will be testifying before the Committee today, states that ‘‘if I were a young 

immigrant technologist in my mid-thirties, stuck on an H-1B visa 

in America, and trapped in a middling job, I would probably have 

decided to return to Australia or India.’’ What does this foretell for 

America’s continued economic competitiveness? 

Furthermore, legal permanent residents of the United States 

have to endure years of separation before they can be united with 

their spouses and minor children. 

Our laws also erect unnecessary hurdles for farmers who put 

food on America’s tables. Our agriculture guest worker program is 

simply unworkable and needs to be reformed. At the same time, we 

allocate many thousands of green cards on the basis of pure luck 

through the Diversity Visa Lottery Program, and we allocate many 

thousands of green cards to nonnuclear family members. Some 

characterize this as ‘‘chain migration,’’ which, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has recently written, ‘‘does not promote the Nation’s economic interests.’’ 

It is instructive to note that while America selects about 12 percent of our legal immigrants on the basis of their education and 

skills, the other main immigrant-receiving countries of Australia, 

the United Kingdom, and Canada each select over 60 percent of 

their immigrants on this basis. 
3 

These are just a few of the issues plaguing our legal immigration 

system, not to mention the larger question of how to address the 

estimated 10 million individuals unlawfully present in the U.S. 

Whether or not America should become more like our global competitors, we do need to have a serious conversation about the goals 

of America’s legal immigration system. 

Today, we will also discuss the extent to which past and present 

Administrations have enforced our immigration laws, and whether 

we believe those efforts have been sufficient and effective. This is 

a crucial question. The year 1986 was the last time Congress 

passed comprehensive immigration reform. At that time, Congress 

granted legal status to millions who were unlawfully present in exchange for new laws against the employment of illegal immigrants 

in order to prevent the need for future amnesties. However, these 

‘‘employer sanctions’’ were never seriously implemented or enforced. Even Alan Simpson, the Senate author of the 1986 legislation, has concluded that, despite the best of intentions, the law did 

not satisfy ‘‘its expectations or its promises.’’ 

This Committee needs to take the time to learn from the past so 

that our efforts to reform our immigration laws do not repeat the 

same mistakes. Regardless of the conclusions of this national conversation, I think we can all agree that America will remain true 

to our heritage as a Nation of immigrants as well as a Nation of 

laws. 

I look forward to the testimony of all of today’s witnesses, and 

now I turn to our Ranking Member, the gentleman from Michigan, 

Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte. This is an important hearing, and you started off on a very important analysis of 

where we are. And I am not here to critique your presentation, but 

to make my own. But I could summarize what I think we are going 

to be addressing in three phrases: one, comprehensive; two, a path 

to citizenship; and three, border security more than ever. 

Well, let us take the one we can most easily agree on is border 

security. It is improving. Well, there is always somebody that is 

going to get through, but I think that we have a general consensus 

about the ways that we may do a better job, and I would like to 

just throw out that there may be a few Members of the House Judiciary Committee that would like to go to the border and examine 

this and talk with those who are responsible for it. And I propose 

with the Chairman that we continue this discussion as these hearings proceed. 

Now, the notion of comprehensive immigration reform has been 

pushed around and bandied about, but the fact of the matter is 

that this is one big challenge that I don’t think we can handle on 

a piecemeal basis. I mean, my experience with this subject tells me 

that with 10-11 million undocumented people living among us, we 

have got to approach this in terms of a more holistic way. 

Now, I think that there must be an earned legalization process 

that is fair, but firm, and that is not—that is not subject to a lot 

of manipulation. And, you know, to my colleagues, there is in some 

quarters among our citizens more agreement than there is sometimes in this body. And I am hoping, and I believe that it can be 

done, that this Committee will rise above our political instincts and 
4 

try to serve the Nation and these American citizens in a very important way. 

I hope no one uses the term ‘‘illegal immigrants’’ here today. The 

people in this country are not illegal. They are out of status, they 

are new Americans that are immigrants, and I think that we can 

forge a path to citizenship that will be able to pass muster. We 

have got a Senatorial bipartisan support working very nicely thus 

far. And if it pleases the Chairman, I would like to yield the rest 

of my limited time—little time I have left to the gentleman Mr. 

Luis Gutierrez, who is now back on the Committee, and who I celebrate. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Conyers, the time has expired, but in recognition of the return of Mr. Gutierrez and your generosity, we will 

yield him 1 minute to close your remarks. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you so much, Mr. Conyers, Congressman 

Conyers, and Chairman Goodlatte. I expressed to Chairman Goodlatte that I had come back to the Committee, giving up 20 years 

of seniority on Financial Services, because I believe that this Committee is that important. The Chairman said to me, don’t put too 

much pressure on me. 

I just wanted to share that I didn’t come here to undermine anyone’s work and to challenge anybody’s work, but to work in a collaborative spirit with you, Chairman Goodlatte, with my colleagues 

here, to frame a comprehensive immigration solution to our broken 

immigration system. 

I want to welcome the witnesses that are here today and just to 

share with everyone this issue is important to me. And I didn’t 

come here with an engineering degree, with a Ph.D. My mom had 

a sixth-grade education, my dad didn’t graduate from high school, 

but I think they did pretty well with their son. 

And I have come here simply to say that while I don’t hold any 

of these prestigious degrees either, that immigrants have come 

here to do and to sweat and to toil in this country, and that if we 

could just part from the premise, and that is, as Gandhi might 

have said today, right, let us have politics with principles, because 

the absence of one really leads us down a very treacherous road 

that I don’t think America wants to live in. 

So I thank you, Chairman Goodlatte, and I really look forward 

to working with all of my wonderful colleagues here, and especially 

Zoe Lofgren and Mr. Gowdy. I am looking forward to that Subcommittee experience with the both of you. Thank you so much for 

allowing me to express myself here this morning. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. We are glad to have you back, Mr. Gutierrez. 

And now it is my pleasure to recognize the Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, the gentleman from South Carolina Mr. 

Gowdy, for his opening statement. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A couple of years ago, a young African author spoke at a high 

school in South Carolina. Mr. Chairman, she was a beautiful, talented young woman, and when she looked at her arm to brush 

away the hair from her eyes, I saw something I have never seen 
5 

before, at least not in this country, which was someone’s hands 

that had been cut off with a machete. 

When she was 12 years old living in Sierra Leone, rebel soldiers 

came to her village during the civil war. She tried to run. She tried 

to hide. She asked God to let her die. But the soldiers found her, 

and they cut off her hands and mockingly told her to go to the 

President and ask for another pair. And that 12-year-old girl, Mr. 

Chairman, remembered thinking to herself, what is a President? 

Collectively, Mr. Chairman, we all understand why people want 

to come to this country to escape persecution, to taste freedom and 

liberty, to know that hard work and education and a level playing 

field can combine forces to transform lives. Escaping conflict and 

hardship is one thing, Mr. Chairman; picking a new home is another. And America is picked because we are a country that embraces justice. We reward fairness. We are an a Nation of laws. 

The poorest of the poor has the same standing in court as the richest of the rich. We believe in the even application of the law because law provides order, structure, predictability, and security. 

What we cannot become is a Nation where the law is enforced 

selectively or not at all. What we cannot become, Mr. Chairman, 

is a country where the laws apply to some of the people some of 

the time. 

The President from time to time, Mr. Chairman, says that he 

wants a country where everyone plays by the same rules. With respect, they aren’t called rules in this country, they are called laws, 

and each of us takes an oath to enforce them, including those with 

which we may disagree, because when the law is ignored or applied 

in an uneven way, we begin to see the erosion of the very foundation upon which this Republic was built. And make no mistake, Mr. 

Chairman, as surely as today one may benefit from the noncompliance or nonenforcement of a law, that same person will be clamoring to have the law enforced in another capacity. 

So we seek to harmonize two foundational precepts, Mr. Chairman. Number one is humanity, and number two is the respect for 

the rule of law. And history is whispering, as you noted, Mr. Chairman, that we have traveled this road before. In 1986, we were told 

that immigration had been settled once at for all. We were told 

that in exchange for secure borders and employment verification, 

those who entered the country illegally would not suffer the full 

panoply of legal consequences. In the minds of many, Mr. Chairman, the country got amnesty, but is still waiting 25 years later 

on the border security and the employment verification. 

So here we are back again, asking our fellow citizens to trust us, 

and many, despite ourselves, Mr. Chairman, remain open to legislative expressions of humanity and grace, but they will be watching 

skeptically to see if we are serious about enforcing the rule of law. 

Are we serious about ending the insidious practice of human trafficking? Are we serious about punishing those who prey on folks 

with false promises and fraudulent documents? Are we serious 

about border security and employment verification? Are we serious 

about making this the last last time we have this conversation, or 

are we simply playing political games with people’s lives and undercutting the respect for the rule of law, which ironically is the 
6 

very reason they seek to come to this country in the first place? We 

shall see. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

And it is now my pleasure to recognize the gentlewoman from 

California, Ms. Lofgren, the Ranking Member of the Immigration 

Subcommittee. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate you on holding this hearing, our 

Committee’s first hearing, on our broken immigration system. I appreciate that gesture, as I do your recent public statement that you 

are open to reform, and that America does not need a ‘‘trail of 

tears’’ to the border. 

I congratulate Mr. Gowdy as well on his chairmanship, and I 

look forward to working with him to find that balance between respect for the rule of law as well as our morality and humanity. I 

look forward to working with both of you in a bipartisan manner 

on these reform efforts. 

But as we move forward, we need to recognize that our broken 

system does immeasurable harm every day that it goes 

unreformed. A trail of tears to the border is not that far off from 

the system we currently have. Every day our system tears families 

apart, husbands from their wives, parents from their children. If 

we want a moral and humane system, we have a lot of work to do. 

America is ready for us to do that work. 

I participated in the immigration debate during my 18 years in 

Congress and long before that as an immigration attorney and law 

professor teaching immigration law. Today the country is past the 

point of debating whether we need reform. They are simply counting on us to get it done. And the growing bipartisan consensus 

means, I think, that we can get it done. Conservative leaders from 

Jeb Bush and Karl Rove to Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have 

signaled support for comprehensive reform efforts including a path 

for undocumented immigrants. Even Rush Limbaugh told Senator 

Marco Rubio that his efforts for immigration reform are admirable 

and noteworthy and recognize reality. 

We have also seen Members in both parties in the House and 

Senate voice strong support for immigration reform,we know, with 

the bipartisan Blueprint for Immigration Reform released last 

week by eight Senators, and there are similar bipartisan discussions in the House. It will take such bipartisanship to solve this 

problem, and I am hopeful that this is the year we finally enact 

top-to-bottom reform of our immigration laws. 

As we will hear today, our current system is dysfunctional in 

many ways, keeping families apart for decades and hindering economic growth and American global competitiveness. Designing a 

sensible, legal immigration system is critical to preserving the rule 

of law. We need a legal immigration system that works so that 

workers and families who want to come here are able to go through 

that system rather than around it. 

Yet, despite the incredible need to reform the system, all we have 

done is enforce the heck out of it, especially over the last several 

years. We are now removing record numbers of undocumented immigrants each year, while attempted border crossings are at their 
7 

lowest levels in more than 40 years. According to experts, net flight 

migration from Mexico is now zero and likely lower than that. 

Every year we spend more money on immigration enforcement, nearly $18 billion per year, than on all other Federal law enforcement combined. All of this enforcement hasn’t solved the problem, 

and it should not be used to delay top-to-bottom reform of our laws. 

What needs to be done is not that complicated. We know a reform bill must include additional border enforcement as well as employment eligibility verification to secure the workforce. We need to 

reform our employment visa system so that tech companies, farmers, and other U.S. businesses have access to needed workers. And 

we need to reform the family system to help keep families together. 

We also need to provide a way for 10- or 11 million undocumented 

immigrants to come out of the shadows, get right with the law in 

a way that is fair and practical. 

A few words of caution. First, partial legalization as some are 

suggesting is a dangerous path. We need only to look at France and 

Germany to see how unwise it is to create a permanent underclass. 

What makes America special is that people come here, assimilate, 

and become American with all of the rights and responsibilities 

that citizenship bestows. With the exception of slavery and the Chinese Exclusion Act, our laws have never barred persons from becoming citizens, and we should not start now. 

Second, we must not fall into the trap of calling for piecemeal reform. As Governor Jeb Bush recently wrote in the Wall Street 

Journal, Congress should avoid such quick fixes and commit itself 

instead to comprehensive immigration reform. Immigration, as he 

points out, is a system, and it needs systematic overhaul. 

Finally, we must make it easier to keep critical workers who can 

keep America competitive and grow our economy, but we should 

not do so by closing the door on family-based immigrants. Family 

unity has been the bedrock of our immigration system since the 

Immigration and Nationality Act was enacted in 1952. 

In addition to strengthening American families, family-based immigration plays an important role in bolstering our economy. Research shows that immigrants, most of whom come here through 

the family system, are twice as likely to start businesses in the 

U.S. as native-born people, and immigrant businesses, including 

small non-tech businesses, have grown at 2.5 times the national average. 

I often say I am glad that Google is in Mountain View rather 

than Moscow. Like Intel and Yahoo!, Google was founded by an immigrant, but it is worth noting that none of the founders of these 

companies came to the United States because of their skills. Sergey 

Brin, Jerry Yang, Andy Grove all came here through our familybased system or because they were refugees or the children of refugees. What made these founders special were the traits they share 

with immigrants of all kinds: entrepreneurism, risk taking, a desire for a better life. These are among the most admired values in 

our country, as it should be, because it is the secret sauce that 

makes America great. 

From Alexander Hamilton to Andrew Carnegie to Albert Einstein, we are a Nation forged by immigrants. It is time we fully 

embrace that immigration is good for our country. It is time we do 
8 

our part to devise a way for the people who have enough get-upand-go to get up and go and come to our shores, and bring their 

talent and contributions to our society and to our economy, and to 

become Americans with us. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlewoman. 

Without objection, all other Members’ opening statements will be 

made a part of the record. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bachus follows:] 
9 
10 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Collins follows:] 
11 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And we will turn now to our very distinguished 

first panel of witnesses. And I will begin by introducing that first 

panel. 

Our first witness on this panel is Mr. Vivek Wadhwa, a visiting 

scholar at the University of California-Berkeley, a senior research 

associate at Harvard Law School, and Director of Research at the 

Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at 

Duke University. He is also a faculty member and advisor at Sin-
12 

gularity University, and writes a regular column for both The 

Washington Post and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. 

Last year, his book, The Immigrant Exodus: Why America is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent, was named 

a ‘‘Book of the Year’’ by The Economist magazine. 

Mr. Wadhwa received his Bachelor’s degree from the University 

of Canberra in Australia, and received his M.B.A. from New York 

University’s Stern School of Business, and we thank him for coming today. 

Our next witness is Mr. Michael Teitelbaum, who currently 

serves as the Senior Director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 

From 1980 to 1990, he served as 1 of 12 Commissioners of the U.S. 

Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development. Prior to this he served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which completed its work in December 1997. 

Mr. Teitelbaum received his Bachelor’s degree from Reed College, 

and subsequently earned his Ph.D. in Demography from Oxford 

University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. We are glad to have 

him joining us today. 

The third member of this first panel is Dr. Puneet Arora, currently serving as the Vice President for Immigration Voice, a coalition of 75,000 highly skilled foreign professionals. He also serves as 

the Medical Director for Genentech, a biotech firm in San Francisco, California. Dr. Arora joined Amgen in 2008 as Clinical Research Medical Director, then Genentech in 2011. He has been a 

volunteer with Immigration Voice since 2006, and leads the Physician’s chapter as well as the Minnesota and Southern California 

chapters. 

Dr. Arora received his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in 1994. He completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at Southern Illinois School of Medicine in 

1999, and received fellowship training in Endocrinology, Diabetes, 

and Metabolism at New York University School of Medicine. He 

practiced in a medically underserved area and was subsequently 

granted a National Interest Waiver for permanent residence in the 

United States by USCIS. We thank Dr. Arora for serving as a witness today as well. 

Our final witness is the Honorable Julia ́n Castro, mayor of San 

Antonio, Texas. First elected in 2009 and reelected in 2011, Mayor 

Castro earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University 

with honors and distinction in 1996, and a juris doctorate from 

Harvard Law School in 2000. In 2001, at the age of 26, Castro became the youngest elected city councilman at that time in San Antonio history. Mayor Castro’s brother, Joaquin, serves in the U.S. 

House of Representatives. 

We are pleased to have the mayor with us today, and I will turn 

to the gentlewoman from Texas Ms. Jackson Lee for 15 seconds of 

additional welcome to the mayor. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very 

much. 

Mayor Castro is particularly well placed and unique for this role 

as a witness today. I would like to welcome his as a fellow Texan. 

I know that his brother, a Congressperson, Member of the U.S. 
13 

House of Representatives, has already done so, but as a mayor of 

one of the world’s international cities, who sees people coming from 

all backgrounds, you are well placed to understand what immigration and the opportunities and contributions that immigrants and 

those who come to this country for better opportunity can contribute, and I thank you so very much for your leadership of your 

city and your presence here today. Welcome, fellow Texan. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee. And I now turn 

to the former Chairman of the Committee and the gentleman from 

San Antonio, Texas, Mr. Smith for a comparably calculated 15 seconds of welcome. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to stick to the 

15. 

I, too, wanted to welcome the mayor of my hometown, San Antonio. Mayor, as we both know, San Antonio is a wonderfully livable, 

tricultural city, and you have done a great job representing us in 

so many ways. So welcome today. And also I want to say to you 

that I enjoy serving with your brother in Congress, who is sitting 

behind you as well. And we will talk more and look forward to your 

testimony as well. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Welcome to all of our witnesses, and we will 

begin with Mr. Wadhwa. 

TESTIMONY OF VIVEK WADHWA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, 

PRATT SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, DUKE UNIVERSITY 

Mr. WADHWA. Chairman Goodlatte, Members of the House Committee, thank you for giving me a chance to speak to you. 

You know, being here in D.C., it is very easy to be pessimistic. 

Everything about here, we worry about China, whether they are 

going to rule the future. We worry about shortages. We worry 

about everything in the world. And when you are worried about a 

lack of resources, shortages, and you worry about countries like 

China taking over the world, you become very pessimistic. You 

begin to wonder if there are shortages of engineers or a glut of engineers. In fact, some of the debates we will have is are we graduating too many scientists? 

All of this is based on a perspective of yesterday. You know, the 

United States has a way of reinventing itself. Every 30 or 40 years 

we get really, really worried about ourselves, and we start developing an inferiority complex, wondering why the rest of the world 

is better than we are. And then we wake up and realize that, hey, 

we are ahead again. 

The United States is in the middle of another reinvention right 

now. As we speak, we are in the middle of the next major rebound. 

Technology is changing the entire landscape and giving Americaits 

edge back, so much so that—let us start with manufacturing. I will 

give you a crash course in exponential technologies. 

You know, just like we saw oil being something we worried 

about, we worried about running out of oil, now you have newspapers writing about ‘‘Saudi America.’’ Fracking came along. Within 5 years it changed our entire perspective of oil. That is just one 

small thing. 
14 

Look at computing. Five years ago none of you would ever have 

used smartphones or been on Twitter or social media. Now all of 

us do that. Well, practically all of us do that. But the point is that 

we carry in our pockets more computing power than existed the 

day we were born. Think about it. Thirty years ago we would have 

banned this device because it was more powerful than a Cray 

supercomputer. Today it sits in our pocket waiting for us to check 

emails. That is how fast computing has advanced. 

The same thing is happening in manufacturing. If you look at the 

advances in robotics, in artificial intelligence, and 3D printing, 

within the next 5 to 7 years, my prediction is that China’s manufacturing industry will be toast; that it will start coming back to 

America like we never imagined before. 

You know, we have debates about health care. We worry about 

multitrillion-dollar deficits and our system becoming bankrupt. 

Health care is advancing like you can’t imagine. Between digital 

medicine and genomics, there are major advances happening. 

There is the quantified self. For example, I am a heart patient. My 

iPhone case is an EKG machine. I hope none of you have ever had 

heart problems or never had to get an EKG done. They are really 

painful. I attach the two leads on my iPhone. It does a complete 

EKG for me. I can email that EKG to my cardiologist. The way 

technology is going, 2 or 3 years from now I won’t need a cardiologist to be read my EKG. It will be read by a computer on the cloud. 

This same type of technology is being built in many other areas, 

which means we have preventative medicine. We will be able to 

save, you know, tremendous amounts of money on curing disease 

because we will prevent it. This is happening regardless of what we 

do. This is happening at light speed. 

We also have advances happening in other fields. For example, 

in California, we have the Google self-driving car. By the time it 

is released later in this decade, it is going to change the face of cities. A third of the land use in cities is for parking. We get stuck 

in traffic jams; 30,000 highway deaths. All of these things can be 

eliminated by one new invention. Also, 90 percent of the energy we 

use on transportation can be used by automated self-driving vehicles. 

There are major advances happening in education. These type of 

technologies are still expensive right now. In India they are going 

to be giving kids in school and teachers tablets which are bigger 

than this, as sophisticated as the iPhone 1 was for $20. Within the 

next 5 years, you are going to have another 3 billion people coming 

on the Internet worldwide. 

Look at the revolution that telephones and then social media created in the Middle East. In China, the government is quaking because its people are connected, they can talk to each other. Imagine 

what happens over the 5 or 7 years when the entire world comes 

online with technology. 

These are the sort of Earth-changing things that are happening, 

and it is all because of technology. And who is driving technology? 

Skilled immigrants are. People like me, engineers, scientists. It is 

a whole assortment of people that are driving these changes. And 

guess what? Until recently, 52 percent of the start-ups in Silicon 

Valley, the most innovative place on this planet, were immigrants. 
15 

So the people who were driving this boom I am talking about, this 

technology which is reinventing America, are skilled immigrants. 

Representative Gutierrez, I understand what you said about your 

parents not having been educated and the fact that things were 

very different. In an era in which, you know, skilled labor didn’t 

have as much value as today, it made sense that we definitely need 

the unskilled workers. There is no doubt about that. But in this 

new era, it is all about skill. The people who are making this happen are engineers, scientists, doctors, most importantly entrepreneurs. 

So we have a choice right now. We can either trip up the entrepreneurs who are going to reinvent America and save the world, 

or we can fix this problem instantly and create a better world, because we have the ability right now to solve humanity’s grand challenges. We can create unlimited energy, unlimited water, unlimited 

food. We can create security which protects us from threats. We 

can do all of this and maybe things right now, the new technology, 

and all within the next 5 or 7 years. 

I can almost guarantee that 5 years from now we are going to 

be debating how do we distribute some of the abundance we are 

creating? Because just like we are talking about oil being abundant, we are going to be talking about many other things becoming 

abundant. We will have different debates over here. 

But it is imperative that we, you know, allow Silicon Valley, our 

entrepreneurs, our technologists to do their magic and to save us. 

A strong America is important for the world. We can solve the 

world’s grand challenges, and immigration is one of the keys to 

making it happen. 

Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Wadhwa. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wadhwa follows:] 
16 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Teitelbaum, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL S. TEITELBAUM, SENIOR ADVISOR, 

ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION, WERTHEIM FELLOW, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Conyers, Members of the Judiciary Committee. Thank you for in-
20 

viting me to report on the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. It was a Commission established by 

the Immigration Act of 1990, and it is often called the Jordan Commission after its chair, Barbara Jordan, Congresswoman Jordan, 

who was, of course, a distinguished Member of this very Committee. Eight of the members of the Commission were appointed by 

the House and Senate majority and minority leadership, and the 

chair was appointed by the President. The mandate was very broad 

and you have in your written testimony from me a copy of the executive summary of the Commission report, the final report, which 

includes the mandate. So I won’t repeat that given the time. 

Now, as the Chair has said, these are contentious and emotional 

disagreements on these issues, so I want to tell you that the nine 

members of this Commission included among them almost all perspectives on immigration and refugee issues. And I told my wife 

there was little chance that this Commission was going to be able 

to reach any substantial majority agreement on anything. Ultimately that Commission, all of its recommendations, which you 

have before you in the written testimony, all of them were unanimous, or unanimous less one. 

Since we are focusing on legal immigration today, let me try to 

very quickly in the time I have summarize the Commission recommendations on that part of its mandate. The Commission was 

a strong supporter for a properly regulated legal immigration system that serves the national interest, and it decried hostility and 

discrimination against immigrants as antithetical to the traditions 

and interests of the United States. It said that a well-regulated immigration system enhances the potential benefits of immigration, 

but if it were not well regulated, it would not. 

The Commission said that there was a need to set priorities in 

immigration because there was much more demand than there was 

available visas. It should set priorities, and it should deliver on 

those priorities. 

With respect to the national interest, it said these were three priorities: unification of immediate or nuclear families, as one of the 

Members has already spoken to; admission of those highly skilled 

workers who are legitimately needed to support the international 

competitiveness of the U.S. workforce, as the previous witness has 

just mentioned; and refugee admissions, which haven’t yet been 

mentioned a great deal—refugee admissions and other actions that 

affirm U.S. commitments to provide refuge to the persecuted. The 

number of visas should flow from those priorities. 

The third point was from the Commission, the third recommendation and finding, was that the policies that it was reviewing in the 1990’s were broadly consistent with these three priorities, but they included elements among them that were creating 

serious problems in the 1990’s and that needed thoughtful attention. 

A fourth recommendation was that priorities in the family category should be established, and the Commission concluded that 

the priority should be placed on the expeditious admission of immediate or nuclear family members in this order: spouses and minor 

children of U.S. citizens, number one; parents of U.S. citizens, 

number two; and spouses and minor children of legal permanent 
21 

immigrants, number three. And it therefore recommended a reallocation of the visas in the family-based system from lower priority categories outside of those priorities. Those were the adult 

children and adult siblings of U.S. citizens, and the so-called diversity visas to the highest-priority categories that I just listed. 

The problem with the lower priority categories is they have never 

been given very many visas, and there was enormous demand and 

therefore very large backlogs in those categories. So the recommendation there was that we should stop trying to manage immigration by backlog—in effect we are making promises that we 

can’t keep—and instead focus on prompt admission of the highestpriority categories. And had that been done, all of those categories 

would have been admitted very promptly, within 1 year of application. But, of course, it didn’t happen, and in the absence of such 

actions, these backlogs have actually become longer and more extensive. 

The fifth recommendation was that a well-regulated admission 

system for skilled immigrants is in the national interest, and we 

already heard Vivek Wadhwa talk about that. So I won’t say a lot 

about it, but it is consistent with what he said. When needed, they 

contribute to the global competitiveness of the U.S. workforce. And 

then there is a second point which is that we want immigrants to 

do well in the United States. We want them to prosper, and if they 

are skilled, they are more likely to prosper than if they are not. 

However, this was a bit of a controversial recommendation the 

Commission found that the labor certification process for this category did not protect U.S. workers from unfair employment competition and does not serve the national interest, so it advocated a 

new and more market-driven approach for selection among those 

categories. 

The sixth recommendation was that admission of low-skilled and 

unskilled workers is not in the national interest. It recommended 

against the continuation of the small number of employment-based 

visas for low-skilled and unskilled workers. It could find no compelling evidence that employers who offer adequate remuneration 

would face difficulties in hiring from the large pools of low-skilled 

and unskilled workers in the U.S. workforce. And, of course, large 

numbers of such workers would be continuing to flow—much larger 

than the number of visas in this category—continue to flow under 

the family and refugee visa categories. 

Seventh, that admission of large numbers of temporary or guest 

workers in agriculture or other fields, the Commission said, would 

be a grievous mistake. The Commission found that such programs 

lead to particularly harmful effects. Guest workers are vulnerable 

to exploitation, and their presence in large numbers depresses the 

wages and working conditions of U.S. workers, which, by the way, 

includes recent immigrants. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. If you want to go ahead and just summarize 

each of the last two points, because I know you do want to get all 

nine in, but we are out of time. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. I mentioned the refugee thing, and the Commission recommended a well-regulated resettlement program. 

And finally, it recommended more flexibility and adaptability of 

immigration policies needed as circumstances changed. So in my 
22 

testimony you will see an example of another country with quite 

a lot of similarities to the U.S. in which they have come up with 

a way to have a more flexible system that is based on rigorous 

analysis of where the needed employment-based visas might be. 

And I will suspend at that point, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. And what country is that? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. That is the United Kingdom. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Teitelbaum follows:] 
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31 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Dr. Arora, thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF PUNEET ARORA, M.D., M.S., F.A.C.E., 

VICE PRESIDENT, IMMIGRATION VOICE 

Dr. ARORA. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. You should hit the button on your microphone 

and pull it close to you. Pull it close. Pull the microphone close to 

you. 
32 

Mr. ARORA. Distinguished Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member 

Conyers and Members of this Committee, on behalf of Immigration 

Voice and the many highly skilled professionals and their families 

waiting for permanent resident status to the United States, I thank 

you for this opportunity to contribute my views toward immigration 

reform. 

Immigration Voice is a grassroots organization of highly skilled 

foreign men and women that have come together to advocate for a 

change in the employment-based green card system. Today I would 

like to talk to you about the problems faced by 1 million highly 

skilled foreign professionals and their families, future Americans, 

most of whom have been gainfully employed in the United States 

for a decade or more, but find themselves in lines for a green card. 

Our community is invested in America through our diligence, innovation, and productivity. Our children are Americans. This is our 

home. 

My journey through the employment-based backlog began in 

1996 with a medical residency program at the Southern Illinois 

University School of Medicine in Springfield; followed by a fellowship in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the New York 

University School of Medicine; and then to the Mayo Clinic in 

Rochester, Minnesota, for a fellowship in advanced diabetes. 

In 2003, I joined the clinical practice with the Health Partners 

Medical Group in St. Paul, Minnesota, and as assistant professor 

of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. My 

practice was in a medically underserved area with a substantial 

population of indigent patients. Even so, my national interest waiver was significantly delayed. 

In 2008, I was offered the position of clinical research medical director of Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company. I was 

able to accept this offer only because of a small window of relief 

offered in July of 2007 that allowed me to gain work authorization. 

Many of my colleagues in Immigration Voice were not so fortunate, 

and still, today they continue to lack the ability to change jobs 

without losing their place in the green card line. 

I now work for Genentech as medical director for early development, and at the end of 2011, my green card application was finally 

approved after more than 15 years of life in the United States. And 

as I continue toward citizenship, I count myself as fortunate. Today 

USCIS is just now adjudicating applications for applicants like me 

from the year 2004. 

Spending a decade or more for permanent residency takes its toll 

on professionals and on their families. Children age out, and they 

have to secure their own visas to go to college. Traveling abroad 

or just maintaining legal status takes an infusion of time and 

money to renew documents. Scientists often cannot get grants, and, 

sadly, even motivated parents cannot adopt children. 

These problems all generally arise from what we term the double 

backlogs, the green cards shortage backlog and the per country 

backlog. And I want to make a few brief points on both of these. 

We have the largest and the fastest-growing highly skilled economy in the world. It is America’s fastest-growing export. We are 

fighting over green card numbers here for highly educated people, 

each of whom is a net job creator according to the American Enter-
33 

prise Institute, while America is bleeding some of the best minds 

from its borders, many of whom were trained in U.S. schools. 

As parents of American children, we see firsthand that America 

is struggling to produce qualified students in STEM, and I worry 

as a father of two wonderful girls. We have heard proposals for increased fees to pay for STEM programs in the States, and we support that.It can only help, and all help in this matter is welcome. 

On the second part of the double backlog, I want to start by 

thanking this Committee, and especially Representatives Chaffetz, 

Smith and Lofgren, for their amazing bipartisan work on poor 

country elimination. We fell short in the Senate on process in spite 

of overwhelming support. Regardless, we know that just changing 

the poor country quota alone with not fix the overall shortage of 

green cards, but it will help to alleviate some of the burden for 

America’s most experienced, highly skilled green card applicants. 

And again, we sincerely appreciate your efforts in this regard. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Dr. Arora. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Arora follows:] 
34 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Mayor Castro, we are pleased to have you with 

us. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JULIA ́ N CASTRO, 

MAYOR OF SAN ANTONIO, TX 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you very much, Chairman Goodlatte, and, of 

course, to Representative Jackson Lee, and my hometown Rep-
46 

resentative Smith. Thank you for having me to the Ranking Member Conyers, as well as to the Members of the Committee. 

I come to you today as many things: as an American, as an optimist, the grandson of an immigrant orphan from Mexico who found 

opportunity in our great country, and as mayor of the Nation’s seventh largest city, a community that looks like the Texas and the 

America of tomorrow. 

Immigration for all of us is more than a political issue. It is who 

we are as Americans. From Plymouth Rock to Ellis Island and Galveston, Texas, to the sandy shores of Florida and the rocky coast 

of California, immigrants have made ours the greatest country in 

the world. 

Today, however, our immigration system is badly broken, but 

there is hope. This hearing and, more importantly, the bipartisan 

legislation that I believe can be enacted because of it shows that 

we are on the cusp of real progress. 

The President and a growing number of bipartisan lawmakers 

have laid the framework for what Americans support: comprehensive, commonsense reform. We must do at least three things: further strengthen border security, streamline the legal immigration 

process so that law-abiding companies can get the workers they 

need in this 21st century global economy, and create a path to citizenship to bring the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country out of the shadows and into the full light of 

the American dream. 

In Texas we know firsthand that this Administration has put 

more boots on the ground along the border than at any other time 

in our history, which has led to unprecedented success in removing 

dangerous individuals with criminal records. But Democrats and 

Republicans can agree that the work to ensure America’s safety 

and security is ongoing and should be a part of any future legislative agenda. 

The reforms that you have on the table are also profamily, and 

probusiness. Outdated visa allocations that separate husbands and 

wives, mothers and children, and brothers and sisters for years and 

sometimes decades make no sense. It also makes no sense that 

while some employers choose to flout the rule of law and exploit 

employees, other companies who want to play by the rules are 

handcuffed by rigid employment ceilings and burdensome regulations. 

Every year, as competition increases across the globe, America 

companies throw up their hands and watch engineers, nurses and 

entrepreneurs who are trained at American universities leave in 

frustration only to invent new products, heal the sick, and innovate 

in other countries. 

What Americans deserve is a system that works; a system that 

is efficient, that is accountable, that in our Nation’s best interest 

puts the undocumented immigrants already here on a road to earn 

citizenship. Those immigrants take on many faces from Virginia, to 

North Carolina, to Utah. 

In San Antonio, those faces include students like Benita Veliz. 

Benita, like so many so-called DREAMers, was brought to this 

country as a child from Mexico. She learned English, played by the 

rules, and achieved astounding academic success, even became a 
47 

valedictorian of my alma mater, Thomas Jefferson High School in 

San Antonio. She was a National Merit scholar, and Benita earned 

a bachelor’s degree by the time she was 20 years old. 

By any measure Benita is an American success story, but under 

current immigration law she is in limbo. America is her home in 

every single sense of the word except under our broken immigration system. 

Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America 

has distinguished itself as the land of opportunity, the place where 

the human spirit is free to reach its full potential. In this 21st century global economy, we need Benita and immigrants like her to 

be competitive. But we all know that as one generation of Americans has passed on to the next, this great Nation has drawn tremendous strength from immigrants, whether they came from Germany, or Italy, or India, or Mexico. 

A hearing is a great start, but a hearing is not enough. Let us 

rise above the political fray. Let us once again show that no challenge is too big for America. Ladies and gentlemen, America is 

watching. Let us get this done. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mayor Castro. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Castro follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Julia ́n Castro, Mayor, San Antonio, TX 

Thank you Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, Members of the Committee . . . 

I come to you today as many things—an American, an optimist, the grandson of 

an immigrant orphan from Mexico who found opportunity in this great country, and 

as Mayor of the nation’s seventh-largest city, a community that looks like the Texas 

and America of tomorrow. 

Immigration is more than a political issue. It’s who we are. From Plymouth Rock 

to Ellis Island and Galveston, Texas, to the sandy shores of Florida and the rocky 

coasts of California, immigrants have made ours the greatest country in the world. 

Today, however, our immigration system is badly broken. But there is hope. This 

hearing and more importantly, the bipartisan legislation that I believe can be enacted because of it, shows that we are on the cusp of real progress. 

The President and a growing number of bipartisan lawmakers have laid the 

framework for what Americans support: comprehensive, common-sense reform. 

We must do at least three things: further strengthen border security; streamline 

the legal immigration process so that law-abiding companies can get the workers 

they need in this 21st century global economy; and create a path to citizenship to 

bring the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country out of the 

shadows and into the full light of the American Dream. 

In Texas, we know first-hand that this Administration has put more boots on the 

ground along the border than at any time in our history, which has led to unprecedented success in removing dangerous individuals with criminal records. But Democrats and Republicans can agree that the work to ensure America’s safety and security is ongoing, and should be part of the legislative agenda going forward. 

The reforms that you have on the table are also pro-family and pro-business. Outdated visa allocations that separate husbands and wives, mothers and children, and 

brothers and sisters for years and sometimes decades make no sense. 

It also makes no sense that, while some employers choose to flout the rule of law 

and exploit employees, other companies who want to play by the rules are handcuffed by rigid employment ceilings and burdensome regulations. 

Every year, as competition increases across the globe, American companies throw 

up their hands and watch engineers, nurses and entrepreneurs, who were trained 

in American universities, leave in frustration only to invent new products, heal the 

sick and bring new innovations to other countries. 
48 

What Americans deserve is a system that works. A system that is efficient. That 

is accountable. That, in our nation’s best interest, puts the undocumented immigrants already here on a road to earned citizenship. 

Those immigrants take on many faces from Virginia to North Carolina to Utah. 

In San Antonio, those faces include students like Benita Veliz. 

Benita, like many so-called DREAMers, was brought to this country as a child 

from Mexico. She learned English, played by the rules and achieved astounding academic success—even becoming valedictorian of my alma mater, Thomas Jefferson 

High School. 

A National Merit Scholar, Benita earned a bachelor’s degree by the time she was 

20. 

By any measure, Benita is an American success story. But under current immigration law, she is in limbo. America is her home in every sense of the word, except 

under this broken immigration system. 

Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America has distinguished 

itself as the land of opportunity, the place where the human spirit is free to reach 

its full potential. 

In this 21st century global economy, we need Benita and immigrants like her to 

be competitive. 

As each generation of Americans has passed on to the next, this great nation has 

drawn tremendous strength from immigrants, whether they came from Germany, 

Italy, India or Mexico. 

But we all know that a hearing is not enough. Let’s rise above the political fray. 

Let’s once again show that no challenge is too big for America. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, America is watching. Let’s get this done. 

Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Dr. Arora, you gave an excellent statement, and 

I thought it was full and complete, but apparently I called you before your time was expired and maybe before your statement was 

finished. Did you want to summarize your statement? 

Mr. ARORA. Thank you. I just have a little bit left, so I am just 

going to complete it. 

The benefits of removing poor country limits will accrue to only 

one Nation in this world, the United States of America. Ultimately 

we do not care how you fix the system. We just want it fixed not 

in 5 years, not in 10 years; now, this year. 

On that note, there are so many proposals out there for broader 

high-skilled immigration reform. They include recapturing unused 

visas, providing additional U.S. STEM visas, exemptions for 

spouses and children, early filing, exemptions for physicians who 

provide service in underserved areas, and we support all of these. 

We are extremely encouraged by the introduction of the Immigration and Innovation Act of 2013 in the Senate, and we really 

hope that a similar bipartisan bill will be introduced the House. 

This innovation economy is global, and the ripe export markets and 

the foreign professionals in America creating products for these 

markets will not wait forever. 

Our futures are tied to the United States, as are those of our 

children. The growth of America’s economy and the availability of 

jobs for Americans are of great significance to us and our families. 

We want nothing more than to see America prosper and grow while 

still remaining the most welcoming Nation on the face of this 

Earth. 
49 

On behalf of Immigration Voice, again, my sincerest gratitude for 

this opportunity and the very patient hearing you have given me 

today. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Dr. Arora. 

And I will begin the questioning with you, Mr. Wadhwa. Which 

do you believe is a greater factor in encouraging foreign students 

and workers on temporary visas to return home, difficulties receiving green cards in the U.S. or expanding opportunities in their 

home countries? 

Mr. WADHWA. They are both. In fact, when we surveyed several 

hundred returnees, they said it was greater opportunities. But I 

know in dealing with my students what happens is that they look 

for jobs because they want to stay here for 2 or 3 years after they 

graduate. They can’t get jobs because companies can’t get H-1B 

visas, or they are worried about hiring foreigners because of the 

backlash. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I have got another question for you, and I am 

going to go quickly because I have several I want to ask in a short 

period of time. 

As I noted in my opening statement, other primary immigrantreceiving countries like the U.K., and Canada, and Australia select 

over 60 percent of their immigrants based on their education and 

skills, while the United States selects a little more than 10 percent 

on this basis. Which type of immigration system do you think 

makes the most sense for America? 

Mr. WADHWA. We need both because you have to have families 

as well, but right now we need more skilled. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Talking about ratios here, percentage. 

Mr. WADHWA. I would increase the ratio of skilled immigrants 

dramatically. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Great. Okay, thank you. 

Next, Mr. Teitelbaum, I see that the Jordan Commission recommended eliminating the Diversity Lottery Program. Since the 

Jordan Commission’s recommendations were issued, somewhere in 

the magnitude of 800,000 diversity green cards have been issued. 

Can these green cards have been better utilized for another higher 

priority? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. That was indeed the recommendation, that it 

should be used for higher-priority categories. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And then to approach the second question I 

asked Mr. Wadhwa from a different vantage point, the Jordan 

Commission also stated that, quote, ‘‘Unless there is a compelling 

national interest to do otherwise, immigrants should be chosen on 

the basis of the skills they contribute to the U.S. economy. The 

Commission believes that the admission of nuclear family members 

and refugees provide such a compelling national interest, where 

unification of adult children and siblings of adult citizens solely because of their family relationship is not as compelling.’’ 

Isn’t this what some refer to as chain migration, and isn’t it true 

that over 2.5 million siblings of U.S. citizens are now on a waiting 

list for green cards, and some will have to wait over two decades? 

What does this say about the credibility of that aspect of our immigration system? 
50 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes, that is true. That is what we referred to 

as management by backlogs, in which you make promises that cannot be fulfilled, and you get these enormous and very long backlogs 

that are built up. So our recommendation was that those visa numbers be reallocated to the high-priority, higher-priority categories 

that we mentioned, and then there would be immediate admission 

of those people and no backlogs in those categories. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

And, Mayor Castro, you state that comprehensive immigration 

reform should do three things: secure the border, streamline the 

legal immigration process, and provide a path to citizenship for 11 

million illegal immigrants. 

Do you think that interior enforcement should play a role to discourage future immigration by those not documented by making 

jobs to them unavailable? Should that be a part of that comprehensive immigration reform? 

Mr. CASTRO. Yeah, that is a great question. I do believe that enforcement, both in terms of active enforcement on our borders and 

under this Administration there has been tremendous progress 

with regard to enforcement. In fact, the triggers in the 2007 proposal have just about all been met. But going forward, of course, 

enforcement is part of the conversation. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And one of the aspects of enforcement that 

doesn’t get as much attention here, although it does get attention 

in some of the States which have attempted to do things about it, 

is the fact that a large percentage of people who are not lawfully 

in the United States entered legally, on student visas, visitors’ 

visas, business visas, and overstayed their visas, and so the border 

and securing the border is not a component in dealing with that 

aspect of unlawful immigration. It has to be done in the interior 

of the country with verification programs, with regard to employment, with cooperation amongst various law enforcement authorities, and so on. Do you think that should be part of the process? 

Mr. CASTRO. Yeah, I think we agree that we can make the system work better for everyone, including for employers, including at 

our airports, in each and every way. Both in terms of border security and interior security, comprehensive immigration reform gives 

us the opportunity to make this work better at every single juncture. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And I want to give you an opportunity to answer the question of the day, and that is this: Are there options 

that we should consider between the extremes of mass deportation 

and a pathway to citizenship for those not lawfully present in the 

United States? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, let me say that I do believe that a pathway 

to citizenship should be the option that the Congress selects. I don’t 

see that as an extreme option. In fact, as one of the Representatives pointed out, if we look at our history, generally what we 

found is that Congress over time has chosen that option, that path 

to citizenship. I would disagree with the characterization of that as 

the extreme. 

The extreme, I would say, just to fill that out, would be open borders. Nobody agrees with open borders. Everyone agrees that we 
51 

need to secure our border; that the United States needs to improve 

its—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I think we agree on that, but the question is 

what to do about the 10 million or more people who are not lawfully here. Are you and, do you think, others open to finding some 

ground between a pathway to citizenship and the current law, 

which would be to require deportation in many circumstances, 

whether that is being enforced today or not? 

Mr. CASTRO. I believe that, as the President has pointed out, as 

the Senators who have worked on this have pointed out from both 

parties, that a path to citizenship is the best option. 

Now, I also understand that, in terms of getting at what you may 

be thinking about, a guest worker program in the future has also 

been put out there. I know that there are some concerns about how 

you would set that up, but I think if you want to deal with issues 

going forward, that may be one way to do it. However, in terms of 

the 11 million folks who are here, certainly putting them on a path 

to citizenship, ensuring that after they pay taxes, they pay a fine, 

they learn English, they get to the back of the line, that is the best 

option. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank you. 

The gentleman from Michigan is recognized. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte. And I want to 

thank all the witnesses on the first panel. You have done a good 

job. We may not have settled much, but that is the way these 

things start out, isn’t it? 

I just wanted to see if we could get a little more agreement on 

Chairman Goodlatte’s last question: What do we do with 11 million 

people that are already here? Are there any of you that still have 

reservations about a path to citizenship that is firm and fair? We 

are not going to jail them or send them back. Can we hit a small 

chord of agreement on that one question? What do you think, Dr. 

Arora? 

Dr. ARORA. We believe that a balanced approach to this is really 

important, one that is fair and is a win-win situation for everyone. 

Like I said before, we tend to be focused on issues that we are very 

familiar with, having been through the employment-based immigration system, but certainly we would like to see a situation 

where Congress comes together and agrees on something that can 

go and get passed by the Senate and signed by the President and 

actually solve some of these problems in a balanced program. We 

would like to not view immigration as a zero-sum game, and I 

think we all agree that it doesn’t have to be that way. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Wadhwa, do you think that reasonable people 

with strong differing views can come up with elements of a path 

to citizenship that would get us through this very difficult problem? 

Mr. WADHWA. You know, I think the low-hanging fruit here is 

the children. I don’t believe any decent human being would argue 

that those children should be deported. We should give them citizenship immediately without thinking twice. 

And then the issue is about the law. I mean, that is a very strong 

point that Representative Gowdy made. Maybe what you do is you 

give them indefinite permanent resident status instead of citizenship. There is other ways of slicing this. They want to be here, they 
52 

want to raise their children. You know, we don’t have to discuss 

deporting them; we just should legalize them so they can pay taxes, 

participate as regular U.S. citizens do without calling them citizens. There is a way. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mayor Castro, I and, I know, some of my colleagues are a little reluctant about permanent indefinite status. 

You know, this is one of the things that makes this country great. 

You can become a citizen; you are either born here, or you earn 

your way in as an American. And we are all citizens equally, and 

so I have just a little bit of reluctance about having somebody here, 

an immigrant, permanently. 

Mr. CASTRO. To my mind, it would be unprecedented for us to 

create a class of folks who are stuck in this kind of limbo, who are 

not allowed to become citizens, but almost everything up to that 

line. We draw our strength as Americans from citizenship. That is 

the essence of who we are. Throughout the history of this Nation, 

the biggest challenges we have faced have been when we created 

second-class citizens, much less second-class noncitizens, and so I 

believe that a path to citizenship is the best option. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Teitelbaum, have we reached a state where, 

in terms of border security, I got the impression we are doing a little better, the rates are going down, fewer people are coming over. 

We are spending tons of money. What do you see in that area that 

we might want to look at if Chairman Goodlatte agrees that we 

should send some Judiciary Committee Members down for a serious examination after having talked with security people here before we go there? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Are you asking me to speak on behalf of the 

Commission on Immigration Reform, or what do I—— 

Mr. CONYERS. Your personal views, sir. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Well, I have traveled along that border many 

times. There is no such thing as the average border situation along 

that border. There are huge variations across that border as to 

what is happening. And my impression is, from the data I have 

seen, that the number of attempted crossings has declined. There 

are more boots on the ground, as someone else said. There is also 

a deep, deep recession in the United States since 2008 and more 

rapid economic growth south of the border. 

So you have got competing explanations of what is going on 

there, and I don’t think we can actually answer your question, Mr. 

Ranking Minority Member, as to whether the enforcement efforts 

are the primary cause of that trend. 

Mr. CONYERS. Can you give them a good grade so far? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Can I do what? 

Mr. CONYERS. Can you give them a fair grade so far? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. A fair grade? 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. I think there have been serious efforts, increased efforts, along the border. I don’t think there have been serious efforts in the interior. As one of the other Members mentioned, 

if you don’t have interior enforcement, it really doesn’t matter how 

good your border enforcement is, people will find a way around the 

barrier if they can find work easily in the United States. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, sir. 
53 

Thanks, Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, gentlemen. 

It is now my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from Texas Mr. 

Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Chairman, 

thank you, too, for your thoughtful approach to the subject at hand. 

One thing that I think all Members can agree upon, and I assume all panelists as well, is that immigrants work hard, they create jobs, and they set a daily example of how to achieve the American dream. Immigration, in fact, has made our country great. 

As the Chairman pointed out a minute ago, America is the most 

generous country in the world. We admit 1 million legal immigrants every year. That is about as many as every other country 

combined, so there is not even a close second when it comes to our 

generosity. I do think that generosity gives us the credibility to say 

that we need to devise an immigration system that is in the best 

interests of America and Americans. 

One way, in my view, to improve our legal immigration system, 

and that is the subject at hand, is to admit more immigrants on 

the basis of their skills that America needs today. We admit only 

about 6 percent of the legal immigrants now on the basis of their 

skills. That happens to be, I think, the lowest percentage of any industrialized country in the world. So I would like to get us back 

to where we emphasize and encourage immigrants who have the 

skills that America needs, but we need to do so in a way that does 

not jeopardize the jobs of Americans who are in this country who 

are working, either citizens or legal immigrants. We don’t want to 

jeopardize their jobs or depress their wages. 

So my question for Mr. Wadhwa, and maybe Mr. Teitelbaum, is 

this: How do we admit skilled immigrants without hurting American workers? 

Mr. WADHWA. First of all, if you look at all the data, every single 

study that has been done, it shows that when you bring skilled immigrants in, they create jobs. And right now we are in an innovation economy. Skilled immigrants are more important than ever, 

not only to create jobs, but to make us innovative and to help us 

solve major problems. So bring the right people in, and you will 

make the pie bigger for everyone. And we can bring in more unskilled as well, because we will have a bigger economy. We need 

them. The population of America will decline unless we keep immigration going at least at the pace that it is now. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. I am not sure Mr. Teitelbaum is going 

to agree with you on the low-skilled, but Mr. Teitelbaum? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes. I will say in answer to your question, one 

way is not to admit larger numbers as temporary admissions than 

you have visas for permanent admissions or you will negatively influence the U.S. workforce. And the second is a much more effective means of assessing the effects of admissions of skilled workers 

in particular areas on U.S. workers, so you don’t want to, I would 

say—this is a personal statement, not for the Commission—you 

don’t want to admit all STEM workers, because the tight labor 

markets are in some parts of STEM, but definitely not in other 

parts of STEM, and this Committee has actually reflected that in, 

I guess, it was your bill, Mr. Chairman—— 
54 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM [continuing]. That was passed one time or two 

times in reflecting that difference at the Ph.D. level. That was very 

smart of you. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Teitelbaum. 

And, Dr. Arora, any comments on that? 

Dr. ARORA. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

I think that there is a couple of really important things here. You 

brought up a very good point, and it is important to protect American workers and at the same time have a robust immigration system where skilled immigrants can come in and fill real needs. 

And one of the problems that we have today is that we have restricted the mobility of the skilled workers that come into the country. They get trapped in jobs for long periods, where promotions 

can be denied, where they have no way of going to another employer that is willing to offer a market wage or advancement as 

based on the experience that they have gained over a period of time 

and toward the skills that are really required by the demands of 

the job is. And I think that these long periods of limbos, and the 

restrictions on job mobility, and this lack of reliance on the market 

to tell us what the demand is is a problem. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Arora. 

Mayor Castro, let me follow up with a question that the Chairman was asking you a minute ago. Do you see any compromise 

area between the current status quo and a path to citizenship for 

virtually all the 11 million or more illegal immigrants in the country today? 

Mr. CASTRO. I see the compromise as a recognition that a path 

to citizenship will be earned citizenship; in other words, that they 

will have to—— 

Mr. SMITH. But you don’t—— 

Mr. CASTRO [continuing]. Pay a fine. 

Mr. SMITH. In other words, a path to citizenship regardless, one 

way or the other. 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I believe that it is the best option. I think history has borne out that that has served the United States best. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Let me ask all panelists this question, and 

maybe since my time is almost up, I will say this: Is there any witness today who does not agree that we ought to have a system that 

requires employers to check to make sure that they are hiring legal 

workers? Is there anyone who would disagree with that system? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. It was a recommendation of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Teitelbaum, you and I worked together to try to 

implement the Commission’s recommendations, and we came awfully close until the Clinton administration reversed their endorsement. 

But everybody agrees that with some kind of a system to make 

sure that employers only hire legal workers; is that right? 

Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlemen. 

The gentleman from New York Mr. Nadler is recognized for 5 

minutes. 
55 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mayor Castro, your testimony said that we must do at least 

three things in immigration reform: further strengthen border security, streamline the legal immigration process that law-abiding 

companies can get the workers they need, and create a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. 

It seems to me that there is one further thing that any good immigration reform should do, and that is to eliminate unjustified, invidious discrimination that is present in the system. And one such 

discrimination is certainly the fact that people other than gay and 

lesbian people can sponsor their spouses for immigration into the 

United States so that you don’t keep them separated, whereas 

under our laws, of course, gay and lesbian people cannot marry 

other gay and lesbian people—at least the Federal Government 

won’t recognize it, a few States will—so that the laws work a— 

what I would call a cruelty on people, an unnecessary cruelty, because under our laws it may be that the lover or partner of an 

American citizen can’t be here, and under the laws of the foreign 

country, it may be that the American can’t go there, and you are 

keeping people apart. 

Now, there is legislation called the United American Families 

Act which would establish an equivalency so that, the question of 

gay marriage apart, which is really a separate question, we will not 

have the cruelty of keeping loving couples apart by allowing a gay 

person or a lesbian person to sponsor his or her partner for immigration. We are reintroducing that bill today, by the way. It has 

broad bipartisan; it has the support of Republicans as well as 

Democrats, church leaders, members of the Hispanic Caucus, and 

now recently the President of the United States. 

Do you think this is a good or essential piece of comprehensive 

immigration reform? 

Mr. CASTRO. I believe that it would be a good piece for comprehensive immigration reform, and, as you suggest, I believe that 

there would be significant support for that. I myself support marriage equality, but even for folks that support, for instance, only 

civil unions and certain rights that partners would have, I believe 

that this is right in that vein and that it makes sense. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. And I just want to make clear that this 

is not—not the question of gay marriage. If we had gay marriage, 

you wouldn’t—it would be moot. But this is a question of enabling 

people to be together who otherwise cannot be for no purpose at all, 

purposeless cruelty, which the United States should never engage 

in. 

I have a second question for you, and that you note in your testimony the immigration laws are broken across the board, harming 

businesses and separating families. There are some who support 

the idea of increasing the number of green cards in the employment-based system, we have heard that, but only if a commensurate number of green cards are eliminated from the family-based 

system. 

Do you buy into this zero-sum approach, and can we be a Nation 

that supports both business groups and keeping families together? 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you for the question, Representative. I agree 

with Dr. Arora that this is not a zero-sum game. There is no reason 
56 

that we need to choose between these. I believe that we should 

have both employment-based and continue our family-based allocation as well as, of course, addressing the issue of high-skilled immigrants and other skilled immigrants. 

I would also, frankly, suggest that being able to pick crops in the 

sun, under the hot sun, for 12, 14 hours a day, to do back-breaking 

work, is a kind of skill; maybe not one we would call a high skill, 

but certainly a skill that many, many folks either do not or cannot 

do. And so to answer your question, I believe that that is a false 

dichotomy. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. 

And, finally, I have one question for Mr. Teitelbaum. Mr. 

Teitelbaum, you say that some of the Commission’s strongest recommendations were against temporary worker programs, noting 

that admitting large numbers of temporary workers in agriculture 

and other fields would be, quote, ‘‘a grievous mistake.’’ 

I must say I am very ambivalent about this. On the one hand 

I worry about guest worker programs bidding down U.S. wages for 

American workers; on the other hand, the share of the native-born 

workforce without a high school diploma was around 50 percent in 

the 1940’s and 1950’s, and it is now down to about 6 percent. And 

as the native-born have grown better educated, U.S. workers have 

been less willing to engage in farm work, but the demand for farm 

work has not decreased. 

So my question is if we still have a need for on-the-farm labor, 

but a giant reduction of population of native workers likely to look 

for work in the sector, do we have a need for a guest worker program? Is it naive to think that if we cut out foreign workers, that 

these jobs would just be filled by American workers? And is such 

a program, in fact, cutting down on American—you know, bidding 

down American wages? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Again, this is going to be my thoughts, not the 

Commission. The Commission was recommending against largescale temporary worker programs for the reasons I indicated. I 

agreed with that recommendation. I believe it still to be true. 

There is a very large population in the United States of low- and 

unskilled workers, many of whom are unemployed and relatively 

unemployable. The conditions of work offered in some of the jobs 

you are talking about are really not very attractive compared to 

their alternative sources of income as citizens, and, therefore, I 

think you have a situation in which the market disposes toward dependence upon unauthorized migrants. 

In addition, you have decisions made by employers as to where 

to invest or where to plant and what plants to plant, are they 

labor-intensive plants or not labor-intensive plants, based upon the 

assumption of continued access to this kind of labor. So you get a 

kind of mutual dependency, if you will. A situation in which it is 

correct, as the growers might say, that if you took away my workforce now, all my plants, all my crops would rot in the field. But 

if they were pretty certain they weren’t going to have that future 

workforce in the future, they would make different decisions about 

what crops to grow and where to grow them. But why should they 

if they assume they are going to have that workforce? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 
57 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama Mr. Bachus 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

Let me ask each one of you for a yes or no answer if you can 

give it. If you can’t, I will permit you to pass. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes or no? 

Mr. BACHUS. If you can. If you want to pass, you know, can’t answer it. 

Do you think our immigration policies ought to be based on our 

own national interests; in other words, what is best for America? 

Mr. WADHWA. Yes. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes. 

Dr. ARORA. Yes. 

Mr. CASTRO. Absolutely. Sure. 

Mr. BACHUS. So we all agree on that. 

Now, do we all agree that attracting high-skilled legal immigrants is in our best interests? You know, the Chairman mentioned 

Australia and Canada. And obviously high-skilled workers in mathematics, sciences, technology, they have actually created jobs in 

those countries. They have created jobs for native Australians, native Canadians. It has brought down their unemployment rate. But 

do all of you agree that that is in our best interest, and there is 

less contentious issues with our highly skilled workers? 

Mr. WADHWA. Double yes. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. In principle, yes, but you must be careful not 

to deter American kids from going into those fields by taking that 

action. 

Mr. BACHUS. Oh, absolutely. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. So you just have to do it right. 

Mr. BACHUS. Right. But it is less contentious than with our undocumented, unskilled workers, I think. Would you agree? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes. 

Dr. ARORA. Yes, it is. 

Mr. BACHUS. So yes? 

Dr. ARORA. Yes. 

Mr. BACHUS. And Mayor. 

Mr. CASTRO. Yes, I agree to the need to encourage high-skilled 

immigration, sure. 

Mr. BACHUS. Now, the Chairman mentioned that some countries, 

and these are countries all of which have significantly lower unemployment rates than America, are actually attempting to attract 

entrepreneurs, engineers, mathematicians, scientists, people skilled 

in technology. And I think we all agree we have all seen cases of 

these people being trained, some of them at University of Alabama 

Birmingham, and then going back to India, some going back to 

China, and starting jobs which compete and take jobs away from 

our people, and that that is really a tragedy; and that Germany 

doesn’t do that, Chile doesn’t do that, Australia doesn’t do that, 

Canada doesn’t do that. So should we design a system that 

prioritizes—not excludes other, but prioritizes those individuals? 

Mr. WADHWA. Yes. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Once again, as long as it does not deter U.S. 

kids from going into those fields. 
58 

Mr. BACHUS. Oh, and let me say that with those caveats, and 

also in certain areas where if there are Americans that can fill 

those positions. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. The general point, Congressman, is you might 

end up with fewer people net if you discourage the inflow of people 

from the largest source of those occupations who are American citizens. 

Mr. BACHUS. Sure. Okay. 

Dr. ARORA. We believe, yes, that there is a need to reform the 

way highly skilled immigration is done today. 

Mr. BACHUS. All right. Mayor? 

Mr. CASTRO. I believe there is a need to reform highly—immigration for highly skilled workers—— 

Mr. BACHUS. Yes. 

Mr. CASTRO [continuing]. But I also believe there is a need to reform the entire system. 

Mr. BACHUS. Oh, absolutely. We all agree, but I think that my 

point is, and I think each of you would agree, it is going to be a 

much easier lift to solve the problem with highly skilled workers. 

This House has passed on one occasion, could have on two occasions, a bill which would address that. And the present system for 

our highly skilled entrepreneurs is diametrically opposed to what 

is done in Canada, Australia with great success and created hundreds of thousands of jobs there, and actually has put Americans 

out of work because we refuse to do that here. And Ms. Lofgren 

and I agree on that, I think, 99 percent or 100 percent. I think that 

the gentleman from Michigan, the former Chair, and I agree, and 

I think we could pass a bill which would take that off the table. 

When you take comprehensive, then we are dealing with certain 

issues like full citizenship, and whatever else we disagree on, I 

think we would agree on that that is a more toxic, contentious 

issue, granting full amnesty. And I would hope that by comprehensive we could address those on two different paths, because we can 

pass something and solve the problem which is putting Americans 

out of work and is enabling other countries to compete successfully 

and take jobs away from us. And I would just hope that you all 

would all agree with that, that let us not let the more contentious 

issues and this idea of comprehensive reform prevent us from this 

year, this month, you know, in the next 2 or 3 months passing 

something to address what is a horrible situation in this country, 

and that is we are training people to go back to their countries and 

compete against us. 

And we have mentioned Google, Intel, eBay, Microsoft. All of 

those companies, the CEOs say for every one of those people I hire 

or keep in America, I can hire three Americans, too. 

Mr. WADHWA. We can agree on the Dream Act quite easily. That 

there is widespread agreement on. 

Mr. BACHUS. Okay. 

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

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina Mr. 

Watt. 

Mr. WATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me say at the outset so that nobody is misled I am a strong 

supporter of a system that encourages high-skilled workers, but the 
59 

composition of this panel may leave the impression that I hope is 

not the one that we intend to leave, that that is all that immigration reform is about. 

And so I want to be clear that Google, Yahoo!, Intel, eBay were 

all founded and run by immigrants, but none of them came here 

under a skilled worker visa program. They came here as familybased immigrants, refugees or children of refugees. 

And so just to be absolutely clear on this, this emphasis that 

seems to be being placed on high-skilled visas and reform just—are 

we clear that that is not to the exclusion of other kinds of immigration reform and encouragement of other immigrants? And if I can 

get clarity on that from all four witnesses, I just want that on the 

record so that we are not misled. 

Mr. WADHWA. I completely agree with that. We can’t lose time 

on the skilled, because right now the U.S.’s economy is in a slump. 

We are in the middle of a major reinvention. Our competitors are 

rising. Immigrants are fleeing. I wrote an entire book about the immigrant exodus. 

So we have to fix the immediate problem of skilled immigrants, 

the million skilled immigrants legally here waiting for green cards. 

We don’t talk about them. We need to fix that ASAP, and we need 

do the other things we are talking about without doubt. But we 

can’t wait on the million, because they are leaving, and America is 

bleeding talent right now. 

Mr. WATT. If we are doing all of this immediately, I don’t want 

to do that to the exclusion of doing the rest of immigration reform. 

That is the point I want. 

And, Mr. Teitelbaum, just to be clear, you all’s recommendation, 

I guess, that you are not encouraging low-skilled or unskilled workers, that is not—that recommendation was not about eliminating 

other kinds of non-skill-based immigration either, was it? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. No. You may remember the main recommendation on family-based immigration recommended establishment of 

these priorities and the rapid admission of people in these priority 

groups, and that is by far the biggest category of legal immigrants. 

Mr. WATT. And, Dr. Arora and Mayor Castro, if I can get you all 

to be as clear. And I am just trying to document a record here so 

nobody comes back later and says this hearing was only about 

high-skilled visas, high-skilled worker admissions to the country. I 

mean, I think that would be a gross misperception of what we 

should be coming away with. So, Dr. Arora and Mr. Castro, if you 

can help me clarify the record, I would be appreciative to you. 

Dr. ARORA. Congressman, we are a grassroots organization, and 

we supported a comprehensive bill in the past, and if Congress is 

to come up with a doable bill that you can all agree on, we would 

be very happy to back it and support it. 

In the end we would like to see these problems solved. Whether 

you decide to do them in steps and individual bills, or you take an 

approach that everything can be done together, we leave up to your 

judgment, but we realize that it is a complex problem, and there 

are many parts to this. 

Mr. WATT. Mr. Castro? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I absolutely believe that this issue of immigration reform should be addressed comprehensively. And I would also 
60 

add that even though it might seem, as was said, easy to do just 

one part of this, the STEM bill, which was supposed to be easy, did 

not get through the Senate, probably the better option is to address 

this comprehensively at one time that will impact the entire system 

in a positive way. 

Mr. WATT. All right. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I won’t even go to another question, because my time is about to expire. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. We appreciate the diligence of the gentleman 

from North Carolina and commend that to all the Members. 

And we turn now to the gentleman from Virginia Mr. Forbes for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank all of you for your testimony. I only have 5 minutes, so 

I am going to try to be succinct and ask you in your answers to 

do so as well. 

And, Mayor, I know you have studied this issue a lot, you prepared for this hearing, or you wouldn’t be here. And let me just ask 

you, if I gave you this pen and asked you to go back and take as 

long as you needed and draft this comprehensive piece of legislation, you brought it back before us, and we passed it out of here, 

and we passed it out of the Senate, and the President signed it into 

law, we all know that there will be some people that disagree with 

portions of it, some people who try to circumvent it, some people 

who break it. 

I want you to fast-forward now. You are a young man, and 10 

years from now we ask you to come back and testify before us, and 

we found that the people that circumvented that law were either 

10 or 10 million. Should we be prepared to draft a new path of citizenship for those 10 million people that circumvented the law that 

you wrote? 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you very much for the question. And I know 

that this has been a concern with regard to the 1986 law. And, in 

fact, I am very pleased that the bipartisan effort so far, what has 

been proposed by the President and the Senate, includes stronger 

interior enforcement. 

Mr. FORBES. Yeah. And I don’t want to interrupt you, you can 

put all you want on the record, but I am saying you have written 

a law, we do everything we can. Despite our best efforts there will 

be people who break that law and circumvent them. It may not be 

10 million, it may be a million, but for those individuals should we 

be expected to 10 years from now write a new path of citizenship 

for those individuals however many there might be? 

Mr. CASTRO. With all due respect, Representative, I just don’t 

think that that is a question that can be answered right now. It 

is such a hypothetical question. I believe that if the Congress does 

an excellent job now—— 

Mr. FORBES. Mayor, are you saying that you don’t believe that 

there will be any people that circumvent the law no matter how 

well we write it? Is that your testimony? 

Mr. CASTRO. No, I wouldn’t disagree with you that there may be 

folks who circumvent it. 
61 

Mr. FORBES. And as to those individuals, should we be prepared 

at some point in time, 10 years down the road or whenever, to be 

prepared to write a new path of citizenship for them? 

Mr. CASTRO. I believe that that is a question hopefully that won’t 

have to be answered in any significant measure by a Congress in 

the future if you do the job right this time. 

Mr. FORBES. So you believe if we do the job right, there will not 

be individuals who circumvent that law down the road? And the 

reason I say it, Mayor, is we have got to ask these tough questions. 

It is easy to talk about comprehensive reform if we don’t ask and 

answer those tough questions. 

Let me give you another one. The Ranking Member said there 

is so much that we agree on, and I agree with that comprehensively, but we can’t just take a concept like comprehensive and not 

look at the detail, because sometimes the devil is in the details. 

When you talk about a lot of individuals who are here and not 

documented, or here not legal, or illegally, one of the things for us, 

most of them are hard-working, good people, you would attest to 

that, but not all of them. For example, testimony we have had before this Committee of the rise in gang activity that we have had 

in the country, we had testimony that 85 percent of one gang, the 

individuals here were here illegally. 

Now, as to just that group, I want to ask you this question: If 

we have someone here who is here illegally, and not one of those 

hard-working people, but someone who is a member of a violent 

criminal gang, should we be prepared to deport them before they 

commit a criminal act, or should they also have a path to citizenship? 

Mr. CASTRO. Thanks for the question. I think there is an agreement across the board that if someone has committed a violent 

crime—— 

Mr. FORBES. No, no. Before they have committed a violent criminal act, they are here illegally, and they are a member of a violent 

criminal gang, should we be able to deport them before they commit that violent criminal act, or should they also be able to have 

a path to citizenship? 

Mr. CASTRO. You mean if you determine them guilty before they 

have committed a crime? 

Mr. FORBES. Not guilty. I am saying they are here illegally. They 

didn’t come here legally, and they acknowledge and we prove that 

they are a member of a violent criminal gang, should we be able 

to remove them from the country before they commit another—or 

before they commit a violent criminal act? 

Mr. CASTRO. I would just say that I believe that ensuring that 

America is free of folks who have committed violent crimes, that 

that is and should be a priority. 

With regard to the hypothetical of people who might commit a 

crime or might not commit a crime, you know, I readily concede 

that I am not in law enforcement, I am not a technical expert in 

that regard, but I do believe that folks who have committed a violent crime should be deported. 

Mr. FORBES. And, Mayor, the reason I tell you is this exact situation happened in Boston, and a young girl was raped and brutally 

beaten for individuals that were here illegally, member of a violent 
62 

criminal gangs, and temporary protected status protected them. So 

at some point in time we have got to—we passed legislation, and 

here the Senate refused to pass it. 

And so with that, Mr. Chairman, I see that my time is expired, 

but, Mayor, they are the kind of questions that we need answers 

for, and unfortunately that is going to be part of what we have to 

ferret out over the next several weeks and months. And with that, 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California Ms. 

Lofgren, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before my questions, I would like to ask unanimous consent to 

place in the record 22 statements from various individuals, including religious organizations, social organizations, labor organizations, as well as an op-ed from The Washington Times today from 

Mat Staver, the dean of the law school at Liberty University. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, seeing as Liberty University is a fine institution in the Sixth Congressional District of Virginia, and I 

think very highly of Dean Staver, we will admit all of those, without objection, to the record. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much. 

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Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Chairman, could I have unanimous consent to 

introduce an article that appeared in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal on our declining birth rates? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, that will be made a part of 

the record as well. 

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Mr. GOODLATTE. And while we are at it, if the gentlewoman will 

suspend, we will give you your full 5 minutes, but I would also ask 

unanimous consent that a joint statement by the Comprehensive 

Immigration Reform Coalition and the National Hispanic Christian 

Leadership Conference, of which Dean Staver is a member, be also 

made a part of the record. Without objection, all of these documents will be put in the record. 

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Mr. GOODLATTE. And the gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, you know, it has 

been so interesting to listen to the questions so far. You know, in 

fact, a person can be found deportable now not just if you are convicted of an offense, but if you have admitted to committing all the 

elements of a criminal offense even though you haven’t been con-
226 

victed. So in the hypothetical that was earlier posed, you wouldn’t 

have to change the law to deal with that situation. 

You know, I think we have a unique opportunity here to come 

together and come up with a situation where another Congress 20 

years from now won’t be dealing with this same problem. Dr. Richard Land, who was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, was a witness before the Subcommittee a number of years 

ago, and I always quote him because I don’t want to steal his line. 

He said for many years there were two signs of the southern border: One said ‘‘No Trespassing,’’ and the other said ‘‘Help Wanted.’’ 

And our situation after 1986, we did the Reagan amnesty, but we 

made no provision to meet the economic or familial needs of the 

country. And so you have a situation now where we have 2 million 

migrant farm workers, and, like, 80 or 90 percent of them are here 

without their papers. They are providing a vital service to the 

United States. You could do E-Verify and find out they are not 

properly here, and American agriculture would collapse. So that is 

not going to be helpful. 

What we need to do is provide a system that will actually meet 

our needs both in the economy, whether it is high tech, whether 

it is agriculture, and that also respects the needs for American 

families to be united. 

And I would just add, it is not my belief that my son and daughter are chain migration. My son and daughter are part of my nuclear family, and I think that is true for Americans who have sons 

and daughters abroad. 

I think it would be such a tragedy if we became sidetracked on 

whether or not the 11 million here who responded to the help 

wanted sign at the border can never become right with the law and 

never have the aspiration to become an American. 

We are not talking about giving U.S. citizenship to anybody. 

What we are saying is over some period of time that is arduous, 

you might gain legal permanent residence in the United States, 

and then if you pay thousands of dollars, learn everything there is 

to know about the American Government, learn English so well 

you can pass the test, and then swear to defend the Constitution 

and be willing to go fight for your country, only in that case could 

you become an American citizen. 

So I just think that looking back to Mat Staver, the dean, in today’s newspaper article, he said that we should include appropriate 

penalties, waiting periods, background checks, evidence of moral 

character, a commitment to full participation in American society 

through learning English, but yet for hard-working, undocumented 

neighbors who aspire to be fully American, it must end with citizenship, not a permanent second-class status. I hope that people 

will read Dean Staver’s op-ed, because it is really very compelling. 

Now, I would like to ask you—and first, thanks to all the people 

for being here, you have all been excellent witnesses—but, Mayor 

Castro, you have talked about immigration. Your grandparents, I 

guess, just like mine, were immigrants. But one of the arguments 

that has not been made here, but it is made some sometimes in the 

country, is that somehow today’s immigrants are different than the 

old immigrants, the good immigrants from before. I mean, the German immigrants, it was said when they came, wouldn’t really learn 
227 

English; or, you know, the Irish didn’t need to apply; the Italians 

were somehow morally not the same as the people they were joining. Now that all seems preposterous. 

Have you seen any evidence that today’s immigrants from Latin 

America are any less meritorious than the immigrants from our 

American past, any less willing to learn English, become patriotic 

Americans? Can you guide us on that question? 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you for the question, Representative. This 

generation of immigrants, I am convinced, is just as hard-working, 

just as patriotic, just as faith-oriented as the immigrants of generations before that helped build up the great country that we live in 

today. I know that there has been sometimes, unfortunately, that 

type of characterization, but in San Antonio I see folks like Benita 

Veliz, who graduated as valedictorian of her high school class, National Merit scholar, graduated from college at the age of 20, big 

dreams, wants to be productive for the country. That is the caliber 

of immigrant, whether it is someone like Benita or it is someone 

who is working very hard in the agriculture industry, working 12, 

14 hours a day. These are hard working folks that are positively 

contributing to the progress of our Nation. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. And I see my time has expired, Mr. 

Chairman. I don’t want to abuse your patience. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlewoman. 

The Committee is going to take a very brief recess, so those of 

you who need to accommodate yourselves, you will have 5 minutes 

to do so. So we will stand in recess until—well, make it until 12:20. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Committee will reconvene. We will continue 

our questioning by Members of the Committee, and the Chair now 

turns to the gentleman from Iowa Mr. King for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank the witnesses for your testimony. And this has been an 

engaging hearing, and I am looking forward to your answers and 

the rest of the testimony. 

I would turn first to Mr. Wadhwa. And yours was, I think, Mr. 

Wadhwa—I am over here on your left—yours was, I think, the 

most engaging, and when you talked about the inspiration that 

comes from the inventions that we have and how it can transform 

not just American society, but global society, and has. But what I 

notice in dialogue, it has crept in almost all of American society, 

is we are not separating the term—the term ‘‘immigrant’’ now 

means, as I listen to the panel, if I were just a casual observer 

here, I wouldn’t know whether we are talking about legal or illegal 

immigrants, and I didn’t actually know whether you were. And so 

could you define that for me and let me know what your intentions 

were in your testimony. 

Mr. WADHWA. You know, what I have been researching and talking about are the people who came here lawfully, came through the 

front door, came on student visas or H-1B visas, who started companies, who boosted entrepreneurship. I have documented the statistics, you know, 52 percent Silicon Valley, 25 percent nationwide. 

With the number having dropped, our research is recently that we 

are strangling our immigrant entrepreneurship because we won’t 

give them visas. I am talking about lawful, skilled immigrants. 
228 

Now, you know, we keep talking about the 11 million, 10 million 

undocumented, unskilled workers, illegal workers; we don’t talk 

about the 1 million skilled immigrants who are trapped in limbo 

who are doctors, scientists, lawyers who can’t get visas. 

Mr. KING. So really as I listen to your testimony, I should be focusing on you are talking about legal immigrants and their contribution as skilled workers? 

Mr. WADHWA. Exactly. 

Mr. KING. And the Chairman mentioned about 10 percent of our 

legal immigration is based upon merit, and the balance of that is 

really out of our control. And I remember the hearings that we 

have had here in this room, that number falls pretty good. It is between 7 and 11 percent. I agree with that. And your advocacy is 

that we should take a number of legal immigrants and focus on the 

skilled worker side of this, which would be STEM, which I support. 

I think that is the right direction to go. 

And I turn to Mayor Castro, and I recall you mentioning that it 

is not a zero-sum game, that we can have both skilled workers and 

unskilled workers and family reunification. And so a zero-sum 

game always gets my attention, because we have about, what, 6.3 

billion people on the planet, so that would be the universe that you 

have addressed, I think. But do you believe that there should be 

a limit to the number of people brought into the United States, especially if we could all have them be legal, and what is that number? 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you for the question. First let me say that, 

you know, I won’t say that I could set a number for you right here, 

Representative King. I will say, of course, like every country, there 

are only a certain number of folks who will be permitted to enter 

the United States, but I just don’t believe that it is a zero-sum 

game. I do think that the answer is to increase the number of highskilled immigrants that we have, but also to put the folks who are 

already here on a path to citizenship. 

Mr. KING. But, Mayor Castro, then what I am hearing here is 

that you wouldn’t put a limit on any of those groups, you would 

just fill up those categories essentially by the demand, and that demand is potentially the entire population of the planet. 

Let me ask you another question, and that is do you believe that 

an immigration policy in this country should be established to enhance the economic, social and cultural well-being of the United 

States? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I think that you and I agree that our immigration policy should enhance the economic, social well-being of the 

United States. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. And I have found that—— 

Mr. CASTRO. And I believe that it has been shown that immigrants, high-skilled immigrants and what you would consider lowskilled immigrants, do benefit the economic progress of the United 

States. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. 

And I turn to Mr. Teitelbaum. And I just recall the gentlelady 

from California saying that the agriculture would collapse if all of 

a sudden we didn’t have the, quote, ‘‘immigrant labor’’ to do that. 
229 

Did you agree with that, or do you care to illuminate that subject 

a little for us, please? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Again, this is my comment, not the Commission’s comment, but if you suddenly removed the entire workforce 

of fruit and vegetable agriculture in California and the Southwest, 

it would collapse. But that is not the question. The question really 

is should you continue to depend on continuing inflows of people 

to be the workforce of that industry. 

Mr. KING. Would you agree, Mr. Teitelbaum, that there are many 

businesses in this country that have been predicated upon the presumption that there would be unskilled and often illegal labor to 

fill those ranks, and that our economic structure that we see in the 

United States would be dramatically different if the promise of the 

1986 Amnesty Act had been upheld? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes, there are. There are many industries. I 

have talked to a lot of the farmers in those areas, and they tell me 

that they make their decisions about what crops to plant based 

upon the assumption they will continue to have access. 

Mr. KING. I watched it happen in my district. 

Thank you to the witnesses. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas 

Ms. Jackson Lee for 5 minutes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chair very much. 

Let me particularly thank all of you for your time here today. It 

is a very important process that we are going through, and if I 

have ever felt the spirit of the greatness of America and what we 

are capable of doing, it is today, and it is now, because of all of 

your testimony. 

I want to put into the record quickly that in this year 2012, relating to border security—and I also serve on the Homeland Security Committee—that Border Patrol agents have apprehended 

356,873 in 2012 under President Obama’s administration, and the 

budget has doubled from 6.3 billion to 11.7 billion. So I think that 

is an important note to make for this record as we look at how we 

balance security and comprehensive immigration reform. 

I absolutely believe, in spite of your different interests, that we 

cannot suffer a piecemeal process. It must be a comprehensive 

process. 

So, Mr. Wadhwa, let me thank you for your intellect and genius 

and let me ask these questions very quickly. Those individuals who 

have come, who are now technological giants, many of them were 

trained in America’s institutions of higher learning; is that not accurate? 

Mr. WADHWA. That is correct. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And so the likes of—these two are American 

citizens—Mark Zuckerberg went through Harvard. I think he 

paused a little bit. Bill Gates went through Harvard, but a number 

of those that you speak, Google, Yahoo, et cetera, went through the 

Nation’s institutions of higher learning. Could it not also be that 

the children of those who have different skills ultimately go 

through the Stanfords, Harvards, Princetons and ultimately be the 

same kind of geniuses that immigrants have been, or when I say 
230 

immigrants, those youngsters that you speak of? So that if you 

happen to be the child of an unskilled, undocumented person, you 

could also ascend to genius by going to those schools? 

Mr. WADHWA. I 100 percent agree, and my children are going to 

outdo me. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Is it also true that many flock to the United 

States because of institutions of higher learning that have the excellent professors, such as yourself? 

Mr. WADHWA. Absolutely. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And is it also the commitment of American to 

make sure that those individuals that may not necessarily be the 

children of first-generation of immigrants but those who look at 

this hearing and say, what is going to happen to me, should we 

look to the promise of America for everyone, African Americans, 

Asians, Hispanics, Anglos, should that be the promise of America? 

Mr. WADHWA. I agree with that as well. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And would you commit then, when you educate technological phase—our geniuses, that they should look to 

making sure everyone has an opportunity? 

Mr. WADHWA. There is no disagreement on any of these points. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So when we talk about comprehensive immigration reform, is it an important message that no one be left out? 

Mr. WADHWA. I agree, but the issue of timing. Right now the 

skilled immigrant issue is critical because, we are bleeding. We 

need the talent. We need innovation to cure the economy. And this 

is why I emphasized this over everything else. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And we thank you for that. Let me make you 

a commitment. I am right there with you. We put the skilled immigrants right there with the comprehensive immigration reform, and 

we will roll forward together. You are absolutely right. You have 

my commitment. 

Mayor Castro, if I might ask you a question about two issues. 

Working with immigrant issues, let me first of all say how endearing the DREAM Act youngsters are. I spent a lot of time with them 

in my office, literally saw a mother fall on the ground, screaming, 

in my office when we were able to say that we might have a deferred circumstance; tragically saw a person who had a serious 

neurological issue be expelled from one of our public hospitals 

while her husband paid taxes, sales taxes, other taxes of which 

that hospital facility was built on, and her child was a documented 

individual. 

Can you speak to the horror of us not doing comprehensive immigration reform, the pains of those kind of stories? If we put a face 

on those kind of stories, and can you relate it to the diversity of 

your city that includes African American and others who have 

come together and worked together and have shown productivity 

when we work together? 

Mr. CASTRO. Yeah, well, I am very proud of San Antonio over the 

years. You have people from many backgrounds. Many immigrants 

have come up and built up one of the Nation’s leading cities today. 

But you are right. I hear the stories. I met with the dreamers 

of folks oftentimes who are doing great in high school. They find 

out that they are not here documented. They call the United States 

home. America is the only country that they have ever called home. 
231 

They are as patriotic as anybody else. They worry every day about 

their parents. They worry about themselves and whether they are 

going to be trapped with very little future, despite the fact that 

they have great talent and a lot to offer the country. 

It rips families apart at the seams to be in this kind of limbo, 

and it injures communities because we are not fully able to take 

advantage of the brain power of those young people. I believe that 

brain power is the currency of success in this 21st century economy. I also agree with you that that brain power comes from many 

different quarters. And my grandmother came to San Antonio 

through Eagle Pass, Texas, in 1922 as a 6-year-old orphan. She 

wasn’t a high-skilled worker. But two generations later, you know, 

her grandson is the mayor of the city and the other grandson is the 

Congressman from San Antonio. These are the stories that we have 

to pay heed to when we think about the need to do this comprehensively. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentlewoman has expired. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gohmert, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

witnesses for being here today. 

Yeah, I am down here on the Chairman’s far right, imagine that. 

Mayor, you are right. We do have to put faces on things and like 

when I saw the President with children gathered around him as he 

is often doing now, I think about the financial burden we are putting on our children. First generation in American history that is 

actually making things worse for future generations. Instead of sacrificing ourselves, we are spending money like crazy. 

And part of it is health care. We have just had Obamacare a couple of years ago passed, and now seniors are seeing the massive 

cuts that are affecting their ability to get health care. 

One of the problems it seems with our economy, the overspending with the burden on health care, is that even though people in business, the Chamber wants to look the other way sometimes on people coming in illegally if they are working providing 

cheap labor, is that the rest of Americans are paying the health 

care of those who come in, if they are coming in illegally. And so 

the health care, it is free to those individuals, but somebody is paying it. 

I just wondered about, you know, as we hear farmers—and apparently, it is essential that they have immigrant workers come in, 

harvest crops. We have heard that over and over. Would any of you 

have any problem with saying, okay, you want to bring in temporary workers to harvest your crop, then you need an umbrella 

health insurance policy that covers the people that you are bringing in to work temporarily? 

I am looking for grounds for compromise, where we could work 

something out so we accommodate those who need temporary workers and yet not continue to bust the system. Would anybody be offended by a requirement that an employer to bring in temporary 

workers provide an umbrella health insurance policy? Anybody? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I would just say, Representative Gohmert, 

that, you know, I had not given that thought, but I do believe that 
232 

we need to address the 11 million folks who are already here. And 

with regard to future workforce needs—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, and I understand that, Mayor, but that is 

not the direction of my question. And since my time is limited, I 

do need to move on. But you have all agreed that our policy should 

be what is in the best interested of the United States. We have 

heard before there may be—I am sorry, 1.5 billion that want to 

come to the United States. Obviously, that would overwhelm our 

system, and then nobody would want to come here because we 

would be bankrupt. 

But we often talk about all of those who cross our borders illegally. But as the Chairman has pointed out before, 40 percent of 

the people who are unlawfully in the country right now came in 

lawfully and have overstayed their visa, their means of coming in 

legally. 

Does anybody on the panel believe we should advertise to the 

world, if you come in temporarily on a visa, you don’t have to 

leave? I mean, it may sound like a silly question, but that is a concern of mine that we may be advertising. When Steve King and I 

had gone over to talk with folks about—and they don’t like the 

term ‘‘illegal immigration’’ in England. They told it is ‘‘irregular migration.’’ It sounds like something else. But anyway, whether it is 

irregular migration or illegal immigration, they said they have a 

law that provides if you come into England, you have to swear that 

you will not accept any government benefits for a period of 5 years. 

As they said, since it is all about the best interest of our country, 

we need to make sure people coming in contribute before they take 

out. 

Would anybody have a problem if we had such a prohibition? We 

welcome you in, whatever comprehensive agreement gets worked 

out to have an agreement, you don’t get benefits until you are here 

at least 5 years contributing to the system. Anybody have a problem with that? 

Mr. WADHWA. We have to provide medical benefits regardless of 

who we bring in. That is a must for every human being. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Okay, so whoever we bring in, we are going to 

give free healthcare. 

Mr. WADHWA. They have to pay for health care. They pay insurance. 

Mr. GOHMERT. So if somebody coming in pays for it, they aren’t 

getting free health care. 

Mr. WADHWA. It can’t be free. It should be paid for. 

Mr. GOHMERT. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. CASTRO. I would also just say, Mr. Representative, as you 

know, legal, permanent residents right now, as I understand, don’t 

qualify for traditional welfare or health care. So I believe that a lot 

of that has been resolved by the law that is in place. 

Mr. GOHMERT. You are probably aware that we do have government agencies that actually go out and recruit people for government benefits, whether they are here legally or illegally, which is 

something else we need to look at. 

But I really appreciate your time. I see my time is expired. 

Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank the gentleman. 
233 

The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Chu, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Ms. CHU. First, let me just reiterate that point. There is a 5-year 

ban on benefits for legal, permanent residents, so they cannot just 

come in and get the health benefits. So that is totally a myth that 

is out there. 

But I would like to ask some questions pertaining to families and 

comprehensive immigration reform. 

Mayor Castro, one of the immigration priorities for the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is that comprehensive immigration reform protects 

the unity and sanctity of families by ensuring that families are reunited. Under the current immigration system, there is a significant backlog. Adult children of U.S. citizens who live in the Philippines have been waiting for 20 years to be reunited with their 

parents, and adult children living in Mexico have been waiting 19 

years to be reunited with families. 

Americans really, I believe, shouldn’t have to choose between 

their country and building a life with their children. 

So, Mayor Castro, as the grandson of an immigrant and a public 

servant, how problematic is it that families are being split apart 

and why are families good for our economy and our Nation? 

Mr. CASTRO. Yeah, well, thank you for the question. 

This is always—this has long been the policy of the United 

States for good reason. Families make each individual stronger. 

That is the basis, I think, of much of the strength of our communities, the economic progress, the moral progress that we have 

made. You know, we hear stories every now and then of folks who 

have a dying relative in another country and someone they have 

been waiting to try and bring over for years or someone who is here 

undocumented, who is deathly afraid of going across the border to 

go visit a dying mother or a dying father, just can’t do it because 

they know what the risk is. 

We are stronger because we have had this family-based system, 

and part of what we have to do for folks who are citizens, who are 

here legally as well, is to clear that backlog. We need to invest to 

clear that backlog and make sure that we can strengthen this. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you for that and I want to ask also about the 

families of H-1B workers. 

Mr. Vivek Wadhwa, you talked about the need for our highlyskilled workers. And I totally agree. Even with unemployment at 

historically high levels, a large number of jobs are going unfulfilled 

because of a lack of qualified workers in science, technology, engineering, and math, and that is why I do support the creation of the 

STEM visas and improvements to the current employment-based 

green card system. 

But in your testimony, you talked about how the family members 

of H-1B workers or skilled workers live as second-class citizens, 

that they spouses are not allowed to work, and depending on the 

State in which they live, they might not be able to get driver’s licenses, or open a bank account. And because of this, these workers 

are getting frustrated and returning home. 

So how does the fairness for the families and loved ones of highly-skilled workers impact our ability to bring engineers and sci-
234 

entists to the U.S.? Does it serve as a deterrent not to have something in place? 

Mr. WADHWA. Yeah, you know, I hate to say this, but the women 

in Saudi Arabia have more rights than the spouses of the wives of 

H-1B workers. It is inhuman the way we treat them. They are 

highly skilled in many cases. In some States, they can’t get driver’s 

licenses, which means that they are confined to the home. What 

sort of a country is this which brings people in, highly-skilled immigrants, but doesn’t give them equal rights? This is wrong. It has 

to be fixed. And what happens is that after being here 2 or 3 years, 

they get increasingly frustrated. This is one of the reasons why 

people leave here, and they have such marital problems because 

their wives are equally productive people, and they are not allowed 

to work because of the current laws. It must be fixed. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you for that. 

Mr. Arora, you had a very compelling story about coming here 

as one of the best and the brightest students, and then you became 

a leader in the biotech field, working for Amgen, and now for 

Genentech. But yet, it took you 15 years to get your permanent status, and yet, you had a wife and now you have two beautiful young 

children. You talk about certain solutions and that could continue 

family-based immigration and make sure that immigrant families 

are able to work together and, through their combined forces, pay 

taxes, buy homes and start job-creating businesses. 

I was interested in one of your solutions, which is that spouses 

and children of employment-based immigrant visa recipients, that 

they are exempted from the employment-based caps. Could you 

talk more about that? 

Mr. ARORA. Thank you. When you become a citizen, which of 

course, in my case, for example, after 15 years, I am now—my 

character is being checked for the next 5 years to see if I can be 

a citizen—during this period, and I know people who have been 

through this, if you get married, for example, and I had a colleague 

like this, you can’t bring your spouse into the country for a period 

of 5 years because that is the backlog for immediate family. And 

my family is here with me, so I want to say that I understand the 

importance of your family being with you. It is really important. 

Now, during these very long waits, if you are on an H-1, as Mr. 

Wadhwa has just stated, there are certain States that will restrict 

the ability of your spouse to do so much that it becomes difficult 

as a family unit to continue your work or to continue to stay in a 

meaningful manner. I count myself as very fortunate. In 2007, for 

that 1 month when the State Department decided to allow everyone to file adjustment of status, I was able to get employment authorization, which means that my wife could get the same. But 

anyone on an H-1B status does not have that privilege. Not only 

that—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Dr. Arora, you are going to have to summarize. 

Her time has expired long ago. 

Mr. ARORA. I agree with you completely. It is a big problem, and 

I want to echo what Vivek said, but it needs to be fixed. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

The time of the gentlewoman has expired. The Chair would ask 

the gentleman from Texas, when I recognize you, if you would yield 
235 

30 seconds to me. So I might—I recognize the gentleman from 

Texas. And if you would yield to me. 

Mr. POE. Certainly, I will yield 30 seconds. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I appreciate that. I just want to clarify for the 

record a statement made earlier. Some disagreement here. 

We found in writing the STEM visa bill last year that when we 

extended an additional provision that allowed people who are on 

waiting lists for visas to come to the United States, we had to provide additional pay-fors, because we looked at Obamacare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and found that it provides benefits to anyone who is lawfully present in the United 

States. 

So, even without permanent resident status, this is going to be 

a major issue we will have to deal with as we look at immigration 

reform because individuals on that will qualify for benefits, which 

could be, as you know, for as many as 10 million people, very, very 

expensive. 

And I thank the gentleman and yield back to the gentleman from 

Texas. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. 

The issue of immigration to me covers many questions, not just 

one or two. There are multifaceted questions to be answered across 

the board. And I want to focus on a couple of those in the next few 

minutes. We have the issue of skilled workers coming to the United 

States. We train them. They go home. They compete against the 

United States. Now, that is one of the issues that we have. 

Specifically, because of my location in the Houston area, Mayor, 

which you are familiar with, we also had the fact that the system 

to me is broken. It allows for abuse, and I am not talking about 

people who are coming here to better themselves. I am talking 

about the criminals who come in the United States, mainly the 

drug cartels and their operation, and how they are now become so 

sophisticated that they can cross the border into Texas; that they 

have engaged now in human trafficking, and unfortunately, Houston has become one of the hubs in the United States for the disbursement of traffickated people. We had the issue of 20 percent 

of the people in Federal penitentiaries when they committed the 

crime, they were unlawfully in the United States. Border security 

covers those particular issues. 

And we have the other issues as well. But I would like to concentrate specifically on trying to secure the border. I am one of 

those that doesn’t believe the border is secure, otherwise we 

wouldn’t have all of those organized crime problems that have now 

been created in the United States. 

At the border in Texas, as you know, there is the ability for a 

person—different subject—to come in and cross the border daily to 

go to school, to work; the 25-mile border visa system. And they use 

some type of card, similar to this, where they are allowed to cross 

into the United States daily. 

Do you think, Mayor, because of your location in San Antonio, 

that if we had a better legal entry visa, whether it is a card with 

the biometrics, fingerprint, photograph, the different electronic 

things that we can put when a person comes into the United 
236 

States, slides and glides, so to speak, we know who that person is. 

They have permission to go to Oregon for 6 months, if that would 

help the overall issue of specifically knowing who comes in lawfully 

or not? What do you think about that? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I certainly think there is room for that as a 

piece of it, sure. I think that the use of technology, the systems 

that we have been developing have been improving. I also would 

say, as you know, that in Texas included, the dedication of boots 

on the ground of manpower at the border has been accelerated over 

the last few years under President Bush, and President Obama like 

never before. And we have doubled the number of enforcement 

agents down there since 2004, apprehensions are at a 40-year low. 

So I would agree that as part of a comprehensive approach, that 

the kinds of things that you are talking about should be a part of 

the discussion, perhaps part of the legislation, but that doesn’t get 

to the issue of the folks who are here already. 

Mr. POE. Reclaiming my time. I understand that is one of the 

questions that has to be addressed. But it is not the only question 

that has to be addressed because there are many, many issues, 

even legal immigration. My office, because of where we are, our 

caseworkers spend more time on helping people get here the right 

way than anything else they do except maybe working with the 

military. And as has been pointed out by my friends on the other 

side, that is a big problem where people have to wait for years to 

just come in the right way. That has to be fixed as well. 

One comment I would make on the apprehensions. I know that 

apprehensions may be down. That doesn’t mean that the border is 

more secure. It just means that apprehensions are down; less people are being apprehended. You can look at that in a couple of different ways. And in Texas, the Governor of the State, as you know, 

is doing more than ever before in the State to help border security 

as well. 

So anybody else want to weigh in on improving the legal visa 

system so that it is more secure because that is a concern; as pointed out, many people come into the United States the right way; 

they never go home. I mean, why would they? They are in Texas. 

Why would they leave, you know? And they are in San Antonio, or 

Houston. 

Mr. CASTRO. I certainly agree with you there. 

Mr. POE. Anybody else want to weigh in on that? I am out of 

time. 

Mr. WADHWA. We may well need a biometric ID system in the 

United States. 

Mr. POE. I can’t hear you. 

Mr. WADHWA. I said, we may well need a biometric ID system 

in the United States. India is IDing its entire population of 1 billion people, retina scans and fingerprints. We may need something 

like that in the United States. I mean, we have enough—right now, 

there is no such thing as privacy anymore anyway. We might as 

well face it and say, okay, if you are going to work here, you have 

to work legally. The Canadians do that. I asked a Canadian minister, how is it that they manage the immigration? He says, because even if the illegal immigrants come here, they can’t work. 
237 

Therefore, there is pressure on people to legalize and do those 

things by the book. We might have to bite the bullet over here. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and turns now 

to the gentlewoman from—you tell me—from California. 

The gentlewoman from California, with my apologies, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I wanted to ask a couple of questions, and this of Mayor Castro, 

and you may or may not know the answer, but maybe, you know, 

you can tell me. When we talk about a pathway to citizenship, and 

we talk about people who are undocumented being here and having 

to go at the end of the line and what they would have to do, pay 

their taxes, pay fines, whatever, sometimes I think when that conversation comes up, it is as though that would only take a couple 

of months. And I think—well, first of all, I do support a pathway 

to citizenship. I don’t want to be shy about that. But I wanted to 

know if you had some thought as to how long that would take? If 

somebody goes to the back of the line, it is, you know. 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you for the question. First, I would just say 

that earlier the question was asked about, well, what is the compromise? The compromise is the fact that this is earned citizenship, 

that one would be fined. One would have to learn English, pay 

back taxes, go to the back of the line, and that line is a long line. 

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. CASTRO. The fact is, as Dr. Arora said, that for folks who 

were legally applying, that that takes too long right now. It takes 

sometimes over a decade or longer, and so for anyone who thinks 

that this would be some sort of automatic application that somebody would be in in a couple of months, that is not the case at all. 

This is a years-long process, and it is also earned. That is an important point to be made. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, another area 

that I am concerned about, and I would like to know how this 

might be impacting your city, a lot of research, an issue that I work 

on is foster care. And because of the deportations that have taken 

place over the last few years, there are anywhere from 5,000 to 

6,000 children who have been placed in foster care because their 

parents have been deported. The children were citizens. And I 

wanted to know if that is affecting your city, and what your 

thoughts might be on how we would include a resolution for that 

situation as we do comprehensive immigration reform. 

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. In any community the size of San Antonio, 

you do have examples of families that have been torn apart, and 

certainly, I hope that in this legislation, we can find a way in addressing immigration reform comprehensively to deal with those 

types of situations. 

I remember that George Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, 

used to say that family values don’t end at the Rio Grande, and 

that is certainly true, still; that keeping the family together has 

been so much a part of the progress of America, and so my hope 

is that can be addressed. 

Ms. BASS. Absolutely, and I think when we talk about family values, we really have to consider this, and so one of the issues that 
238 

I would be concerned about is those people that have been deported. How do we reunite them with their children? We did a listening tour in Miami, and I went to a residential facility for foster 

youth, and there were a group of children that were arriving that 

day, in Miami, from California, who were being sent to live in 

Miami. So not only are they completely disconnected from their 

parents but any environment that they might have known. And 

what is to happen to those kids? So when we are thinking about 

resources of our country, our government could wind up supporting 

those children all of their lives because we have disconnected them 

from their families. So I think it is an important issue that we factor in when we do comprehensive immigration reform. 

Thank you, I appreciate that. 

Mr. Teitelbaum, I wanted to ask you a question because you 

made reference to—one of the previous Members had asked you 

about the agricultural industry, and coming from California, clearly, that is a major industry. And you said something about how if 

unskilled workers were not allowed in the country or were removed, that maybe growers would make different decisions about 

what they would grow? 

And I was wondering if you could give a couple of examples, because I can’t think of—I can’t think of crops that would not require 

farm workers, and how would a State like California, that feeds a 

good percentage of the country, then make decisions about certain 

crops? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. I can give you a very memorable example visiting a farm or ranch that had a very large number of apricot trees 

that had to be hand picked. And I was talking with the farmer and 

asking him what his situation was on labor. He said, well, all of 

these people are undocumented, and I don’t pay them very much 

so I can afford to hand pick these apricots. You have to hand pick 

apricots. They are a very fragile fruit. 

So I said, well, what would you do if you didn’t have that labor 

force or the price went up substantially? He said, well, we are already losing money on our apricots to apricots coming into the port 

of San Francisco from Turkey that are undercutting what we can 

sell them for. I am probably going to do this anyway, but if it happened the way you describe, I would certainly do it. I would cut 

down all of these apricot trees, and I would plant walnuts, walnut 

trees. They would grow great on this land, and with the walnut 

tree, you put a tarp under the tree, you bring up a mechanical 

shaker, you shake the tree, all of the walnuts fall on the tarp and 

you have harvested the tree in about 10 minutes. You still need 

some labor, but a lot less labor. That is typical, I think. 

Ms. BASS. Okay, so I would just suggest that you would devastate the economy of California if California then only switched 

over to crops that did not require the labor of farm workers. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Well, they will require some farm workers always, but the question is, how intensive is the labor needed for a 

given crop? 

Ms. BASS. So walnuts, do you have any other examples of crops 

that do not require farm workers? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. There are many crops that are labor intensive 

and many crops that are not. I mean, wheat is not labor intensive. 
239 

Ms. BASS. Okay, well, thank you. I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlewoman. 

And the Chair is pleased to recognize the Chairman of the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee, the gentleman from 

South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Mayor, I want to make sure I understand you correctly and 

fully. Can you support a path to legal status that does not end in 

citizenship? 

Mr. CASTRO. No, I support a pathway to citizenship. I believe 

that is—— 

Mr. GOWDY. So there is no form of legal status that you would 

support short of full-fledged citizenship? 

Mr. CASTRO. I just don’t believe that is in the Nation’s best interest. 

Mr. GOWDY. So the answer is no. 

Mr. CASTRO. I believe that a pathway to full citizenship is what 

the Congress ought to enact, so sure. 

Mr. GOWDY. And I think you earlier referenced that as a compromise, and I am curious. A compromise between what? Because 

I don’t hear anyone advocating for full-fledged citizenship without 

background checks or full-fledged citizenship without back taxes or 

full-fledged citizenship without fines. So it is a compromise between what? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I think you would agree with me, Mr. Chairman, that this point that you are at right now that you are talking 

about, these, you know, the fact that they would have to pay a fine, 

that they would go to the back of the line, that they would have 

to learn English, that has been worked up as a compromise between Senators from different parties, and perhaps House Members. 

Mr. GOWDY. But my question to you is, that represents a compromise between what? Because I don’t know anyone who is advocating against that. So you represent that as being a compromise. 

A compromise strikes me as a balance between two competing principles. I don’t hear anyone advocating for full-fledged citizenship 

with no conditions precedent at all. So how is that a compromise? 

Mr. CASTRO. It is a compromise in my mind because Senators 

from different parties, as Americans want folks to do from different 

parties, came together, and put together a framework. I am sure 

they had their divergent views, so if we went to the beginning of 

the process, then I am sure there was more divergence in their 

views. What was put on the table, including the planks that you 

just stated, represents a compromise position. 

Mr. GOWDY. What about those who are currently here who do not 

desire citizenship? Would it be forced upon them or could they opt 

out? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I believe that throughout our history, it you 

know, has been left up to the individual. 

Mr. GOWDY. So you don’t have—— 

Mr. CASTRO. Nobody is talking about forcing folks to become citizens. 
240 

Mr. GOWDY. So you do not. Because the polls I have seen, there 

is a large percentage that just want to work legally. They don’t desire to be full-fledged citizens. So you would not force that upon 

them. 

Mr. CASTRO. What I hear are an enormous number of people who 

want to be full American citizens. They are patriotic people. They 

want to serve in the military. They want to be productive for the 

country. They want to be full-fledged citizens, and I believe that 

that is in the best interest of the Nation. I don’t believe that we 

should—I guess the alternative would be that we—— 

Mr. GOWDY. And there is not a legal status short of citizenship 

that you could accept under any compromise. Because the compromise you made reference to is a Senate compromise. There is no 

compromise short of full-fledged citizenship that you could endorse. 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, of course, at the end of the day, this is in your 

hands, but—— 

Mr. GOWDY. But I am asking you. 

Mr. CASTRO. I know, and I believe that the compromise that has 

been worked out by the Senators, and maybe worked on by the 

House Members, that represents a great compromise and that 

Americans can support that. 

Mr. GOWDY. What are some of the elements of the background 

check that you would be most interested in? Because the word 

background check means different things to different people. I assume it is more than just an NCIC check to see whether or not 

someone suffered a felony conviction. What do you mean by background check? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, and I readily acknowledge, you know, I am 

not a technical expert, not in law enforcement, and so I understand 

you all are going to have a panel that is going to deal with enforcement. 

Mr. GOWDY. But you are an attorney. You are an attorney, very 

well-trained attorney, so—— 

Mr. CASTRO. Not very good at law school, though. 

Mr. GOWDY. Better than most of the Members of Judiciary, I suspect your grades were. So what would you include in that background check? Because Mr. Forbes asked you, I thought it was a 

very good question. If you set the bar at felony convictions, that is 

a pretty high standard. For those who are under investigation by 

the bureau, or someone else, and you could maybe meet the level 

of probable cause, but not beyond a reasonable doubt, would you 

be willing to exclude them from this path? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I think that what has been discussed does go 

beyond just folks who have been convicted of a felony. I understand 

that there may be some instances, but that is going to be case specific. I think that kind of thing needs to be adjudicated. You know, 

it is, you know, somewhere between assuming that somebody has 

committed a crime and recognizing that there are circumstances 

where someone does present a danger to the United States and 

should not be in the country. I do think that there is leeway there. 

I would grant you that. And these are the kinds of things that— 

I don’t disagree with the general point that, you know, this is not 

easy. This is detailed. It is important work, but I believe, at the 

end of the day, that the compromise, the general principles of the 
241 

compromise that have been worked out in the Senate are the ones 

that are the best option for the United States. 

Mr. GOWDY. My very last question to you because I am out of 

time is this: This is not our country’s first foray into amnesty. And 

you talked about citizenship and all of the benefits that that confers on folks. One of the benefits it confers is that you have the protection of the law. So how would you explain to folks, in my district 

or Congressman Labrador’s, who really do place a high value on respect for the rule of law, why we are doing this again if it hasn’t 

worked in the past? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I think you and I would agree that, as many 

folks have said, we are a Nation of laws. We draw our strength 

from the fact that we are a Nation of laws. At the same time, we 

are also a Nation of immigrants, and we have progressed as a Nation because we are pragmatic, and we understand that these 11 

million folks that are here, that this has to be addressed. It is in 

our national security interest. It is in our national economic interest. So I do think that we can find a way to punish these folks for 

not coming in here legally but, at the same time, address the pragmatic issue that is in front of us. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Richmond, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Earlier the question was posed to each of you, and you all were 

given the ability to just say yes or no, and I thought it was unfair. 

But the question was, should America do what is in America’s best 

interest when talking about immigration. And I guess the question 

that, the part that was left out is, do you consider a cost-benefit 

analysis on each person as the only factor in what is in America’s 

best interest? 

So if they are only going to come and be very successful business 

owners and create jobs, is that the only factor we should look at 

when determining what is in America’s best interest? And we can 

start with you, Mr. Wadhwa. 

Mr. WADHWA. There needs to be a balance over here because if 

we just bring people in and there are no jobs for them, we are 

going to create a complete mess. They lose and we lose. 

What I have been arguing for is bringing in a crop of highlyskilled immigrants who can help this country become competitive, 

who can create new technologies, who can create jobs, make the pie 

bigger so we can bring the other people in. 

Mr. RICHMOND. But that shouldn’t be the only factor, is my question. 

Mr. WADHWA. That should not be the only thing because they are 

going to bring their families in as well. 

Mr. RICHMOND. And I will have a follow-up for you, Mr. 

Teitelbaum. Should it be the only factor? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. No, it shouldn’t be. Can I say more than no? 

Mr. RICHMOND. If it is quick. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. The family category doesn’t have that criteria, 

and it is the dominant category in legal immigration. So if you 

focus in on the skills-based or the employment-based, that is a different, that is a small category. 
242 

Mr. RICHMOND. No, and I agree with that. 

Mr. ARORA. No, I agree with what both of them said. The balance 

is important. The balance has always been true in this immigration 

system. 

Mr. RICHMOND. And Mr. Mayor? 

Mr. CASTRO. We need a balanced approach. 

Mr. RICHMOND. And the reason why I posed the question was because, and Mr. Wadhwa, you brought it up first, why don’t we just 

get the skilled labor part done first? Well, politically, and just being 

very practical about it, if we got the skilled labor part done first, 

do you think we would ever come behind it and finish the job? 

I think it has to be a comprehensive approach, or we will never 

get to the hard part. So that was probably my biggest concern, especially when I hear the conversation about the category for diversity being maybe reduced or eliminated completely, when diversity 

adds something to this country, and we should never forget it. And 

if we go back to the Declaration of Independence, you know, one 

of the facts that was used to talk about the king was the fact that 

he was preventing people from coming to the country and being 

able to migrate here. And then if we look at the Statue of Liberty, 

when it says, give me your tired, and your poor. What I don’t want 

people to take away from this hearing is that all of a sudden we 

forgot about the tired and the poor and the people who are striving 

for a better life. 

So those are probably my biggest concerns when we look at just 

the precedent we are setting. And we have economic problems, and 

we are getting out of them like we always do. And we will always 

prosper because we are resilient. But the question becomes, what 

about the moral ground that we would see if we just say we are 

going to forget about 11 million people? We are only going to focus 

on skilled workers. We are not going to take care of spouses and 

equal protection under the laws, and all those things. Do you worry 

about that? 

Mr. WADHWA. I do, and the thing is, right now, the country is 

in a mess. Our economy is in horrible shape. We have a brain drain 

going on for the first time in its history. This has never, ever happened before. We have never, America has always been a land of 

immigrants, not emigrants. It is happening right now. If we wait 

3 years to fix the skill problem, we lose a couple of hundred thousand more great people who could be healing our economy. And unless and until the economy heals, the American public will not be 

receptive to the unskilled workers. 

So it is a mess right now, and all I am talking about is let’s agree 

on what we agree on, get that over and done with. Let’s agree on 

the skill. Let’s agree on the DREAM Act. Let’s give some kind of 

a green card to the undocumented workers while we decide on the 

citizenship. That is so toxic right now that I am not optimistic we 

can solve that problem. Maybe we will. Maybe I will be wrong, but 

in the meantime, let’s agree on what we agree on and make things 

easier for everyone. 

I am saying give these undocumented workers green cards. My 

father has a green card, for example. He hasn’t gotten his citizenship. He has lived here for 30 years happily without having that 
243 

problem. You don’t have to have citizenship to, you know, do what 

is right for people. Let’s solve the problem where it can be solved. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Mr. Teitelbaum? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes, my wife lived here for 25 years on a green 

card until she decided to naturalize. And the only difference was 

she couldn’t vote in the school board elections, which annoyed her. 

The Statue of Liberty is on the cover of all of the Commission on 

Immigration Reform reports, and on the diversity visas, I think if 

you look at the composition the national origin and other composition of current legal immigration to the U.S., it is very diverse. 

When that provision was passed, there was concern it was not diverse enough. 

Since then, it has become very diverse. And these are adding 

55,000 visas that are getting 8 million applications each year, randomly allocated by computerized lottery. That is a somewhat odd 

way to set priorities. The commission said we should set priorities, 

and we should deliver on them. And the diversity visa program, it 

felt then, and I think would say now, it does not rise to that level 

of priority compared to the other priorities. 

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

And the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Idaho Mr. Labrador for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am excited that we are having this hearing. I think it is important that we modernize our immigration system. I think we all 

agree that we have a broken immigration system, but we need to 

find a solution to the problems that we have by being fair. We need 

to be fair to the millions of Americans that want to follow the rule 

of law. We need to be fair to the millions of people that are waiting 

in line to come legally to the United States. And I do think we do 

have to be fair to the 11 million people or so that are here in the 

United States illegally. 

So I have a few questions about this, but first, I want to go to 

Mr. Teitelbaum. You spoke about the sibling category in your report. Can you explain? I actually agree with your conclusion in the 

report. I think we should get rid of the sibling category. Can you 

just explain a little bit and just short, why you think that is important? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. There aren’t enough visas allocated for the 

huge volume of applications. You have got a 2.5 million person 

waiting list. And one of the Members has already mentioned what 

the wait times are, which vary from 12 to 20 years, depending on 

the country. So if you are not going to manage by backlog, which 

is what the commission said we should not be doing, that is a category that is being managed by unconscionable backlogs. 

Mr. LABRADOR. And we could actually use those visas and allocate them to spouses and—— 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. To the higher priorities. 

Mr. LABRADOR [continuing]. To the higher priorities. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes, indeed. 

Mr. LABRADOR. But something that I disagree with you on the 

report is the guest worker issue. And I am a little bit dumbfounded 

by it, and I know this report came out a few years ago. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Fifteen years ago. 
244 

Mr. LABRADOR. Yes. You know, in my State, in Idaho, we have 

a large dairy industry, and at least two Idaho dairy farmers have 

experienced I-9 audits in the last couple of years. In one, 32 out 

of the 40 employees didn’t qualify to work in the United States; 

and the other one, 47 out of 57 did not qualify. 

They went ahead, fired all of those employees, and they went 

ahead and asked for people to come work at the dairy. They 

couldn’t find a single person who applied for that position who 

spoke English. Now, they don’t know if the people are legal or illegal, because the people they hired have legal documents, and they 

haven’t done another I-9 audit. But how can you say we don’t have 

a need? I mean, that is a large number of employees that needed 

to be hired, and not a single person who spoke English applied for 

the position. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. I don’t know the circumstances in Idaho, Congressman. I am sorry, but I would say that it is true that in some 

agricultural areas, employers, typically in rural areas, which is 

where agriculture normally is anyway—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Typically. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Well, not always—but have become dependent 

on the assumption they can recruit from this undocumented workforce, and nobody—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. But this is different. This is somebody who had 

to fire everybody who was working at their dairy, and they couldn’t 

find anybody who could be, you know, who could speak English. I 

don’t know what their status was. 

I was an immigration lawyer for 15 years and I found the same 

experience in some of the agricultural areas, in the dairy industry, 

agricultural industries. It is hard to find American workers who 

want to do the job. And then your solution is just they should do 

something else. They should pick almonds instead of something 

else. But the reality is that we should let the market decide that, 

shouldn’t we? 

You know, it seems to me that even in the example that you gave 

us, the owner of the farm had already decided that he wasn’t going 

to pick the apricots anymore because the market was not working. 

And I think we need to do something about our guest workers, so 

I disagree with you there. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. It is the commission. 

Mr. LABRADOR. With the commission, I apologize. 

Mayor Castro, I believe—I liked your words that we progress because we are pragmatic. But yet, it seems to me that your solution 

is not pragmatic. You say that it has to be a pathway to citizenship 

or nothing else. Also, in my 15 years of experience as an immigration lawyer, I talked with thousands and thousands of people who 

are here illegally. And what they want is, they want to come out 

of the shadows. They want to be able to be legal. They want to be 

able to work. They want to be able to travel. They want to feel like 

they are treated with dignity. Not many people told me I want to 

be a citizen. I have to be a citizen in order to feel like I am a dignified person. 

So if we can find a solution that is a short of pathway to citizenship, short of pathway to citizenship, but better than just kicking 

12 million people out, why is that not a good solution? 
245 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I would say that that is not the solution that 

is in the Nation’s best interest. I think that is what I said, and I 

think that would be the most pragmatic solution. And one of the 

reasons that I believe that, is that if we don’t go down that route, 

then I am convinced that we are more likely to find ourselves here 

again in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. So, you know, if you asked 

me, would that be better than zero, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree 

with that. But is that sufficient? Does that actually address the 

issues that we have in front of us? No. It is not a sufficient solution. 

Mr. LABRADOR. And my time has run out, but the question that 

I have for you and for all advocates of immigration reform is 

whether you want a political solution or a policy solution? If we 

want to political solution, you guys are going to insist on pathway 

to citizenship. You are going to beat Republicans over the head on 

this issue. But if we want a policy solution, I think there is goodwill here in the House of Representatives for us to come together, 

actually have a pragmatic solution to the current problem that we 

have, and solve and modernize the immigration system for years 

to come. But thank you very much. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Gutierrez, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First, I 

would like to say that while we have been here, every minute, 

someone has been deported. Most of those deported have committed 

really no crime other than working in the United States, which is 

a misdemeanor the last time I checked. They are raising their families. They are contributing. There is always the question about 

paying taxes. Well, they pay taxes. You can check with the Social 

Security department. There is this large fund that goes unaccounted for. That means they really don’t know who to attribute 

that money to because people have contributed. I think we need to 

do comprehensive immigration reform so when they pay taxes, it 

goes into the right account. And it helps fund and fuel our economy. 

I want the mayor and the States and the Federal Government 

to garner all of those tax dollars and not for it to be in the pocket 

of some unscrupulous employer that is taxing them, but then not 

sending the money on. 

Plus, given the 1986 legislation, we all know that there was an 

increase in the earning ability of the undocumented once they became. I mean, everybody keeps talking about, you know, innovation. Let me give you a little innovation. We talk a lot about the 

uncertainty of the market and what we do as a Congress. The uncertainty about what we do and what that causes for our financial 

markets. 

I just want everybody to think one moment. What do you think 

about the uncertainty in the life of 11 million undocumented workers when you give them certainty? I will tell you what I believe 

they are going to do. They are going to go buy that house that they 

have always been thinking about buying but, since they were undocumented, didn’t. They are going to buy that car. We know that 

75 percent of our economic activity in the United States is what, 
246 

somebody going and purchasing something. I want you to think. I 

want you to think about people going to insurance agencies and to 

banks and opening accounts and to invest and to save. And most 

importantly, as I and other baby boomers, yes, I am 59 years old, 

and I am part of that group of people that is going to be hopefully 

soon going into the sunset. 

Mr. ISSA. How soon? How soon? 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. And while we have a lot of people, we have the 

largest percentage of people ever before in the history of our Nation 

that are leaving our workforce in the next 15 years. We need to replace them, and we need to replace these assets. Let me take a moment to say the following: There are undocumented people in this 

room. There are dreamers in this room. I am happy that the President used his executive authority. Five hundred thousand of them 

are now safe from deportation; 150,000 of them. One of them is in 

my office. And I have got to tell you something. He is not a burden. 

He got legalized. He came to my office. We hired him. He is working. He is paying taxes. He has got health care. How did he get 

health care; the way most of us get health care. I don’t think we 

should look at immigrants and say, how are they going to get 

health care? 

Well, the same way that Members of Congress get health care. 

We get health care at our place of employment. That is the same 

place they are probably going to get health care, and if not. So I 

want to say to everybody that is here. I want to quickly say to 

those that have come here, and I am sorry, I am going to butcher 

your name, Dr. Wadhwa. 

Mr. WADHWA. Good enough. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Good enough. And I want to say to Mr. Arora, 

to both of you. We have a bill. It was introduced by the gentlelady 

from California. For 10 years, I insisted that nothing happen on 

STEM or any other particular part of comprehensive immigration 

reform unless we did it all. But last year, I think in good faith and 

to show that we wanted to work with everybody, we said 50,000, 

I will not object, but they needed to be clean. 

We didn’t want you to get something while someone else lost 

something. We wanted to give it to you. And in our bill, 50,000, you 

get to come from the very first day with your wife. You get to come 

from the very first day with your children. Because we believe we 

should welcome you and your talent and at the same time, not 

have to make a distinction between serving this country and bringing your talent and sacrificing the love and cherishing the fact that 

your family might not be there with you. 

So we think that that is important so I am going to continue to 

work. And I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we 

can resolve this and many other issues. 

Lastly, I want to say a special thank you to Mayor Castro. You 

just lit up our house. My wife, and my daughters, and my grandson, Luisito. You lit us up with your speech at the Democratic Convention, with your leadership as mayor, with your poise, with the 

way it is you just make us all so proud, and with your story. And 

I would like to say to you that I am so thankful that America gave 

your grandparents a chance and that you are here with us today, 

because I know that not only San Antonio, but Texas, the Nation 
247 

is better because of your service. Thank you so much for your testimony here today. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

The Committee will have order. This is not the way—this is not 

the way to make your point. All of those must leave. Just so you 

are not in doubt about the rules of the Committee. 

I want to make sure everybody knows that the House Rules provide that the Chairman of the Committee may punish breaches of 

order and decorum by censure and exclusion from the hearing. 

We just a moment ago did not have order in the hearing room. 

Members of the audience must behave in an orderly fashion or else 

they will be removed from the hearing room. And let me just say 

as an aside, that was not a good accent point to the excellent points 

made by the gentleman from Illinois. 

The way we resolve this is through discussion and careful deliberation about the issues, not by disrupting efforts to educate the 

Members of this Committee and the public. 

And we will resume the hearing. And the gentleman from California is recognized, without penalty to the loss of any of his 5 minutes for that disruption. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, can I get an extra minute for this one? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Maybe. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, first of all, in several ways I want to associate 

myself with my good friend from Illinois. 

Luis, I am 1 month, 9 days older than you, but that doesn’t mean 

that there is any real difference in us as Baby Boomers. We are 

going to exit the scene, and I don’t want to exit the scene without 

resolving an immigration problem that predated my entrance and 

the gentleman’s entrance into Congress. 

That group of disruptions really didn’t understand my politics. I 

do believe we can get to a substantial, if not complete, immigration 

reform bill, and I hope, after 12 years on this Committee of trying 

to get there, it is my fervent hope that this is that window of opportunity. 

I do have some concerns from earlier. 

Mr. Teitelbaum, I want to associate myself with Ms. Lofgren. I 

heard you say basically that we should grow different crops in California as a resolution to needing labor that we can’t seem to find. 

Is that pretty well correct? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. No. What I am saying is that farmers and employers in general make decisions incrementally over time based 

upon the availability of labor at what price. 

Mr. ISSA. Absolutely. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. And so we have allowed, we have allowed a 

system to evolve in which those farmers who have made those decisions based on that assumption are dependent on that continuing 

flow of labor. That is the nature of both temporary worker programs and undocumented. 

Mr. ISSA. I want to challenge that for a moment. As a Californian, I was there in 1986 when the law changed. And I have seen 

my farmers, some that I represented in the past, some that I still 
248 

represent, flowers, tomatoes, strawberries, and then my wife’s 

home up in Salinas County, Monterey County, literally, the lettuce, 

the majority of all lettuce comes from that one county. The majority of all lettuce in America comes from that one county. If we simply say that we can’t have labor to pick that and that we need to 

make other decisions, it is fertile land. You are absolutely right. We 

will grow something else, and we will import our lettuce from another country. 

If the real question is do we have an effective program that gives 

opportunity to people outside the U.S. to come to the United States, 

work for a period of time, and periodically return home in a nonimmigrant, in a migrant way, if we have an ineffective program 

and we could have an effective program, and I think that is the 

real question. 

In the 1990’s, when you were studying this, you were studying 

it at a time in which the problem had been fixed, and it was getting rebroken as we spoke. You had migrant labor who had become 

under the 1986 law permanent, and they were beginning to either 

be in the management ranks of agriculture, or they were leaving 

agriculture, and that is pretty understandable. But isn’t it true— 

true in the 1990’s, true today—that there are tens of millions of 

people outside the U.S. who would stand in line to get good-paying—by their standards—migrant jobs here in America and would 

do so under a set of rules that were fair to them and fair to us? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. If they were fair, that is a big ‘‘if,’’ of course, 

because temporary worker programs generally have not had that 

character. And then I would suggest—— 

Mr. ISSA. Well, let me challenge that, because, you know, I want 

a successful resolution, and I believe a successful resolution is, one, 

deal with people already here and in an appropriate and comprehensive way; two, obviously empower us to bring in the people 

who add to our economy; and three, deal with low-skill jobs that 

in many cases if people come to this country, they do them for a 

short period of time. 

Is our standard today supposed to be an American wage for an 

American job—and I want to go to Mr. Wadhwa—or should it be 

a wage which is completely fair and greater than the wage someone would find in their home country for coming here, and sufficient for them to not only earn a living, but also go home with 

more money? And if that is the standard, then isn’t that an achievable standard where it is a win-win? We can get our crops dealt 

with in a decent way; they can be better off for it; and we can have 

a flow of labor for that one portion that, in fact, would not be subject to chain migration. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. The Commission recommendation said that 

that was an attractive goal, but not possible to achieve, number 

one. Number two—— 

Mr. ISSA. Not possible to achieve. I will go back to my premise, 

and I want to be quick. My premise was that we pay more than 

they would find in their home country, but not necessarily what we 

are paying today with all the rules under the AG program of H2A. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. The other thing, Congressman, you might want 

to look at is the backlogs that have been generated that have lots 
249 

of people who are not particularly skilled waiting. They are entitled 

in some sense to a visa, but they are in the backlog. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. Well, I hear that you say it couldn’t be done 

then, and it wasn’t going to work. But I have worked with Mr. Berman on this Committee believing that it could. Is anyone that has 

a different opinion there that would like to comment on the ability 

to take care of that one portion in a way in which Ms. Lofgren and 

I could see crops that, in fact, people want to eat be grown? 

Mr. WADHWA. If you look at Canada, Canada has made their 

guest worker program work very well. For low-skilled labor, that 

is not a bad solution. It is actually a good solution. For high-skilled 

labor, you can’t do that because you want the high-skilled labor—— 

Mr. ISSA. We want them here permanently. Absolutely. Thank 

you. Anyone else? 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your indulgence. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentlewoman from Washington Ms. DelBene is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DELBENE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I come from a district that has lots of technology in the southern 

part of the district, home of Microsoft and many other technology 

companies, a lot of biomedical device companies, and also a very 

rich agricultural industry of dairies and berries and specialty crops. 

So immigration is very, very important from many different aspects. 

I wanted to start with you, Mr. Wadhwa. And we talked a lot 

about H-1B, but you also talk about a startup visa program, and 

I wondered if you could elaborate what you think needs to be in 

such a program and how that would work in conjunction with the 

H-1B program. 

Mr. WADHWA. A startup visa would do wonders for Seattle. It 

would do wonders for New York and even more for Silicon Valley. 

There are literally tens of thousands of companies that would be 

started almost overnight if we gave these entrepreneurs or wouldbe entrepreneurs the ability to do that. Right now they can start 

companies. If you are on an H-1B visa, you can start a company, 

but you can’t work for it. It is brain dead. Right? So we would suddenly have a boom in entrepreneurship like we haven’t conceived 

before. 

There is no reason not to do it. It should be done independently 

of everything else we are doing. Just get that done so we can fix 

the immediate problem. 

Then there is the issue of H-1Bs. The big companies are lobbying 

very hard for it. They need it. I mean, there are debates about 

whether they take jobs away. In some parts of America, you don’t 

need H-1Bs; in parts where the skilled immigrants are, you do 

need H-1Bs. The Brookings Institution did a great study on that, 

so we need those also. 

But the more urgent thing there is to give green cards to the million already here on H-1B visas who are stuck in limbo. Let them 

start their companies. Let them buy houses. Let them enjoy the 

rights that Americans enjoy. 

Ms. DELBENE. We talk a lot about starting up companies, but 

also a lot of research and a lot of startups and entrepreneurs come 
250 

from great basic research that is happening at our universities. 

And so how do you think the relationship of our immigration program has an impact on the education we are able to deliver both 

in the medical area as well as in the technology area? 

Mr. WADHWA. I think we are completely in sync on that. We need 

these researchers coming in and doing great research at our universities, and then we need people leaving universities and starting 

companies. That is the one thing we need to fix in the United 

States system is to commercialize more research because that 

would, again, lead to a big boom in startups. 

Right now the system doesn’t work because the researchers can’t 

get permanent resident visas. It is the same problem that everyone 

has, that we have basically slowed down American innovations for 

no reason whatsoever. 

Ms. DELBENE. Dr. Arora, we are talking about health care. And 

obviously we talk a lot about kind of technology, and we forget that 

there are many needs not just in research and health care, but 

across the healthcare system. I wondered if you wanted to elaborate on that a little bit. 

Dr. ARORA. Yes. It is clear from a number of workforce reports 

that with the baby boomer generation retiring and with a new 

healthcare environment, there is a serious shortage of healthcare 

workers at various levels, physicians, and certainly there is a maldistribution—aside from everything else, there are a number of 

areas that are simply not medically served appropriately. There are 

certain specialties that are underserved. There are issues for getting nurses to the right hospitals. So there are a number of issues. 

It is also hard when you come in from a pathway like mine—I 

was on a J-1 exchange visitor visa—to go into a research field, if 

that is your desire. And it took me several years to make my way 

out to that because of the kinds of restrictions that I have faced. 

So we have always advocated that when you go through the immigration pathways, especially the skilled immigration pathways, 

there should be a great deal of portability and market-based characteristics to this so that people gravitate—people with skills gravitate toward where the demands are, and where their skills are appropriately needed, and where they can contribute best. And health 

care is no exception to that. 

I have had the privilege of working with Senator Conrad’s office 

in the past on his Conrad 30 program, of which I am a graduate, 

I should say, and they are looking for permanent authorizations. 

They are looking for physicians who go to underserved areas and 

provide service not to have to stand in these backlogs at the end 

of service. And those are all great ideas, and they should be a part 

of—— 

Ms. DELBENE. Thank you. 

And then we talk about agriculture. We have been talking a lot 

about seasonal workers. But I know in the example that my colleague from Idaho brought up earlier in the dairy world—and we 

have many dairy farmers in my district. These aren’t seasonal 

workers, these are year-round workers—that folks are struggling to 

make sure they have a strong workforce. 
251 

So do you feel differently about the ability to address those 

issues, Mr. Teitelbaum, versus the seasonal workers? I mean, there 

is an economic driver to this, too. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. If they are year-round, then they are not really 

temporary workers. Seasonal is more temporary. So I think, again, 

it is—— 

Ms. DELBENE. But there is still a gap. There is still an employment gap. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Yes. And you have got to consider whether the 

jobs are attractive enough for the underemployed U.S. workforce, 

who could be attracted if they were attractive. But I don’t know 

what the conditions are in the farms and dairies that you are describing, so I can’t comment on that. 

Ms. DELBENE. But you think it is merely a financial issue in 

terms of how much folks are paid versus the types of jobs and the 

skill involved in those jobs? As Mayor Castro said, these aren’t necessarily low-skilled, they are different-skilled. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Congresswoman, I did pick strawberries in the 

summer in Oregon not so far from your district. 

Ms. DELBENE. I think we went to the same school, actually. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Did we? I didn’t know that. 

It was an interesting, difficult, well-paid job for a college student 

in the summer. I don’t think there are any jobs like that anymore. 

It is a different workforce that does the strawberry picking in Oregon now. So I think you can see that there has been a kind of 

shift in the origin of the workforce. 

Did we really go to the same college? 

Ms. DELBENE. We did, in Portland. 

But I think I have used all my time. Thank you. 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlewoman. 

And the gentleman from Texas Mr. Farenthold is recognized for 

5 minutes. 

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

And it is good to have Mayor Castro here from San Antonio. San 

Antonio is a lot like my hometown, Corpus Christi. They just don’t 

have the bay or the beach. But you do have a pretty good basketball team. 

And I wanted to visit with you a little bit because I really do 

sympathize. We have got a big problem here, and I think we all 

agree that our immigration system is broken. We have done a lot 

of casework at our office, especially when we still had Brownsville 

as part of the district that I represent, and my heart is just broken 

by some of the family issues that I see. 

And also my heart is broken by the fact that many people who 

are in this country without proper documentation are basically an 

underclass that aren’t afforded the full protection of the law. If you 

are here illegally, and you see a crime on the street, you are afraid 

to call the police for fear of you getting involved in it. And you are 

open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers. And it is a real 

problem, and I think it needs to be addressed. 

I have spoken with a lot of my Republican colleagues, some of 

my Democrat colleagues, and a lot of folks back home about the 

issue, and it seems like the stumbling block for almost everybody 
252 

is the pathway to citizenship that you have been talking about for 

such a long time. We look at the promises of the 1986 immigration 

reform when it granted citizenship to so many people, that we were 

going to seal the border and make sure this—this was a one-time 

deal is the way. And we see that that has failed. 

My question to you is how do we not end up in the same situation 10, 20 years down the road if we do this again? My fear is that 

what we are saying by a pathway to citizenship is that, all right, 

you come over here illegally. Let us say we seal the borders 100 

percent. Nobody can cross the border illegally. You are still going 

to have people overstaying their tourist visas. You will still have 

people overstaying their student visas. And the natural belief is, all 

right, they have done it twice. I will just wait them out, and they 

will do it again. And we create this underclass of people who can’t 

have a real job that are selling bootleg DVDs in the flea markets 

or are working whatever underground economy. How do we craft 

this so we don’t fall into this same trap? 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you very much for the question, Representative Farenthold. It is good to see a fellow Texan here, south Texas. 

First, I believe that as a Nation we are stronger because we ask 

folks to take an oath, take an allegiance to the United States of 

America. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. No question about it. 

Mr. CASTRO. And that involves full participation in the democracy and citizenship. I just cannot imagine an America where we 

consign these folks to an underclass status. In other words, we 

would be telling them, you will never, ever, ever become a citizen 

of the United States. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So what do we put in the law to not invite people to where we are back doing the same thing again? That is my 

concern. 

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. First of all, I do think that the only way you 

are going to accomplish that is with a comprehensive approach. 

The one thing I know is that if you try and piecemeal it, the 

chances are that you will find yourself here 10, 15, 20 years from 

now. 

But more specifically, I believe that this legislation should include enhanced border security, enhanced interior security, the 

ability to—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Would you support the proposal for a national 

biometric ID? 

Mr. CASTRO. Sure, I would support using some technology to help 

ensure that people are here who say they are going to—who are 

here are here legally. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I am not sure I am there on that. But go 

ahead. 

Mr. CASTRO. You know, whether it is that or something like it, 

there are people more qualified to speak than me on that. But I 

would say that including an ability for employers to verify the legal 

status that is better, that is more comprehensive—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Again, we tried to do that and failed. And you 

are still going to have the underground employers if you have got 

people who are overstaying their student visas. And you have answered different variations of this question time and time again. 
253 

How do, by granting a very generous pathway to citizenship—and 

maybe we tighten it up; maybe we find the compromise there—but 

how do we avoid creating an incentive for people to continue to 

come here? That is what my constituents and most of the people 

that I am talking about, that is the big stumbling point here. 

Mr. CASTRO. I think what you do is that you solve the issue that 

you have in front of you, that you improve the ability to keep folks 

out who shouldn’t be here, and to—you know, to ensure that people 

don’t overstay their visas. There are ways to work on that. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I see I am out of time. I just don’t see how do 

you that without chipping everybody who comes over here to see 

the Statue of Liberty to track them. I am really concerned about 

this. 

Mr. CASTRO. Throwing our hands up is not an option. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida Mr. Garcia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mayor Castro, I wanted to ask you, what type of computer repair 

did your grandparents engage in? 

Mr. CASTRO. My grandmother actually ended up working as a 

maid, a cook, and babysitter. 

Mr. GARCIA. There we go. High skill then. 

I wonder what this hearing would be like if we were like Canadians, desperately seeking people to come to our country because 

we simply have no one who wants to be there. It is not like Texas 

where people just want to be in Texas, or Miami. I worry about it. 

You know, I have heard your testimony, Mr. Wadhwa, and I 

worry about it, because you seem to create a crisis. After saying 

that our country is a mess, I hope you were just talking about our 

immigration system because what brings people to our country is 

precisely that opportunity. You would agree with me, correct? 

Mr. WADHWA. I agree. For the moment, we are the only—— 

Mr. GARCIA. And you agreed with me that that suffering that you 

are talking about is also being visited on immigrants that are already in this country that don’t have documentation, families being 

separated, people being deported. You would agree that that is a 

bad situation? 

Mr. WADHWA. Agreed. 

Mr. GARCIA. Why do you think we should make that decision? 

Why should we decide on highly technical people which are boring 

down the door to come into our country and not decide for those 

who have invested and been here for such a long time? 

Mr. WADHWA. We should decide both, but right now the issue of 

undocumented is toxic. America is divided. 

Mr. GARCIA. It is toxic because we give up on it; don’t you think? 

I mean, if you had been given the choice to be fortunate enough 

to pick strawberries in the paradise of Oregon, would you have 

taken that choice? 

Mr. WADHWA. I might have, depending on my circumstances. 

Mr. GARCIA. No, but under your circumstances would you have 

taken that choice? And the answer is no, correct? 

Mr. WADHWA. What I am saying is give them green cards. Legalize them. The green card is a wonderful way of being here. The 
254 

only difference between the green card and citizenship is the right 

to vote. 

Mr. GARCIA. It is called taxation without representation. It was 

an essential element of our country’s founding. 

Mr. WADHWA. That is why this battle is being fought, because 

the Republicans know that they are going to lose that battle if we 

legalize another 11 million people. Let us call a spade a spade over 

here. 

Mr. GARCIA. The problem, Mr. Wadhwa, I think, is that you 

make a choice—— 

Mr. WADHWA [continuing]. Choice of a green card now or citizenship 5 years from now, everyone would accept a green card immediately. 

Mr. GARCIA. Absolutely, people would choose that, just like people would choose every day. 

The other question I would ask for you, do you think there is 

some kind of paradise about the folks who have been here 10, 15 

years picking strawberries, or potatoes, or corn or apricots, that 

heavenly paradise of being an illegal worker? Do you think that is 

a particularly good circumstance for the last 10 or 15 years that 

people do this? 

I will ask you, Mr. Teitelbaum. Do you think that that is a good 

thing? I mean, are they happy to do this? They want to be in this 

permanent underclass? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. I do not think they—— 

Mr. GARCIA. Right. And is there a history of any great country 

in the world that didn’t have immigration headed toward its borders? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Say it again, sir. 

Mr. GARCIA. Is there a history ever in human history of a country that was successful and didn’t have immigration? I mean, I believe that from the Babylonian empire through the Roman, through 

the British, and to today, every nation that is a winner nation has 

immigration, correct? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. The Commission was a strong supporter of a 

substantial legal immigration system. 

Mr. GARCIA. Do you remember what the Statue of Liberty, which 

is on the cover of your report, says? 

Mr. TEITELBAUM. Well, the statue doesn’t say it. It is on the pediment. I know the poem by Emma Lazarus. And my first daughter’s 

name is Emma. 

Mr. GARCIA. I think we make a mistake here if we engage in this 

debate and think that there is some paradise. 

Mr. Arora, you have spent how many years trying to make your 

status permanent? 

Dr. ARORA. More than 15. 

Mr. GARCIA. And you would agree that that is not a particularly 

favorable place to be. 

Dr. ARORA. Right. 

Mr. GARCIA. And you would agree that those, even like yourself, 

who are highly technical, making a good salary, but finding all 

these impediments is not a good thing for America’s productivity. 

Dr. ARORA. No, it is not. 
255 

Mr. GARCIA. And I would assume that because you want this status for yourself, you would want it for all others who find themselves in a similar situation? 

Dr. ARORA. Yes. 

Mr. GARCIA. Look, I think that the issue here is that we have 

mistaken—and the folks on the other side might be missing—is 

that this is no paradise, that people work awfully hard on the 

American dream, and all they want is an opportunity. And I want 

to be clear here: A pathway to citizenship doesn’t mean that we are 

going to sign these guys up to be citizens. That is a choice that is 

made. I am sure in your city, Mayor, you would love more people 

to be registered to vote, but yet they are not. And that is a choice 

people make, just like citizenship, correct? 

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. That is correct. 

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the remainder of my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

And the gentleman from North Carolina Mr. Holding is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HOLDING. Mr. Castro, I recognize your resistance to finding 

a middle ground or something short of full citizenship. But I would 

ask you, if you were an illegal immigrant, and the United States 

was actually in the business of enforcing our immigration laws, and 

your choice was convicted criminal or almost citizen, you would 

choose almost citizen, wouldn’t you? 

Mr. CASTRO. As I said before, do I believe that something is better than zero? Sure. I don’t believe it is sufficient. I also don’t believe that that addresses the entirety of the problem here. 

Mr. HOLDING. Redirecting your attention back to Mr. Forbes’ 

question, which you thought was hypothetical in that if you were 

given the opportunity to write the law and ensure that it passed, 

and we found ourselves 10 years later with a large population of 

illegal immigrants in the country, would you enforce the law, or 

would you come back and find another pathway to citizenship? I 

would suggest to you that it is not a hypothetical question, because 

it is precisely the question that we are dealing with right now. 

Twenty-five years ago we passed a comprehensive bill, and here 

we have a low estimate of 11 million illegals in the country. Some 

estimates are many millions more. 

What is the mistake that we made in 1986 that we do not need 

to make this time around to ensure that we don’t have to do this 

again? 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I think one of the things that we can do, as 

was mentioned earlier, is to continue to enhance border security 

and also to work on interior security. Technology has benefited us 

during that time. So we have an opportunity here, you have an opportunity here, the Congress has an opportunity to pass a comprehensive, very well-thought-out bill. And, of course, nobody can 

guarantee, and you are right, there probably will be some folks who 

fall into that category in the years to come. 

Mr. HOLDING. So the mistake that we made was that we didn’t 

enforce the law. 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I think somebody else will have to speak to 

that. We can’t just throw up our hands because we think we are 
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going to have some challenges later. That is not an option. Doing 

nothing is not an option. 

Mr. HOLDING. I agree doing nothing is not an option, but I also 

think enforcing the law should have been done and has to be part 

of the future. 

Mr. Wadhwa, my father-in-law is British. He is an engineer, and 

in the course of his career, he has managed worldwide construction 

for two pharmaceutical companies, one based in the United Kingdom and one based in Switzerland. And through all the years that 

I have known him, he has complained the most about the immigration laws in the United States and the difficulty it has been not 

only for him at times to work in the United States, but for getting 

team members in from other countries to work on large construction projects, pharmaceutical manufacturing and research facilities 

here. 

You have experience in Australia. Give us just a little snapshot 

of if one was a U.S. citizen, engineer, and wanted to go to Australia 

and manage a billion-dollar construction project, how much of a 

hassle would it be? 

Mr. WADHWA. Australia right now makes it very easy to come 

there. Canada is doing the same. If you are a skilled immigrant, 

they are welcoming, you know, people as immigrants to come over 

there. It is harder to get green cards in many other countries. 

But the Australia I knew is different than the Australia today. 

I had to fight to get an Australian permanent residence because 

there is a White Australia policy. Today they welcome anyone who 

graduates from their universities. They welcome foreigners to come 

and start companies. 

Your father-in-law is like everyone else in Silicon Valley. They 

are starved for talent. The companies are starved for talent. They 

want to hire the best and brightest from all over the world, but we 

won’t let them. 

My colleague at Stanford, Dan Siciliano, talks about if the country was a game, if you are playing football in a country, we said, 

the only people you can hire are people from within the company. 

We are basically locking out the world’s best talent needlessly. 

Mr. HOLDING. My district borders on the Research Triangle Park 

in North Carolina. And there are numerous high-tech companies 

there, and a number of very large software companies. And I have 

heard from them that when they have difficulty getting someone in 

the United States, often what they are able to do is just have them 

located in Canada and Skype in their input. And they pay the 

taxes in Canada. They don’t pay the taxes in the United States. 

Mr. WADHWA. In Silicon Valley that is commonly happening. 

They are setting up offshoring centers in India, China, in Vancouver, everywhere else in the world except Silicon Valley. We 

want those people here so they can pay taxes here, they can interact, and they can start more companies after they have finished 

their projects. 

Mr. HOLDING. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The gentleman from New York Mr. Jeffries is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 
257 

Dr. Wadhwa, you have indicated throughout your testimony the 

need, perhaps for reasons of policy or for practical reasons, to emphasize as we tackle this immigration issue highly skilled visas. 

Certainly you have distinguished yourself during your time here 

in America. You have founded a company, 1,000-plus employees. 

You have contributed to the academy. You have written a book. 

You have taught at some of our most significant and distinguished 

universities. You have contributed much to America. 

Now, as it relates to our immigration policy, of course, there is 

an appropriate place to deal with the highly skilled immigrant 

issue. We also have a history of dealing with refugees with compassion that makes sense for who we are and what we represent, our 

democratic values. We have a history of making sure we grant 

visas in recognition of the fact that we need to draw from people 

from all across the world. That is the premise of the diversity visa 

program, that that makes us stronger. And, of course, inherently 

the need to emphasize and promote family unification for reasons 

of fairness, for reasons of efficiency, for reasons that clearly make 

sense for the integrity of our democracy as well as the well-being 

of our economy. 

The gentlelady from California already has made the point that 

some of the most significant startup companies, the Silicon Valley 

success stories, were started by immigrants—whether that is 

Yahoo! or whether that is Google, whether that is eBay, Intel—who 

did not come into this country through the highly skilled immigrant visa program, but through other means of immigration. 

Now, I think you gave an interview on November 20, 2012, to a 

publication at the Wharton School of Business, a very distinguished school in Pennsylvania, where you stated, ‘‘I was in New 

York in the 1960’s as a child, and being in America is quite an experience. I left in the late ’60’s, but I had always wanted to come 

back. The first chance I got was in 1980, when my father got transferred to the consulate in New York City.’’ 

Would you agree, based on your own experiences here in America, that the notion of family unification, of the unit being together 

has been and should continue to be an integral part of what we do 

as it relates to comprehensive immigration reform? 

Mr. WADHWA. Without a doubt I agree with that. There is no dispute on that. The only thing I have been arguing is that rather 

than 120,000, 140,000 visas for skilled immigrants, double it or 

even triple it for a few years, because we want to bring in an additional pool of skilled talent that can heal the economy and help us 

take advantage of all these technology advances I talked about. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Am I correct that your own experiences demonstrate the importance of family unification as an immigration 

value? 

Mr. WADHWA. And you are absolutely right that the children of 

immigrants go much further than their parents do. All of this is 

absolutely correct. A little bit of balance. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you. 

There has been this dichotomy that has been presented as to how 

we find common ground in terms of the immigration reform debate. 

On the one hand you have got mass deportation that was presented 

as an alternative; on the other you have got a pathway to citizen-
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ship. But I believe, Mayor Castro, you have indicated you agree 

that that seems to be a false dichotomy; that the most appropriate 

construct is, on the one hand, mass deportation; on the other hand, 

open and unsecured borders. And I believe that on both extremes, 

the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that neither is appropriate for reasons of humanity or practicality. 

And so if that really is the appropriate construct—mass deportation on one hand and, on the other, open, unsecured borders—then 

the question is how do we find common ground? How do we compromise based on those two wide-ranging extreme alternatives? 

And would you agree that in that scenario that a pathway to citizenship is one alternative, compromise, tough but possible and ultimately obtainable, firm but humane, and that the only other possible compromise, which was raised by others on this panel, is permanent second-class status, notwithstanding the fact that those 

permanent second-class residents would have passed a background 

check, paid back taxes, paid a fine, perhaps gotten an education, 

perhaps served in the military and gotten to the back of a very long 

line? Could you just comment, Mayor Castro, on those possible 

compromise alternatives and what seems to be most consistent 

with who we are as Americans? 

Mr. CASTRO. I believe that you have laid it out well that on the 

extremes you have mass deportation of 11 million people. That is 

not going to happen. We are not going to, on the other end, open 

up our borders. That is not in the national interest by any means. 

That the bipartisan proposal and the President’s proposal represents an effective compromise, remembering that this is earned 

citizenship, the alternative truly is a recipe for creating a class of 

second-class noncitizens in the United States. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And last but not least, we have the gentleman 

from Georgia Mr. Collins recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think one of the good things about being last is that you get 

to listen. You get to hear a lot of questions. And in this case you 

get to hear a lot of hyperbole on both ends. And really, that is the 

question that I am sitting here with right now. I have heard a lot 

of discussion and a lot of, well, if we don’t do this, you know, if we 

don’t pass this, it is horrific, and these kinds of questions. 

But just for a brief moment, I come from northeast Georgia, a 

very agricultural district, but it is also on the border of Atlanta, so 

we get a lot of what I call the mixed blessing of both the need of 

immigration, the need for workers, and the need for those industries, dairy, poultry, other things. But we also deal with those of 

the hard-working taxpayers who have been there—it is a transitional area—who are concerned about their way of life and are also 

concerned about being fair and honest and open with them. They 

have a deep faith. I believe contrary to some that have said that 

the only way you can show your true faith—I am a pastor—is by 

just opening up your arms and forgiving and not having any rule. 

I believe you can hold both. I am a lawyer as well. I hold both 

grace and law. I think we have got to look at that. 

The question that comes to mind here is I come from also a State 

of Georgia who has dealt with this issue. For some in this room, 
259 

it may not have been a very good way, but we have dealt with it, 

and we have dealt with it in a way that is still in progress. And 

I think it took a step from a State perspective to say, what can we 

do because the Federal Government has not? 

Now, what concerns me here is is I keep hearing, it is definitional. And I am a little bit retentive on some things, and I am the 

last one, so I will just make these points. Comprehensive immigration reform, what I have become concerned about—and I will start 

with you, Mayor—is when I hear ‘‘comprehensive’’ in this hearing 

today, what I hear is is it is comprehensive if it has a specific outcome I like. It is not comprehensive if it doesn’t lead to a specific 

end. And I just have heard, and just in recent testimony, in questions here, really that compromise between two untenable paths is 

not compromise. Compromise between two things that would never 

take place is not compromise. You are taking two extremes and basically saying there is a compromise in the middle, and the reality 

is you are not compromising because those two would never exist. 

It is a fantasy. 

You also have stated in this that you felt it was in the Nation’s 

best interests for a pathway to citizenship; that is correct? 

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. The question I have here is do you believe 

that all immigrants come to America across the border legally or 

illegally for the same reason? Yes or no. 

Mr. CASTRO. I believe that the vast majority of them come for the 

same reason, but I can’t say that every single one of them comes 

here for the same reason, no. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. So at least in the process of what we are 

looking at here, is there at least room for discussion? And, look, 

even in the diversity of my district, which is very conservative, 

there is a need for us to deal with all aspects of this, okay, from 

the security aspect to the legal aspect that we have talked about 

and where our needs are, but also for the ones who are already 

here. 

The question is, though, if we only insist on comprehensive, and 

we sort of—I won’t say demonize the process or say that we are not 

accomplishing what we are here for, if the only way is to have a 

citizenship ending, then are we not doing a disservice for those who 

have come here to work and our liberty and have a deep love for 

the country they came for, but they come here for economic reasons. And to give them something that has been said here, they 

have lived here for 30 years on a green card. They lived here in 

a different way. My concern is is compromise, in your mind only, 

or comprehensive, is the definitional we are using here is comprehensive will only take place with a desired outcome at the end? 

Mr. CASTRO. And I use the word ‘‘sufficient’’ or ‘‘effective.’’ I think 

the only ‘‘effective’’ way to address this is to make it create a pathway to citizenship. Remember also, you are talking about 8 to 10 

years before any one of these—— 

Mr. COLLINS. That was not my question, Mayor. I am dealing 

with definitional, because this is what is going to get interesting 

over the next few months and even as we go forward. If we only 

view comprehensive immigration reform under the guise of an outstanding outcome or an intended outcome, then I have trouble with 
260 

that, because what we are setting ourselves up for here is one side 

may be coming to the table with honest, open ideas for reform, but 

if in the end all we are hit with is, you didn’t do comprehensive 

because we didn’t get a desired result—— 

Mr. CASTRO. I would disagree with the characterization. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, I think that is what has been testified here 

to, and especially when you basically state that you believe in this 

Nation’s best interest there is only one path that that should be, 

and that should be citizenship, when really there are also other alternatives that are out there. It is a best interest, but I don’t think 

from a comprehensive standpoint you can tag the two. And that is 

what I have heard. 

Look, I do not believe circumstances are easy here, as was testified to earlier, for anyone who is here in a status that is not legal 

or a status in where they are hiding, as has been said, in the shadows. And I think this is whether it is from the high-tech industry 

or not. But also, the one thing I never want to lose sight of is there 

are hard-working taxpayers who have been here, who are also having—they do hard work as well. They get up and go to work every 

day. We have got to find a balance for the two, never forgetting 

what we are looking at. And that is my concern. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WADHWA. You know, I believe that if we provided green 

cards to all the undocumented workers immediately, if we gave 

their children citizenship, and if we fixed the skilled immigrant 

problem, there would be consensus nationwide. And we don’t have 

to get into these toxic battles about citizenship or not citizenship. 

That can be decided a decade from now when the economy has 

healed, things are different, and America has evolved. It doesn’t 

have to be all or none immediately. It can be done over time. 

Right now, these people just want to be legalized. They just want 

the right to be able to live here with dignity. Let us give it to them 

immediately without wasting time. We are making this country 

suffer through needless debates when it can be resolved right now. 

Mr. COLLINS. I think we are definitely looking at it from a perspective of overall look, and I appreciate you coming here and testifying from your different point of views. I think, like I said, the 

main concern we have got to have here is let us not trap ourselves 

into definitional reasons of comprehensive or other things that exclude or include, and then in the end we say, well, we didn’t get 

it because it didn’t fit my definition of what ‘‘comprehensive’’ 

means. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for his questions. And I 

thank all the Members of the Committee for the questions to this 

first panel. And I especially thank the members of the panel. You 

have endured more than 3 hours of questions, and it has been a 

very enlightening discussion. So thank you for making the trip to 

Washington to participate, and we will excuse you now and turn 

to our second panel. 

And now if the first panel would make their way to the hallway, 

they can speak with folks out there. And that way our second panel 

can take their seats. 
261 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Now I will turn to our second group of witnesses. The hearing room will be in order. 

Our first witness is Julie Myers Wood, President of Guidepost 

Solutions LLC, an immigration investigation and compliance firm. 

Prior to her tenure at Guidepost, she served as the Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, for nearly 3 years. Under her 

leadership, the agency set new enforcement records with respect to 

immigration enforcement, export enforcement, and intellectual 

property rights. 

Ms. Wood earned a Bachelor’s degree at Baylor University and 

a J.D. cum laude from Cornell Law School. She is a native of 

Shawnee, Kansas. 

Thank you, Ms. Wood, for taking the time to be with us today. 

Our next witness is Mr. Chris Crane, who currently serves as the 

President of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

Council 118, American Federation of Government Employees. He 

has worked as an Immigration Enforcement Agent for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security since 2003. Prior to his service at ICE, Mr. 

Crane served for 11 years in the United States Marine Corps. 

Chris, we thank you for your service and being with us today. 

Our third witness of this second panel is Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. She 

has been with the Center since 1992, where her expertise is in immigration policy and operations topics such as visa programs, immigration benefits, and immigration law enforcement. In addition, 

Ms. Vaughan is an instructor for senior law enforcement officer 

training seminars at Northwestern University’s Center for Public 

Safety in Illinois. 

Ms. Vaughan has a Master’s degree from Georgetown University 

and earned her Bachelor’s degree in international studies at Washington College in Maryland. 

Ms. Vaughan, thank you for your participation today. 

And our fourth and final witness of this second panel is Muzaffar 

Chishti, Director of the Migration Policy Institute’s office at the 

New York University School of Law. His work focuses on U.S. immigration policy, the intersection of labor and immigration law, 

civil liberties, and immigration integration. Prior to joining MPI, 

Mr. Chishti was Director of the Immigration Project of the Union 

of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). Mr. 

Chishti has served on the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Law Center, the New York Immigration Coalition, and the 

Asian American Federation of New York. He has served as Chair 

of the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Forum and 

as a member of the American Bar Association’s Coordinating Committee on Immigration. 

He holds degrees from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, India, the 

University of Delhi, Cornell Law School, and the Columbia School 

of International Affairs. And we are grateful that he has come to 

testify before the Committee today. All of you are welcome. 

We now have votes, and I think rather than start in the midst 

of a relatively empty hearing room, we are going to recess the Committee. I will encourage Members on both sides of the aisle to come 
262 

back to hear your wise testimony. And the Committee will stand 

in recess until the conclusion of those votes. 

The Committee will reconvene. We are working on encouraging 

other Members to return for the second panel, but since the day 

is moving on, we think the hearing needs to move on as well. So 

having introduced all the members of this panel, we will start with 

Ms. Wood. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF JULIE MYERS WOOD, PRESIDENT, 

GUIDEPOST SOLUTIONS LLC 

Ms. WOOD. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Members of 

the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you 

today about the enforcement of laws against illegal immigration. 

Like many Americans, I believe that our immigration system is 

broken and needs reform. But like others, I served as the former 

head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the principal agency charged to enforce immigration laws, and so I have an insider’s 

perspective of the challenges that face us and what we must do to 

make sure that we are not in the same position 20 years from now 

that we are right now, looking at a broken system put together 

with Band-Aids and trying to make do. 

Since the 1986 amnesty, inconsistent enforcement coupled with 

an inefficient and restrictive pathway for legal access to the country have left us with this broken system. Many people concluded 

that it was just far simpler to come here illegally, get a job, and 

hope that the law would change to let them stay, rather than wait 

in unreasonably long lines to come here legally. And, of course, for 

some there was no option to come legally. 

Many employers grew very frustrated with the nearly decadelong wait for some petitions for workers with essential skills and 

just took their chances that enforcement would not target their 

business. 

When considering legislative reform, we must consider how to 

avoid the mistakes of previous efforts. And these are not new problems. When I first arrived at ICE in 2006, it was apparent to me 

that there were many areas where the promise of IRCA was not 

being realized, including managing illegal border crossings, identifying and deporting the illegal criminal alien population, reducing 

illegal employment, enforcing immigration court orders, and effectively conducting national security enforcement. 

And I want to take illegal employment as an example. I know 

the Chairman talked about this in his opening remarks, and I 

think this is an area where law enforcement has not effectively addressed the problem. And, you know, when I first started at ICE 

in 2006, there was virtually no workplace enforcement, although it 

was common knowledge, everyone knew, that the big magnet to 

come into the United States was jobs. INS was not focusing on that 

issue, and ICE also had not focused on it. Fines, if any, were assessed under an outdated structure. They were subject to substantial legal wrangling and ended up being nothing more than just a 

slap on the wrist. For example, in 2002, the INS’ last full year, it 

brought only 25 criminal cases in worksite investigations and only 

collected about $72,000 through the administrative fine process. 
263 

So we tried to look at things differently. And we thought, how 

can we focus renewed effort on it? And we focused on employers, 

looking at could we bring criminal cases against employers? We 

also worked to revise the criminal fine structure and requested 

funding for civil auditors. And so for several years we pursued a 

path of criminal cases, which led to civil forfeitures in excess of $30 

million each year and prison terms for some egregious employers. 

While these investigations were complex and time-intensive, the 

approach resulted in renewed awareness and cooperation from 

some high-risk industries. However, many companies in low-risk 

industries didn’t think it was necessary to focus on I-9 or immigration compliance with this targeted approach. 

This approach also included the apprehensions and removals of 

unauthorized workers, who in many cases were using the names 

and Social Security numbers of U.S. citizens. 

The arrest and deportation of unauthorized workers consumed a 

lot of our time in trying to target employers and pursue this approach. The current Administration has shifted gears. They have 

focused on a civil fined approach, really kind of adopting an IRStype model. Under this approach more companies are subject to audits, about 4,000, and the general awareness of immigration compliance has increased significantly. 

But this approach is also imperfect. The median cost of a penalty against a business is very small, under $11,000 per company in fiscal year 2012, and the total civil fines for fiscal year 2011 were 

about $10 million. 

On occasion, the focus on civil audits has led to some perverse 

consequences. Some employers with no unauthorized workers at all 

were fined, while others that had a very high percentage of unauthorized workers didn’t even receive a warning notice. Under this 

new approach the government essentially ignored the illegal workers, allowing them to stay and work in the United States. 

While some employers take the civil fine system very seriously, 

for others it is just a rounding error in their accounting systems. 

To address the problem of unauthorized workers more successfully, new legislation shouldn’t rely on what we have just done in 

the past. We have got to look anew at how we can stop illegal employment, and legislation should shift the burden from employers 

to the government and provide employers with clear guidance on 

who is work-authorized and who is not. 

Of course, E-Verify should be made mandatory for all employees, 

but we shouldn’t stop there. Although E-Verify has improved significantly in the past few years, gaps in the current program have 

still shifted much of the burden to employers. They have become 

de facto document detectives. And conscientious employers are effectively faced with a silent tax to pay for immigration compliance 

services, diverting money that would be far better spent hiring new 

employees. 

More generally, successful reform must also think about the systemic problems that got us into this situation. For too long our 

agencies have been underequipped to fight the challenge. We 

haven’t had enough people, resources, or technology. We have also 

had inefficiencies in the removal system. An average case takes 

over 2 years to get through the courts in California. And we also 
264 

have not addressed things regarding fundamental fairness, including protecting the rights of unaccompanied aliens and those with 

mental competency issues that may need counsel in order to pursue 

a fair treatment in immigration court. 

I appreciate the Committee’s interest in these issues and look 

forward to working with you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Ms. Wood. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wood follows:] 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Crane, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF CHRIS CRANE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT COUNCIL 118, 

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES 

Mr. CRANE. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, Chairman, and 

Members of the Committee. 

In 2009, I reported supervisor misconduct directly to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton. Almost immediately after I filed that report, I applied for a promotion. ICE 

managers retaliated for my earlier reports to Napolitano by claiming that I had lied about my military training on my resume. The 

investigation that followed required that I provide military documents to prove that I had not lied on my resume. I provided the 

documents, and I was cleared of all charges. So as an officer who 

had already been through stringent background investigations, ICE 

and DHS still investigated me and still made me provide documentation to substantiate claims I had made on my resume. 

But as ICE agents go into jails every day and encounter illegal 

aliens arrested by local police, agents are under orders from DHS 

and ICE—the same DHS and ICE that investigated me—to simply 

take the word of the illegal alien that he graduated from college 

or high school, or that he has a GED. And without investigation, 

without requiring the alien to provide a diploma or a transcript, 

the alien will simply be released under DACA without first proving 

he even qualifies for it. 

Since ICE doesn’t investigate these claims or require proof from 

the alien, is it any big surprise that many ICE agents report that 

everyone they encounter in jails claims they are somehow qualified 

under DACA, and that most are released because ICE agents are 

powerless to make the aliens prove they actually qualify? One 

agent recently told me a story of how he overheard one alien coaching another on how to get released by lying to ICE agents about 

having status under DACA. 

Is this our answer, our big immigration reform, to make law enforcement a joke and let everyone lie to us and then release them? 

ICE Director John Morton, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, as 

leaders of law enforcement agencies, should be demanding that this 

stop and that the agency get back to sound law enforcement principles, but they won’t because this is not about effective law enforcement, it is not about fixing our immigration system. Clearly 

letting people lie to us and then allowing them to remain in the 

U.S. based on those lies doesn’t fix the system. This is about politics. 

We currently have 11- to 20 million illegal aliens in the United 

States. They got here one of two ways: They entered the United 

States illegally, or they came here legally with a visa and never 

left. 

So what is ICE doing about visa overstays and illegal entry as 

both lie at the very heart of our broken immigration system? ICE 

has essentially prohibited its agents from enforcing these laws. ICE 

agents can’t arrest aliens solely because they entered the United 

States illegally or because they overstayed their visa. It is basically 
279 

not illegal anymore, generally speaking, not unless the alien has 

been convicted of a criminal offense. 

Messaging is critical to any effort aimed at curbing illegal immigration. So what message do ICE practices send to the world? The 

message is, we don’t enforce our laws. Come on over, and if you do 

get caught, just lie to us. Lie about the day and year you entered. 

Lie about going to high school. You won’t be required to prove anything. 

While there is certainly much more to be said on these and other 

issues, in closing I would like to provide a few bullet points on the 

state of ICE as an agency. Internally the agency, in my opinion, is 

falling apart. Morale is at an all-time low according to recent Federal surveys. The agency refuses to train our officers on these new 

policies, resulting in mass confusion and frustration. Everybody is 

doing something different. Nobody really knows what is going on. 

As our officers are investigated by ICE for enforcing U.S. immigration law, as they see other officers threatened with suspensions for 

making lawful arrests, increasingly officers feel that they have become the enemy of this Administration, which certainly is not a 

healthy sign for any law enforcement organization. 

That concludes my testimony. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Crane, for that compelling testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crane follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Chris Crane, President, National Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement Council of the American Federation of Government Employees 

The results from the most recent morale survey for Federal agencies were released in December 2012. ICE dropped in the rankings to 279 out of 291 Federal 

agencies surveyed leaving only 12 agencies that ranked lower in employee morale 

and job satisfaction than ICE. By comparison, the U.S. Marshals Service was 

ranked 82 in the survey, and the FBI ranked 107. The ICE employee morale survey 

included ICE managers as well as officers, agents and administrative personnel. 

As agency morale falls each year, each year ICE leadership finds new excuses to 

justify the low morale, never taking responsibility and never making reasonable efforts to identify and address causative issues. This, even after the tragic shooting 

in a Los Angeles ICE office last year, in which an ICE Agent shot his own supervisor and was himself shot and killed by another ICE employee. 

To prevent incidents like the one in Los Angeles, ICE must begin efforts to address problems within the agency. While both internal and external factors contribute to the morale problems within ICE, proper leadership from ICE headquarters could make sweeping and effective changes throughout the agency. It is the 

responsibility of ICE leadership to maintain the highest possible morale within the 

agency regardless of the situation and regardless of the factors involved; whether 

it is addressing gross mismanagement and overall corruption within the agency, or 

addressing the impact of internal or external politics. 

While ICE employees are frequently demonized by special interest groups and 

media outlets, it should be known that many ICE employees are themselves the 

sons and daughters of immigrants, or grandsons and granddaughters of immigrants; 

or are married to immigrants, or are the proud parents of adopted babies born outside the U.S. For many of our officers and agents, English was not their first language, or they grew up in a bilingual household. ICE employees represent the full 

spectrum of races and religions that make up our great country. They are moms and 

dads, public servants, and many are veterans of the United States Armed Forces. 

ICE agents are not monsters as some would portray them. 

However, ICE agents do believe in law enforcement and the rule of law. Most 

Americans going about their daily lives believe that ICE agents and officers are permitted to enforce the laws of the United States. However, ICE agents and officers 

would tell America a much different story. 
280 

The day-to-day duties of ICE agents and officers often seem in conflict with the 

law as ICE officers are prohibited from enforcing many laws enacted by Congress; 

laws they took an oath to enforce. ICE is now guided in large part by the influences 

of powerful special interest groups that advocate on behalf of illegal aliens. These 

influences have in large part eroded the order, stability and effectiveness of the 

agency, creating confusion among all ICE employees. For the last four years it has 

been a roller coaster for ICE officers with regard to who they can or cannot arrest, 

and which Federal laws they will be permitted to enforce. Most of these directives 

restricting enforcement are given only verbally to prevent written evidence from 

reaching the public. 

Most Americans would be surprised to know that immigration agents are regularly prohibited from enforcing the two most fundamental sections of United States 

immigration law. According to ICE policy, in most cases immigration agents can no 

longer arrest persons solely for entering the United States illegally. Additionally, in 

most cases immigration agents cannot arrest persons solely because they have entered the United States with a visa and then overstayed that visa and failed to return to their country. Essentially, only individuals charged or convicted of very serious criminal offenses by other law enforcement agencies may be arrested or charged 

by ICE agents and officers for illegal entry or overstay. 

In fact, under current policy individuals illegally in the United States must now 

be convicted of three or more criminal misdemeanors before ICE agents are permitted to charge or arrest the illegal alien for illegal entry or overstaying a visa, 

unless the misdemeanors involve the most serious types of offenses such as assault, 

sexual abuse or drug trafficking. With regard to traffic violations, other than DUI 

and fleeing the scene of an accident, ICE agents are also prohibited from making 

an immigration arrest of illegal aliens who have multiple convictions for traffic related misdemeanors. 

Thus far, ICE’s new arrest methodology of prohibiting the arrest of illegal aliens 

convicted of certain unspecified misdemeanors has simply created more confusion 

among those tasked with enforcing immigration law. During conversations with ICE 

officers, agents and prosecuting attorneys, none were able to identify the criminal 

misdemeanor offenses that ICE leadership has identified as ‘‘insignificant.’’ Important to note, no training or list of ‘‘insignificant’’ misdemeanor offenses was ever provided to ICE employees. 

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which prevents the deportation 

of many aliens brought to the U.S. as children, is for the most part applied by ICE 

immigration agents to adults held in state correctional facilities and jails pending 

criminal charges. News has spread quickly through illegal alien populations within 

jails and communities that immigration agents have been instructed by the agency 

not to investigate illegal aliens who claim protections from immigration arrest under 

DACA. ICE immigration agents have been instructed to accept the illegal alien’s 

claim as to whether he or she graduated or is attending high school or college or 

otherwise qualifies under DACA. Illegal aliens are not required to provide officers 

with any type of proof such as a diploma or transcripts to prove that they qualify 

before being released. Even though the immigration officer generally has no proof 

that the alien qualifies under DACA, officers may not arrest these aliens unless a 

qualifying criminal conviction or other disqualifier exists. As one immigration agent 

stated last week, ‘‘every person we encounter in the jails now claims to qualify for 

release under DACA.’’ 

With all of the restrictions placed on ICE immigration agents in enforcing U.S. 

immigration laws, it is also important to understand the broader law enforcement 

practices of the Agency and the associated impact on immigration enforcement. 

With approximately 20,000 employees at ICE, approximately 5,000 officers and 

agents handle the majority of immigration work within the agency, to include the 

arrests, case processing, detention, and removal of approximately 400,000 aliens 

each year. Within this group of 5,000 officers, two separate officer positions exist. 

While all officers have exactly the same training, the two officer positions have different arrest authorities, one position with a more limited arrest authority than the 

other. For obvious reasons, this antiquated separation of arrest authorities among 

officers is unnecessary, especially as no additional training is necessary, and clearly 

prevents the best use of the limited resources available for immigration enforcement. Requests for ICE Director John Morton to issue a memorandum providing full 

arrest authority to all officers as a force multiplier within the agency have been refused by the Director without explanation. As the Administration states publicly 

that it is pushing for stronger enforcement and optimal utilization of limited enforcement resources, these actions appear to indicate otherwise. 

Also important to understand, pressures from special interest groups have resulted in the majority of ICE agents and officers being prohibited from making 
281 

street arrests. Most officers are only allowed to work inside of jails hidden from public view, and may only arrest certain individuals who have already been arrested 

by police departments and other Federal agencies. As a general rule, if ICE agents 

or officers are on duty in a public place and witness a violation of immigration law, 

they are prohibited from making arrests and from asking questions under threat of 

disciplinary action. 

Several hundred officers and agents assigned to special teams across the nation 

do have a limited ability on a day-to-day basis to make public arrests outside of 

jails. For the most part, these officers and agents are restricted to arresting specific 

targets only after each case goes through a lengthy authorization process that must 

eventually be approved by a supervisor in writing. 

As stated previously, new ICE arrest policies clearly appear to conflict with not 

only the law but also with the legal training provided new officers and agents in 

the academy and on the job at their offices in the field. Years of training and experience are not easily undone, especially as ICE refuses to provide training to officers 

regarding its new enforcement policies. As a result, officers are confused and unsure 

about the new policies, and often find themselves facing disciplinary action for following the law and their academy training instead of the confusing and highly misunderstood and ever changing new policies. 

In Salt Lake City, Utah, three ICE agents witnessed an individual admit in open 

court to a Federal Immigration Judge that he was in the United States illegally. 

ICE agents waited until the alien left the hearing and then politely asked him to 

accompany them, never using handcuffs in the course of the arrest. An immigration 

attorney and activist called the ICE Field Office Director in Salt Lake City verbally 

complaining that ICE officers had arrested an illegal alien. The ICE Field Office Director responded by ordering that all charges against the illegal alien be dropped 

and that the alien be released immediately. While the ICE Director ordered the immigration violator be set free, the Director also ordered that all three ICE agents 

be placed under investigation for no other reason than arresting an illegal alien. 

In Dover, Delaware, ICE agents conducted surveillance of a vehicle registered to 

an ICE criminal fugitive. When a man attempted to enter the vehicle and depart, 

ICE agents discovered that while not their arrest target, the man was an illegal 

alien with multiple convictions for driving without a license. Still without a license 

and attempting to drive, ICE agents considered the man a threat to public safety 

and arrested him. ICE supervisors ordered that the illegal alien be released without 

charges. When one agent attempted to bring immigration charges against the alien 

as the law and his oath requires, the agent’s managers released the illegal alien and 

instead brought formal charges against the agent proposing the agent be suspended 

for 3 days. If the suspension was sustained, a second ‘‘offense’’ by the agent would 

likely result in the agent losing his job. The officer has been an immigration agent 

for 18 years and is a 5 year military veteran. 

In El Paso, TX, ICE agents arrested an illegal alien at a local jail who was arrested by sheriff’s deputies earlier that same morning and charged with assault 

causing bodily injury to a family member and interfering with a person attempting 

to make an emergency phone call for assistance. When ICE agents attempted to 

transport the 245 lbs. subject he resisted and attempted escape, injuring one agent 

before being taken back into custody. When agents returned to their office in El 

Paso they were ordered by ICE managers to release the alien as a ‘‘Dreamer.’’ ICE 

managers did not question the criminal alien and conducted no investigation to ensure that charges for assaulting an officer were not warranted. Instead ICE managers ordered that the illegal alien immediately be released without investigation 

in accordance with the President’s new immigration policies, reportedly stating to 

employees that ‘‘ICE’s mission now is to identify aliens and release them.’’ 

With regard to assaults in general, assaults against ICE officers and agents continue to rise as ICE arrestees become increasing more violent and criminal in nature. Of the approximately 400,000 aliens removed by ICE each year, over 90% come 

from jails and prisons according to agency officials at ICE Headquarters. However, 

unlike almost every state and Federal law enforcement agency in the nation, ICE 

agents and officers are prohibited from carrying life saving protective equipment 

such as tasers. ICE will not approve this equipment for its agents and officers for 

political reasons. Death or serious injury to ICE officers and agents appears more 

acceptable to ICE, DHS and Administration leadership, than the public complaints 

that would be lodged by special interest groups representing illegal aliens. While 

unthinkable for most American’s that the Federal government would approve the 

use of tasers on criminals who are U.S citizens, but deny tasers to law enforcement 

officers who arrest criminal aliens, it appears to be the case. As we have reported 

in the past, ICE, DHS and the Administration work exclusively with special interest 

groups to establish security and arrest protocols throughout the agency while ex-
282 

cluding input from employees and operational managers in the field. As a result, 

many special considerations exist exclusively for criminal aliens in ICE custody compromising operations and costing the agency millions each year. 

In closing, while deeply concerned by the actions of our agency, as well as the current state and future of immigration enforcement, we are optimistic and confident 

that all of these matters can be successfully resolved with the assistance of members of Congress. Please do not hesitate to contact us at any time with any request 

as we are always ready and willing to assist you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Ms. Vaughan, we are glad to have your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF JESSICA M. VAUGHAN, DIRECTOR OF 

POLICY STUDIES, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES 

Ms. VAUGHAN. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on 

the enforcement of laws against illegal immigration. My remarks 

are going to focus on the extent of illegal immigration law enforcement today and also on enforcement at the workplace. 

There is no more important responsibility of our Federal Government than to secure our borders, and this includes enforcing laws 

against illegal immigration, which imposes enormous economic, fiscal, and security burdens on American communities. In addition to 

displacing American and legal immigrants from jobs and depressing their wages, illegal immigration costs taxpayers about $10 billion a year at the Federal level and even more at the State and 

local level. So every dollar invested in border security and immigration enforcement has both a public safety benefit and a fiscal benefit. 

We don’t know exactly how much the Federal Government 

spends on immigration enforcement. DHS and its predecessor, INS, 

have never tracked immigration enforcement separately from the 

other responsibilities. We do know that in 2012, DHS received 

about $20 million to fund CBP, ICE and US-VISIT. This allocation 

is about half of the amount that is spent on all other nonmilitary 

Federal law enforcement activities. But only a small share of the 

$20 million was spent on immigration law enforcement. Much of 

what CBP and ICE do is customs enforcement. At many of the 

ports and field offices, most of what they do is customs-related, 

whether it is cargo inspections or admission of visitors. So it is difficult to analyze how much immigration law enforcement is occurring simply by looking at what we spend on the agencies that perform that function. 

And I would like to just touch on some of the other metrics. The 

Border Patrol has traditionally used the volume of Southwest border apprehensions as a key indicator. It is interesting. For a while 

we did see a sustained decline in the number of Southwest border 

apprehensions, which some have held as a proxy for the number 

of illegal crossing attempts. But if that is the case, then we have 

reason for concern again. According to statistics just released by 

CBP, last year Southwest border apprehensions went up by 9 percent. 

For ICE, we can look at prosecutions to gauge the volume of 

their work. Here again, according to various Federal sources, after 

years of increases the numbers of immigration court filings have 

declined 25 percent since last year and 30 percent since 2009. 
283 

The main metric used by the Obama administration to measure 

enforcement activities is the number of deportations, but as the 

President has said, these numbers are deceptive. First of all, it is 

not clear that 400,000 is actually a record since the methodology 

has changed so much over the years. And it must be noted that the 

truly dramatic recent increases actually occurred between 2005 and 

2009. Since then the numbers have flattened out noticeably; and 

ICE arrests, as opposed to deportations, have been declining since 

2008. 

When it comes right down to it, though, the only metric that 

really counts is not how many are coming and going, but how many 

are actually staying. And according to our research, that number 

has remained stubbornly high. In my view, one reason for that is 

because one key type of immigration law enforcement has been 

conspicuously lacking, and that is workplace enforcement. 

In 1986, workplace enforcement was a key part of the grand bargain of IRCA. The American people were promised that after the 

amnesty, future illegal flows would be prevented by the implementation of employer sanctions. As we know, the Federal Government 

was quick to implement the amnesty program, but never followed 

through with enforcement. Instead it deliberately created a system 

that was built to fail. 

Many blamed Congress, but executive branch officials were 

equally complicit. The regulations and policies they established essentially sandbagged the enforcement process from the beginning 

in favor of the unscrupulous employers who hired the illegal aliens. 

The result was that employers failed to take the sanctions seriously 

and were able to absorb any meager penalties as a cost of doing 

business. 

Under the Clinton administration, it got worse. The number of 

special agents in the Investigations Division was cut from 750 to 

about 500. By 2004, worksite enforcement actions dropped from few 

to almost none. That year only three employers were fined over the 

entire year in the entire country. 

Finally, Congress stepped in to provide an infusion of funding to 

revive the program, and activity gradually increased over the next 

several years, peaking in 2008. It didn’t last long. Soon after President Obama took office, new policies were adopted, and worksite 

enforcement went the way of fugitive operations and local partnerships. New policies focused on conducting paperwork audits at 

more companies, while deliberately avoiding contact with the illegal workers. 

By almost every measure, arrests, indictments, convictions, and 

investigative hours, worksite enforcement for substantive violations 

of the law have dropped dramatically. The number of audits and 

fines have gone up a lot, but most of these sanctions are for paperwork violations to the extent we can tell because little information 

is actually released by ICE. 

By failing to rigorously enforce the laws against hiring illegal 

aliens, the Obama administration, like others before it, is tacitly 

encouraging more illegal immigration that displaces U.S. workers, 

causes their wages to decline, and erodes their quality of life. Judging by their record, we can expect a similar result if lawmakers 

sign on to another so-called comprehensive immigration reform 
284 

1Steven A. Camarota, The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal 

Budget, Center for Immigration Studies, August, 2004, http://www.cis.org/High-Cost-of-CheapLabor. 2Figures are taken from official agency budget summaries from the last two years. Other federal law enforcement agency budgets tallied include: FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, Secret Service, Bureau of Prisons, US Attorneys Offices, Transportation Security Administration, Diplomatic Security Service, IRS Criminal Investigation Division, Treasury Inspector General for Tax 

Administration, US Mint Police, Pentagon Force Protection, DoD OIG, Bureau of Indian Affairs 

Police, Bureau of Land Management Office of Enforcement and Security, National Park Service 

Police, Fish & Wildlife Office of Law Enforcement, Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations, USDA OIG, NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement, FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, Education OIG, Veterans Affairs Police, US Capitol Police. 3 All data is available on these agencies’ web sites. 

plan that gives amnesty first in exchange for promises of enforcement that will not be kept. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, 

Center for Immigration Studies 

Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, I thank you for the opportunity 

to testify today on the enforcement of laws against illegal immigration. 

There is no more important responsibility of our federal government than to secure our borders. It is critical that we provide the agencies that are tasked with this 

mission with the resources they need to keep us safe, to prevent the entry of terrorists and criminals, to manage the entry of legitimate trade and travel, and to keep 

illegal immigration in check. 

Illegal immigration imposes enormous economic, fiscal and security burdens on 

American communities. In addition to displacing American and legal immigrants 

from jobs and depressing their wages, illegal immigration costs taxpayers about $10 

billion a year at the federal level 1, and even more at the state and local level. For 

this reason, every dollar invested in border security and immigration enforcement 

has a public safety benefit and a fiscal benefit. 

IMMIGRATION AGENCIES’ FOOTPRINT IN FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

The federal government, appropriately, allocates a significant share of taxpayer 

dollars to the immigration agencies that carry out this important work. It is impossible to determine exactly how much the federal government has spent on immigration enforcement over the years, because the Department of Homeland Security and 

its predecessor, INS, have never tracked these activities. In 2012, the Department 

of Homeland Security (DHS) received about $20 million to fund Customs and Border 

Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and US–VISIT for 

the missions of immigration and customs enforcement and foreign visitor data collection and analysis. This represents about half of overall federal law enforcement 

expenditures (not counting most military and intelligence service law enforcement 

nor Coast Guard), which totaled about $39 billion in 2012.2

That might sound like we are spending an enormous sum on immigration law enforcement. But the immigration agencies’ work encompasses far more than immigration law enforcement. Customs enforcement represents a huge share of these agencies’ budgets, especially at the ports of entry, along with intellectual property enforcement; transnational gang suppression; child pornography investigations; fighting human trafficking; returning stolen antiquities; doing cargo inspections; and 

interdicting drugs, weapons, bulk cash, and other contraband that is smuggled 

across our borders. 

Immigration and customs enforcement overlaps with the mission of many other 

federal law enforcement agencies, and sometimes even surpasses them in productivity. For example, in 2012, CBP agents seized 4.2 million pounds of illegal drugs— 

more than three times the amount seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration 

in the previous year. In the last eight years, under the auspices of Operation Community Shield, ICE has arrested 27,600 gang members; no comparable statistics 

could be found for the FBI, but there is no doubt that ICE plays a leading role in 

addressing this serious public safety problem. In addition, both ICE and CBP routinely make significant seizures of illegal weapons and currency from criminal organizations trying to enter or already operating in the United States.3
285 

4 U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2011 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics, http:// 

www.ussc.gov/Data_and_Statistics/Annual_Reports_and_Sourcebooks/2. . . . 5The total federal prisoner population is comparable to an average daily population, because 

nearly all of the federal prisoners are serving long sentences of more than one year. 6DHS Immigration Enforcement Actions, 201, http://www.dhs.gov/immigration-enforcementactions-2011. 7 Rep. Lamar Smith, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/26/obama-puts-illegalsahea. . . . 

In addition, a major part of CBP’s effort and resources are used to facilitate the 

entry of legitimate visitors and goods, for example, through routine inspections of 

people and goods and through trusted traveler programs. 

While outlays for border security and immigration enforcement have reached historic highs, it is important to remember that the immigration enforcement mission 

was woefully underfunded for decades; meanwhile, the threat from international 

terrorism and transnational criminal organizations is also greater than ever before. 

Illegal immigration has risen steadily since the 1980s. While our research shows 

that new illegal entries have slackened somewhat since 2007, there are signs that 

the tide could be shifting again. According to numbers just released by CBP, in 2012 

southwest border apprehensions, which the agency has used as an indicator of the 

number of illegal crossings, went up by nine percent. 

Transactional data collected by a project at Syracuse University reportedly shows 

that CBP and ICE together refer more cases for prosecution than other federal law 

enforcement agencies, which some have interpreted to mean that these agencies 

have been hyperactive and overzealous in their work. But another reliable source, 

the U.S. Sentencing Commission, reports that immigration cases represent a much 

smaller share of the federal criminal justice docket. The Commission’s 2011 annual 

report says that immigration offenders were 35% of all those sentenced in federal 

court that year, meaning there were twice as many sentenced offenders from nonimmigration agency prosecutions than from CBP and ICE.4 However, this same report notes that 10% of murderers, 31% of drug traffickers, 34% of money launderers, 

64% of kidnappers, and 28% of food and drug offenders sentenced that year were 

non-citizens, so it’s easy to see why immigration enforcement should be such a high 

priority in federal law enforcement. Obviously these two sets of data are measuring 

different things—referrals for prosecution and sentenced offenders—but they are 

equally valid measures of the immigration agencies’ footprint in the federal criminal 

justice system. 

Some observers also have raised concerns about the number of individuals in immigration detention (429,000 in 2011). However, immigration detention is of relatively short duration (average 29 days) compared to the federal prison system, 

where only two percent stay less than one year. There are far fewer immigration 

detainees than federal prisoners at any one time; the average daily immigration detainee population is about 33,000, compared to about 218,000 inmates in the Bureau 

of Prisons system.5 Immigration offenders make up only 12 percent of the federal 

prison population, although 26.5 percent of federal prisoners are non-citizens. But 

the immigration detention system is not at all like the federal prison system in purpose or nature. Immigration detention is more comparable to the local jail system, 

which has an average daily population of about 750,000 inmates. 

Obama administration officials have pointed to what they claim is a record number of removals and returns—409,000 in 2012, out of more than 11 million illegal 

residents—as evidence that the government is doing as much as it can, perhaps 

even more than enough, immigration enforcement. But as the president has said, 

these numbers are ‘‘actually a little deceptive:’’ 

• The 2012 deportation numbers are not a record, using the current methodology 

of counting both removals and returns. According to the annual yearbook of immigration statistics, in 1996 removals and returns numbered more than 1.6 million, up from more than 1.3 million in 1995. 

• The ‘‘dramatic’’ recent increases in deportations, removals and returns actually 

occurred between 2005 and 2009; since then, the numbers have flattened out 

noticeably.6

• It has been established that recent deportation statistics are heavily padded 

with cases that were not previously counted as such.7
286 

8DHS Immigration Enforcement Actions, 2011. 

• ICE arrests have been trending downward since 2008, after a sharp rise that 

year. It’s hard to understand how deportations can be rising when apprehensions are falling.8

THE MEAGER HISTORY OF ENFORCEMENT AT THE WORKPLACE

But the most conspicuous void in immigration law enforcement has been in the 

area of workplace enforcement. Enforcement of immigration laws at the workplace 

is essential to gaining control of illegal immigration and to addressing the most significant negative effects of immigration, namely the displacement of legal workers 

and the deterioration in wages for those U.S. workers who must compete with illegal workers. 

Workplace enforcement is as important as securing the border itself, for several 

reasons. Illegal immigration occurs in many ways, including illicit border crossing, 

overstaying a legal visa, and using false documents. Any strategy that relies solely 

on securing the border is doomed to fail, because it will miss as many as half the 

illegal entrants. Secondly, border security is limited by the physical challenges of 

the terrain and by the government’s financial resources. And, as long as there are 

employers willing and able to hire illegal workers, the workers will try to come. 

An effective workplace strategy provides employers with the tools to enable them 

to comply voluntarily and also holds them accountable for their violations and their 

role in sending the message that illegal workers are welcome. Routine, frequent and 

thorough enforcement discourages illegal workers by creating an expectation that 

they could be subject to arrest and removal at any time. Such policies of strict enforcement of the laws against illegal employment have been shown to be effective, 

both in reducing the flow of new illegal immigrants and in reducing the size of the 

settled illegal immigrant population. 

In 1986, Congress attempted to address the illegal immigration problem with a 

grand bargain: a large share of the resident illegal population would receive amnesty, and future illegal flows would be prevented by the implementation of employer sanctions, to be enforced by the Immigration and Naturalization Service 

(INS). For the first time, it became expressly illegal to knowingly hire, recruit, or 

refer for a fee someone who was not authorized to work in the United States. Employers were required to check documents presented by new hires to establish that 

they were authorized to work, and record the information on form now known as 

the I–9. The sanctions included fines and possible prison time for the act of illegal 

hiring and for not properly checking the status of new employees. 

The federal government was quick to implement the amnesty program, but never 

followed through with the enforcement of employer sanctions. In fact, it seems that 

they were never intended to be allowed to work at all. 

Many have blamed Congressional drafters for deliberately creating a clumsy system in which employers were required to ask new hires for documentation, but not 

expected or required to verify the information (and there was no easy way for them 

to do so anyway). The law allowed for more than a dozen different forms of identification to establish work authorization. As a result, many workers simply began 

providing false documents, and a booming trade in false identification for employment purposes was born. 

But executive branch officials, under the influence of political appointees with ties 

to major business, agricultural, and industrial special interests, were equally 

complicit in creating a workplace enforcement system that was built to fail. 

First, it was decided that a significant share of the INS enforcement resources 

would be directed toward an ‘‘employer sanctions education mandate.’’ It was essentially an outreach program to inform the nation’s employers of the new law and 

their new responsibilities. This outreach was to be performed primarily by the agency’s corps of special agents—and had the effect of taking the sworn law enforcement 

officers who were trained and empowered to investigate violations off their beat. 

Next, the agency leadership crafted the regulations in such a way as to ensure 

that very few employers would actually be subjected to sanctions that were painful 

enough to deter illegal hiring. The regulations included the following provisions: 

• Employers were to be notified three days in advance of agents arriving to audit 

the personnel forms (I–9s), providing employers with a chance to create the appearance of compliance; 

• Before sanctioning an employer, whether for knowingly hiring illegal workers 

or for improper paperwork, agents had to obtain advance clearance from both 

the operational supervisors and the general counsel’s office in headquarters. 
287 

9 Andorra Bruno, ‘‘Immigration-Related Worksite Enforcement: Performance Measures,’’ Congressional Research Service, 7–5700, June 24, 2010. 10Government Accountability Office, ‘‘Immigration Enforcement: Weaknesses Hinder Employment Verification and Worksite Enforcement Efforts,’’ GAO–08–813, August, 2005. 11 Bruno. 

These two offices put every single notice of intent to fine through a such a 

wringer of review that very few sanctions were ever approved; 

• In the event that an employer fine was approved, the case was handed off to 

the agency lawyers in the field, who typically preferred to negotiate settlements 

with the employers that knocked down the fines to literally pennies on the dollar. Agents were not allowed to participate in the settlement negotiations to 

provide input on the seriousness of the illegal hiring practices, or make the case 

for tough sanctions. 

The result was that employers failed to take the sanctions seriously and were able 

to absorb any meager penalties as a cost of doing business. Nevertheless, each year 

the INS completed thousands of employer investigations. According to the agency’s 

statistical yearbooks, each year between 1992 and 1998, agents completed 5,000 to 

7,000 employer investigations resulting in between 7,500 and 17,500 arrests. But 

even these efforts were a drop in the bucket relative to the scale of illegal hiring 

at the time. 

These policies remained in place until the demise of the INS. Under the Clinton 

administration, the situation worsened. During the tenure of Commissioner Doris 

Meissner, the size of the corps of special agents in the Investigations division (comparable to today’s Homeland Security Investigations division, without the customs, 

intellectual property, and counterfeit goods responsibilities) shrank to about 500 

(compared to about 7,000 today). Worksite enforcement and employer sanctions 

ranked as no more than a footnote in the agency’s priorities, and most agent productive hours were directed toward casework such as drugs, gangs, and alien smuggling.9

Under the Bush administration, initially, INS priorities were focused on primarily 

on streamlining the processing of immigration benefits applications, until the events 

of 9/11, when the focus became national security, and the agency was dismantled 

and its enforcement functions assigned to CBP and ICE. Given the national security 

focus that pre-occupied the agency at that time, in the early years of ICE, worksite 

investigations were at first focused mainly on critical infrastructure work places 

such as airports. 

In 2005, the GAO issued a report noting that competing priorities at ICE had 

brought worksite enforcement to a near stand-still.10 The auditors found that between 1999 and 2004, the number of employers fined either for substantive or paperwork violations had declined from 417 to 3. 

Following this report, ICE received an infusion of funding to hire additional compliance officers, agents, and managers to devote to this program. Activity gradually 

increased over the next several years. Field offices planned and carried out carefully-executed raids and made a record number of arrests of illegal workers at 

meatpacking plants, factories, and even smaller employers such as restaurants and 

retail establishments. The number of administrative and criminal arrests in worksite operations seems to have peaked in 2008, when there were more than 5,000 administrative arrests and more than 1,000 criminal arrests.11

In early 2009, the Obama administration adopted new policies on worksite enforcement, placing the focus on conducting paperwork audits of more companies 

while deliberately avoiding contact with illegal workers. It is difficult to evaluate the 

productivity of this new approach, because ICE no longer publishes detailed worksite enforcement statistics, and the few statistics that are released are not comparable with earlier years. But judging from various limited records I have reviewed 

that were released through the FOIA process, there is a great deal of inconsistency 

among ICE investigative field offices in how they go about worksite enforcement. 

Some offices target employers that are suspected of egregiously hiring large numbers of workers; others tend to select employers where few suspected illegal workers 

are found in the paperwork, but they can still claim to have completed many audits. 

Some offices push hard to impose large fines, others prefer to issue mainly warnings, even in cases where large numbers of suspected illegal workers were found on 

the payroll. 

In addition, I have found some inconsistencies in the way ICE apparently is 

classifying its investigations, which leads me to wonder if they might be manipulating case reporting statistics in order to give an inflated impression of the level 

of worksite enforcement. Listed under the ‘‘Worksite’’ section of the ICE Newsroom 
288 

page, I found several press releases about investigations that were clearly criminal 

in nature, and could not reasonably be classified as ‘‘worksite enforcement.’’ Socalled ‘‘worksite’’ cases I found included prosecutions of the leaders of a prostitution 

ring in Florida and the owner of a motel in El Paso used as a drophouse for 5,000 

smuggled aliens. 

On the other hand, some of my sources report of another multi-state prostitution 

ring investigation (reportedly involving underage girls) that was initiated by the 

Border Patrol and later turned over to ICE was reportedly dropped because it would 

have led to discoveries of widespread illegal hiring practices at dairy farms in northern Vermont. 

The one consistent theme of worksite investigations in recent years seems to be 

that arrests of workers are to be avoided at all costs. This raises legitimate questions as to the value of an audits-only approach. 

Our research shows that there are advantages, disadvantages and trade-offs to 

raids and audits, and the most effective approach is probably a blend of both. Raids 

are very effective for the purposes of penalizing both workers and employers. Both 

employers and workers can be caught red-handed, making it easier both to apprehend and remove the workers and to prosecute the employers, in large part because 

the workers can testify against the employer. In addition, the negative publicity associated with a raid can be a deterrent to illegal hiring. On the other hand, some 

consider the raids to be excessively intimidating to both workers and employers, as 

ICE agents will use customary law enforcement procedures in order to maintain 

order and prevent escape or violence. The raids are costly to the U.S. government 

as, depending on the size of the operation, they may require hundreds of agents, 

months of preparation, and complex logistics. 

Audits, on the other hand, are largely a paperwork exercise and enable ICE to 

examine the practices of a much larger number of employers than is possible 

through raids. Audits might be part of a full investigation that culminates in a raid, 

but it is also possible to perform an audit without the business disruption of a raid. 

The auditors can, for the most part, easily determine which employees lack authorization using the standard verification tools. On the other hand, the audits may not 

detect employees working under the table. The audits offer no opportunity for ICE 

to apprehend the illegal workers. The employer is required to terminate an unauthorized worker discovered by the audit, but the worker is free to find employment 

elsewhere. In general, the audits result in lesser sanctions on employers who are 

found to be violating the law. Without the testimony of the workers, it can be very 

difficult for ICE to make a case or press charges on an employer for knowingly hiring illegal workers. 

Conclusion. Enforcement of immigration laws at the workplace is not a substitute for border enforcement, but is ultimately a more effective approach. Since a 

significant number of illegal aliens enter legally on visas as well as illegally over 

the land borders, any strategy to control illegal immigration must operate beyond 

the border and disrupt the magnet of employment, which is what causes most illegal 

immigrants to settle here. Workplace enforcement accomplishes that by targeting 

and deterring the employers of illegal workers and by penalizing the workers who 

are apprehended at the workplace. Workplace enforcement is flexible, with a variety 

of layers including both voluntary compliance on the part of employers and sanctions against egregious or knowing violators. Finally workplace enforcement provides a direct benefit to U.S. workers by opening up job opportunities and improving 

wages and working conditions as a direct result of the enforcement action. 

Mr. BACHUS [presiding]. Mr. Chishti. 

TESTIMONY OF MUZAFFAR A. CHISHTI, DIRECTOR, MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE’S OFFICE AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL 

Mr. CHISHTI. Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman and other 

Members of the Committee who are here this afternoon. I will do 

my testimony in two parts, first about immigration enforcement. 

We at the Migration Policy Institute recently issue a comprehensive report on immigration enforcement in the United States. I 

would urge that this be admitted into the record. 
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*The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report submitted by Mr. Chishti titled Immigration Enforcement in the United States, the Rise of a Formidable Machinery, by Dorris Meissner, Donald 

M. Kerwin, Muzaffar Chishti, and Claire Bergeron, is not reprinted in this hearing record but 

is on file with the Committee. The report can also be accessed at: 

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/enforcementpillars.pdf. 

Mr. BACHUS. Without objection.* 

Mr. CHISHTI. Based on that report, by almost any metric that is 

publicly available, from staffing all the way to apprehensions and 

worksite enforcement, the level of immigration enforcement in the 

United States now stands at a record high. Nearly $18 billion was 

spent in fiscal 2012 in the Federal Government’s two main immigration enforcement agencies, ICE and CBP, and the US-VISIT 

program. It is exactly $17.9 billion, i.e. 24 percent greater than the 

combined fiscal 2012 budgets for all other principal criminal Federal law enforcement agencies—from the FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret 

Service and U.S. Marshals. These major resource enforcements 

have lead to notable results. 

Perhaps, most significantly, Mr. Chairman, Border Patrol apprehensions fell by 78 percent between fiscal 2000 and 2012. That is 

from about 1.6 million to 365,000 people. 

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of non-citizens deported from the United States. The DHS removed just 

under 392,000 people in 2011, more than double the number carried out by the INS in fiscal 2002. 

Since 1990, more than 4.4 million non-citizens have been deported from the United States; 42 percent of which, i.e. 1.9 million, 

have occurred since 2008. Increased deportation has been accompanied by a paralleled trend in increased prosecutions for criminal 

immigration offenses, and these are mostly illegal entries and illegal reentries. 

Today, immigration prosecutions make up more than half of all 

the Federal criminal prosecutions initiated. CBP alone refers today 

more cases for prosecution than the FBI, and CBP and ICE together refer more cases for prosecution than all the Department of 

Justice’s law enforcement agencies combined. 

The number of employers enrolled in the E-Verify program has 

gone up from 6,000 in 2005 to more than 353,000 today. 

Finally, and equally important, yet less visible change has been 

the development of new technology and databases that link immigration enforcement agencies’ programs and systems. The system, 

called IDENT, administered by US-VISIT, has now become the 

world’s largest biometric law enforcement database. 

It contains more than 148 million individual fingerprint records, 

grows at 10 million new entries per year and reflects more than 2 

billion individual entry events. The new databases and their interoperability have been critical in the government’s enforcement mission. 

Quickly let me turn to three key weaknesses associated with the 

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the last time Congress dealt with a comprehensive immigration reform. 

A key drawback of IRCA’slegalization component was the law 

disqualified those who had arrived in the U.S. after January 1, 

1982, and did not provide an opportunity for immediate family 

members of newly legalized population to obtain status. This com-
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bination left a large number of people in mixed-status families and 

created the nucleus of the sizeable post-1986 unauthorized population. 

For any new legalization program to be successful, Mr. Chairman, it should be as inclusive as possible. The law should not disqualify large sections of unauthorized population, as doing so both 

invites fraud and fails to address the full scope of the problem. 

IRCA’s ultimate failure was its narrow focus. The law did not anticipate or make provisions for future labor needs, especially in the 

low-skilled labor markets. A mechanism for including flexibility 

and establishing the types and numbers of admission for future 

flaws does not exist. 

To meet that need, we have recommended the creation of a provisional worker program which sort of bridges temporary and permanent immigration, and the creation of an independent commission 

on immigration, which would set the level of people we need on a 

regular basis. 

Lastly, IRCA failed to have a good defensible implementation 

program for the worksite. In the absence of a reliable mechanism, 

employers honored verification documents as presented, but those 

were frequently fraudulent. The development of E-Verify, along 

with declines in the system’s error rate, I think provides us today 

a real opportunity of improving E-Verify. But for us to make it 

mandatory, I think is a big step. Today only 350,000 employers are 

currently enrolled in E-Verify. That covers only a small percentage 

of the Nation’s 7 million employers and more than 140 million 

workers. Extending it to all workplaces should be done in stages 

to show that it is not unduly burdensome to employers and provides protection to lawful workers. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Nation has built a formidable 

immigration enforcement machinery in recent years. The enforcement-first policy that has been advanced by many inside and outside the Congress as a condition for looking at larger reform has 

de facto become the Nation’s dominant immigration policy. 

Important as this enforcement is, enforcement alone is not sufficient to answer the broad challenges that both legal and illegal immigration pose for our society, our economy, and for America’s future. Looking forward, answering these challenges depends not 

only on effective enforcement but also on enforcing the laws that 

address both inherent weaknesses in the immigration system and 

better align our immigration policy with the Nation’s economic and 

labor market needs and future growth. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify. I will be willing to answer 

any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chishti follows:] 
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Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

Ms. Wood, I think your testimony, could I summarize part of it, 

is that our enforcement mechanism is failing? 

Ms. WOOD. Yes, I think that—I think that we have not done all 

we need to do, and I think the long period of inconsistent enforcement has caused people to build up, who are here illegally, to build 
303 

up very sympathetic equities and put us in a bad position. So if we 

are going to do this again, we have got to get enforcement right 

and get it right from the get go; otherwise, we will be in the same 

position. 

Mr. BACHUS. You know,I have talked to people in the construction industry that have bid against companies that were using or 

companies that were hiring large numbers of illegal workers, and 

sometimes bidding jobs for half million dollars less because of their 

savings on their wages alone. And of course, that undermines what 

our own citizens who work in the trades can make. 

And you mentioned $10,000 as a fine, and I can tell you that I 

actually saw that about 2 years ago, in Alabama, a firm that had 

a several million dollar construction contract was, about a third of 

their employees were illegal, and they were fined $10,000; although 

the profit from that job was probably close to a million dollars. So 

that, obviously, so many of the fines are sort of a slap on the wrist 

and just a part of doing business. Would that be correct? 

Ms. WOOD. Yeah, I think that is the case. I think what the civil 

fines have done is broaden awareness, and so I think early on, in 

the Administration, you know, we did see increased awareness 

from companies across a broad spectrum of industries. And construction, you know, historically, has had a lot of problems in this 

area, but I think now, as a number of employers have gone through 

the audit process and end up with very low fines, they think, well 

gee, it is just easier to keep going as is versus getting on to EVerify, paying attention, fully training our workers and so on. 

You know, but I do think shifting the burden back to the government would make a big difference because you are asking these, 

your document clerks, who are often earning $10, or $11 an hour 

to, you know, look at, does this driver’s license and Social Security 

card look good? It went through E-Verify okay, but do I think it 

is good? You know, that is a lot to ask, and the government should 

be doing this versus the employers. 

Mr. BACHUS. I see where it says, one of the reasons that ICE increased worksite enforcement efforts under your leadership to give 

the American people the confidence that enforcement component of 

any proposed comprehensive immigration reform would in fact be 

implemented. What can Congress do to best assure that that continues, or that that is the case? 

Ms. WOOD. It is so that we have confidence in our enforcement 

system. 

Mr. BACHUS. Uh-huh. 

Ms. WOOD. I think to look at our system overall and see kind of, 

how is it funded? Is it funded appropriately? Do we have the tools 

and technology we need, not only at the border but in the interior? 

You know, do things like an exit system, you know, things like 

that. What are we doing to make sure that we have the tools that 

we need? 

ICE has about 7,000 agents. That is fewer than many city police 

departments. And so with all respect to the great work done with 

MPI, we have a huge, huge, ICE has a huge, huge task. And so, 

you know, how can we give them the tools that they need? 

And then I think looking at, are there inefficiencies in the removal system? It shouldn’t take 2 years to get, you know, a hearing 
304 

date in California to determine whether or not I am in the country 

illegally. You know, the system should move more quickly. 

There are things that we can do including, you know, potentially 

expanding the use of voluntary returns. Expanding the use of expedited removal in other cases, you know, I think would also make 

a difference and, you know, build confidence. 

Mr. BACHUS. All right. 

Mr. Crane, your testimony was fascinating, and part of it was 

that you actually have been given instructions and you are a member of—you are a representative of an enforcement officers union, 

and is that a widespread practice for them to verbally tell you just 

to assume that everyone has a high school diploma or qualifies to 

be here? 

Mr. CRANE. Yes, sir, I mean, to some degree especially, and I 

have testified about this before, over the last 4 years it has been 

a day-to-day roller coaster for us about who we can and cannot arrest. And for the most part, those instructions do come verbally because they know that what they are doing isn’t right, and they 

don’t want the American public to know what they are doing. 

Mr. BACHUS. And those instructions are basically, don’t make arrests? 

Mr. CRANE. Absolutely. And you know, a lot of people don’t know 

this, but ICE agents, at least in the group that I work with, that 

handle the immigration issues, we are not allowed to go out and 

make arrests on the street. If I am on duty and I walk into a restaurant or something and I see an immigration violation in front 

of me, I can’t do anything about that. If I do, I will be disciplined 

for it, and I will be disciplined for it again, until I lose my job. And 

that is how it works. 

And people don’t understand that if we are ever going to fix this 

immigration problem, we have to empower these officers to do their 

jobs. It is all about politics. They don’t want something to be in the 

newspapers. 

Mr. BACHUS. Tell me a little about your lawsuit again, that—the 

basis of the lawsuit that you and other ICE agents filed against 

Homeland Security in the Federal District Court in Texas? 

Mr. CRANE. Well, just basically, it is a lawsuit that says the Federal Government won’t let us do our jobs. They won’t let us enforce 

the laws that are on the books, and they have put us in this, you 

know, between a rock and a hard spot, basically, to where we can 

either enforce the law and be disciplined and lose our jobs, or we 

can ignore the law. 

So we tried to work with the Administration on this. We tried 

to work at the folks up at ICE and DHS, and they wouldn’t work 

with us, and we had no other choice but to file a lawsuit. 

Mr. BACHUS. Okay, thank you. 

Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thanks to this panel. 

I agree that the workplace fines ought to be increased after we 

reform the law, so it works. And I think it has been stated that 

people who cheat, you know, end up getting an advantage—excuse 

me—over people who don’t cheat, and that is not right. So—excuse 

me—I think that is something that we ought to come together to 

solve on a bipartisan basis. 
305 

I would note, however, that the amount of fines are way up. Ten 

million may not be a lot, but in 2006, the amount of fines was zero. 

So it is better than it was and needs to be improved. 

I am also interested, Mr. Chishti, on—your institute has done 

scholarly work on that, on this whole issue. 

Mr. CHISHTI. Thank you. 

Ms. LOFGREN. And that is hard to get information that isn’t politicized, in a way, because you just get the numbers. And one of 

the questions that we have had here today, is why didn’t the IRCA 

work? And I think the assumption is that it was lack of enforcement, and in fact, sometimes enforcement was lacking, but that is 

not currently something we are seeing. And many of us think part 

of the problem, just as Dr. Land said, was that we didn’t have any 

way for people who wanted to legitimately work to come in. I mean, 

people say, get to the back of the line. There is no line to get into. 

And so that I think is one of the major defects. 

Some say, however, that the H-2A program was in and of itself 

sufficient to deal with all of the future flow issues. Do you think 

that is correct? 

Mr. CHISHTI. I mean, I cut my teeth in the 1986 law, and I know 

for sure that no one that I know of talked that the H-2A program 

or the replenishment agricultural worker program that was going 

to follow it was supposed to be the comprehensive response to our 

future labor market needs. That was confined to the needs of the 

agricultural sector. And as you know full well, Congresswoman, not 

a single person was admitted under the law’s program. 

The real weakness of IRCA was that it was too narrow. It just 

focused on the issues of illegal immigration, and we were in a bit 

of a recession at the time in 1986. But soon after IRCA was signed 

by President Reagan, there was a post-recession period, when there 

was significant demand for all sectors of employment in the United 

States, and there were no legal channels for people to come. But 

the supply and demand matched post-1986, but instead of using 

legal channels, the workers that we needed here were increasingly 

using illegal channels to meet the demand, and that is precisely 

the nucleus of our present 11 million unauthorized population. 

Ms. LOFGREN. So now we have a mess on our hands, and the 

question is, I really think, how do we clean up the mess we have 

found ourselves in and then create a system so no future mess is 

created for some future Congress to have to deal with? And I think 

that is the challenge that we face. 

Part of that is how we treat employment-based immigration. I 

think there is broad agreement that somebody that has just gotten 

their Ph.D. in electrical engineering is going to go out and create 

companies and the like, but there are plenty of parts of the employment sector where we know, because there have been tests, because of enforcement, that Americans are not lining up to do the 

work. I mean, for example, the easiest example is migrant farm 

work. I mean, when you do enforcement actions, farmers end up 

plowing over their fields. 

I think what we have learned is that after IRCA was enacted, 

with its reliance on employer sanctions, there were evasive tactics 

taken. For example, employers created so-called contract employers, where they used labor contractors, or other middle men. Do 
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*Mr. Chisti revised his testimony as follows: 

It has sort of been the stepchild in this debate so far: about labor protections. And 

I would suggest that the least we have to do is that an employer should not be able 

to invoke the defense of employer sanction when they are violating labor laws of the 

country. We all know the Supreme Court issued a major decision on that case in Hoffman Plastic, whereby undocumented workers were not found eligible for back pay. All 

that does is provide incentive for employers to hire undocumented workers. That kind 

of incentive has to be taken away in our legal mechanism, and I would say Congress 

should legislatively try to remedy Hoffman Plastic. 

you have advice for us, as we craft future flow requirements, to 

avoid, you know, tricks to avoid employers going to those evasions 

so that we have a system that works for America and that is enforceable and will not lead to evasion? 

Mr. CHISHTI. Yeah, thank you so much. And I think it is also the 

kind of question that we saw on the first panel today, Congressman 

Labrador’s point about what did we do wrong in 1986 and why 

can’t we be in the same place? I mean, part of the reason is exactly 

the response to your question, is that we didn’t have laws that 

matched reality. And we know one thing about law making: If you 

have laws that do not correspond to reality, they do not work. We 

enacted laws in 1986 to clean up the slate. We thought about the 

people who wanted to be legalized, but we created no mechanism 

for future flows. We created an employment verification system but 

put huge amounts of loopholes in it, including the loopholes that 

the Congresswoman just talked about, where people, employers, 

were able to circumvent the requirement of E-Verify by hiring contractors, contract workers, by hiring, you know, people off the 

books. 

Now, if we are going to tackle the same problem this year, we 

have to learn from 1986. First, we have to build robust new 

streams of people to come exactly to meet the real labor market 

needs of the United States, which I think, you know, is the whole 

spectrum of our occupations, from high end to the low end. And 

they should be measured on the basis of real labor market needs 

and America’s needs for economic growth. 

On the E-Verify, clearly, there are good employers and bad employers. The good employers are following E-Verify. The bad employers, I would suggest to you, Congresswoman, are exactly the 

same who violate the sanctions, but also those who violate our tax 

laws, who violate the labor protection laws. The important thing is 

to go after those employers, and one of the things I would recommend is that you build certain amount of labor protections in 

your next round of legislation. 

It has sort of been the stepchild in this debate so far: about labor 

protections. And I would suggest that the least we have to do is 

that an employer should not be able to invoke the defense of employer sanction when they are violating labor laws of the country. 

We all know the Supreme Court issued a major decision on that 

case in Sure-Tan, whereby undocumented workers were not found 

eligible for back pay. All that does is provide incentive for employers to hire undocumented workers. That kind of incentive has to 

be taken away in our legal mechanism, and I would say Congress 

should legislatively try to remedy Sure-Tan.* 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

Mr. King. 
307 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank the witnesses for your testimony. It raises a series of 

questions for me, and listening to Mr. Chishti and your testimony, 

I would be curious if you talked about the violation of our tax laws 

and our labor laws. And I am curious if you believe that employers 

should be able to deduct as a business expense wages and benefits 

that they pay to people that cannot lawfully work in the United 

States. 

Mr. CHISHTI. Well, I think with respect to taxation, all laws 

should be uniformly applied. If they are hiring people, whether 

they are hiring unauthorized or whether they are hiring people 

who are lawfully here, they should be subjected to the same tax regime. 

Mr. KING. Okay, so the same tax regime? 

Mr. CHISHTI. Otherwise, all you are doing, Congressman, is creating incentives to hire unauthorized. 

Mr. KING. So, Congress should clarify current law that it is unlawful to knowingly and willfully hire people that can’t lawfully 

work in the United States, and that those expenses paid as wages 

and benefits would not be deductible. If we did that and brought 

the IRS into this equation to help enforce the rule of law, wouldn’t 

that be constructive, even to your testimony? 

Mr. CHISHTI. If it does not create a further incentive for employers to hire unauthorized people, I think we should look at those alternatives. 

Mr. KING. And if we gave the employers safe harbor if they used 

E-Verify, then we wouldn’t have it mandatory, as I think you have 

suggested we should not, that would allow it to be voluntary and 

the employer could determine whether he wanted to take the IRS 

risk, could he not? 

Mr. CHISHTI. Congressman, I am sorry. 

Mr. KING. I wanted to give you an opportunity to examine this 

more thoroughly, but I imagine you will now at this point. 

And I wanted to point out, or ask the question of Mr. Crane, and 

that being, I just listened to the gentlelady from California. She 

said, after we reform the law so it that it works. That causes me 

to ask you this question: If we had enforced the laws that exist, 

would it work? 

Mr. CRANE. You are actually kind reading my mind right now. 

I was sitting here pondering that idea that I don’t think we really 

even know that the laws that we have on the books right now 

weren’t good laws. We just never enforce them. Until we decide 

that we are going to enforce whatever laws we have or make in the 

future, it is never going to work. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. 

And Ms. Wood, welcome back. I appreciate your testimony. And 

I heard Mr. Chishti talk about accumulated data of millions of people who were deported. When you hear that testimony, do you 

think of people that were—that left the United States and actually 

left the United States, or are they just adjudicated for deportation? 

Did you break down that data in your own mind as to what really 

happens with the population that he references in his testimony? 

Ms. WOOD. Well, I can’t speak specifically to the numbers he provided in his testimony, but a big problem is, a lot of times people 
308 

are deported, and they don’t go home and so the number of absconders, you know, as you know, went up to over 500,000 in 2006. 

And, you know, the question is, are we then looking for those individuals? Are we arresting them, and are we ordering them to leave 

the country? 

And in some cases, they may have very substantial equity so 

there may be very sad stories, or are we telling those people now 

they have a pass? And that is where I can’t break down his numbers to address which situations are involved there. 

Mr. KING. But we might hear the term ‘‘deportation’’ and think 

of it in terms of it is always something that is physically forced, 

when actually, it is an adjudication process that might not cause 

a person to go anywhere except outside the courtroom. Is that true? 

Ms. WOOD. Yeah, and someone can be ordered deported and then 

stay in the United States, yes. And I don’t know from his statistics 

which he is talking about. 

Mr. KING. I just remembered. I hate to go back on this, but I got 

my curiosity answered on that, and I just recall some data at one 

of the ports of entry where they asked them to go back and run 

the fingerprint data to see, and there was one individual that had 

reentered—or had reentered 27 times back into the United States. 

So it isn’t always a situation that something gets solved here either. 

Ms. WOOD. That is exactly right. And you know, sometimes the 

Border Patrol would deport, you know, somebody or apprehend 

somebody 10 or 11 times in one night. It would all count toward 

apprehensions. So a lot of the numbers and statistics that the 

agencies use, you have to take that into account. 

Mr. KING. It might be more frustrating to be a Border Patrol 

agent than an ICE agent then, rhetorically. 

Ms. WOOD. I don’t know about that. I think ICE agents have an 

incredibly hard job. 

Mr. KING. I agree. And I appreciate the work of all of our agents. 

But I wanted to turn in the seconds I have to Ms. Vaughn and ask 

you that, we have an E-Verify program now and a proposal to 

make it permanent that would not allow an employer to use EVerify to check their current or legacy employees. And would you 

care to comment on that philosophy? And mine is, I think an employer should be able to at least voluntarily use E-Verify to verify 

their current employees as well as new hires. And I believe they 

also should be able to use E-Verify on prospective hires with a legitimate job offer. 

Ms. VAUGHN. From what I have heard about from a number of 

employers who are interested in using E-Verify, they would very 

much like—especially staffing agencies. They say that it, you know, 

it creates some difficulties for them to not be able to be sure if they 

can send someone out to a workplace while waiting for the E-Verify 

process to play out. So they would like to be able to use it prospectively. 

And I think, yes, ultimately, we should build a system that it is 

phased in so that, at some point, employers are able to go through 

their entire payroll and vet all of their existing employees. 

But there is already a system in place that allows them to do 

that, and that is SSNVS. A number of government agencies around 
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the country have mandated use of that program, and they have, 

frankly, been quite surprised at what they have found of the number of people already on the payroll who shouldn’t be. 

Mr. KING. I appreciate you putting that into the record, thank 

you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. King. 

Ms. Jackson. Sheila Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I want to thank Mr. Crane for his service, and I want 

to thank also all of you for being here today. And I want to again 

ask the Chairman if I might put into the record the entire article, 

‘‘Janet Napolitano, DHS Secretary, Touts Immigration Enforcement 

at Mexican Border.’’ 

Mr. BACHUS. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. And again, those numbers indicate 356,873 

apprehensions on the Mexican border in 2012, up almost 9 percent. 

And I thank the Chairman for that. 

I just wanted to hear from Mr. Crane. I did not hear, you said 

you had to sue the Federal Government for what reason? 

Mr. CRANE. I am sorry, ma’am, I didn’t hear what you said. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You had to sue the Federal Government for 

what reason, I am sorry? 

Mr. CRANE. Essentially because the agency has told us that you 

can’t enforce U.S. immigration law, and if you attempt to enforce 

that law, we will discipline you, basically repeatedly, until you lose 

your job, until you are terminated. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And is that dealing with the deferred adjudication for DREAM Act children, that order that came out? 

Mr. CRANE. Adjudication for what, ma’am? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Did that deal specifically with the deferred adjudication for the DREAM Act children? Is that the particular 

order you are speaking of. 

Mr. CRANE. We are speaking in the lawsuit about the prosecutorial discretion memorandum as well as DACA. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And that is a prioritization that you focus 

more on those who would do us harm in deportation as opposed to 

separating families. That was the intent of that order, as I recollect, but that is the order that you speak of, where you were asked 

to prioritize the deportations? 

Mr. CRANE. I guess if you want to put it that way, like I gave 

in my testimony earlier, we are actually going into jails and applying it to adult males. We don’t go to schools. ICE agents can’t go 

to schools. We don’t mess with kids. We are going into jails, and 

we are applying this rule, or this new policy to criminals, and we 

are taking their word for it and not even requiring them to provide 

proof that they even qualify for the policy itself. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. If we pass comprehensive immigration reform 

and we established once and for all the parameters of the law, and 

it was the law, that would be more helpful to law enforcement such 

as yourself, is that not correct? 

Mr. CRANE. I guess in theory it would be, ma’am. I guess it 

would, again, like everyone has testified today, what does comprehensive immigration reform really mean? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. It means that you would know the distinction 

between those who were here in the country legally, and those who 

were not. Those who complied had green cards, had status, and so 

you would know the difference and you wouldn’t have to speculate. 

Mr. CRANE. Well, I don’t speculate, ma’am. I am trained. I know 

who is here legally and who isn’t here legally. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. But you know that, sir, by the laws that the 

Congress of the United States passed. 

Mr. CRANE. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So if we were to pass a comprehensive immigration reform that included border security, had enforcement aspects delineated, so that as a trained ICE officer, you would know 

the distinction, that would be better for you? 

Mr. CRANE. The more distinction that we have under the law is 

always going to be better for us. But at the same time, we have 
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to have political leaders stay out of our business, essentially, and 

let us enforce the laws that are on the books, which is what is not 

happening right now. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, political leaders dictate what the laws 

are on the books, and I appreciate that. As I said, I am grateful 

for your service, work very well with ICE officers and CBP. I am 

Ranking Member on the Border Security Committee and Homeland 

Security and look forward to working with you extensively. But my 

question again, and I just need a yes or no, if we have laws on the 

books that are clear to you as a law enforcement officer and help 

distinguish between those who were here not to do us harm, families that need to be reunited, and make it clear so you understand 

the distinction of enforcement and what your laws are, that would 

help you do your job, is that not correct? 

Mr. CRANE. If I understand the question correctly, yes, it would, 

ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chishti, let me pose a question to you very quickly. I have 

legislation that introduces something called the visa family visa appeals board. As you well know, on the enforcement end, when we 

separate families, we don’t give any option other than possibly 

through the court system, as opposed to giving an option for an appeal where they can actually deliberate and not be deported, provide the facts before they get into court. You have already mentioned that our courts are literally at a stranglehold. Would an interim visa appeal board on family reunification be a helpful process? 

Mr. CHISHTI. Well, you know, I think some review of decisions 

made by administrative agencies is always important. I think, right 

now, I think most of those cases actually do not go to immigration 

courts. I don’t think that is where the backlog is. I think we probably would do well with a review at an interim level within the 

agency, which would look at denials of that kind. I think more important probably, and this is actually the decisions that are made 

by counselor posts abroad because we don’t right now have any 

counselor review which is meaningful. I think those changes of the 

law also need to take place. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And then the thrust of the board of these appeals would relate to that process as well because that is where 

they are denied. 

Mr. CHISHTI. I think that would be helpful. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to put these facts into 

the record, please, if I might. Just want to indicate from Texas, 

there are 1,022,000 undocumented workers; 7.2 percent of the 

workforce of Texas, which is 24 million. They generate 14.5 billion 

in tax revenue from undocumented workers and 77.7 billion gross 

State product of undocumented workers. It indicates that if we 

work with enforcement and work with a comprehensive approach, 

we can find ways for these individuals to invest in America and to 

add to America’s growing economy. I think we cannot separate one 

from the other, and we cannot suggest that we must do one or the 

other. I thank you. 

Mr. BACHUS. All right, without objection. 
313 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I yield back. 

Mr. BACHUS. And I think you want to introduce into the record 

the testimony that 7 percent of the workforce in Texas is—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes, sir. The document is the effects of mass 

deportation versus legalization, and it is produced by the—— 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Labrador. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. Immigration development center, 

UCLA. I ask unanimous consent, thank you. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you panel for being here today. I want to see some immigration reform happen, but I want to make sure that we prevent 
314 

having the problems that we had with the last immigration reform, 

and that is my main concern. You know, we spent a lot of time 

here talking about the 12 million and that is not the only issue 

that we are facing. We need to have a robust, modern immigration 

system that works and speaking especially to the people working 

in the law enforcement. 

As I have spoken to the ICE agents in my district, they are concerned that any kind of immigration reform will actually lead to 

more fraud, lead to more document fraud, all of those different 

things. So I am a big supporter of E-Verify. I am a big supporter 

of making sure that we have a robust, you know, document system. 

How can we prevent the fraud in the future if we are going to 

allow some immigration reform to happen here in Congress? What 

steps can we take to make sure that we don’t have the problems? 

And I will ask all of the panelists: What do you think we can do 

to make sure that we don’t have the document fraud that we had 

in the past? I still dealt, as an immigration lawyer—for the 15 

years I was an immigration lawyer, I was dealing with cases that 

were 20 years old, 25 years old. They were still dealing with the 

documents that they submitted when they initially applied for, you 

know, for the initial amnesty in 1986. So could you all address 

that? 

Ms. WOOD. Well, I think a couple of things could make a big difference. First, you know, a biometric identification, you know, considering that for all individuals certainly could help reduce, you 

know, the fraud. Even without that, you could improve E-Verify 

and really, again, put the burden on the government and not on 

the employer to wait out and review the driver’s license and the 

Social Security card. That could also reduce fraud. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Can you stop there? How do you put the burden 

on the government more than—— 

Ms. WOOD. Right now the burden is on the employer to do the 

I-9. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Correct. 

Ms. WOOD. And so they submit the documents through E-Verify. 

E-Verify can come back. If I submit my driver’s license from Kansas and my Social Security number, it can come back and say I am 

work authorized, even if I am using Chris Crane’s, you know, driver’s license information, and Social Security. So, in certain States, 

E-Verify now has that information, not in every State, and so a big 

problem for employers with high-risk workforces is that people pretend to be other people. And so the burden is on the document 

clerk—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Correct. 

Ms. WOOD. So then when it comes back employment authorized, 

it doesn’t really mean that. It means maybe. The government 

thinks that, but you, document clerk, you need to look and see, 

what does the font look like on the Social Security number? You 

know, on the card, does that card look bad? Should I, you know, 

so that is a lot of burden that is unfair to do. And so I think improving E-Verify and some of the proposals in Congressman 

Smith’s and other bills, it really makes a difference, getting rid of 

the I-9 system and moving to where the government provides the 

verification. 
315 

A second I think really critical thing would be, when we move 

to a mass adjustment or legalization, is making sure for people who 

commit fraud in the system, that ICE has access to that information. One of the big problems in the prior amnesty is that, as you 

know, is that the enforcement agents didn’t have access to that information. That is a big, big problem. And you want to make sure, 

as Agent Crane has noted, that also that people have to prove 

things up, too. So you are not kind of enabling fraud. So you want 

to make sure that the verification for people who go through the 

legalization process is legitimate verification. 

And then finally, resources. You know, you probably know better 

than I do how many ICE agents are in Iowa. I used to know Kansas because it was my home State, and it is two major alien smuggling routes are in Kansas, I-70 and I-35, and we had less than, 

you know, 20 ICE agents in the whole state. That is a problem. 

You know, that means they are not going to be effective. So I think 

looking at, do we have resources we need to prevent fraud, to go 

out and enforce the law? So those are the four core things I would 

focus on. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. And it is Idaho, but that is okay. I 

am from Idaho. 

Ms. WOOD. I don’t know. I am sorry, I don’t know your number, 

but thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Mr. Crane. 

Mr. CRANE. Yes, sir. Well, the first thing I would say is that, you 

know, virtually, almost probably 90 percent of the illegal aliens 

that we apprehend actually have fraudulent documents with them, 

Social Security cards—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. You might want to turn on your microphone. 

Mr. CRANE. Phony Social Security cards, phony lawful permanent residence cards, et cetera. They are oftentimes engaged in 

some type of identity theft to some degree, and we do nothing 

about it. We stack them up like they are decks of cards. We get 

so many fraud docs, and we do absolutely nothing about it, and the 

agency won’t let us prosecute it 99.9 percent of the time. 

I think that one of the things that is absolutely within our power 

to do here, is take something like fraud and identify it as being a 

lifetime bar, you know, and removal so that everybody knows that 

if I get caught doing this, if I get caught with fraud docs, I am 

going to be removed from the United States. There is no two ways 

about it, and I have a lifetime bar. 

And as you know as a former immigration attorney, we already 

have laws like that, and I think it would be extremely effective in 

our struggle to stop immigration fraud. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. Could the 

two other witnesses answer the question? 

Mr. BACHUS. Yes. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Ms. Vaughn. 

Ms. VAUGHN. Thank you for addressing this problem. IRCA was 

called one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the United 

States Government. And I know they are still cleaning up a lot of 

the fraud from some of the other amnesty-like programs that were 

passed in the 1990’s. We actually know a fair amount about the 

benefits fraud that occurs from programs that were built into 
316 

USCIS, quality control programs, site verification programs, benefits fraud assessments, they call it. And they found—there is double-digit fraud in some of our legal immigration programs now. 

And we have to have a system that has integrity to have the confidence to go forward. And I agree with a lot of what my colleagues 

on the panel said. I would just also add that there needs to be an 

interview process at a certain point in the system. We can talk 

about where that best fits in, but we can’t have a system that is 

an honor system where people are just taken at their word. 

We can—and putting the burden of proof on the applicants is important; using technology to verify claims that people make. I agree 

wholeheartedly that there cannot be a strict confidentiality provision in this. That is a deal breaker. 

And we can’t prosecute all benefits fraud, so we have to have the 

ability to let an administrative process play out with those cases 

that are not going to go to a U.S. attorney or be prosecuted by ICE. 

We have to let USCIS use its authority and tools like administrative removal to make sure that the people who are denied are not 

allowed to stay here anyway. 

That is a huge weakness in our benefits programs right now. 

And these are not small numbers of people that are benefiting from 

the fact that we tolerate so much fraud in this process. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chishti. 

Mr. CHISHTI. In deference to the little time you have, let me just 

be very brief. I mean, in the report that we published about immigration enforcement, we did identify big gaps. And one of the biggest gaps, I think, is frankly in the E-Verify program about the 

fraudulent identity issue; that we do not have a mechanism where 

we can say to the employer the person who is in front of him or 

her is the person that the identification document says it is. We 

need to drastically improve that identification variable. It can be 

done by biometric scanning. It can be done by doing better and 

more secure documents. And that is high on the agenda. 

Let me—a lesson from IRCA about fraud was that when you provide incentive for people to commit fraud, they commit fraud. And 

when you remove the incentive, people behave. As I said in my earlier statement, that one of the drawbacks about IRCA was that we 

had left the eligibility date about 5 years earlier than the date of 

enactment. Now, what is that? That creates incentive for people to 

say they were here 3 years earlier. 

If we had just made it very inclusive and drawn the line at the 

date of enactment, that incentive would have gone down. Those are 

the kind of realities I think we need to leave in mind as we write 

the next generation of legalization. 

Mr. GOODLATTE [presiding]. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Chu, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

First, I would like to recognize that there are quite a few groups 

that are very interested in making sure that comprehensive immigration reform happens, and they would like to have their positions 

submitted into the record. So I ask unanimous consent to submit 

for the record the position papers of the Asian American Justice 
317 

Center, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, they will be made a part of 

record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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319 
320 
321 
322 
323 

Ms. CHU. Thank you very much. 

I would like to address a couple of questions to Mr. Chishti, one 

is on border security, and the other is on the exploitation of workers. First, on border security, I took a congressional bipartisan trip 
324 

to the border because I wanted to see for myself what was going 

on down there, and we actually traveled along miles of the border. 

We looked at tunnels. We looked at the Coast Guard boats. We 

talked to border security, and we looked at the detention centers. 

And to my stunned amazement, there was capacity for hundreds, 

but there were only maybe five or six people there that were being 

detained. And the border security agent said that this had been 

going on for months. And it became apparent to me from that trip 

that we have poured billions of dollars into immigration enforcement along the border. We spend more money per year on immigration enforcement than all other Federal law enforcement agencies combined. The Border Patrol has nearly doubled the number 

of its agents from 2004 to 2012, and apprehensions at the border 

at 2012 were at the lowest in 40 years, yet many lawmakers continue to call for achieving operational control of the border, which 

would mean effectively sealing the border. 

The GAO and CBP have said that such a standard is unrealistic 

and outdated. So, at this point, is there even more to do to make 

the border more secure, or are we really just talking about keeping 

it secure? 

Mr. CHISHTI. Again, reflecting on the findings that we made in 

our report, I think we have done a lot and much better at the border than we have done in a long time. I think most people recognize that. And the level of staffing, the technology that is being employed and the declined apprehensions all speak to that. 

We did note that in our findings, that there is one area in the 

border enforcement that still is a weakness, and that is ports of 

entry. That the ports of entry actually have not kept up in the infrastructure development at par with the needs of the ports of 

entry. And I think if you were to focus on improving anything on 

the border security, then obviously, that is one place to look at. 

And did you have—was there a follow-up question? 

Ms. CHU. Yes, I—well, is that—another topic, but is that it on 

border security? 

Mr. CHISHTI. Yes. 

Ms. CHU. Okay, so I also wanted to ask you about the exploitation of workers. Immigrant workers in my district regularly face 

exploitation at the hands of their employers. They are threatened 

with deportation when they stand up for their labor rights. For example, day laborers, like Jose Diaz, who worked to rebuild our Nation after a hurricane and when asked about—when he asked for 

proper safety equipment, he faced deportation. Or Abi Raju, who 

was a guest worker under the H-2B program, who bravely exposed 

the labor trafficking occurring at his workplace, and when he asserted his rights, he was experiencing intimidation, surveillance, 

and monitoring. 

And when their employers make them work overtime without 

pay or save money by not buying them needed safety equipment, 

this undercuts American workers by driving down wages and allowing firms to break the law by outbidding their competitors. If 

unscrupulous employers are getting away with this, then this can 

of course undermine our whole system here. How can we protect 

workers so that they don’t fear standing up against such exploitation? 
325 

Mr. CHISHTI. Well, as I said, I think earlier, the issues of labor 

protection are one of the less looked at provisions with respect to 

the immigration debate. I think whatever new regime of labor 

flows we are going to have, labor protection has to be central to 

that, both with respect to the protection of U.S. workers and the 

protection of foreign workers. 

In many of our temporary worker programs today, which is why 

they have gotten the bad name they have, they are lacking in very 

basic fundamental protections. Like, in the H-2B program, you cannot sue an employer. The worse you can do is go to the Department 

of Labor, which is already highly understaffed, to deal with those 

kind of complaints. So I would recommend strongly that when you 

look at any regime of future flows, that labor protections have to 

be at par with U.S. workers. 

And the important elements of that, A, is that no matter what 

kind of program we pick, workers should have the right to move 

from one employer to the other, what some people in the parlance 

call portability, because then you are not tied to an abusive employer. Two, is that you should get exactly the same wages, same 

projections under the labor law that a U.S. worker does. You 

should have the same access to courts as U.S. workers do. And ultimately, you should have the right to become permanent resident, 

because otherwise you will constantly be in an exploitable situation. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you, I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentlewoman. 

I am going to recognize myself for a few questions. 

I apologize to the panel for not being here the entire time, but 

I have a number of questions that I want to ask you. And as I do 

that, I would ask that you be brief, so I can get all of them in. 

First of all, to you, Ms. Wood, former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Meissner has stated that prosecutorial discretion should be exercised on a case-by-case basis and 

should not be used to immunize entire categories of non-citizens 

from immigration enforcement, which appears to be what is being 

done with the discretion that the President has given under current circumstances. 

Do you believe that prosecutorial discretion is properly utilized 

when it exempts entire classes of individuals from enforcement of 

the immigration laws, and how did you exercise that discretion 

when you were director of ICE? 

Ms. WOOD. Yeah, I think it is really tough to say that you are 

exercising true prosecutorial discretion when you exempt whole 

classes and categories of people. I certainly understand the frustration. A lot of people have been waiting for the immigration laws to 

change. You know, a lot of equities, a lot of care, but it is not really 

prosecutorial discretion if you exempt whole classes out without 

going through a case-by-case basis. 

You know, when I was at ICE, we did use prosecutorial discretion, and we did it on a case-by-case basis. It is important in my 

view, institutionally, that ICE retain that ability to have prosecutorial discretion because there are some cases that you can’t legislate for ahead of time. And so ICE has to have the ability to exercise discretion in appropriate circumstances. 
326 

Mr. GOODLATTE. In your testimony, you state that a number of 

ICE officers have been put under investigation or are subject to formal charges for enforcing the immigration laws as written but apparently in a manner inconsistent with current Administration policy. In fact, the Federal judge in your lawsuit, Mr. Crane, has concluded that the plaintiffs’ face the threat of disciplinary action if 

they violate the commands of the directive from Secretary 

Napolitano regarding deferred action by arresting or issuing a notice to appear to a directive eligible alien. 

Could you first explain that, and then ask what has been the department’s stated basis for these investigations and charges? 

Mr. CRANE. Well, first of all, I am not certain what you are asking me to explain, sir, I apologize, as far as the NTA part goes. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Yeah, the basis of the lawsuit that is pending 

against you. 

Mr. CRANE. Well, I think you pretty accurately stated the basis 

of the lawsuit, Mr. Chairman. Our officers are prohibited from enforcing U.S. immigration law under threat of repeated disciplinary 

actions up and to including removal. If we don’t enforce those 

laws—I want to be very clear in saying that it is definitely not 

prosecutorial discretion, most importantly, because we are under 

orders not to enforce certain laws. Prosecutorial discretion is something completely different, and what is happening right now are 

clear orders not to enforce the law. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And Ms. Vaughn, do you believe that the resources Congress currently gives ICE are sufficient to control the 

illegal immigration into the interior of the United States, if those 

funds were used with the maximum effectiveness? 

Ms. VAUGHN. That is a hard question because so much of it depends on the second part of your question, which is the caveat, 

which is, if they were used as efficiently as possible. Yeah, I think 

that the agency could use some more funding for some specific purposes. For example, funding for detention space seems to be an 

issue, although I would also argue that we could do a better job at 

streamlining the removal process so people don’t need to be in detention as long or perhaps not at all if we make more use of things 

like expedited removal, stipulated removal, judicial orders of removal. 

I mean, many of these cases simply shouldn’t be in immigration 

court at all. But yes, I think even if—they could use an infusion 

of resources if Congress could be certain that they would be used 

effectively. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And Mr. Chishti, you state in your testimony 

that the combined budgets of the U.S. Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and US-VISIT 

exceed by about one quarter the combined budgets of all other principal law enforcement agencies, Federal law enforcement agencies, 

and that most of the increased immigration funding has gone to 

the Border Patrol. 

Assuming that these figures are fair comparisons, do you believe 

that Border Patrol manpower should be cut, if so, by how much? 

Mr. CHISHTI. Mr. Chairman, we don’t make any recommendations for cutting anything. We don’t make a case that there is too 

much spending done on border. We don’t make a case that too 
327 

much stopping is done on border. All we present is how much we 

have done, a good part by congressional appropriations. And that 

may reflect why enforcement has been so effective. 

I think all we just want to point out is that, given the budgetary 

realities that at some point, there is not going to be an unlimited 

expansion of these programs; that Congress and you all will have 

to make a decision that it is a straight-line cutting on these things, 

where those cuts will have to take place. And we would suggest 

that if they have to take place, they take place in a very strategic 

way. That you don’t cut things where people—where things are 

working very well, and really look at things where they are not 

working as well. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, let me do that with one last question here 

before we turn to our next Member for questioning. 

And that is this: I don’t believe we should cut the funding for 

border enforcement at all. But I very much believe that we are not 

doing enough to address the enforcement of the law in the interior 

of the country. Forty percent, some say, maybe a little less, but 

whatever, of the people unlawfully here entered legally, and so the 

border is irrelevant to their status. They came in, probably mostly 

on airplanes, and they overstayed their student visas, or visitor 

visas, or business visas, and there is not, in my opinion, very much 

enforcement going on at all in the interior of the country. And I 

will ask each of you to tell me how you would solve that, but do 

it concisely. 

Mr. CHISHTI. Exactly. In our report, we actually did identify 

three areas where there is a gap in enforcement, and there is need 

for tremendous amount of improvement. Two of those do relate to 

interior enforcement. One is the E-Verify program. It has been improving, but it has a big drawback about identification issues. That 

has to be better because otherwise, there will always be a loophole 

in that system. We have to do better in terms of biometric scanning 

or secure documents to improve that identification. 

Second is that I think the US-VISIT program, which was given 

the mandate of both looking at people who enter but also who exit, 

which is how you would control the presence of overstay. That part 

has been lacking. That hasn’t happened. So, clearly, there has to 

be much more effort on the overstays in the country. 

In fact, I think you are right. We may reach a situation where 

the number of overstays actually is larger than the number of people who cross illegally, which would be a reversal of the historical 

trend. And one of the ways to control that is to improve our exitentry system in the US-VISIT program. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Ms. Vaughn. 

Ms. VAUGHN. Yes, I would definitely agree. We need to move forward in finishing the entry-exit system that Congress asked for 

back in 1996. One key part of that that many don’t talk about is 

the lack of adequate entry screening at the land ports which, after 

all, is where the largest number of visitors enter. We need to make 

sure that land visitors get the same level of screening that visitors 

who are coming in on airplanes and on boats do. 

I think more attention to workplace enforcement would also help 

address the overstay problem. Because after all, if there is no in-
328 

centive to stay over your visa, we are not going to have as large 

of a problem. 

Another cost-effective way to get more bang for our immigration 

enforcement buck is to increase the number of partnerships that 

ICE has with local law enforcement agencies, because there are 

many communities, law enforcement agencies and local and State 

governments that would like to assist ICE in its mission and need 

the opportunity to do so. And they are willing to put their own resources toward that. And we should be encouraging those partnerships, instead of shutting them down, as has been the case recently. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Crane, I know you are focused at the border, but what is your perspective on the interior of the country? 

Mr. CRANE. I am not, sir. You are right in my ballpark here. I 

am an ICE agent on the interior. I work out of Salt Lake City, 

Utah. This is something very near and dear to my heart, so just 

two comments on Ms. Vaughn’s comments. I strongly agree with 

her comments on the worksite enforcement. 

With regard to the partnerships, we have to be careful about 

those partnerships because what has happened in some situations 

is those partnerships result in sheriff’s department not wanting to 

fulfill all of their obligations. And those things fall back on our 

folks, and that force multiplier quickly dissipates when things like 

that happen. So this has to be very carefully structured, and they 

have to be carefully monitored and managed. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. But you don’t object to the concept? 

Mr. CRANE. No, sir, not at all. I think it is great. In fact, what 

we tried to do in Utah at one point was see if the agency would 

do the task force type situation, to where they would have people 

working directly with our officers and agents as a force multiplier, 

so we strongly support that. 

However, with regard to ICE, we have approximately 20,000 employees at ICE. Of those 20,000, approximately 5,000 are the immigration agents that do the lion’s share of the immigration work 

within 50 States, Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, I mean, it is a tremendous workload for those 5,000 people to be, you know, arresting, taking these folks through proceedings in the immigration 

courts, and actually removing them each year. So we definitely 

need more resources on the interior enforcement part. 

And when you compare us to the Border Patrol, we really haven’t 

grown since 9/11; whereas the border patrol has basically almost 

tripled since 9/11. 

Another interesting fact about those 5,000 ICE agents that do 

the immigration work, they are actually split into two job positions. 

Both of them don’t have the same arrest authority. We all have the 

same training, but we don’t have the same arrest authority. So 

there is a quick force multiplier right there, and even that, you 

know, if we could make something like that happen even would be 

a great start to getting more increased interior enforcement. 

In addition to that, with those 5,000 people spread out all over 

the Nation, this handful of officers, we have got people working in 

facilities that have this full immigration arrest authority, and they 

are not doing immigration enforcement work. Why? You know, 

when we only have so many of those resources, and they are lim-
329 

ited, and we desperately need them, why aren’t we using them to 

be out on the streets or be inside of jails, making immigration arrests? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Ms. Wood. 

Ms. WOOD. I would second the points raised by my colleagues on 

an entry-exit, a more effective entry-exit program and enhancing 

worksite enforcement. But there are two other things I would do 

with overstays. 

First, I would increase the number of fugitive operation teams 

and have them target, kind of, recent overstays. And so really target those individuals to go out and find them. 

And the second thing I would do is to make sure that people who 

enter from visa waiver countries and non-visa waiver countries are 

treated the same. So if, you know, I come in on vacation from a 

visa waiver country, I have waived some of my rights for review. 

If I come in from a non-visa waiver country, I don’t. And I can tie 

up the immigration court for years fighting my deportation when 

I stayed over on my vacation. And that makes no sense. So I would 

really move to kind of streamline and have that be the same in 

both instances, which I think would be helpful. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. That is a very good suggestion. Thank you. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, 

Mr. Holding, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HOLDING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I had the very good fortune of being the United States Attorney 

for eastern North Carolina for a number of years. 

Ms. Wood, you were in the Department when I was in the Department as well. 

Eastern North Carolina has one of the fastest growing illegal immigrant populations in the country. Along with that comes the ever 

increasing gang violence, drug crimes, and violent crimes that you 

have when you have a community of people who are under the 

radar, so to speak. It is very easy for criminals to hide within that 

community, gang members to hide within that community, because 

no one is going to call the local sheriff and say, ‘‘Hey, there is something suspicious going on next door,’’ because they are illegal. 

We had a zero tolerance policy. We would prosecute every immigration crime that was brought to us. For the most part, those immigration crimes arose in the context of a drug crime or a violent 

crime, and they just happened to be illegals. We had very little enforcement of overstays, because, as you know, when you are the 

prosecutor, you can only prosecute the cases that are brought to 

you. And the problem we ran into is the ICE agents that we had, 

who were all very dedicated, did not have time to do the internal 

enforcement, because they were too busy. They were participating 

in task forces. They were cracking down on drug crimes or, as you 

say, ferrying people back and forth between our five different courthouses in eastern North Carolina. 

At the end of the day, if we are going to enforce our laws, how 

much of a magnitude increase of resources do you really think it 

would take to enforce the laws that are on the books right now? 
330 

Ms. WOOD. Are you saying that first we would address the 11 

million or so that are already here and we would start out with 

kind of zero individual—— 

Mr. HOLDING. Well, that is the second part of the question, but 

if we didn’t address the 11 million, we just addressed them with 

the laws that we have on the books now, I mean, how much resources do you think that would take? 

Ms. WOOD. Well, you know, there are people who have done the 

math probably sitting on this panel who can—you know, if you look 

at kind of our current number of deportations and then the stream, 

obviously you have to look at the stream of kind of individuals coming in, but it would take a lot of years. 

And I think one of the things—one of the reasons that I support 

reforming the system is I have not seen commitment to really fund 

the agency like it needs to. And because there was not enforcement 

over such a long period of time, people do have these equities and 

very kind of sad stories, and it is not a great situation. 

So I think, you know, if you could start out being somewhere 

where people who were able to legalize legalized, and then you 

would say, now it is zero tolerance, now we really are sending everyone home, now we have enough resources, now we can streamline, that would make a lot of sense. But I don’t know if someone 

on the panel may have, you know, the math that has been done 

a bunch of times on how many additional resources you would 

need, but it is a lot. And I think you could make some tweaks to 

the immigration laws that would help, even if you are dealing with 

the population that is currently here. 

Mr. HOLDING. But to your point of if we did do something about 

the 11 million illegals that are in the country now and started from 

zero, do we even have enough resources in place as is to enforce 

the laws going forward if we started from zero? 

Ms. WOOD. I don’t believe we do. I think that ICE and the Border 

Patrol are under-equipped and that we need to kind of look at resources. They may be more temporary resources, because you know 

there is going to be a large migration of people coming in, I mean, 

illegally trying to get kind of in right under the radar so they can 

adjust. And maybe that would change over time if we had like a 

strong verification, employer verification system, things would 

change over time, but I think immediately you would need to build 

up the agencies, build up the support at the agencies, all of the resources, the court resources. The fact that you have to wait for 2 

years to get your case heard in some parts of the country is ridiculous to decide whether or not you are in the country legally. 

So I think we are under-equipped, and then there are too many 

inefficiencies. And I think legislation could fix a lot of them, expanding—mandating expanded expedite removal, maybe expanding 

the use of voluntary returns would also be helpful, and reducing 

the number of cases that kind of come into the system. I think 

those could all make a big difference. 

Mr. HOLDING. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. BACHUS [presiding]. Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank you witnesses for your testimony. 
331 

My first question is for Mr. Crane and Ms. Wood. A lot of this 

debate is centered around the idea of obviously focusing on 11 million people who are not legal and then legalizing them, and then 

we will provide these enforcement measures. Some people say we 

should have a trigger before the legality. 

And I guess just, based on your experience, I mean a guy like 

me who is considering this stuff, how much confidence should I 

have, based on your experience, that the enforcement mechanisms 

that are promised by people advocating this legislation and by Congress will actually end up coming to fruition? Because it just seems 

like, you know, we talk about certain enforcement since 1986, and 

now we are promising certain things. Obviously, the executive has 

a certain amount of discretion whether they can enforce the law. 

So what advice would you give me about whether I should believe 

that we are going to finally start enforcing the law? 

Ms. WOOD. Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if your confidence level 

is low, given kind of, you know, the history of problems. But I 

would say that the opposite of doing something is not that we will 

be in a perfect system. The opposite, you know, waiting around 

here, it is, you know, we are not fixing this problem magically now. 

And so I think that is the compelling reason to look, can we get 

a meaningful trigger? Can we do something? Can we try to create 

a better system. 

But what we have is I think everybody on both sides of the aisle 

agree the system is broken, and so we have to see, can we do something that is meaningful? 

And I think, you know, Congress can make a big difference by 

having a trigger that is as meaningful as possible and then by putting as much as we can in the law to make things for a better day. 

But if a law doesn’t change, if a law doesn’t pass, you know, the 

next head of ICE is going to come up here and say, the system is 

broken; we don’t have enough people; there is still a lot—you know, 

problems will continue. 

Mr. CRANE. It is funny you ask me that question, sir, because I 

am actually going to be up here next week, and I intended to come 

up and ask you folks, how do you put something into our legislation that, you know, will guarantee that we are actually going to 

be able to enforce the laws, because, I mean, you are talking to 

somebody right now that we filed a lawsuit to try to be able to do 

our job. So my confidence level right now, at least with the Administration, is zero that we are going to be able do our jobs now or 

in the future. So I am very interested in hearing what Congressmen have to say about how do we—something has to change. 

Something different has to be done this time. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Great. 

Ms. Vaughn, I hear the term there is 11 million people who are 

in the country illegally, without documents, depending on which 

side of the aisle you are on, I guess you say. But where does that 

figure come from? How much confidence do you have in it? Is it 

possible that there are many million more? Is it possible that there 

are some less? Just can you give me a little bit of background on 

the number, because I have noticed since I have been in Congress 

that people repeat things over and over again, and it just kind of— 
332 

you know, then you just stop questioning it, oh, yeah, this or that. 

So can you speak to that? 

Ms. VAUGHAN. I think there actually is a fair amount of consensus around the number. The number we are using now is 11.5 

million. The way our staff demographer, our director of research, 

Steven Camarota, calculates that is to use Census Bureau data to 

count the number of people who are here and subtract from that 

and adjust for mortality and return migration, subtract the number 

of people that we know came here legally, because we do have good 

information on that. And, you know, it is basically a very complicated subtraction problem. 

And actually, our figures are very close to what the Department 

of Homeland Security has and also the Pew Hispanic Center. So we 

feel very confident that that is a pretty accurate number. 

There is no exact count, because, you know, our—but we have 

found that most people who are here illegally do fill out a census 

form, and we do adjust for undercounts as well. 

Mr. DESANTIS. My final question is just I know in 2006 when 

this was debated, I think the Congressional Budget Office came out 

with an estimate that said, actually, it would be beneficial for the 

economy to do some type of legalization. Now, obviously, we have 

a different social welfare system, because we have this new 

healthcare law that is going to be kicking in. So what is your organization’s position on the costs that this would mean for taxpayers 

if you went forward with a comprehensive plan that resulted in essentially instant legalization? 

Ms. VAUGHAN. If we move forward with the kind of comprehensive reform package that has been proposed, the two different proposals this week, it would be enormously costly, because the people 

who would be legalized are people who have not had full access to 

our social welfare system, face pretty modest chances of being able 

to improve their earnings because of their education levels, and so 

they are not likely to be able to contribute enough in taxes to cover 

what they would be using in the way of social services. And we 

don’t have—we are thinking, you know, tens of billions of dollars 

a year additional if we were to legalize the entire population, as 

has been proposed. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you. 

Yield back. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

Ms. Vaughn, I was reading your testimony, and it says that ICE, 

Mr. Crane’s agency, had arrested 27,600 gang members in the past 

8 years. 

Does that sound about right to you, Mr. Crane? 

Mr. CRANE. That might be what they have stats on, but I would 

say that it is probably far higher than that. We have all kinds of 

folks that we encounter in jails and prisons, and you know, they 

don’t make any admissions of gang affiliations. 

Mr. BACHUS. And these are illegal immigrants, I guess. Is that 

right? 

Mr. CRANE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BACHUS. So we have 11 million, 11 and a half million immigrants, and more than 27,000 of them have been arrested for being 

gang members? 
333 

Ms. VAUGHAN. Yes. Not all of them are illegal immigrants. Some 

of them are people that we have given green cards to, but they are 

still removable. Some of them are people who have temporary protected status, for example. It is a serious—— 

Mr. BACHUS. But non-citizens? 

Ms. VAUGHAN. Yes. 

Mr. BACHUS. Okay. I noticed, and I was doing some calculation, 

I bumped it up when you went from 11 million to 11.5 million, but 

taking 11.5 million, that is 3.4/3.5 percent of our population, or 

maybe let’s just round it up to 3.5 percent of our population, yet 

the U.S. Sentencing Commission, this is on page 2 of your testimony, 64 percent of the kidnappers convicted in Federal court were 

non-citizens. So you are talking about—and let’s just say that for 

every illegal immigrant, there is a non-citizen that is here legally, 

although we know that that figure is more somewhere closer to 5 

or 6 million, I think. Right? Maybe 10? 

Ms. VAUGHAN. The legal immigrant population is more like, I 

think, 20-some. 

Mr. BACHUS. Okay. That is both, legal and illegal? 

Ms. VAUGHAN. No. It is 30-some, about 35 million combined, noncitizens. 

Mr. BACHUS. And that—but that includes naturalized citizens, 

does it not? I think that is foreign born. 

Ms. VAUGHAN. That is foreign born. 

Mr. BACHUS. Yeah. So you have to take—you have to back out 

a third of that, so just say 3.5 and 3.57 percent. Now, that includes 

illegal and legal residents who have not been naturalized citizens, 

yet 31 percent of drug traffickers in Federal court are in that 6 percent or 7 percent, which is a pretty high number; 34 percent of all 

money laundering cases. 

You have 6 percent of the population, 7 percent, and yet 64 percent of the kidnappers, 34 percent of the money laundering, 31 percent of the drug traffickers prosecuted in Federal court come from 

that population. 

So, you know, when we talk about giving citizenship to 11 million non—illegal immigrants, we are talking about a lot of people 

who have been convicted—I mean, not the majority, not even a 

large percentage of the minority—but you are talking about a good 

number of people that have committed felonies. 

Now, Mr. Crane, is that correct? Am I correct there? 

Ms. VAUGHAN. That is what the U.S. Sentencing Commission has 

on its Web site, so I have pretty good confidence in that. 

Mr. BACHUS. So that is according to the U.S. Government officials. 

I noticed that, Mr. Crane—and this is really disturbing, and I 

really empathize with you. I mean, I can’t imagine what it is like, 

but the two main laws that you are supposed to enforce are people 

being here illegally or overstaying their visa, but your testimony is 

that ICE policy is that you can’t arrest someone for being here illegally? Is that correct? 

Mr. CRANE. Yes, sir. And it is pretty clear, if you look at the December 21st, 2012, detainer policy that ICE just put out, it specifically says, you know, one, they are illegally in the United States 
334 

and, two, they did one of the following, and it starts going through 

a laundry list of—— 

Mr. BACHUS. Serious felonies? 

Mr. CRANE. Yeah. Felonies, serious misdemeanors. Excludes 

many other insignificant misdemeanors, which none of us really 

know what that means, but the bottom line is that, you know, you 

cannot simply arrest someone, even in a jail, for being a visa overstay or illegal entry, unless they have done something, committed 

a felony. 

Mr. BACHUS. So the 3 percent that were actually deported, according to the Administration, would have been those 3 percent 

who committed a felony or committed at least a DUI, leaving the 

scene of an accident? Not just traffic—you know, reckless driving 

doesn’t—you can’t convict them for that. You can’t convict them of 

being in an automobile accident causing injury, unless they leave 

the scene. Is that correct? 

Mr. CRANE. Well, I would have to check on all the math, sir, but 

one thing that I have been thinking about as you have had this discussion is that I don’t remember what exactly the President put 

out this year in terms of number of convicted criminals that were 

part of these numbers that we had this year, but they are extremely high. 

I am sorry. 

Mr. CHISHTI. Close to 50 percent. 

Mr. CRANE. No. I mean an actual number, not a percentage. 

Mr. CHISHTI. About 200,000, less than. 

Ms. VAUGHAN. About 170,000-some. 

Mr. CRANE. About 170,000-some odd people. And with the handful of folks, like Ms. Myers was testifying, we have States where 

we have two ICE agents in the whole State. Do you think we are 

getting all these jails covered? Absolutely we are not. And, you 

know, so I think the numbers of criminals are far higher in general 

probably than just the really bad offenders that you are citing. 

Mr. BACHUS. And in your testimony, you cite several examples 

of ICE agents who have arrested people for misdemeanors or detained illegal immigrants as they came out of a courtroom, and the 

ICE agent, the—it goes up to the office or the higher-ups, and you 

get an order to dismiss that person and release him, and also you 

are—they are disciplined. Right? 

Mr. CRANE. Yes, sir. I mean, obviously, in one of the cases that 

we had in Delaware, that is exactly what happened. You know, the 

officer encountered an individual that was driving without a driver’s license, had been convicted of that repeatedly, was getting in 

a vehicle in their presence getting ready to do it again. They said, 

hey, this guy is a public threat. We are at least going to take him 

down to the office and issue an NTA, at which time, you know, the 

officer was told, no, you will not issue an NTA, you will just release 

him. And when he attempted to issue the NTA, he was given a proposed suspension of 3 days. 

Mr. BACHUS. And I noticed that he was also told that if he received a second offense, he would lose his job. 

Mr. CRANE. Well, I don’t know, sir, that he was told that. 

Mr. BACHUS. It would likely result. 
335 

Mr. CRANE. Yeah. That is the standard procedure, that, you 

know, once you commit an offense, and they basically, you know, 

say that you did it and issue a suspension, the next time you do 

it, you are going to have either, you know, a higher suspension or 

removal. You are only going to get two or three shots at that, and 

you are going to lose your job. 

Mr. BACHUS. And that agent had been with the ICE for 18 years 

and was a 5-year military veteran? 

Mr. CRANE. He was actually, I believe, 11 years at the U.S. Border Patrol and came over to the ICE for his total of 18 years of 

Federal law enforcement experience. So he is definitely a vet on the 

immigration side as well as the 5 years of military service, yes. 

Mr. BACHUS. All right. Thank you. 

I would ask every Member to please read this testimony and— 

I am sorry. I am going to yield to the Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE [presiding]. I thank the gentleman. 

And I can work from here. 

I want to ask all the panelists one last question. I want to thank 

you for your great contribution. We have talked about what happened in 1986. We have talked about the problems that we are experiencing right now in getting clear guidance from the Administration about enforcing the law or we are getting clear guidance 

that, in many instances, we are not allowed to enforce the existing 

laws, and I know that frustrates a great many American people. 

If we were to do so-called comprehensive immigration reform, we 

are going to have to address this component of it. We did it in 

1986. It was not enforced, with regard to the employer sanctions, 

at least not in a significant comprehensive way, and so I think a 

lot of people would say, Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, 

shame on me. 

Why should this Committee, why should this Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform without having the assurance that 

somehow these laws will be enforced? And what would that assurance be that we could write into the law that we would know that 

it wouldn’t be in the hands of one individual to decide to suspend 

an entire area of enforcement of the law, as is being challenged by 

the lawsuit of Mr. Crane and his associates? And I commend them 

for doing that. What could we put into this law that would give 

comfort to American citizens that if we attempt to solve this problem this time, it will indeed be mostly, if not completely, solved? 

And we will start with you, Ms. Wood. 

Ms. WOOD. I get the easy question at the end? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. All of you are going to get this question. 

Ms. WOOD. I mean, I think Congress should attempt this because 

it is the right thing to do, because our system has been broken for 

far too long, and we are not—we are kind of not managing it, and 

I think we need a kind of reset where we are to move forward in 

a productive enforcement manner. 

What I would suggest is to look honestly at what the agencies 

need to be equipped in terms to really enforce, so that on day 1, 

when the first person comes in the country and overstays a visa is 

1 day late or is not eligible for adjustment, day 1, we are able to 

identify that person and send the person home. 
336 

And so I think that means resources in terms of manpower for 

all the agencies. I think that means technology, a better employer 

verification system, a better entry-exit, you know, better technology. And then look and say, you know, can we do it? With 

17,000 kind of people at ICE and a problem of 11 million individuals illegally in the country, I will tell you, we can’t do it. Right? 

The numbers just don’t stack up. So how can we make the numbers 

actually work. And maybe that would mean kind of, you know, an 

intensive surge, a border surge, kind of for an initial time on the 

resources, and then it could kind of peter out as we move forward. 

And then I think we need to look at the inefficiencies in our system. You know, it is ridiculous that people can tie up court hearings for years and years and years just to determine whether or not 

they are in the country illegally. Right? You know, so we need to 

see can we make systems move through the courts more quickly, 

expand expedited removal, voluntary returns and things of that nature. 

And then, finally, I think we should look at, you know, the fundamental fairness of our system. I think part of the problem we 

have now is that people feel, rightly or wrongly, that our system 

is unfair to them, because they have built up equities, or they came 

here when they were 2 or something else. And so how is our system 

fair? Are we treating everyone fairly? And, you know, I think that 

would be something that we could—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Okay. But what I am really getting at is, I don’t 

like a system where one individual can say, the President of the 

United States can say, we are not going to enforce this law. And 

maybe we will win this lawsuit and make it clear that the President doesn’t have the authority to do that, but I am looking for 

ideas that would go into a bill to do that. 

Ms. WOOD. Cut the funding. Say, if, you know, you could tie the 

funding if certain things weren’t done, then certain funding 

streams are cut off. I will tell you that that has been very effective 

for ICE, I know personally, you know, in a certain number of areas 

including, you know, making sure that they are filling the number 

of detention beds. So I think tying certain things to funding 

streams, funding streams that the Executive Office of the President 

or other places care about, I think would be a way to make sure 

that you are actually meeting some of the triggers, but it is very 

hard, so hopefully the other panelists may have some other ideas 

on that front. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Crane. 

Mr. CRANE. Well, I don’t know how good my ideas are on this, 

because I have always been baffled, quite frankly, just as a U.S. 

citizen to see that the President of the United States has the ability to control these agencies in this way. I mean, once they appoint 

the director of the agency, they seem like they have sole control, 

and when we come and we talk to Members of Congress, you know, 

they seem like there is nothing that they can do. And so, like I 

said, as just a citizen, it is kind of baffling to me. 

So if there is a way that Congress—like you said, that one person 

doesn’t have the sole power—I mean, ICE is getting a budget of 

about $6 billion a year, and once that President gets that appointee 

confirmed, then that agency and that $6 billion and everything 
337 

that goes with it seems to be under the control of the President. 

And I just—to me, I just think that is fundamentally wrong, and 

I don’t think it matches up with our democratic principles. 

So I don’t know, sir. If there is a way that Congress, Members 

of Congress could be more involved in it, we would certainly welcome that, because there are a lot of problems within these agencies, not just this immigration enforcement issue. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I think it is one of the keys, one of just a very 

few central keys to figuring out how to do this legislation. So if you 

have further ideas, please feel free to share them with us. 

Ms. Vaughan. 

Ms. VAUGHAN. I think it is critically important that Congress reassert its authority, its constitutional authority to make immigration laws. I don’t think that there is one single trigger that is possible to ask for that will set in motion the kind of comprehensive 

immigration reform that has been talked about. 

I think that package, what is known as CIR, is a bad idea for 

many reasons. Number one, it is going to inspire more illegal immigration. It is costly. It is going to distort the labor market. 

What we need to do first is establish a sustained period of control 

and integrity in the systems that we have, including our legal immigration system and also start consolidating some of our legal immigration categories, so that, you know, we are not offering more 

opportunities for legal immigration than we can actually fulfill, all 

those backlogs that people have talked about. But I don’t think 

we—to repeat an expression that came earlier today, we shouldn’t 

just throw up our hands. 

I think what is important is, you know, I see the vast disparity 

of views on this issue that are represented on this Committee, and 

I think what needs to happen is to take smaller steps, at such 

point as we all have confidence in the system or at least more confidence, start small, look for the areas of consensus, like perhaps 

skilled immigration, looking at it in a small way, the illegal aliens, 

younger illegal aliens, who were brought here by their parents and 

have grown up here. Bite off what Congress can chew, start with 

confidence-building measures, and do it slowly and in a meaningful 

way. After all, that is how it has happened over the last 20 years. 

I mean, I cut my teeth on the Immigration Act of 1990, when the 

skills issue was addressed. There were more reforms that came in 

1996 and, you know, every few years. It doesn’t have to be done 

all at once. In fact, it is a mistake to do it that way. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chishti. 

Mr. CHISHTI. Thank you very much for letting me be the last 

speaker on this. 

I mean, I think, first of all, you should congratulate yourselves. 

I mean, I don’t think Congress has reneged its responsibility in this 

area. The fact that we have had this robust enforcement machinery 

built has a lot to do with congressional appropriations over the last 

many years, especially since 9/11. That is the—I think the staffing 

and the resources was critical to the development of this robust 

machinery, which was lacking, I think, in the prior years. So something really has worked here, and we should celebrate that. 
338 

I think we are a pragmatic people. A defining characteristic of 

the country is a pragmatic country. We have to accept reality. The 

reality is these are 11 million people in our midst. Why we go here, 

we can all debate that, but that is the reality today. It is not in 

our interests to keep perpetuating that bad reality. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, if we accept that premise, we also have to 

address, do we want another 11 million. 

Mr. CHISHTI. Exactly. I will get to that. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, we only have another minute. 

Mr. CHISHTI. That is right. So we want to make sure we clean 

this slate, because having so many people in the underclass does 

not help U.S. workers, does not help economic interest, moral interest, all that. 

Now, what we should not get here again is lessons from 1986. 

And this is where, unfortunately, the comprehensive nature of this 

approach is important. Just look at the E-Verify, which you are 

quite committed to. The E-Verify will never be a successful program if there are 11 million people who are unauthorized to work. 

E-Verify will never be a successful program if we don’t allow for future flows of lawful workers. That is why I think exactly is the argument that it only works when we do these things together, and 

that is the lesson of IRCA and that is why we didn’t do IRCA well. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you very much. 

I want to thank all of the panelists for their contributions today. 

This has been a long day but a good day in terms of gathering information that we will benefit from as the Committee continues to 

address the issue of immigration reform and fixing our broken immigration system. 

This concludes today’s hearing. And thanks to all of our witnesses for attending. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional 

materials for the record. 

And this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
(339) 

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD
340 

Supplemental Material submitted by Michael S. Teitelbaum, Senior Advisor, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Wertheim Fellow, Harvard Law School 
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