Judiciary Committee

Eighteen months ago, we had achieved operational control of our Southern Border. The border wall was nearing completion. The remain in Mexico policy and enforcement of court-ordered deportations had slowed illegal migration to a trickle. American workers were finally seeing major wage gains and the gap between rich and poor in this country was finally narrowing. All that ended on January 20, 2021, when Joe Biden cancelled the Remain in Mexico policy, ordered ICE to stop enforcing court-ordered deportations and cancelled the border wall, leaving construction gaps through which thousands of illegal immigrants pass every day.

Not long ago, our elections worked.  We maintained accurate voter registration rolls and routinely removed people who had moved or died.  AFTER all the candidates had their say, on ELECTION DAY, we went to our local polling place.  We brought our children to watch the process and taught them to respect it. 

Today we will hear from Dr. Ronil Hira of the damage done to American workers – and to the foreign workers themselves -- through abuses in guestworker programs like H-1B, L-1 and the Optical Practical Training program, and how despite assurances of the left, pay far below the market rates for labor and displace skilled American workers. This has resulted in continuing scandals as skilled American workers have been ordered to train their foreign replacements as a condition of receiving severance pay, including major corporations like Southern California Edison, Siemens, Disney, AT&T and the University of California. Under the OPT program, employers don’t have to pay payroll taxes if they hire foreign nationals here on student visas for 29 months after graduation. If you know a college graduate who has a science, technical, engineering or mathematics degree who can’t find an entry level job, you need look no farther than this discriminatory program.

Racism is the practice of according rights and privileges to an individual not based on equality under the law, but rather according to what race that person was born. It is antithetical to every principle our country was founded on, from the promise of our Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” to the equal protection clause of our Constitution. It was a malignancy we fought a Civil War to remove. For generations, it has been denounced by every American of good will for the evil that it is.

On March 4th, the Ranking Member of the Full Committee along with all six Republican members of this subcommittee wrote to you requesting a hearing on the border crisis caused by President Biden’s decision to stop the MPP program, abandon the border wall and instruct ICE not to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.

This bill presents a very simple question. Should we all but strip the President of his authority to restrict travel from countries that pose a danger to the United States?