During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) played footage of Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) being arrested outside an ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
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00:00The Oversight Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee will come to order.
00:06Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
00:12We welcome everyone to today's hearing on the examination of threats to operations
00:17being performed by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE.
00:24The chair now recognizes the gentleman from the state of Texas,
00:27Brandon Gill, to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:30After that, we will remain standing for a moment of silence.
00:39I pledge allegiance to the United States of America,
00:44and to the republic for which it stands,
00:47one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
00:52Moment of silence.
00:57I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
01:19We are here today for one reason, because the American people are watching their leaders.
01:28They're watching their leaders at every level of government,
01:32and they're watching those who choose to protect illegal alien criminals over their own law-abiding citizens.
01:40Let me be very clear.
01:51This is not about politics.
01:52This is about public safety.
01:55This is about law and order.
01:57This is about whether the United States of America still has the will to enforce its own laws.
02:04We're coming out of the largest border crisis in American history,
02:08and the American people continue to live with the consequences every single day.
02:15During Joe Biden's presidency, more than 8 million aliens crossed the southwest border illegally,
02:22and that's at a minimum.
02:24There are probably many more.
02:26There are a lot of numbers out there, but we know at least that many.
02:30Six million of them were released into the country.
02:33They were given legal advice.
02:36They were given food.
02:37They were given education.
02:39They were given transportation.
02:41They were given shelter, and in some cases, even debit cards, all on the American taxpayer's dime.
02:49And at least 1.9 million gotaways crossed the border and escaped law enforcement altogether,
02:57didn't even know who they all are and where they all are living.
03:00The open southwest border created a drug crisis, a human smuggling crisis, and a violent crime crisis.
03:09Unfortunately, none of this was by accident.
03:13It happened because the Biden-Harris administration chose chaos over control,
03:19ideology over enforcement of the law, and politics over the American people.
03:26The numbers just don't show a crisis.
03:29They show a full-scale collapse of our sovereignty, our security, and the very idea that a nation without borders is still a nation at all.
03:42The worst part of it all is that it just didn't happen.
03:47It was designed.
03:48On day one of his presidency, the Biden-Harris administration canceled border wall construction.
03:55Day one.
03:56It gutted the Remain in Mexico policy.
04:00It abused immigration patrol authorities to release hundreds, thousands of illegal aliens into our communities.
04:10It virtually stopped enforcing immigration laws on the interior of the United States,
04:15which resulted in more than a 60 percent increase in ICE arrests during the first few months of the administration.
04:25And the Biden-Harris administration turned a blind eye to the spread of violent gangs like Trenn, Diagra, and MS-13 across the country.
04:37The result?
04:40Terrorists on watch lists entering our country.
04:43Criminals with prior convictions for violent crimes such as assault, rape, murder being released instead of removed.
04:55And an immigration enforcement system overwhelmed, underfunded, and pushed well beyond its limits.
05:03The only bright side of this chaos is that the American people made their choices overwhelmingly clear by rejecting these chaotic and terrible policies.
05:15They removed President Biden and border czar Harris and gave Republicans control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency.
05:23And now, President Trump is back in office and finally doing what should have been done years ago, restoring order, rebuilding capacity, and demanding accountability.
05:35But he inherited a system that has been pushed past its breaking point.
05:43ICE has more than 7.6 million aliens on the non-detained docket, up 135 percent since the day that Biden took office.
05:52Agents are scrambling to track dangerous individuals who should have been deported long ago.
05:58Right now, ICE needs more detention space than it ever did.
06:03But the same voices that created this chaos are now trying to shut down the very detention facilities that are needed to fix it.
06:15That's why this hearing matters.
06:16From New York to California, local politicians are actively working to undermine federal immigration enforcement.
06:25Perhaps the most egregious effort is in my home state, the great state of New Jersey.
06:31And we're going to play a quick video now showing this.
06:33An ambulance there apparently turned away at the ICE detention center in Newark.
07:00We've seen at least two ambulances try to pull into this ICE detention facility here in Newark, New Jersey, and they turned that ambulance away.
07:07The detention facility holds members of MS-13, murderers, arsonists, drug traffickers, American killers.
07:14We want freedom.
07:22Free our people.
07:24This is sacred ground.
07:25Free our people.
07:27This is bad.
07:27This is our illegal facility.
07:29Get up of me.
07:33On May 1st, Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed detention facility in Newark, New Jersey,
07:43was officially reopened.
07:46It houses illegal aliens charged with crimes like rape, murder, burglary, and weapons offenses.
07:55Facilities like Delaney Hall are desperately needed to help prevent dangerous criminal aliens from remaining on our streets, on your streets.
08:03The reopening of Delaney drastically expanded ICE's detention capacity in the Northeast and enhanced the agency's ability to manage the increasing number of enforcement and removal operations of illegal aliens in our country.
08:22Despite the severity of their crimes and illegal status in our country, those being detained at Delaney Hall are treated with dignity and are housed in a facility that exceeds the standards of many of our own U.S. prisons.
08:38It has clean dorms.
08:40It has indoor and outdoor recreation areas.
08:44It has mental services, mental health services, and medical services.
08:50It has phones, webcams, and consular access.
08:54And yet, from the moment Delaney Hall was reauthorized to operate as a detention facility, it has been under constant, relentless political assault.
09:05Local officials have used inspections, lawsuits, and bureaucratic hurdles as weapons.
09:12Not to make the facility was operational, but to completely shut it down.
09:21Outside of the facility, there have been coordinated protests led by political figures, including Newark, New Jersey's own mayor,
09:28who publicly vowed to, quote, padlock the building if necessary, and declare that immigration enforcement of criminals is not welcome in his city.
09:38This isn't oversight.
09:41That's not oversight.
09:42That's obstruction.
09:43There's a big difference.
09:45It's lawfare designed to undermine federal authorities and score political points at the expense of our public safety.
09:54On May 9th, the tension culminated in a shameful display by the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and members of Congress,
10:01who stormed into the facility without clearance, without following protocol,
10:08and physically disrupted law and physically disrupted law enforcement operations.
10:13They cursed its staff.
10:15They shoved past security.
10:17They assaulted federal law enforcement officers.
10:22And for what?
10:24To free whom?
10:26Criminals?
10:27I'm going to show some more pictures.
10:30So the question I have, was it to free Hugo de la Torre, Tomia, wanted for prosecution in Peru for the crime of raping a minor?
10:46He's wanted in Peru.
10:48Was it to free Jorge Luis Sanchez Luna, a Mexican national who is a registered sex offender who sexually assaulted his own daughter?
11:01Or was it Lopez Reyes, a Mexican national who is wanted in Mexico, they want him back in Mexico, is a fugitive for the offense of raping a child, raping a minor?
11:19There are hundreds of other awful, horrible individuals like these men currently being arrested in New Jersey, and they're being held at Delaney Hall.
11:33And they should be.
11:35They should be.
11:36So let's be honest.
11:39Who exactly are the Democrats fighting for here?
11:41This is the part I don't get.
11:44Because it isn't the American people.
11:46It sure as hell is not the American people.
11:49And notably, the very next day after the altercation at Delaney Hall, Mayor Baraka's super PAC, for those of you that don't know, that's a way to raise money, lots and lots of money, released campaign ads touting his efforts to stand up to this agenda as part of his run for governor.
12:09It's obvious what happened here.
12:11This wasn't about the detainees.
12:13It wasn't about law and order.
12:15It wasn't about American people.
12:17It wasn't about all those marginalized people who get hurt because they live in and around all of this marginalized Americans.
12:28It was about politics, pure and simple.
12:32Maybe not so pure.
12:34Mayor Baraka was mayor of Newark when Delaney Hall, and I want everybody to listen to this.
12:38Mayor Baraka was mayor of Newark when Delaney Hall operated under President Barack Obama.
12:45He was the mayor.
12:47President Obama was the president.
12:50This very facility was operated under that administration.
12:56There were no protests, no walkouts, no stunts, no altercations, no attacks, nothing at all.
13:06But now that President Trump is back and the American people have rejected the insanity of happening at opening border, now the mayor and his friends in Congress are outraged.
13:18Give me a break.
13:20Let's call this what it is, an orchestrated campaign to protect illegal alien criminals and to sabotage federal law enforcement.
13:32Let me just say that one more time.
13:33It's a campaign to protect, not illegals even, but illegal criminals, illegal criminals, violent criminals that also have broken the law because they are here illegally.
13:46So when Democrats say they're just trying to help by raiding federal facilities, remember what this really means.
13:54They want ICE agents gone and out of the way.
13:59You have to believe they want criminal aliens free on our streets.
14:04And they're willing to risk public safety, sabotage law enforcement, and lie to the American people.
14:11You can't stand for law and order while voting to hurt the police.
14:16You can't say you're for border security while sabotaging every single tool that works.
14:22Let me be very clear.
14:24The Laney Hall is not the problem.
14:27The Laney Hall is part of the solution.
14:30The real problem is the radical left-wing agenda that sides with criminals over citizens, activists over agents, and chaos over common sense.
14:43To the men and women of ICE, this committee has your back.
14:48To the communities of New Jersey and the Northeast and the United States of America, we will not let your safety become a political casualty.
15:00And to the American people, we hear you.
15:03We hear you loud and clear.
15:07You want a country that protects its citizens.
15:09You want a system that upholds the law.
15:11And you want a government that chooses order, not anarchy.
15:15That's exactly what House Republicans are fighting for.
15:19And I promise you, I promise you, we will win this fight against left-wing chaos.
15:26And I thank you.
15:28Just before we start and move forward, I want to address one other thing.
15:33We're going to have a hearing today.
15:35And sometimes it's going to be contentious.
15:38Sometimes it's going to be hot.
15:40Sometimes we'll be argumentative.
15:42That's part of America.
15:43Now, you all just listen, but up here.
15:47But at the same time, let us respect each other.
15:51Let's not speak about our demeanor, our dress, our physical stature, our hair, whatever in God's name people think of.
16:00This is the Judiciary Committee.
16:02And we're going to run this on both sides of the aisle in an appropriate way.
16:06We're going to run this like ladies and gentlemen that profoundly disagree on an issue.
16:13I now recognize the ranking member, Ms. Crockett.
16:16And we're going to do the same thing.
16:18Okay.
16:21We're going to.
16:22uno.
16:24One.
16:24Two.
16:25One.