Letter to the Hon. Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security - Meet with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Letter

Dear Secretary Nielsen,

We write to thank you for your recent commitment to meet with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) on a regular basis during a Committee on Homeland Security hearing on April 26, 2018. Last year, your predecessor, then-Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, committed to meeting with the CHC every six weeks; either with him or other high-level DHS agency officials. During Mr. Kelly's tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security, he met with the CHC on two different occasions: on April 4, 2017 and July 12, 2017. Mr. Kelly continued his relationship with the CHC as the White House Chief of Staff by meeting with the Caucus on January 17, 2018 to discuss family reunification and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The CHC consists of 31 Members of Congress, of which 21 represent districts in states along our southern border so border security, trade, asylum cases, DACA, and family separation are topics our members follow very closely. Further, many CHC Members have been working on immigration and border issues for decades and could provide valuable feedback to DHS on effective tools and policies.

Based on our Caucus' interest in these areas and given many concerning actions by DHS, it is imperative that we now meet with you to discuss recent policy changes that DHS has undertaken, including family separation, detainment of pregnant immigrants, the termination of the Temporary Protected Status program for hundreds of thousands of recipients and troubling immigration enforcement tactics. We hope to forge a constructive dialogue with you on these issues, which are of great importance and concern to our constituents and Caucus.

We look forward to working with your office to organize these future meetings. Please do not hesitate to contact CHC Executive Director Alma Acosta if you have any questions.

Sincerely,