EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump Official To Testify Biden Admin Ignored Immigration Laws In Handling Of Border Crisis
Jennie Taer on June 7, 2023
A former U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director under the Trump administration will testify to Congress Wednesday that the Biden administration ignored immigration laws in its handling of the border crisis, according to a copy of his opening statement exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Joe Edlow, who is now on the advisory board of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, will tell the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement that the Biden administration has overstepped its authority in limiting interior immigration enforcement, allowing illegal immigrants seeking economic opportunities access to the asylum process and allegedly abusing its power to release illegal immigrants without court dates, according to the copy of his opening statement. The hearing will cover the legality of the federal government’s handling of the crisis at the southern border, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded an all-time high of more than 2.3 million encounters in fiscal year 2022 alone.
“As this committee explores the underlying causes of the crisis, the question posed today can be answered only with a resounding ‘No.’ The Biden Administration has seen fit to ignore the law, instead favoring poorly conceived and poorly executed policy decisions. Their actions through executive orders, departmental memos, and rules upend the INA and congressional intent, have eroded our immigration system and propelled the crisis to current levels,” Edlow’s opening statement says.
The Biden administration has allegedly skirted the law by limiting ICE enforcement and the agency’s ability to conduct arrests and deportations of illegal aliens, Edlow’s statement says.
“Since day one of the Administration, the Department has taken aggressive action to undermine immigration enforcement. Nowhere is that clearer than Secretary Mayorkas’ September 30, 2021 memorandum which outlined the appropriate instances in which DHS was authorized to take action against aliens either unlawfully present or lawfully present but removable. Specifically, Secretary Mayorkas outlined three main buckets for removal – 1) threats national security; 2) threats to public safety; 3) threats to border security,” according to Edlow’s statement.
In fiscal year 2022, ICE removals dropped to 72,177, compared to 185,884 noncitizens deported in fiscal year 2020.
“The Biden Administration has taken many measures in the past two and a half years aimed at addressing the border crisis. However, it appears that no one thought to simply enforce the law as written. Instead, the Department has, through its own actions, created the worst border crisis in American history. A return to the rule of law is the only cure at this point and it is incumbent upon Congress to use its oversight and lawmaking authority, to repair the damage done by the Department,” Edlow’s statement says.
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