During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) spoke about the Trump administration conducting deportations in violation of court orders.
00:00Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So Americans want to be safe, but in just
00:07a hundred days the Trump administration has started to round up people with no
00:11criminal record, move them so that even their families and lawyers have no idea
00:17where they are, and deport them even after a court has said not to. That is
00:23not making our nation safer. Now, Mr. Scott, if confirmed as custom and border
00:29protection commissioner, you will decide whether to continue or to reverse these
00:36very troubling trends. So I want to understand what policies you would follow.
00:41Last month ICE transported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and more than a hundred others to
00:49El Salvador after a court ordered they not be removed. Concerns also have been
00:55raised about whether CBP is deporting people in violation of court orders. So
01:00let me start there. Mr. Scott, will it be your policy as CBP commissioner to deport
01:06people in violation of court orders? No ma'am, I'll follow court orders. That's what
01:12I like to hear. So let's try another one. Last month CBP reportedly searched the
01:17phone of a French scientist at a Houston airport and reportedly found text messages
01:25criticizing President Trump's research policies and then denied him entry. Mr.
01:32Scott, will it be your policy as CBP commissioner to deny entry to travelers
01:37because they criticize Donald Trump? In my experience that doesn't happen. In my
01:44experience there's always more. That's not my question. My question is will it be your
01:48policy that if someone criticizes Donald Trump that they will be denied entry to
01:54the United States of America? No, I do not believe that happened today either. All right,
01:58but you will make sure that is not the policy that CBP follows. Is that right? If
02:03confirmed that's correct. All right, let's do one more. Lawyers and loved ones are
02:08finding CBP to be a black box that detains people and refuses to tell anyone where
02:16they are for hours, sometimes for days. For example, two US citizen children and
02:23their immigrant mother were detained by CBP for three days without being able to
02:29communicate with legal counsel or anyone in their family. They reported feeling
02:36quote kidnapped. Mr. Scott, you said you care about transparency. Will it be your
02:42policy for CBP agents to detain a family and prevent them from speaking with
02:50counsel or their families for days? That is not the policy of CBP and if
02:56confirmed that would not be my policy. All right, and will you commit to letting the
03:02public know within hours, not days, when someone is in CBP custody and where they
03:10are located the same way that ICE does? I've learned to not over commit to
03:16something that I can't follow through on. I commit to transparency and sharing that
03:21information consistent with law and policy as quickly as possible, but CBP is
03:26slightly different. It's an interdiction. There's a processing. We don't have
03:30detention facilities, so a lot of times they're taken somewhere else. There are
03:33time delays and the generality of within hours. As soon as possible, I will commit
03:38to, but I can't commit to a specific timeline because it changes in different
03:42parts of the country depending on where the individual is encountered. So are you
03:46telling me that literally it can be days before CBP understands that they've got
03:52someone and to let that person be able to call a family member so they're not
03:56frantically wondering what happened to them? So under the last administration and
04:01the chaos that was created, the answer to your question was yes. The people being
04:06arrested were so backed up that in many cases it was taking CBP officers and Border
04:10Patrol agents days just to get to them to do basic processing. And in the meantime, none of
04:16them were permitted to make a phone call. We didn't know who they were. So you can't let them make a phone call to just tell their family where there is or find a lawyer if that's what they think they need.
04:25There was over 15,000 of them in one day. There wasn't time. It was about officer safety. It was about keeping people safe and keeping them safe because it's not just 15,000 families. There were criminals mixed in there. There were gang members mixed in there. There were cartel members mixed in there. And all the officers and agents when we create this chaos have to deal with all that and keep people safe so it gets delayed. Today we don't have that problem because the Trump administration's created policies that have deterred all that massive chaos on the border from crossing.
04:55So those calls will take place quicker because we actually have time. So if the Trump administration has ended all the chaos. The Trump administration is dramatic. Is there a reason that you cannot commit to let people be able to reach out to their families within hours of being detained by CBP? I will confirm. You've got that chaos under control now.
05:20I will confirm that if confirmed as commissioner, my commitment to you is we'll let them make that call as quickly as reasonably possible with the other factors that I just outlined for you.
05:31Well, you know, the questions I ask are really straightforward and I'm very worried about what's happening now. Denying people entry because they criticize Donald Trump. I'm worried about the feeling that people have been disappeared, including mothers with children for days on end.
05:49And I'm concerned that while I appreciate that while I appreciate that you are making commitments to do your best here, that we really are going to need continued oversight to make sure that this happens.
06:01Targeting people who have never committed a crime, but who are now terrified that the United States government is going to remove them from their families without any legal help, take them off our streets or out of our airports, is not only wrong, it is not making us safer.
