Jamie Raskin: This Is The Reason Why Trump Backed Down On Deporting Farm Workers

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During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke about the visa process.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Chairman, thank you very kindly, and thank you to all the witnesses for being with us today.

00:07There is more to immigration than border enforcement, as the ranking member of the

00:11subcommittee just said, and it's a good thing that our friends are waking up to that.

00:16President Trump and Stephen Miller's ambition to deport 12 million people

00:19from the country has been a terrible failure on its own terms, but even in its failure,

00:24it has turned our society upside down. It has terrorized both citizens and non-citizens,

00:30destabilized and divided our communities, wrecked small businesses who've lost their workers,

00:36and trashed our constitution for everybody. It's gotten so bad that Donald Trump even seems to

00:41have recognized that his policies don't fit reality. Two weeks ago, he gave the game away

00:46by acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens working on the farms and in

00:53the fields are, quote, good longtime workers, and that he'd been lobbied both by his agriculture

00:59secretary and by large agricultural interests to stop the ICE raids on farms as they are spreading

01:05panic and keeping a majority of the workforce from showing up at work. So he decided he would stop

01:12enforcing the mass dragnet ICE raids there and invoke the same logic for the restaurant sector,

01:18also heavily dependent on undocumented people. Of course, it would apply equally then to the construction

01:24sector, landscaping and gardening, nursing, you name it. The vast majority of immigrants,

01:31even those here illegally, are not rapists and criminals, but hardworking people essential to our

01:37economy just looking to make a better life for themselves. Think of the dreamers. So it's good for

01:42us to be having the first immigration hearing in memory, not on enforcement tactics at the border or in

01:50our communities, but instead about visas. Alas, the president's record on visas is riddled with the

01:57same bursts of extremism and dogmatism and fanaticism that have made his enforcement measures

02:03so unpopular. He and his administration have tortured our laws and trampled our constitution to kick out

02:08permanent resident green card holders and students and target universities who voice opinions that he

02:15disapproves of. As part of its effort to undertake a hostile takeover of America's colleges and

02:21universities, the administration interrupted interviews for student and exchange visitor visas.

02:27The result? About 15 percent of foreign doctors slated to begin their work at American teaching

02:33hospitals around the country were unable to get their visas in time to start the medical year next

02:39month, all at a time when we have a serious doctor shortage in the country that threatens access to care.

02:45And the monstrous reconciliation bill threatens to slash Medicaid funding on which rural hospitals

02:52rely. The administration has also recently implemented its xenophobic travel ban to unilaterally ban entrance

02:59to the country for all nationals of 19 different countries, with minor exceptions. Categorically denying

03:06visas to nationals of these countries does not make us safer or freer or more prosperous. It cements us

03:12in the eyes of the world as a vindictive, isolationist, and increasingly undependable and authoritarian

03:18country. The travel ban will likely have significant economic consequences by restricting travel and

03:24migration from the targeted nations. In 2022, at least 298,000 non-citizens from countries affected by the

03:32new travel ban arrived in the U.S. Most of them came to the U.S. temporarily, spending money as tourists

03:39or as students fueling our economy. The following year, households with nationals from the targeted

03:44countries collectively earned $3.2 billion in income, paid $715 million in federal, state, and local

03:51taxes, and held $2.5 billion in spending power. Donald Trump also paused the refugee program, claiming the

03:58entry of these thoroughly vetted and re-vetted individuals would be detrimental to the United States.

04:03But then he allowed white Afrikaners to apply via a Google form and to undergo an expedited process

04:10to come to the U.S. as refugees. And it should shock no one to learn that after they arrived,

04:16reporters were able to dig up numerous anti-Semitic posts from the refugees. One of them had never been

04:25subjected, apparently, to the new anti-Semitism screen being used for other visa candidates.

04:31The title of this hearing is Restoring Integrity and Security to the Visa Process. How does any of

04:37this restore integrity or security? These random pauses, arbitrary bans, ad hoc detentions do nothing

04:44to improve security or integrity in our process. President Trump has turned our visa system into

04:50a terrain of caprice and selective punishment he can wield against his chosen political enemies

04:56and used to demonize and scapegoat immigrants, including visa recipients. This war on immigrants

05:01is designed to distract us from the fact that they're trying to cut 14 million Americans off of

05:07Medicaid, destroying small businesses with chaotic and unlawful tariff policies, gutting federal agencies

05:14and programs charged with protecting Americans against scams and frauds, and using the pardon power to

05:20transfer more than a billion dollars from the victims of crime to the perpetrators of crime.

05:27Sometimes the president's had his lucid moments on immigration. During his first term, while saying

05:31he wanted to build a big, beautiful wall, he said the wall would have a big, very beautiful door,

05:36signifying his support for legal immigration. In brief, lucid moments like these, I try to find hope

05:43that we can work together across the aisle to focus on a secure border, the removal of immigrants

05:48convicted of serious crimes and public safety threats, a pathway to citizenship for the law-abiding,

05:54tax-paying, undocumented immigrants who Trump recently called very good long-time workers,

06:00and a modernized immigration system that will make it easier to come here lawfully

06:04while protecting American workers. We've come very close to doing this in the past. We can do it again.

06:11Tom Paine, who arrived in the country in 1774, fell in love with America when he got here. He said,

06:17this land will become an asylum to humanity. Not an insane asylum, mind you, but a place of refuge

06:23for people seeking freedom from religious and political and economic persecution and discrimination

06:29from all over the world. So let's live up to the original vision of the founders. This is a nation

06:37made up of immigrants and the descendants of people who were enslaved and of the original Native Americans.

06:44But this is a land of immigration, a land of immigrants, and a land of laws. We can make

06:48it all fit together, and I hope we can work together on a bipartisan basis to make that happen.

06:52Yield back, Mr. Chairman.

06:53Our gentleman yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements would be included in the record.

06:57I will know.

06:58I will know.

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