Tenney To Hochul: 'Are There Criminal, Illegal Immigrant Gang Members In The NYS Prison System?'

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At today's House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) questioned Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY).

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for allowing me to wave onto this committee for

00:04this important oversight committee hearing, and happy to have the governors here to hopefully

00:10answer some questions, and just to address a couple things that I've heard in this committee

00:16hearing.

00:17I haven't appeared on oversight before.

00:18I do serve in a much milder Ways and Means Committee, but I just want to say a couple

00:23things about what this committee, what we're doing today, and about sanctuary cities.

00:27We are all children of immigrants.

00:29My grandparents met at Ellis Island, they sat in quarantine, they came from other countries,

00:33they came here to work.

00:35That's not what this is about.

00:37This hearing is about people who have taken advantage of our borders and our country, who

00:41have come in as illegal cartels, who have overrun our northern border, which is part of my district

00:46in upstate New York, and New York 24, and these people have taken operational control of our

00:51southern and our northern border, and we need our governors to make sure that they're providing

00:57the law enforcement backup to our ICE agents and others and not assisting and aiding and

01:03abetting in such a way to these illegal immigrants, particularly the cartels.

01:08And I think one of the most important things, I'm sick of hearing everyone defaming my constituent,

01:13actually, Tom Homan, who's doing an excellent job and who served our country honorably.

01:18This big concern, and I think it's a big concern for me, because when I served in the state legislature,

01:23Governor Hochul wasn't there as either the lieutenant governor or the governor, but I was one of

01:28the leaders on human trafficking.

01:30And one of the important questions that Tom Homan talked about repeatedly is, where are

01:35the 300,000 children, children who are human trafficked by people who are profiting off of this

01:42human trafficking, not just drug trafficking, human trafficking, innocent children all through

01:47our interior.

01:48We don't know where they are.

01:50Those are the people that I'm concerned about, and what ICE is trying to do is get to those

01:54people who are taking these children and profiting off them and having no regard.

01:59And that's what worries me the most, is we've gotten off track on a number of things.

02:03And what concerns me is we have this defund the and demoralize the police movement brought

02:09to a level where we're defunding and demoralizing ICE agents who are simply doing their job to

02:15protect our borders.

02:17And what concerns me is, and I know Governor Hochul, obviously I'm going to address you

02:21because you're my governor.

02:24People have addressed the billions of dollars that New York State taxpayers, by the way,

02:28the highest tax taxpayers in the entire nation now.

02:31We're always in a struggle with California, who's more, who's less, and I think we're winning

02:37out this race now, not a good distinction, by the way, not a good distinction to have

02:41a northern border that's overrun by people who are human trafficking, bringing illicit

02:45drugs into our communities.

02:47I've had three parents in my community, my own home community, where their sons died of

02:52overdoses because of illegal fentanyl.

02:54So these are real issues that are coming from people that are coming across our borders.

02:58So we know we've spent billions of dollars on all kinds of illegal immigrants in New York

03:03State.

03:04It is between New York City and New York State, it's about $7 billion, and that's New York

03:08taxpayer dollars.

03:09Those are my tax dollars.

03:10People I, constituents I serve who go to work every day.

03:13And all we're trying to do is keep these communities safe, and you mentioned that, Governor Hochul,

03:17that you were talking about keeping these communities safe.

03:20But I want to ask you a question, and I've got a series of questions, and some of them have

03:24been asked by my colleagues.

03:26But I want to ask you right now, because you're the governor of our state, and you've been

03:29presiding over a pretty disastrous situation with our prisons.

03:33And many of those prisons, including one of the maximum security prisons, is actually

03:37in my district and a number of other facilities.

03:40Are there any criminal illegal gang members in the New York State prison system right now?

03:45Yes, if there are, and you know how many.

03:49And if you can't get me the answer, can your staff provide us with a general information

03:53on that?

03:54I'll tell you this.

03:55I totally agree with you, Congresswoman, that more needs to be done to protect our border.

03:59We've asked for support from the federal government for the border that you represent that I know

04:03so well.

04:04I've had to deploy $8 million of my own state dollars to amp up the enforcement.

04:09Well, there are state dollars, but let me just take this back to you.

04:11To help with human trafficking.

04:12Let me get to the prisons, because I want to get into another thing.

04:16Are there criminal illegal immigrant gang members in the New York State prison system

04:21right now?

04:22If there are, there will be a new 30-day.

04:24Do you know?

04:25Yes.

04:26Do you know if there are?

04:27I'm sure there are.

04:28That's why I've already sent 1,300.

04:29That's all I want to know.

04:30Can you get me the number?

04:31I've already had ICE take 1,300 of them upon the police.

04:32I'm not asking you that.

04:33I'm asking you, can we get the information about how many of these, whether they're

04:37Trende or Ragwa, whether they're MS-13, Crips, Bloods.

04:40I've toured the prisons.

04:41I've seen people that they line up in rows.

04:44I want to know how many of our illegal immigrants that are putting not only other inmates at

04:48risk, but also our prison guards who are at risk.

04:51Because right now, these types of people in our prison system are putting our corrections

04:55officers at risk.

04:57And by you shutting down and cutting off the ability of our corrections officers who are trained

05:02to deal with these kind of people there, we're losing the ability of having the trained people

05:08there.

05:09And our National Guard are wonderful people who serve our communities.

05:11But they're not trained to be able to do this, and many of them are underage in that.

05:14Can I get the information from you on that?

05:16Certainly.

05:17And again, I just want to reaffirm that if there's someone convicted of a crime in our prison,

05:21they will be deported.

05:22We let ICE know 30 days before the end of their sentence.

05:27And that's why I've sent 1,300 people already, just since I've been governor, out of our country.

05:31I don't want them here any more than you do.

05:33Okay.

05:34Can I just ask you one less?

05:35Because you talked about you don't support a sanctuary city.

05:38Right now we have, you were a lieutenant governor when this was signed into law under Governor

05:42Cuomo.

05:43The Green Light law, it prohibits the local DMVs, it gives driver's licenses to illegal

05:49aliens, which you once didn't support, but now you do, you've admitted that today.

05:54Under the Green Light law, would you support repealing the Green Light law so that we can

05:58allow ICE agents to work with our federal, with our DMV to find out when these people

06:04drive across the Canadian border and they have a carload full of innocent children and

06:09they can't find any information on them because they get a legal license?

06:12Can you just give me that information?

06:14Last question, but feel free to answer it.

06:15We absolutely share information on such situations with ICE.

06:19That is our job.

06:20Do you support repealing the Green Light law?

06:21All right.

06:22Get a lady's time to expire.

06:23Chair, recognize Mr. LaHood.

06:25Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

06:26I appreciate it.

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