Hearing of the Immigration and the National Interest Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Refugee Resettlement and Benefits Program

Hearing

"Thank you all for being here. This is the second hearing of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest. This hearing will focus on programs created by this Administration outside the scope of law -- primarily the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program. We will hear from two panels of witnesses. On the first panel, we have representatives from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of State. On the second panel, we have five witnesses with subject matter expertise on these issues.

During the summer of 2014, precipitated by the President's executive amnesty program for younger illegal immigrants, the southern border experienced a massive wave of illegal immigration. This surge began in 2012, continued in 2013, reached record levels in 2014, and continues today. This has placed enormous burdens on federal law enforcement and States and local communities across the country.

However, rather than use existing laws to take decisive action to combat this tide of illegal immigration, and eliminate administratively-created programs that act as magnets for illegal immigration, the Administration created this new "in-country" processing program, which promises to impose even greater costs on local communities. The result is that large numbers of illegal entrants have concluded that they can bring in more family members unlawfully.

The goal of law enforcement is not to see how many arrests can be made; the goal of law enforcement is to discourage lawlessness from the beginning.

Indeed, rather than stop this new illegal immigration wave, it appears that the result if not the objective of this program is to capitulate to the illegal activity. Moreover, this action rewards illegal behavior by allowing those with executive amnesty inside the United States to bring in their foreign relatives as "refugees." Once here with refugee status, these individuals will have largely unfettered access to federal benefits and the jobs market. Recent statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement indicate that 75 percent of refugees receive food stamps, more than half receive medical assistance, approximately half receive cash assistance, and 25 percent receive public housing assistance. Additionally, refugee status provides a pathway to citizenship.

In addition, even if these individuals do not qualify for refugee status under this program, it is not the end of the road, as the administration will consider paroling them into the United States. This program appears to represent an unprecedented distortion of the law relating to parole. Unlike refugee status, there is no numerical limit on the number of people who would be allowed to enter under parole status.

While Congress has clearly provided for the admission of certain individuals as refugees under section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), and has provided limited authority to parole certain individuals into the United States under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the INA, this program warps those authorities and undermines the integrity of the immigration system in these two critical areas of the law.

Finally, I would just note that it has been widely reported that the Administration is considering admitting dramatically higher numbers of Syrian refugees. I hope to find out more about the Administration's intentions in this regard, and the mechanisms by which such refugees will be screened to ensure that individuals associated with terror organizations are not brought into communities across the United States.

Once again, I would like to thank the witnesses for joining us. We look forward to your testimony."

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